dancing with the sharks

Monday:

·         Work site success! Lisa, the volunteer from Germany had her last day, so there was a farewell party for her. Including cake! She had been here for an entire year, so she was very sad to leave, but it was a really nice event. In lieu of her leaving, there are now three new volunteers, a boy and a girl from Germany and a girl from Holland.  I am now working on a project to help organize everything (it is seriously such a mess). Additionally, I’m helping to gather resources for social work with the kids.

Tuesday:

·         Psych class today. It is getting rather non-eventful. I really miss our old professor, but alas, what can I do.

·         I have been reading Game of Thrones! (Sam, I know you are giggling with excitement, we shall talk of this soon!)

Wednesday:

·         Ethics presentation was today, which means that all I have left is the final!! Such a difficult and strenuous semester.  My group talked about gender theory, specifically masculine and feminine traits within an individual through the use of our case study Mrs. Doubtfire. It made me miss San Francisco, I’ll be honest.

·         I walked to Claremont for the first time. It is sort of the L.O. here. It was a lovely long walk and it was good to finally see what everyone has been talking about.

·         Mary Claire’s favorite movie as a child was Beatlejuice, so I grabbed the chance to finally see it for the first time. We are soulmates.

Thursday:

·         Work site. I went to Hope’s class at Hlingisa again. This time with a mission. I am taking photos to use for promotional reasons (get the people with the money interested, etc.). Most of those are available for your viewing pleasure on Facebook. The kids are so swag.

Friday:

·         For class, we had a past mayor of Cape Town come and speak with us, it was really interesting to get someone’s opinion who has actually been involved in politics. With that being said, I feel like more people here know about politics of the U.S. than most of us Americans do. It is a little embarrassing. It’s also really interesting because I never truly realized what a huge effect America, as a country, can have for everyday life for people in different hemispheres. I heard someone say “When America sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold.”

·         We then heard Easy and Tobago, two men that were convicted of the murder of a 27 year old American woman, Amy Biehl in an act of political protest.  The story gets really interesting after they served several years in prison, they went before the Truth and Reconciliation Council where the parents of Amy Biehl actually advocated for their release. Now they work with her parents, who began the foundation in her honor, to educate and give skills to kids in the townships. Talk about going beyond just forgiving. It was so fascinating to listen to them describe what it was like to grow up when people were being shot in the streets on their way home from school every day and what it was like to be part of the Apartheid resistance and even how afraid they were when they first met Mr. Biehl.

·         Later that night, I went to go play on the beach at Muizenberg and get falafels at the market. Meghan and I then took the train to Simonstown to meet up with Sam, Mary Claire, and Jess Burkard at the hostel. We crashed pretty early because we had to wake up for….

Saturday:

·         SHARKS! Yes, this wench went cage diving with the great whites at Seal Island! (look for it during shark week).

·         There were about fifteen of us total on the boat including the crew, and we all had a lovely time. The sunrise was so glorious, and the water was not too rough. We dragged a seal dummy around the island, hoping for an attack, but no luck.

·         Sam, Meghan and I were the first ones in the water. Three wetsuit attempts later, and after listening to Meghan’s shouts of “what am I doing!?!?” I was in the sharks. We got to see a female named Deauxrossi, and she even gave our cage a good nuzzle right by Sam’s head. The skipper was telling us how all the sharks have different personalities. She was rather gentle; the guy holding the bait was able to guide her around with just one hand as she nibbled on it.

·         In total, we saw three different sharks, and they were all so great and beautiful! Once I become super rich, I think I will make a habit out of going to see them.

·         I then went to Dance For All’s Heritage day celebration. I ended up making it just for the last performance, a choir, and they were rocking!

Sunday:

·         I finally went to church with Kholeka and Jason. They sang a ton, but all of the songs were in Xhosa! At least I got to work on my pronunciations.  

·         Family dinner, courtesy of Bridget and Sofi. Homemafe falafels. Awwwww yeaaaaahhhh.