Monday:
·
At my site, I am still working on my resourcing
project. I made a sheet for the teachers to fill out with the information that
therapists/social workers would need to know, etc. It looks like putting a
solid system in place is going to be a lot more work than I anticipated and
will probably be my goal for the end of the semester.
·
I was on such a high from Lion’s Head that I
wanted to go back. However, I didn’t get my stuff together in time for sunset,
so instead I climbed the bottom of Devil’s Peak, and there were fireflies! I
have only seen them maybe twice before in my life, so that was a very pleasant
treat.
Tuesday:
·
I decided to be a rebel child and skip class.
Yet, in true Shannon form, it was still a very educational day. I went with
Meghan and Stuart to the art museum!
·
I really liked a lot of the art that they had.
It was certainly smaller than the one in Portland, but they had a good
collection. I particularly liked the exhibit that showed the use of animals in
art from colonial era to the present. You walked in and the first thing you see
is a giant iron horse rearing with a colonial black woman in full dress riding
it.
Additionally,
there were these weird alien-people statues entitles "The Butcher Boys" that were very eerie. It felt like
they were going to stand up at any second and start talking.
·
The museum also had a “dialogue” segment. This
paired two or more pictures together in a way that they each commented on each
other. For example, there was a colonial depiction of city hall next to a
vibrant purple and blue night life depiction.
·
Lastly, there was even an exhibit from UWC (my
school here)! There were a lot of prints that were found archived in some
basement somewhere and they mostly came from Apartheid era when the college was
first established. (In the beginning it was a colored only school, so there was
a very specific perspective represented in all the prints).
·
After the
museum, we lay in the grass of the downtown gardens and walked to Greenmarket
Square. I liked what the market had, but seeing as it was a Tuesday, there were
hardly any shoppers. This meant that the vendors were quite pushy and adamant
to show us their wares. I spoke Spanish for the day so that I had an excuse to
ignore them.
·
After that, I walked all the way home from
downtown with Stuart. It only took us about an hour, and I felt productive for
the exercise.
Wednesday:
·
So the jerk who has been insulting everyone
finally presented today.
·
It was actually a rather disappointing ending to
the saga. The professor took this opportunity to show that the guy’s
presentation did not cover any subject within the scope of the class and that
he should have seen that on the syllabus (his was about autonomy and
oppression, as in if people believe in the reasons that they are oppressed,
does that make it okay? It was actually really interesting). And she went on to
embarrass him by bringing up some college degree that he had put on his
facebook, but then he said he did not indeed have any degree yet. It was
satisfying to see him squirm, but I felt like it was a conversation for her
office, outside of the public eye and I felt an overwhelming amount of
immaturity from both parties. I guess people just handle confrontation
differently here.
Thursday:
·
Service again. I am working on a referral sheet
for the teachers to explain specific problems that their kids are having, the
background, and other information needed to get assistance to these kids. For
example, a lot of the problems include not going to school, not having enough
to eat, not having safe living conditions or supervision, to more serious
problems such as depression and abuse. I think that I am going to need to make
a rough version to use for now until I get a more permanent concept in place.
·
At this point, I think I need to take a step
back and design the system as a whole, then work on filling in the little parts
with more concrete things like my referral sheet. This is going to take a lot
of research.
Friday:
·
During my community development class, we had a
talk from a lady who was originally from the states, but then she moved to
South Africa to work in the community development sector. Needless to say,
since a lot of the people that I live with want to do just that, everyone was
pretty intrigued.
·
After, we left for Rocking the Daisies- the
South African version of Sasquatch!
·
It was located north of Cape Town, at a wine
estate in Darling.
·
It was easily the whitest place I have been in
South Africa. I think that the entire cape population of Afrikaners was there.
But as it was a festival, everyone brought their A game outfits and it was fun
to see it all.
Saturday:
·
The festival grounds had a pond with a “beach”
on it, complete with beach-side bar. There were also quite a lot of great booths
to look through (even a “swap store” where people brought old things and they
would give them to you if you tweeted a picture and where you got it!). I spent
most of the day walking around, seeing the sights, listening to the bands (many
of whom I could not tell you their names), and meeting new people!
·
There were also a lot of Europeans and Americans
there. I met a girl named Jessica who moved to Cape Town to get her masters
from UCT (getting ideas, mom and dad), and some people that lived around obz
(where I live)! There was even a guy wearing a USF shirt, but I was so stunned
that I didn't think to say anything before he walked away.
·
There was one band that reminded me of Steam
Powered Giraffe, and they had a lot of brass (trumpets, tuba, etc.), and that
was a really fun show. I also had a good time listening to Desmond and the
Tutus (clever band name). To be honest though, I was not really feeling the
headliner, Bloc Party. They just sounded flat and it started to rain during
their show. 
·
I am told that last year had scorching weather;
we were not so lucky this year. The first night was so freezing cold, I ended
up in a pile with Jess Burkard and Mary Claire so we could keep warm.
Additionally, we got the tent that did not have a functional zipper on the
door, so it was open all night and the wind came and went as it pleased. Also,
on Saturday night we enjoyed a bit of rain with our open tent door.
Sunday:
·
We woke up wet, chilly, exhausted and utterly
loving life.
·
The venue was such a zoo to get out of, so we
ended up walking up the road a ways to meet Xolile so that he wouldn't have to
brave the parking lot.
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