Go Boks!

This posting is pretty belated, but last week the South African Rugby team, the Springboks, won the Rugby World Cup! Since things are so cheap here, we actually watched the match at a nightclub, Ignite, and got bottle service. Who does that? That's how we roll. Unfortunately Ignite was not really the best place to watch since everyone else there was more into the "scene" than rugby. But we totally brought the spirit. Highlights include Asbjorn taking his shirt off and dancing on the couch, more danceoff's, and Jacek splitting his jeans when he spontaneously decides to do the splits. Also D-Nice was the DJ that night! Our hostess actually gave us her number so she could party with us in the future. Good times.

(disclaimer: I don't go to clubs wearing sweatshirts, i have a cute party top on underneath :) )

Fear is Temporary...

During the Garden Route, we drove by the World's Highest Bungee jump off of Boulkrans Bridge. 216 Meters or 708 feet high. This thing was intimidating. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see how small the cars are. the area in the middle between the road and arch are where all the jumpers wait. But i figured, when else am I going to have the opportunity to jump off the world's highest bungee jump? never. Gotta do it.

I'm soo scared here. I literally was shaking I was so scared.

But the second I left the bridge, it was awesome. I've gone sky diving before but that was nothing compared to this. When I was sky diving my ears hurt, i was kinda drooling, my contacts were popping out, and then I had this dude strapped to my back so after the free fall it was kinda awkward. Like, should I talk to the guy? But this was incredible. I literally felt like I was flying. And the scenery was not bad either!

When I got back down to ground Berta was so sweet and had bought me a shirt that says "Fear is Temporary, Regret is Forever" My thoughts exactly.

A really Great day

Google: So I've been waiting to hear from Google about a full time offer for WEEKS. And yesterday I got the call!!! I'm in! The Entertainment group in Santa Monica. Yea me!! We were in a study session when I got the news. Berta took this photo :)
Inspired Part 2: I already wrote about Thope in an earlier post “Inspired,” but I recently got the opportunity to work with her as a consultant to her B&B. Yesterday I taught her how to use Excel and she was soooo excited. It was amazing. Our team is finding ways to help her capture more profit. Because she is in such a small community and constantly concerned about sharing enough “cake” with her neighbors, she is often losing money! Therefore our team has an internal goal of making her a little tougher. She spends so much time helping others that we want to make sure she takes care of herself too!

Garden Route

Last week, the roommates and I drove the coastline of the Western Cape. Here are some photos from our adventures!

Me standing at the Southern most point of the African Continent. The Atlantic on one side and the Indian Ocean on the other. Channeling Lenny Kravitz :)
Sunset in Tsitsikama National Park at the end of a long hike

If you ever saw my Thailand photos, you know I’m obsessed with Elephants! I actually have about 20 photos, but here is just 1.
Canoeing in Wilderness (the village is actually called Wildnerness)
GIANT AFRICAN GRASSHOPPER!!!!

Road warriors: Marc and Jacek

Jacek taming an Ostrich. I declined the ride
Malin, Berta, and I on the chilly coast of Victoria Bay
Hiking in Tsitsikamma. Kristen on a rock by the waterfall
The Waterfall we hiked to. Amazing

It's a Boy! and J. Adam's Birthday Party

It’s a Boy! Our house has a new member. Marc from France! Formerly a member of the Tuck household, he has now joined ours. Here he is singing into a sandwich roll during Week 1

Second, we had a birthday here. It was recently Jason aka J.Adam’s (Tuck, Dartmouth) birthday so we had a birthday party for him last weekend.

If you read one of my earlier posts, I mention 2 S. Africans that taught us how to cuss in Afrikaans. I present FJ and Peter! Posing here with Alana from Tuck.
This was the best part of the night: Sweden vs. France. DANCE OFF!


Everyone's a winner! :)

Update

Dear Friends and Family,

The past week in Cape Town has been fairly uneventful. Just school and some good meals. Therefore I thought I would share the details of the daily life in Cape Town of an "Academic Tourist" (as our professor calls us).

Picture 1: This is our bathroom with the double faucet sinks that are everywhere. The cold faucet is ice cold and the hot faucet is scalding. I've figured out how to wash my face by first filling my hands with cold water and then running them quickly under the hot faucet, splashing and then repeating.
Picture 2: We are planning on driving the "Garden Route" next week which is the coast of S. Africa. It's supposed to be very beautiful and scenic, so this is a picture of the house planning our course.






Picture 3: This is Chico and Big Blue, our household cars. They are the finest in African Transportation!














Picture 4: Last week was super cold and our house has no insulation whatsoever, so sometimes we make fires. Here is Kristen warming her hands by the toasty fire :)













Picture 5: Family Dinner at Home. Homemade chicken soup, pasta, and chicken on the Braai. Jacek was the chef. (pictured from left to right: Malin, Berta, Me, Kristen, Jacek, and Daphne. Asbjorn is taking the photo)












Picture 6: Asbjorn, Berta, Malin, and I at "Fork," a Tapas restaurant on Long Street. 5 Tapas Sampler and a glass of wine for $7 per person. Fortunately with the state of the USD, we have the worse state of the ZAR.

Picture 7: Another INCREDIBLE sunset in Cape Town.

Picture 8: Berta and I enjoying sundowners with an ocean view. Lion's Head is the mountain peak you see behind us.

Picture 9: My favorite class! Emerging Enterprises! The man in the back is one of the professors (we have 2). And the little black lady with the white hair is a social entrepreneur that came to speak this morning. (OK THERE WAS A PICTURE HERE AND SOMEHOW I DELETED IT! :( I'll post it next time, since it literally takes 15 minutes to upload a photo)

Until next time!

Gettin Jiggy in Guguletu

So in previous posts I've mentioned the townships in and around Cape Town that many blacks were moved into during the Apartheid era. Lots of people come to Cape Town and take tours of townships and stay in places like Thope's B&B (mentioned below). But we exchange students are not tourists. We live here! So yesterday I had the pleasure of going to party in a township. Now its probably not the best idea for tourists or regular S. African folks to head into a township on their own looking for a party. But we were escorted by several of our classmates, so it was 10 white people, 5 black classmates, about 500 black S. Africans who are regulars to parties in Guguletu, and me, the token Asian. (Actually I saw one other asian guy there which was pretty funny since I've literally seen 4 Asian people in the whole country so far.) Let it also be noted that we went at 5:30 in the afternoon and the place was going off. The place was this sort of outdoor restuarant that played house music. Apparantly it was a slow night as Sundays are the proper nights to go. It was a pretty awesome experience. AND to make it even better, we ate some proper Brai. We had these really fatty lamb chops and sausage covered in this amazing sauce. I of course, found out where the kitchen was and bought me some sauce. It was literally "finger licken' good." No forks, no napkins, just you, your fingers, and some tasty sauce. And what about drinks you ask? We bought them from the freight container shown below. Some clever entreprenuers have converted it into a liquor store. Even in less prosperous economic conditions, good times prevail!

Kristen and Bogart waiting outside the "liquor store"

Vegetarians need NOT apply. (I don't think Malin is going to be too thrilled when she sees I posted this picture :) )

After we left Guguletu, we headed back to the campus bar to watch the Rugby World Cup quarter finals. France vs New Zealand. The girl in black with her arm in the air is Daphne, my french roommate who loves sports and loves France. She is singing the French National Anthem. Thats all for now. I've updated some previous postings with photos below.

Robben Island

Yesterday was very eventful. A couple of us went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years. Im only on page 230 of his over 600 page Autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (Thanks Betsy!), but the trip really made his story come alive. Our tour was led by an ex-political prisoner of the island:

Above is Nelson Mandela's cell. He had a single cell since he was a leader. Its crazy to think that Mandela's story is only one of thousands that took place here...

Inspired

Have I mentioned I love my Emerging Enterprises class? Today was our field trip to a Township, which is basically a shanty-town. people literally living in freight containers sharing bathrooms. This Township, Khayelitsha, has over 1M south africans living there. We went there to visit a Bed and Breakfast. I was super confused as to why there would be a B&B in this highly undesirable area. But then I saw. It was extremely colorful and cozy and filled with happiness. The woman who runs this B&B is INCREDIBLE. Her name is Thope. She has won several fellowhips and awards for her work there and is so inspirational to listen to. She just radiates energy and joy.

Her idea to open Kopanong B&B started as she noticed tour buses coming to Khayelitsha and tourists taking photos from within the bus. She started inviting tourists into her home for lunch and eventually opened up her 2 bedroom home into a bed&breakfast. Whats amazing though is how she has extended her business to help her neighbors. She hires people in Khayelitsha to cook, clean, give walking tours, play music etc. As she described it, "We make a cake and each person who helps, gets a slice." Now she sometimes gets huge groups coming who want to stay, so her neighbors have started their own B&B's and they have formed an association so that they can go to the government as a unified group with their issues. Thope is also an Ashoka Fellow. The Ashoka Foundation operates all over the world and gives Venture Capital like grants to social entreprenuers throughout emerging economies. A representative of the Ashoka foundation also came with us to the township and I had the pleasure of riding over with her. Her name is Laela and she is married to the son of Steve Biko, who was the founder of the Black Conciousness Movement in S. Africa and a martyr of the Anti-apartheid movement. He was murdered by police in S. Africa. I knew nothing about him before today. Everyday, I learn so much here and am so inspired by the people I meet. Its amazing.

Some local Models: These little boys litterally ran over when I pulled out my camera. Please take note of the kid in white leaning against the fence. A natural model. Boy squatting with the tan pants - such a ham! He kept striking these poses.

CellLife and pics from Week 1

When I applied to come to CApe Town, I wrote an essay trying to relate S. Africa to digital media (what im interested in). So I did some research trying to find something and came across Project Cell Life, which is a non-profit org that uses cell phone technology to help HIV positive people in South Africa, which has the largest population of HIV Positive people of any nation in the world. I gotta say my essay was pretty fluffy and I thought it just sounded kinda cool and related so I threw it in. Then today, in my emerging enterprises class we had a guest speaker and it was the Managing Director of Cell Life! She told us all about the organizaiton and about the challeges of combating AIDS in a country with such a huge income disparity and little infrastructure. Anywhoo, I thought it was an awesome opportunity to hear about really impactful social entrepreneurism (is that the word?).

The pictures here don't relate to this posting at all since im still figuring out how the picture thing works. 1) Sunset Picture from the posting about Whale Watching. 2) A view of the Camp's Bay strand from the beach with the 12 Apostle mountains behind. 3) My bedroom (you can't see the bugs lurking in the dark corners trying to attack me. 4) Lunch during the wine tasting trip when I had Babotie (ba-booty) for the first time. I've had babotie 3 times now. I'm obsessed. I plan to have a whole blog posting later on about best places for Babotie in S. Africa 5) Picture from the dinner/dance party at the other exchange household.