Today is a big day.

Not only is it Mother's Day, and an excuse to tell our mothers how wonderful they are and give them flowers; Elizabeth is graduating from Wheaton! Mom, thank you for always always always loving and supporting me. You are incredibly patient, encouraging, and wise, and I am so thankful for the way you and Dad have raised me, E, S, & A! Elizabeth, I hope you know that I am so so proud of you! I look up to you in so many ways, specifically your passion for theology and your faith and the way you intentionally love people.

I wish I could give both of you the biggest hugs ever and tell you I love you and everything I love about you! I think this is the most homesick I have been thus far. Since I can't be there for hugs, I have decided to commemorate Elizabeth and Mom with a few pictures. Because let's be serious, that is how my family commemorates a celebration. We take pictures. I can GUARANTEE that Dad is snapping away today. I bet there will be at least 300 pictures from this weekend. Anyway, here are some of my favorite recent(ish) photos, featuring Mom and Elizabeth.

See what I mean? Mom LOVES family photos. Look at that excitement. SMILE BIG TODAY! IT IS YOUR DAY!Like mother, like daughters...?"Oh Amy, even if mom is weird, I am still happy just looking into your eyes"

Aw look at that cute pouty face. awwww.

Despite my homesickness, I am definitely not in any way ready to leave. My friendships with the people I have met here continue to grow deeper, and I feel like that has happened especially over the past few weeks. Also, this morning I had the chance to attend a service at an Anglican monastery just outside of town. The vibrant community and fellowship this morning was a refreshing way to start my day.

So I guess I should stop avoiding work now.

Love you all.

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.

BACK.

I am back from April vacation! I travelled along the Garden Route with three other girls (Lindsay, Allegra, and Alice) from the states. We took this awesome bus called the Baz Bus, which is a shuttle that picks you up from your hostel and takes you to your next one. It was GREAT! Very convenient and safe, since we didn’t have to find our way around new places to find our hostels. Here is a brief outline of our trip. I don't have all of our pictures, because we designated photographers each day, and haven't had the big photo swap yet (I'll probably post more later)

-Port Elizabeth: the closest city to Grahamstown. We stayed at my friend Katie’s house for one night before continuing on our journey. It was so nice to be in a home with a family (and not in res) – they were very welcoming and hospitable!

-Tsitsikamma/Storm’s River Valley: This is the beautiful “garden of the garden route,” with forests and mountains and the ocean really close by. Also home to the highest bungy jump in the world (although none of us ended up doing it…). We spent 2 days here hiking and ziplining, staying at a funky hostel in the middle of NOWHERE.

-Knysna: a touristy town on the water. We only stayed for about 24 hours, after walking around town, getting a scenic tour of the beautiful views, and going on a short tour of the township. I was resistant to the township tour, because of the concept of touring others’ poverty and horrible situation. The tour was very educational and very interesting to compare to what we know and have seen in the township in Grahamstown. The township in Knysna is situated in the hills with a GORGEOUS view of the water, but this does not make up for the schism between them and the opulent white neighborhoods just up the road.

The four of us (Lindsay, Alice, Me, Allegra) in Knysna

-Mossel Bay: a beach town, about halfway to Cape Town. We stayed here for three nights and enjoyed beaches and SKYDIVING (that’s why we didn’t do the bungy… one thrill at a time)!!!!! Don’t worry, I went tandem, which means I had a professional harnessed to my back. We took tons of pictures, and I got the video! We stayed at a really amazing hostel that is a renovated Victorian mansion – stunning. We liked Mossel Bay.

-Stellenbosch: A town just outside Cape Town, home to wine country, beautiful mountains, and a major South African University (where Katherine Knopf is going, and I got to see her! And her parents!)! We stayed here two nights over Easter, and went to a small and welcoming Anglican church on Easter Sunday. We also went on an amazing wine/cheese tasting tour with our friend Courtney. Stellenbosch is gorgeous (SEE PICTURE BELOW!)

Here is a view (from a vineyard in Stellenbosch) of Table Mountain in Cape Town! We climbed that!

Us + Courtney, wine tasting in beautiful Stellenbosch!

-Cape Town! We spent 5 nights here at a really nice backpackers (thanks to Lauren Galinsky’s fantastic recommendation!)! Things we saw/did: Kirstenbosch botanical gardens (gorgeous HUGE garden right in Cape Town), Camp’s Bay beach, Table Mountain (we hiked up and took the cable car down), art gallery, I met up for coffee with Meg Mateer (who is studying at UCT for the semester!!!!), Cape Point (aka the Cape of Good Hope and where the Indian and Atlantic oceans begin to meet!), Boulder’s Beach (where thousands of penguins live!). Cape Town is an amazing and beautiful city. We left Cape Town on Saturday evening on a 13-hour overnight bus trip. I arrived exhausted in Grahamstown on Sunday morning at 9:30am.

Camps Bay

One of the 2010 World Cup Stadiums!

It was quite a trip, and a much-needed vacation from Grahamstown and from academics. The four of us had a great time together. We made lots of new interesting friends from around the world, such as a reality TV producer from LA and a SCUBA instructor who is from Australia but works in Greece.

It is good to be back in Grahamstown. Even though it is small, Grahamstown is a really nice place to call “home” in South Africa. I feel like know this place and these people! I also have my own room and looooots of clean clothes again!!! I am slowly re-acclimating back to academics (even though I am currently avoiding an economics essay). Familiarity and community is refreshing, and I am excited to get back into the routine of classes, volunteering, Bible study, etc. I LOVE travelling, but it is definitely nice to be back. It is getting chilly here since we are getting into Autumn. It is crazy how everything is opposite here!

Just to give you an idea, here is my basic timeline for the next few months.
-April 20 (yesterday): Term 2 begins (semesters are broken up into two terms)
-April 22 (tomorrow): Election day! Pray for South Africa! Here is an interesting article, and a pretty good summary of the situation here.
-May 29: Lectures end. Yeah, I am not used to going to class throughout the entire month of May. This could be a challenge…
-June 1-5: “Swot week” – study days for exams. I’ll probably travel somewhere. Not sure where yet!
-June 6-26: Final exams (That is a LONG time, hey?). When I told some South Africans here that sometimes people have two exams in one day back at BC, they FLIPPED out.
-June 26-July 2: Not sure exactly what I’ll do, I might visit some of my friends in Joburg. Or just bum around Grahamstown/Eastern Cape
-July 2-July 7: ARTS FESTIVAL! The festival lasts until the 11th, but I can’t stay for the whole thing.
-July 7: fly home.
-July and August: BW/DR for the summer!

I hope you all are doing well. Please stay in touch! I definitely really miss home, but I am nowhere near ready to leave yet. Good thing I am only about halfway through my 5 months here.

Cheers,
Linda

Less words, more photos.

Since there are many photos on this post, I feel a little bit less obliged to write something lengthy. Especially since my last post was so wordy. Personally, I am a visual learner, so when I can see something I internalize it much more than if I read about it. So, guided by captions, I will let the pictures tell the stories this time.

READING CAMP
(for description, see last post)

All of the kids with some of the volunteers

Holding "Flat Tire" with the owner in the background. He collects reptiles, and showed the kids a few of them including a python. Named "Monty" :

Monty was molting. Check out the kids' faces in this photo! :)


Potjie
(Pronounced "poy-kee," this is an Afrikaans celebratory food tradition when they cook yummy stew in a massive pot over a fire. This potjie was with the mountain club.)

This potjie was accompanied by "poi" which is when someone has this chain with two lanterns/torches on the end and swings them around. Mesmerizing.

Alexandria
One of the craziest hikes I have ever done. I went with the mountain club (I still really think BC needs one of these), and it was a group of 10 of us. 7 of us were international students, from London, the Netherlands, Canada, and the US!

First we hiked through the forest. I often found myself hiking in the front, dealing with gazillions of spider webs. Like this one. That spider's body (not including legs) is about the size of a quarter. Slightly intimidating!!

Then, after crossing a beautiful field and walking down the road, we hiked along the beach for MILES. It was the most untouched beach I have ever seen. If you look in this picture, we hiked all the way to (and beyond) the cliff at what looks like the end of this beach.

Me and Merran. She is an exchange student from Canada!
Then we hiked up the side of the cliff in a sandy part, using a rope to pull ourselves up. If you look closely in the photo above, you can see the people ahead of us walking up the side of the cliff.

Then we were in the dunes.

We were hiking next to the cliff like this for a while. Then we got to the hut, which was in a wooded part of the dunes and overlooked the ocean.
Waking up to another beautiful day! On the deck of the hut, overlooking the Indian Ocean.

After hiking through the woods, then using another rope to get up a massive sand dune, we reached the most beautiful landscape of dunes I have ever seen.
I felt like I was in the Sahara desert...
...but the ocean was right there.
Then we went back into the forest and climbed over a few hills to get back to our minibus.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

As I said last time, I am looking forward to our big 2-week vacation starting this coming Saturday! I can't WAIT. My next post will probably be all about April vac :)

Much love,
Lindapants

Odds and Ends

As the title of this post indicates, here are just some thoughts about things happening in my life over here. I have broken it into sections so it is easier to read...

Elections

Below is a not-so-brief synopsis/list of facts/opinions/musings of what I have learned about politics here in South Africa (mostly second hand information from my South African friends). The election is April 22nd.

-Party loyalty is HUGE. The ANC is the leading party and likely winner solely because it is Nelson Mandela’s party that pulled SA out of apartheid in 1994. People feel indebted to this party and therefore obliged to vote for it no matter what. Even though Jacob Zuma has been charged with rape, corruption, money laundering (among other things), and had no formal schooling, people are still ready to vote for him out of loyalty and lack of education about policies and other candidates.

-People continue to vote along racial lines. Even though apartheid was overturned 15 years ago… it was only… 15 years ago. Many people here still identify with their racial group due to the entrenchment of apartheid policies within South African culture. Undoing the damage is going to take more than just time. Ok, so here is an issue for you to ponder: The justice in land redistribution. Background: Since so much land was seized from black South Africans during the apartheid regime and redistributed to white South Africans, some discuss the idea of land redistribution back to black South Africans. This is a tricky question, however, because the whites have owned the land for over 50 years now. The question: How could one justly take that land away from the whites who have lived there for a few generations now? What about the black and colored South Africans living in townships who can’t pull themselves out of poverty? Can there ever be justice in this situation? What do you think? Welcome to my politics class, the land of never-answered never-ending questions and puzzles about liberal democracy.

-Political parties are also very regional. Here in the Eastern Cape, people generally talk about ANC, DA (Democratic Alliance, and note their strangely similar campaign logo to Obama) and COPE ("Congress of the People," a new rising breakaway party from the ANC). In KwaZulu-Natal, people are primarily talking about IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party) and ANC. Joburg and Cape Town will have different stories too. Really the only party that is effectively crossing regional lines is the ANC, which is one of the major reasons why their victory is imminent.

-The new rising generation of voters (i.e. university students) was born into a free South Africa, and they therefore do not have the same loyalty to the ANC as the older generations do (and they also have education, which most of the country lacks). This new generation is starting to take initiative in voting not by party, but by policies. It is a really exciting for many of my south African student friends who are attempting to make an informed choice, even if ANC victory seems inevitable. Just last night there was a formal debate between representatives from each major party. I didn’t attend (I wanted to let the voters get seats) but I heard it was a very interesting evening of debate and questions. Also, recently the youth leader of the ANC was scheduled to come visit Rhodes. That caused quite a stir because of the many strong feelings about Jacob Zuma and the ANC. It is sooo interesting to be here at the univeristy in such an exciting time for the students and for the country!

Reading Camp

This past weekend I volunteered at a 24-hour reading camp for about 20 10-year-old kids from the township. Run (kind of) through the Anglican monastery here in Grahamstown, this program helps with remedial reading education in weekend and week-long camps throughout the year. It was an amazing, exhausting, beautiful, challenging, and rewarding experience.

The kids who came are all learning English as their second language. Their first language is Xhosa (the main indigenous language here in Eastern Cape, pronounced with a click in the beginning). The children were all very bright, SO well behaved, and so excited to learn! This camp provided them with extra attention to give them a boost with their confidence and with their reading skills. Saturday morning consisted of 6 different stations to work on phonics, writing, reading comprehension, etc. Lindsay (from BC) and I were in charge of the reading comprehension station, where we read a story with them a few times and had a simple discussion about plot, characters, setting, etc.

This was just as much READING camp as it was CAMP! On Friday and Saturday afternoon, the kids got to do fun activities like hiking, campfire with marshmallows, games, songs, stories, arts and crafts, abseiling, etc. It was so fun to watch them experience the excitement of each new activity and join them in that exciting activity! Sorry I don’t have pictures – but Lindsay took a lot, so our experience was well-documented. Remind me to show them to you when I see you next :)

CAMP CAMP CAMP!

Speaking of CAMP, a few of you have been asking if I will be back this summer. The answer is YES! I will be working at Deer Run again this summer for the second 3/4 of the summer, starting second session. Yay! This means that:
a) I get to have another summer at one of my favorite places in the world with some of my favorite people... and
b) Since I am starting work at camp later, I get to stay for the the first few days of the Grahamstown Arts Festival, the biggest arts festival in the whole of AFRICA! That's right, in this tiny little town out of all places in South Africa! I am stooooooked to see how it transforms to accomodate thousands of extras for about two weeks.

Coming Up in the near future:

-a Potjie on Friday (this big cookout thing that I actually don’t know much about, I will tell you more later when I am more informed. Apparently we eat stew… outside…)

-a hiking trip on Saturday and Sunday (yay!!!)

-three tests next week – Anthropology, Economics, then Politics. Should be a fun week.

-BC course registration (for senior year?!)

-APRIL VACATION!! Much needs to happen before I will be frolicking for two weeks with three other Americans on the infamous GARDEN ROUTE and then the Mother City, CAPE TOWN. I can’t waaaaaaaaait until April 4th!!


Sorry for a wordy blog post. Thanks to my faithful readers for getting to the end :)
Much love to all! Please let me know how you are doing and stay in touch!

--Lindapants

Lessons Learned

I have learned a lot here in Grahamstown in the last five weeks. I obviously can't really record ALL of the lessons, but here is a short list of a a few I have (somewhat painfully) re-learned in the past week:

1. The sun will still burn the unprotected skin on a cloudy day. Especially the South African sun...in the summer...by the water...not wearing sunscreen (I am too embarassed to even post a picture. ow.)

2. When there is a fire drill or alarm, you are required here (at Rhodes) to take a blanket outside with you. (Sensible, right? Somehow I never learned this advice back at BC despite the 5+ fire alarms in the middle of winter in 90 last year)

3. South Africa has a very very high rate of HIV infection. I went to the hospital for the first time on Friday. I joined the medical team for rounds in the hospice ward. I would estimate that 75% of the patients (in hospice) have opportunistic infections due to AIDS. I think about 50% of the patients we saw had TB. UNAIDS estimated that in 2007, six million people were infected with HIV in South Africa.

4. I actually did seem to lose my school work ethic somewhere over the Atlantic (well, come to think of it, I lost it back in December. Before Christmas). I have found it quite difficult to sit down and do work here. As soon as I try... the words "I'm in South Africa" start creeping into my mind and make me find something better to do. Like... having rooibos tea and rusks with res friends. Or chilling on the roof. Or posting on my blog. Or going to the beach. I think you get the idea...

5. I am not always ... "proud to be American." I was not surprised to see that Coca-Cola products, KFC, and MTV are longstanding incorporations into the daily life of South Africa (and much of the rest of the world, for that matter). Some food for thought: As Peter Raven, from my Anthropology textbook, says, "if everyone lived like Americans, you'd need three planet earths... to sustain that level of consumption." And, "on average, one North American consumes hundreds of times the resources of a single African."

On that note, I will be turning off my light and getting some rest before the start of another crazy week. Much love to all at home and abroad. Miss you!

Love,
Linda

Giraffe, Politics, and a Roadtrip

Hello everyone!!

So life lately has been both really busy and really fun...here is a summary.

Last weekend on Saturday, Geoff (our BC program coordinator) took us in his truck to two nearby game reserves. We left early in the morning so we could see more animals – they all hide and sleep during the hottest part of the day. It was a really fun and adventurous day, complete with a picnic at a bird-watching hut, prickly pears, and a little bit of off-roading to see the following: giraffe, ostrich, zebra, baboon, springbok, kudu, antelope, tortoise, and MASSIVE earthworms (i.e. 3 feet long). It was a really fun trip :) Here are a few of MANY pics:

We saw these signs... but not all of the animals on the sign. Maybe next time!

To my fellow Deer Runners: every now and then, did you ever wonder what a springbok looks like? I was never in that cabin, but here are 3 grazing springbok!

Ostrich!
Allegra, Lindsay, and Me - 3 out of 4 of the BC girls here at Rhodes. This is us in the bird-watching hut.

GIRAFFE IN THE ROAD (obviously.)
A herd of (what I THINK is) some kind of reedbuck, but it also could be antelope. As soon as we pulled up, they all started STARING at us. We silently took as many pictures as possible but they quickly ran away.
And last but not least, ZEBRA!

Last week I took my first Rhodes test - in politics! The test was quite HECTIC, but I love that class because it is really challenging me to critically think about social issues & ideals and government. Not easy, but REALLY cool :)

This past weekend (yesterday and today) I went to Jeffrey’s Bay with two other BC girls (Sheneita and Lindsay) and two friends from my res (Sarita and Katie). Jeffrey’s Bay is a beach/surf town about 3 hours away from Grahamstown, so we rented a car and took a road trip. The beach was beautiful, and the town really quiet and relaxing (almost ghost-town quiet, we couldn’t figure out where everyone was)! We stayed in a really cute homey backpackers hostel (with a LOT of character) in the center of town just a 5-minute walk from the beach. It was a fantastic group of girls, and we had a lot of fun travelling together! Overall, the trip was just stunning… even though it didn’t all go exactly as planned. These trips never do… Here are a few pics of J-bay:

Sheneita from BC (left) and Sarita from Joburg in our awesome hostel.
Katie, from Port Elizabeth - our lovely reliable safe driver!Sheneita and Lindsay, on the beautiful J-bay beach.
We woke up to see the sunrise this morning. And... nobody complained! Impressive. Although it was cloudy, the sky was beautiful and the beach was so peaceful! We also saw lots of dolphins playing in the waves! Stunning.

Well, that's it for today. Please let me know how you all are doing (How is/was spring break?? How is COSMOS? How are classes/How is school?? Do you know your summer plans? How is Europe/Asia/Austrailia/South America/North America/Africa??)!!!!

Love,
Lindapants