Taxi Strikes and Paragliding Off the Lion's Head

Another great couple of days!

After a peaceful weekend, it was hectic to get back in the swing of things on Monday morning. I went down to the athletic fields where I was in charge of all 40 or so girls of all ages. Some of the girls were being typical 7th graders and slacking off, so I got out my theoretical whistle and got all drill sergeant on them. Just some push-ups and sit-ups were enough to get them to listen again. I then taught them the long jump, which I, of course, know absolutely nothing about. We had to choose long jumpers for the track meet on Tuesday though. We definitely have some good athletes! In the afternoon, I hung up a map on the United States in the classroom. It took me forever to find a US map in South Africa but I was finally successful this weekend. Then, I printed out a bunch of pictures of different landmarks and things around the US to talk to them about. Each day I bring out a new picture a teach them something about the states. I think it's a little weird to bombard them with all this information about the US, but the students and teachers alike are so interested in my life back at home, plus its something new and exciting that I can give first hand information about. I started with Chicago (the Sears Tower, the Bulls, Barack Obama, deep dish pizza) and moved on to University of Michigan. They were so confused to see an American football field (and the biggest in the world I might add). Today, I talked about Hurricane Katrina and how I've gotten to volunteer with the relief effort. I snuck in a mini-science lesson about the classification of tropical storms, too!
My map of the US

On Tuesday, two other volunteers from my program joined me at Blossom Street. They are in the 6th and 7th grade, so I don't see them much during the day, but I think they both love it so far, too. Blossom is super excited to have us all there and treat us with the utmost respect. Luann, our program director, sometimes calls this phenomenon the "uncomfortable silence" where neither the teacher or volunteer wants to walk on anybody's toes so neither tells the other what to do. Sometimes little gets accomplished. This week has been particularly bad in terms of actually getting school work accomplished. Wednesday through tomorrow (Friday) all the taxi drivers went on strike to protest the proposed new bus lines. Just the mini-bus taxis, though. In Cape Town, there are regular metered taxis which can be kind of expensive, and mini-bus taxis that pick people up all over the city and drop them off all over the city. It's pretty cheap (about $0.50 a ride) but they are relatively unsafe with crazy drivers and run-down vans. So anyway, because the taxi drivers are on strike, lots of the kids and their parents couldn't get to school/work. Thus, we had 17 out of 35 absent the last couple of days. This mostly affects the kids that live further away from the school, in the more underprivledged township areas. So, Mrs. Abrahams was a little concerned that a bunch of them would fall even further behind in schoolwork. Also, some of the volunteer vans couldn't go to placement because they were in areas with lots of taxi violence. Apparently, the taxis that didn't strike were getting stoned and torched, and our vans look supiciously like mini-bus taxis.

Anyway, with half the class gone, Mrs. Abrahams hasn't been teaching any new material. We've been doing a lot of coloring and I've been reading them a lot of stories. I really enjoy story time and want to buy them a few new books to chose from. If I was here longer, I would totally read them the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrode like my fifth grade teacher read to me. Mr. Chordes, anyone? I brought out my camera which the kids absoltely loved. But it quickly became a warzone over who got to have their picture taken. I'll taken some more tomorrow, hopefully get some good shots of them outside.
Working on roman numeral worksheets
Some of the girls
This picture of Thabo totally cracks me up

The afternoons this week have been pretty relaxing. Yesterday night, we went out to the local Observatory area. There is a fun strip of local bars with live music, good eats, and cheap beer. Our favorites. These liters were only R25 (about $2.50)... if you drank more than 4 you could go down in history on the "Liter Board" (Leader Board). Don't worry, Mom, I didn't quite make it!
Brooke, Collin, and I at Jumpin' Jacks

Today was definitely the best day of the week though! Collin, Alli, and I decided to go paragliding off the Lion's Head. This is a mountain right next to Table Mountain along the beach. We had been trying to go all week, but the rides are quite weather/wind dependent. When we got there, we had to immediately rush up the mountain to make sure we got good wind. They strap you up in a harness with a guide and you literally jump off the mountain. It was so incredible. I was not nervous at all about going, but once you were up there, it was such a rush! The view was just stunning and you got to hang in the air and wind your way down the mountain and over the sea for a nice 15 minute ride. We landed right on a cricket field over looking the ocean, where some kids were practicing cricket. I had never seen it played before, and still have no idea how it is going.
The view from the air
Our ride
My guide kept snapping photos
Collin landing on the cricket field

As we were sitting at the bar watching some of the other paragliders land though, we saw a women practically fall out of the sky. She was by herself (a licensed paraglider for 14 years), but her parachute collapsed under the wind and she landed pretty swift. A helicopter rushed to her aid and apparently she broke her back, but she could move anything so thank god she wasn't paralyzed. So that kind of freaked us out, but our guide told us that was the first time that had happened in all 7 years they were operating. Very scary but all in all, we were all so happy we decided to go!

Afterwards, we walked along the beach a little ways and layed out in the sun for a while. It was definitely a scorcher today. Then, we grabbed some delicious Indian food on the water. Collin and Alli hadn't even been out to Indian, but they both really enjoyed it! I am always happy with some garlic naan. Yum. Then, we got some ice cream and watched the sunset on the beach. So definitely goes down as one of the best days in Cape Town. However, I have no doubts that there a better days to follow.

Sunset over Camp's Bay

I can't believe time has been flying so fast, I just had to extend my time here. So my "7 weeks in South Africa" is now more like 9.5 but I don't think it warrants a blog title change. I'll be headed to Botswana, Victoria Falls, and Kruger National Park for Safari after my placement ends.

Check in soon. I miss you all!

Jackie

Camping and Hermanus

After being pretty sick and exhausted this week, we were all getting a little "cabin fever" in our little suburb of Cape Town so we decided to get out of town for the weekend. We returned to Hermanus, the whale watching capital of Africa, to go camping and relax.

On Friday afternoon, three of my friends and I rented a car here and headed east along the beautiful coastal road to Hermanus. As I mentioned last time, cars drive on the left side of the road in South Africa and all cars are manual. My friend Mike from Canada drove because he has had a little bit of experience driving on the other side of the road in Scotland, but it was a big adjustment shifting with the left hand. He did an amazing job though and we found our way safe and sound. Friday night we went camping just outside of town. Of course, we didn't have a tent or any supplies so we had to scavange some up from around the area. The staff at the campsite was very helpful and lent us a tent and some chairs. I think they took pity on us for our lack of preparation. We bought some burgers and s'mores at store and all really enjoyed a good American meal over the open fire. They don't have graham crackers here and only have colored marshmallows so not without some improvization. The campsite was gorgeous and right beside the ocean and we all really liked falling asleep to the sound of the waves.

Our wonderful attempt at campfire cooking

We all slept pretty horribly due to the hard ground and lack of sleeping bags in our tents but it got us up bright and early to start off our day in Hermanus. We checked into our hostel in the morning, and the staff recommended a nice hike to the nearby beach. Before heading off, we enjoyed a cheap breakfast in town.
Zebra crossing where we enjoyed breakfast

Hermanus is such a beautiful spot. Half the population is home to South African retirees and the other half to vacationers, so there were a lot of old people around town. But this provided great markets and shopping and more upscale restaurants than we are used to in Cape Town. The streets are quaint with memorable Edwardian architecture. (Pretty much all of white South Africans are decesdants or either the English or Dutch when they first colonized the country.)

Hermanus Backpackers Living Room

Then, we set off on our nature hike to the beach. The 1.5 hour hike was very hot and hilly and we were a little ill-prepared with our all our beach gear, but it was definitely worth it. We got to see some wildlife including these cute little animals called dassies.
One of the houses along the route was also home to an animal family consisting of a rooster, some ducks, and a turtle. I'm pretty sure you can buy an imaculate seaside house in Hermanus for less than $200,000. Any takers? The beach was stunning but the water was absolutely freezing, which made for a difficult decision: to be scorched by the hot African sun or to be paralyzed by the cold rocky ocean. However, we managed to have a bunch of fun tossing the frisbee and playing with the dogs on the beach.

Brooke on the beach
The view from town

After trekking back into town and cleaning up at our hostel, we enjoyed a fresh sushi dinner and a lightning storm at one of the great restaurants overlooking the bay. Summer is definitely not the rainy season so everyone was quite surprised by the first storm since November. However, the weather prevented us from hitting the town. But all for the better, the hostel had a little bar and pool table, and I had such a good time getting to know a bunch of other travellers over a couple of beers. We met an Irish couple travelling the world before trying to set up their personal training business in Australia. A guy from Philly working with money from the UEFA (Union of European Futbol Associations) to set up youth soccer programs in the area. Also, a bunch of South Africans enjoying a relaxing weekend in Hermanus.

I had such a good time getting to know the three other volunteers with me on the trip, and we all enjoyed leaving the city for the weekend. When we got back, the house was full again with 15 new volunteers who had arrived on Saturday.
We took them bowling tonight (the true African experience, right?) and I really look forward to getting to know them over the course of the next few weeks. Time is really flying so fast! Tonight I'm planning sitting down and making sure I can squeeze in everything I want to do before leaving the country.

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend too! Keep me updated.

Jackie

Cape Town Observations and My Kids This Week

Hello all! Sorry I have been missing in action the past couple of days. And this will have to be quick because I'm leaving momentarily for a weekend excursion... but I wanted to share with you a few quick observations about Cape Town and fun things about my week.

1) People here drive on the left hand side of the road. Needless to say, it was so terrifying at first, especially crossing the street because I am so not used to looking left THEN right. I think the funnyiest thing about this though is the fact the people walking down the sidewalk also pass on the left. This obviously makes sense but is still not intuitive to me...
2) They bring the credit card machine to the table at restaurants to make sure they don't charge you some ridiculous amount. This I think is also smart, and you only tip 10%.
3) The South African Rand goes for about 10 for $1 these days, up from around 7 last year. This makes things pretty cheap around here. A beer is usually 9 or 10 rand ($0.90 or $1) and a meal runs for about R40. Cabs have been eating up money around here though because we live pretty far from the city center.
4) I've talked a lot about how seperate things are still between the races here in Cape Town, but one thing I found of particular interest. When we visited the townships where the very poorest in Cape Town live, I felt very strange walking around with a group of white Americans visiting their homes and villages. Our tour guide said the people realize we have traveled very far to be here and they welcome us to learn about their culture and history. However, she said it would be very different if a group of white South Africans were to come to the townships. There is still a lot of tension between the groups. When I've told other white South Africans here that I'm working in the townships, many have told me that they have never been and many don't know where they are even located. Sad really.

There will be more to mention as I think of it, but most of all I've had a really great week at Blossom Street. I was still not feeling well on Monday and Tuesday (and I actually stayed home on Tuesday) and in addition to the extreme heat this week, playing with the athletes outside this week has been rough! Thursday, my teacher was absent so I joined the other 5th grade class and helped teach math and English. We learned roman numerals in the morning, and the kids really had no idea what was going on. (I mean it's relatively difficult to write the year they were born "1998" in roman numerals). In the afternoon, we learned proper and common nouns. My favorite part of this was when the teacher went around the room asking the kids their favorite TV shows: Generations, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, Bold and the Beautiful. So hilarious! My driver had mentioned to me before that he loved the soap operas. Here they are on prime time and are the biggest hits even for the kids! No wonder they are still in production. We had such a great afternoon and it was a nice change of pace.

Today, Mrs. Abhrams was again absent (I'm starting to think maybe I gave her my stomach bug... eek!) but so was the kindergarden teacher. My 5th grade class got split up between classrooms but they put me and this other volunteer totally in charge of kindergarden, they call it here Grade R, but no one could explain to me why. We had no schedule or anything to teach them, so we spent the morning most like the days at the preschool, playing outside, coloring, singing and dancing. It was actually one of the best days I've had here! The best part was during song time, when the girls and guys broke out into one of my favorite songs. The girls made the boys all stand in a line with their heads down and hands in their pockets (like a music video) and the girl's all broke out into Flo Rida's "Get Low"... "applebottom jeans, boots with the fur, the whole club was looking at her, she fit the floor, that's when you know, shawty get low low low low". Mind you they are all 5 years old and cute as a button and I could not stop smiling the whole time.

Okay, off on another adventure. Will check in with you after the weekend.

Jackie

Blossom Street Elementary

On Wednesday, I started my placement at Blossom Street Elementary also in the township of Athlone. I got assigned to be a teacher's aid in Mrs. Abhram's 5th grade classroom. The first day, I got to meet the principal, Mr. Davis, and lots of the other teachers as well. A little history... Blossom was a "colored" school during Apartheid. Now, both colored and black children attend Blossom, but no white students or teachers. The "white" schools during apartheid are now attended by all types of children, and because they have better teachers and resources, are great choices for black and colored families who have the money to send their children to school there. However, no white children attend any of the black or colored schools. It's interesting how seperate every thing here is still.

So far, I love it here at Blossom! The kids are all so adorable and love having a volunteer in their classroom. The first day during the sloted geography lesson time, I just talked to them about the states for an hour and answered a bunch of their questions. One of the boys asked me if I knew the actor from Home Alone, our very own McCullay Culkin. It's really really fun to be in a classroom where all the kids speak English so they really understand you and I am able to understand them.

The second day, instead of hanging around the classroom in the morning, I went down to the fields with a few of the teachers running the athletics program. Right now, they are doing "elimations" of the "learners" for the track team. On February 17th, there is huge track meet between some other elementary schools in the area. The teachers really give me a lot of freedom here, and I got to lead stretches for a hundred kids. Then I helped time them and teach them starts for the sprints. I also had an opportunity to talk to a few of the older kids who couldn't participate because of their birth year, and learned a lot about their lives in Athlone. They were pointing out different gang signs around the area spray painted on the walls. Most gangs are somehow tied to the states by name- "Ugly Americans", "Young Americans", etc.- but are not actually run by people in the states. Their is a lot of violence in Cape Town. Both of the girls' fathers used to be in gangs and one of them had an uncle killed in gang violence. They also pointed out places where kids as young as them, 13, could buy drugs and alcohol.

Mrs. Abhrams is a hoot. She talks my ear off all day, and loves learning about my experience growing up in the states. She has a daughter and son-in-law that are both getting their doctorate at Columbia in New York. She runs a pretty strict class. I think it's partially because she's been a teacher for 38 years and has a pretty old style mentality when it comes to teaching. The kids are all quite obedient, except for a few stinkers. During the natural science lesson on Friday, they learned all about the planets and I taught them the acronym to remember the order. My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Apparently, Pluto is still a planet in South Africa. Actually, I think the worksheets the teacher was using are outdated, but I didn't really want to start a fuss and confuse them. They spent pretty much the entire day coloring the planets and later during art class, coloring another worksheet. It seems like they are doing a definitely below the 5th grade level here in the US. But it is the beginning of their year, and Mrs. Abhrams was explaining to me that she is trying to gauge their different levels off of some simple exercises.

I also learned about a bunch of the kids from Mrs. Abhrams and some other teachers. There are two 5th grade classes and the two teachers split their time up between the classes, teaching them different subjects. Mrs. Abhrams teaches Natural Science, Geography, Arts and Culture, and Afrikaans. The other teacher teaches English and Math, and a couple of other things too. So about the kids- a lot of them come from very poor areas. I think this was also the case with Silvertown but I didn't really ever get the chance to ask specifically. But Mrs. Abhrams loves to chat. There is still a very distinct seperate between where black and colored people live. Athlone, a historically colored township, is more of a suburb. The houses are small and close together, and many times multiple families live in them. However, the black children in the class all live in other historically black townships, and those communities are filled with shacks. The kids all where uniforms of grey and maroon, but many of the children can't afford the dress shoes. The government provides 8 loaves of bread to the school each day (for over 500 children mind you) to distribute to the kids who may not have enough to eat at home. Mrs. Abrhams knows which ones these are, but she said as the kids get older, they start having more issues with pride and don't like taking the bread. Many times, the younger siblings in the family will take a few slices and share them with their older brothers and sisters after school. 3 kids in my class suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrom. You can tell in their faces although its not as pronounced as I would have expected. However, I was helping them with some of their work, and they were definitely struggling.

I am just so excited about having the opportunity to teach these kids. I have so many ideas for fun science experiments and different activities I can bring in to teach them. If any of you have any great and cheap ideas for a fifth grade class let me know. I want to offer them as much as possible. I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks here and I only have another 4 weeks left. Time really flies!

This weekend has been pretty boring to report on. I finally got sick, I feel like everyone has caught the bug at somepoint. Friday night we went out to an authentic African restaurant and listened to some awesome steel drum music. We were having a farewell dinner for about half the group here (15 of 30 left yesterday). I had crocodile and thought it was pretty good, but yesterday I was in bed all day feeling awful so I'm not what went wrong. I feel a lot better this morning, and might go meet up with some friends at the beach this afternoon. It's strange now that our house size just got cut in half and I will really miss the volunteers that left. A new group comes in next Saturday which we are all excited about!


Natalie, Jamie, and I at the farewell dinner at Mama Africa

Keep in touch!
Jackie

Last Day with the Preschoolers

Yesterday I spent my last day at Silvertown Educare. I was supposed to finish on Friday but I got to sneak back the beginning of this week because my placement at the elementary school doesn't start until today. The staff was very grateful for the time I'd spent at Silvertown and wrote me the nicest note. Natalie and Karan are still there this week and we are going to print out a bunch of the pictures we all took and make a poster for the classroom. The walls definitely need some decorating!

Yesterday, we also had our last X'hosa lesson. X'hosa is a tribal language spoken by most blacks in Cape Town. However, it is very difficult to learn. There are three distinct "clicks" associated with different letters (I think they all sound the same) and the words are long and hard to pronounce. We've been having fun with the teacher learning some songs and simple sayings. So far I've really only learned "molo" is "hello" and "unjani" is "how are you?". Also, most X'hosa people name their child a X'hosa name that has a special meaning. So many of the kids at our schools are named the X'hosa words for gift and light. One of my favorites, Ongebiwe, supposedly means "be cautious you don't get stolen." Our teacher said no parent would name their kid that, but he said like in our country, people are getting creative!


Natalie playing with the bubbles


These two are best friends (and cousins) and one was feeding the other during breakfast time
They look so happy to get their picture taken

The last day we brought out some bubbles during playtime and everyone just loved them. I will really miss all the kids, and I pray that they will grow up happy and healthy. I was so fortunate to spend time here with just happy kids and hope to stop back again before leaving Cape Town.

However, I am very excited to start my placement today at Blossom Street Elementary. I look forward to learning about curriculums in the schools here and helping teach the children. I think it will be wonderful to build relationships with kids that are a little older.

I'll fill you in soon. Don't freeze over there, please!

Jackie

Smile and wave, boys

Hello friends! Another adventurous weekend, to say the least. I'm having such a blast filling my days with incredible things to do and see. On Friday we took off right after placement to a small coastal village called Kleinbaai ("Little Bay" in Afrikaans) to go shark cage diving the next morning. I really love going on roadtrips here, always setting off to somewhere I've never been. We took the scenic route there winding between the steep cliffs of the Hottentots Holland Mountains and the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Quite pictureqsue. In the winter here, you can see whales from the road. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the bay at a seafood restaurant. (The service here was horendous paired with mediocre food... oh well). Then we went back to our hostel and were simply shocked by the most beautiful stars we had ever seen. You could see the entire milky way reaching its way from horizon to horizon. Absolutely gorgeous!

We had to get up bright and early to get on the boat for shark diving. The bay we dove off of has the highest congregation of Great White sharks in the world. There were 8 of us in total and we were all pretty excited for the trip. However, they forwarned us that the visibility was terrible (only about 0.5 meters) so were pretty nervous that we wouldn't see any sharks. But low and behold, right when we got out on the water, our skipper (who has the most face time in the world with Great Whites) found us some sharks. They are completely wild animals but he drew them in with these stinky tuna fish heads. Sounds like a great breakfast to me.
Is that Bruce???The shark splashing his tailOur shark cage

Then, we spent a couple of hours looking for sharks but couldn't find anymore. In the meantime, we all got really sea sick and there were many pukers off the side of the boat. Not me, surprisingly. But later, they tried going to a part of the bay they hadn't been to in 6 years to find sharks for us, and I finally got to go in the cage. It was so cool to be in the water right next to the sharks, even though they were really difficult to see. However, they lured a shark right next to the cage and I got to see it right in front of my face. All in all, a pretty nice adventure, minus the seasickness, it would have been a very pleasant morning.

After the trip, all worn out

That night, we came home and met up with all the other volunteers. We went out in Observatory, a town right next to ours, to a reggae and sandbar. We even got to play my favorite bar game, photohunt!
Leigh, Gina, Katie, and Ellery

Then today, we spent another day at the beach. But this time we half way down the Cape to Simon's Town, famous for it's penguin beaches. Simon's Town is beautiful, full of precious houses and shops. The water was such a beautiful shade of blue-green, too!


Here are the penguins! They just come up right by you, and the people and penguins are just hanging out all day on the beach. The train ride, bus ride, and 1.5 mile walk to the beach was definitely worth it. I definitely want to come back and spend some more time on the beach here. Another wonderful day and getting ready for an ever better week here!

Keep in touch,
Jackie

Happy Kids and Table Mountain

My second week has been terrific so far. I would say I'm adjusting pretty well to everything here. However, the days are long and exhausting. When we get back to homebase, we all want to go explore the Cape Town. There is definitely never a dull moment. Also, the meals they cook us are always hot and very heavy so we have all been craving sandwiches and lighter lunches.

I finally brought my camera in to preschool. I couldn't wait to take pictures of the babies and they absolutely loved the photoshoot! The kids are definitely adjusting to me, and love to just run up and hug me when I arrive. I am starting to understand their mumbling, although a lot of it is still jibberish. Today, we brought in facepaint and the kids really got a kick out of it (at first). Then, I think it got a little itchy and they all smeared it all over their faces. We had a lot of faces to clean along with the usual wiping off of buggers and porridge. When they go outside, it all acts like a glue so sand also gets plastered to their precious little faces. Most of them have adjusted to preschool, but we get new kids everyday, we're up to 35 munchkins. Today we made a table of the "picky eaters" so that Patricia could rapid-fire spoon feed them. They all have to eat unless they start puking, which happens daily. I haven't adjusted to the lack of sanitizing urine and puke off the ground. However, the kids are as happy and as adorable as you could imagine, and Silvertown is definitely a blessing for many struggling families. We have found out over the course of the week a little more about the familes. A few of them are cousins who live in the same house. One darling little girls lost her mom last year (most likely due to AIDS) and hasn't found a permanent home yet. And lots of other children have different types of rashes and things. I am trying to be as careful as possible to avoid getting sick here, but preschools as well as dormitory-style living really doesn't help. Tomorrow is my last day at the preschool and then I'll be working at an elementary school. I am definitely excited about that possibility.









After a long day snapping pictures of the kids, a bunch of us decided it was a beautiful day to climb table mountain. My blog picture is of the sunset over table mountain, so beautiful. It gets pretty windy here and if the winds are too strong, hiking is pretty miserable and the cable car that runs to the top shuts down. The hike was strenuous to say the least. Basically you are hiking up stairs for 2 hours. We split up into two groups, and most of the girls and I chose the leisurely bunch and we enjoying taking breaks and enjoying the nice view. But the view from the top was just incredible! And there is a cute little restaurant where we all split a bottle of champagne and then took the cable car down. We were told hiking down is more difficult than hiking up, and we enjoyed the build-up to the top. Definitely had to work for it!

New friends climbing Table Mountain
The last few steps up!

The rest of the week has also been filled with activity. We went out for margaritas to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama. Let me tell you, the world is definitely watching. Even the preschool teachers at my school watched the ceremony. And being an America abroad always stirs up political conversation. My favorite... Today we went and sampled Cape Malay cuisine. These people are descendants of the slaves brought here from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Madagascar. Very good (but again some type of spicy lamb and rice dish). The Cape Malay people live in an area called BoKaap (above Cape Town) filled with beautiful colored houses. Photos to follow. Then we went to the old Slave Lodge museum that used to host the Dutch East India Company's slave trade. All in all, a very fun week, and I antipicate an even better weekend.

Thanks to everyone who has been checking in. I miss you all back home (but not the weather). Wish you could be here to experience everything yourself.

Talk to you soon,

Jackie