Since when is April over?

Dear Everyone,

I miss you! Life sounds like it is crazy back home, with graduation, the academic year ending, and other life events all over the place. My prayers are with you all. Congratulations to ELIZABETH (my incredible sister), and to all the other wonderful seniors who are graduating!! As always, please keep me posted on life :)

Election Day was a few weeks ago on April 22nd. It was a relatively non-violent day (definitely peaceful in Grahamstown), and South Africa boasted an incredible voter turnout! Here, Election Day is a public holiday, so everywhere in Grahamstown was closed, and all classes were cancelled. I think that is how election day should be in the US. Oh well. It was an exciting day for many of my South African friends, since this was their first voting election! Jacob Zuma, of the ANC, won by a 64% popular vote. Oh well. Maybe next election...


HOGSBACK is a beautiful place!! I went last weekend with 4 other girls (Liz, from Tennessee, and Allegra, Lindsay, and Kacey from BC. Kacey was visiting Lindsay for the week). Hogsback is supposedly the place that inspired Lord of the Rings.

This is my friend Liz :)

We went hiking to two different waterfalls that day. This one is called "Bridal Veil" and this picture only captures the bottom 1/3 of it. (From left: Kacey, Lindsay, Liz, Allegra, Me)

Group photo after the hike

Me and Allegra at the Hostel, called "Away with the Fairies." It was a really cute woodsy place, and home to the scariest treehouse in the world. Well maybe not officially but it was 15m high with these rickety steps to the top.

This past weekend, I went on the Cathedral student ministry's Church Camp to Assegai Trails, a beautiful retreat center just outside Grahamstown. It was a wonderful and refreshing weekend, with many opportunities for much-needed reflection time and Bible study on who God is and what that means in our lives. It was a great time for me to reflect on how God has provided such wonderful community and friendship in my life here in South Africa! I am so thankful.

Cindy and Liz, scared of a spider as big as my face on the trail. I guess that is an exaggeration, but it was rather large. And close. I could see its venomous fangs. JK, LOLZ.

From left: Me, Liz, Cindy, Zinzile, Matt. We went on a lovely morning hike before the activities of the retreat began.

Potjie! See old post (the one in April with alllllllllll the pictures) for a description of this Afrikaans food tradition. YUM.

Classes are going well. Politics has begun a new theme, and we are studying the relationship between stories/myths/documents that have ultimately fueled specific incidents in societies. I love taking humanities courses. Anthropolgy also just started a new module: "Identity and Diversity." We are currently studying the question: "what is race?" and it is extremely interesting in the context of South Africa. Ethnomusicology is also interesting, we are now learning our fourth dance/song (that originates in Zimbabwe), and I am preparing a research project that compares the music of two different churches here in Grahamstown: a more charismatic church, and an Anglican monastery just outside of town. Economics... is a lot of work. I have a test tomorrow! Sometimes I wonder why I am taking economics. I know I will be glad one day.