Hiking and Lynedoch

Hello!

I have just two things to update you on today – a beautiful hike that I went on last week and this past Monday’s trip to Lynedoch.

So there’s a big mountain behind the rugby stadium and athletic complex on our campus and many of us had been eyeing it since we arrived, so five of us finally set out to hike it last Wednesday. There was no clearly marked trail in sight, but we found what may have been the path where water runs down the slope and followed it up most of the mountain. Then there was some rock climbing and improvisation, but Dustin, Evan and I made it to the top (our other two friends, Terry and Jeff, didn’t feel well so they turned around early).

The view from the top of the mountain was absolutely incredible. Below us we could see every single part of Stellenbosch and everything else that exists around it. In the distance we could see False Bay, Table Mountain, and Lion’s Head. Because of the fog and the air pollution we weren’t able to see the actual city of Cape Town, but I think it was better to just see the water and mountains emerging from the low clouds. Behind us we could see endless layers of mountain sticking up into the bright blue sky. The three of us spent a long time just sitting on the top, eating lunch, and soaking in the amazing view.

the mountain from just above the rugby stadium

me and nearly all of Stellenboshthe rest of Stellies and Table Mountain in the backgroundmore mountains in the distance

In other news, Monday was another enjoyable day at Lynedoch. After a fun class on Friday in which we participated in some team building activities and watched the movie The Guardian, we were all excited to get back in the classroom with our kids. Our morning lesson was about volcanoes, earthquakes and plate tectonics. As part of our lesson we did a simple science experiment and exploded our own clay volcano using baking soda and vinegar. Not surprisingly, none of the students in my class had ever seen this experiment done before, and neither had their teacher. This served as another reminder of the contrast between my educational opportunities and theirs, because every student that I went to school with has seen this experiment done at one time or another. From there we moved on to earthquakes and plate tectonics. We taught them the very basics in a way that was hopefully easy to understand. Then we talked briefly about Pangea, the single continent that used to exist on earth. None of the learners had ever heard about this concept, but I think the pictures on our worksheet helped them see that the continents could fit neatly together. In the last few minutes of class we let the learners do an earthquake drill and hide under their desks, which they seemed to enjoy.

For the afternoon we had a fun lesson planned about sound and music. We began by teaching our learners about vibrations and sound waves, the structure of our ears, and the concept of frequency. Then we shifted from the process of hearing to the magic of music by playing clips of several songs from a variety of different genres. We played jazz, blues, hip hop, rap, R&B, bluegrass, country, and techno, while interrupting some songs to teach them a little bit about each genre. Even though they still prefer hip hop to jazz, I think it was good to introduce them to other types of music that they’ve never even heard of before. As our final activity for the day the whole class sang along as Jeff played guitar. He’s been practicing a couple songs that are popular in South Africa right now so the learners knew the words and could sing along with us. It’s absolutely crazy that we only have one day left with our learners before we leave. Grant wants us to do fun activities in order to celebrate our time together, so we have an exciting schedule planned for our last day with the kids on May 3rd.
I’d also like to send a thank you along to some important people. The first is my Aunt Kaye who, at 90 years old, may be my biggest fan and most avid reader. She’s been extremely supportive of my studies and my work here, and has also paid for some new educational resources at Lynedoch. Secondly, thank you to Sandy O’Sullivan who made it possible for me to purchase new maps, soccer balls, and art supplies for the kids. And another thank you to Diana Potter for all the construction paper that she's donated for Lynedoch! Lastly, thanks to everyone who follows my blog and to anyone that has taken an interest in my life here in South Africa!

A Weekend in Cape Town

Hello!

Again I'm apologizing in advance for the long post, but I promise it's interesting!

Yesterday was our first day back in the classroom at Lynedoch after five weeks without the kids. It was great to see them again, but it’s crazy to think that we only have one more day of lessons and then one day of ‘termination activities’ as Grant calls it. I prefer ‘goodbye party’ though. We had the kids write about what they wanted to be when they grow up and then we had a discussion about the steps they’ll have to take to get there. It went really well and I think the sixth grade teacher really liked our lesson about self-respect. We talked to the kids about using the word ‘baas’, which is Afrikaans for boss. Many black and colored people use it when addressing white people, but it denoted inferiority. The kids understood that it’s a term left over from the apartheid era, but it’s a word that they began using as young children so it’s a tricky thing. There’s still two or three farm owners in the Stellenbosch area who insist that the black farmers call them ‘baas,’ but most have moved beyond that term. I’m sure some of the kids will still throw the word around when talking to white people, and specifically Boers (literally translated means farmer, but was used to refer to all Afrikaners during apartheid), but hopefully a few of them will think twice about it in the future.

In other news, I spent last weekend in Cape Town and had a lot of fun. On Saturday morning we left Stellenbosch for our AIFS excursion to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela served the majority of his 27 year imprisonment, alongside thousands of other political prisoners. After our 20 minute ferry ride from the waterfront, we arrived on the island that sits about 8 miles from the mainland. All of the tour guides are ex-prisoners which adds a really meaningful dimension to the experience. Our guide’s name was Benjamin and he had spent 11 years on Robben Island, from 1980 to 1991. Early on in the tour he gave us a chance to ask questions and someone inquired about the charges that had been placed on him in 1980. He first briefly mentioned that he’d been a part of the Soweto Uprising on June 16, 1976, which we all found to be absolutely incredible because it was such a critical event in the anti-apartheid movement. For those who don’t know about it, on this day a group of 15,000 school children decided to peacefully protest the government’s new policy which mandated that 50% of classes be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the oppressor. The police began shooting at the kids and by the time things settled down 23 students had been killed and hundreds more injured. Many children never returned to school after that, thus this so-called ‘lost generation’ missed out on an education. Pictures of the violence appeared in newspapers around the world and drew international attention to the anti-apartheid struggle. But, back to Benjamin our tour guide, the very next day he sadly witnessed his pregnant girlfriend’s murder and decided that he needed to play a bigger role in the movement. He joined the military arm of the ANC and fled to Germany where he was trained in explosives. In 1980 he was set to bomb a government building in Pretoria, but he miscalculated and the mission failed. Benjamin and eight others were stopped by officials who searched their truck and found enough evidence to try them all for high treason. Two of the nine men were put to death and the other seven received between 10 years to life in prison. Eleven years later, in 1991, Benjamin was a member of the last group to be released from Robben Island.

During the tour of the prison we saw the communal houses where 30-40 men shared a big room as well as the single cell houses. Beds weren’t introduced to the prison until the 1980’s, which means Mandela slept on the cement floor for the first 20 years of his imprisonment. Speaking of, we also got to see Mandela’s cell (see the picture below). After walking around the prison we parted ways with Benjamin and got on a bus for our tour of the rest of the island. Before serving as a home to political prisoners, Robben Island was a place of banishment for anyone in the country suffering from leprosy so there’s a big Leper Graveyard nearby. There are roughly 200 people who live on the island today, so there’s a small village with houses, a church, a supermarket, and a school that has 18 students and 2 teachers. I would never want to live on the island, though the views of Cape Town and Table Mountain are spectacular.

We drove by the Robert Sobukwe House, named for a former prisoner. Sobukwe founded the Pan African Congress, which called for ‘South Africa for the Africans.’ He had originally supported the ideas of the ANC, but split with them and rejected any model that suggested blacks working with whites to form a non-racial society. On March 21, 1960 he led a nationwide protest in which blacks turned their pass books in to the police and asked to be arrested. The pass books were a form of identification that all non-whites was required to carry at all times as they stipulated where in the country you were allowed to go. Sobukwe was charged with incitement and imprisoned for three years. When those three years were expired though, the government still feared the power that this man had, so they passed the General Law Amendment Act (or ‘Sobukwe Clause’) that stated an imprisonment could be renewed annually. From 1963-1969 he lived in a house by himself on Robben Island, where he was allowed to read and eat as he pleased, but communication with anyone was forbidden. He had seven prison guards and seven dogs watching his house 24 hours a day, and the guards were changed every 3 months so that no one developed a relationship with him. A once intelligent and articulate man, Sobukwe became mentally ill after years of only talking to himself. It was clear that his health was declining and government officials didn’t want him to die in their care, so in 1969 he was released on house arrest but was required to live far from his family. He died in 1978 at the age of 53, and while most accounts say that he had lung cancer there’s speculation that he was slowly poisoned. The house that he lived in on the island is shown below, and the row of cells behind the house were for all the guard dogs.

Lastly, we also got to see the infamous lime quarry where the prisoners were forced to do meaningless hard labor for 10 hours a day in the summer and 8 hours in the winter. There’s no protection from the heat in the quarry and the men were not allowed to wear hats or sunglasses. As a result of the sun bouncing off the limestone, many of the prisoners suffered from serious eye problems. Mandela underwent several surgeries after being released and to this day he cannot shed a tear because his tear ducts were destroyed. There’s one small cave in the quarry where the men were allowed to sit and eat their lunch, and this was really their only chance to talk to one another because most were kept in single cells and no talking was allowed while working. They often discussed politics during lunch and many of the ideas/policies that the ANC enacted in the 1990’s were formulated inside that cave (on the left side of the picture).

After stopping for some picture opportunities by the water, we headed back to the ferry and left the island. The tours of both the prison and the island were really interesting and thought-provoking. It felt like I was actually seeing the history that I’ve been learning about for the past ten weeks.

Once we got back to the mainland, some of us took a taxi to Long Street where we checked in to a backpacker’s for the night. Nine of us had decided to stay in the city and attend the under-20 national team’s soccer tournament in the new World Cup Stadium. For less than $5 we got to watch South Africa vs. Nigeria then Ghana vs. Brazil. Both games were a little more sloppy than I was expecting and, unfortunately, Nigeria and Brazil were victorious. It was really awesome to see the inside of Green Point Stadium though – everything is so new and clean and the games seemed to run smoothly. There will be one more event in the stadium before the city of Cape Town hands it over to FIFA in May.

After the games we walked about a mile back to Long Street and got dinner at Mama Africa. I had a headache all afternoon/evening and at this point it turned into a bad stomachache and the chills so I went to bed right after dinner while most of my friends went out to a few bars. In the morning we packed up, got some delicious breakfast, and headed to the Planetarium for a show about the night sky and constellations. The 40 minute show was really cool, but the museum that houses the Planetarium was even better. There were tons of interesting exhibits about animals, but my favorite part was the collection of photos from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. It’s an international competition that yields dozens of amazing photographs of both nature and animals. Below are a few of my favorites that I took from the website, but click the link above if you want to see the rest. After exploring the museum some more we caught the train back to Stellenbosch.

Easter and an Extreme Makeover

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a nice Easter! It was weird not being home for the holiday, but I did have a great day here. I went to mass at Stellenbosch Baptist Church in the morning with my service learning teacher (Grant), his mother (Colleen), his foster son (Ashlek), and four of my friends. The service had much more singing and was overall a much nicer atmosphere than I had found at the Catholic Church here. The congregation was very diverse, which was a refreshing change from most other social settings around the Stellenbosch area. After church a big group of my friends got together for a potluck lunch and ate tons of delicious foods. I made roasted potatoes, and the other dishes included lamb, pasta, spicy green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and apple pie. We played egg toss and had a chocolate egg hunt and just hung out in the sun for a few hours. It was a nice relaxing day.

our buffet above and preparing for egg toss below
On Monday we didn’t get to teach because our kids were still on vacation, so Grant planned an optional activity for us. With the exception of the two students who were sick, we all took the 8:20 train to Lynedoch and headed across the street to Kathleen Peterson’s house on the nearby farm. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to read my blog entry about visiting Kathleen, she is the grandmother of Ashlek and she lives in a small 3 room house with her daughter (Ashlek’s mother) and granddaughter (Ashlek’s sister). She’s crippled and can’t work any more because her mobility is limited, but when she was younger she worked as the nanny for the current white farm owner. Our activity for the day was to create our miniature version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. We had put quite a bit of planning into this day and I was skeptical about the amount of work we’d actually get done. However, the 22 of us, plus Grant and Ashlek, were able to make a significant amount of improvements to their house. We broke up into small groups and put a new coat of white paint on the outside of the house (because the current coat was chipping and/or turning gray), scrubbed all the mold and mildew off the walls and ceiling of the kitchen, painted the kitchen a light blue color that really brightened things up, cleaned and washed the roof, began planting a few gardens in the front yard, took lots and lots of ticks off the dog, washed all of the dishes and cooking supplies; put a new floor down in the kitchen; got rid of all the loose wire that had been buried around the yard; and improved the walkway leading up to the house. A few of my classmates also gave Kathleen’s daughter and granddaughter manicures and pedicures, because Grant requested that we do something to make them feel pampered. After seven hours we left the house looking quite different than when we arrived. It was amazing to actually finish everything we started and get to see concrete change being made in their living space.
Melinda polishing the window frames while Jeff and Terry paint the houseDustin whacking weeds Dani and Paula scrubbing the ceiling... note the not so nice walls and floor

Vanessa and Autumn preparing for the floor... note the new blue walls

the new floor and new table cloth

I also want to include some pictures below from last week’s extra trip to Lynedoch. Last Wednesday I spent the day working on our new garden at the school with my friends Evan and Dustin. We were able to turn up several beds of soil and plant some more vegetables and flowers. We also had a few little helpers who wandered over to our garden and hung out with us all day. There was a young girl and two young boys who spoke very little English but wanted our attention nonetheless. The girl’s parents are gardeners at the Sustainability Institute, and she certainly inherited their green thumb. She knew exactly how to remove the plants from their container gently, place them in a shallow hole, and water them carefully. She clearly had an appreciation for the plants and the beds of soil and was extremely gentle with them. The two little boys were less skilled at gardening, and definitely not as cautious, but we let them help for a while until they lost interest and just wanted to play with Evan. Grant had brought us out some water and chips earlier in the morning, so we offered some to the kids and they seemed very appreciative. Later in the day Dustin and I were busy planting when I looked up and saw the little girl passing me a cup of water. She had gone into the school, refilled our water bottle, and poured us each a glass. Despite the language barrier, my interactions with this young girl were the highlights of my day. It was so nice to form a bond with someone even though I struggled to verbally communicate with her.

Two Oceans Half Marathon

Hello Everyone!

I apologize in advance for the length of this entry but I want to describe my trip to Cape Town for the half marathon this weekend. So my friend Evan and I departed Stellenbosch on the train around 3:30 Friday afternoon. We knew that the rest of the night was going to be a bit of an adventure because our plans were minimal, but we were excited for the unknown. So for the previous 36 hours I had been emailing back and forth with a woman who ran a hostel near the starting line, but our plans to stay there seemed to have fallen through because she wanted us to deposit money into their bank account, but the banks (and absolutely everything else) are closed on Good Friday. So we decided to take the train to Cape Town, transfer lines, and head to Rondebosch where we knew of two hostels that were hosting runners for the weekend. While on the train Evan called his friend Drew who is studying at UCT through the SIT study abroad program, because he has an apartment in downtown Cape Town and staying with him was our back up plan (because the race starts 8 miles from there, so we thought it would be better to get closer). It turns out Drew is doing another week-long home stay with a family outside of the city and is not moving into his apartment on Long Street until next weekend. Bummer, but no big deal.

So we catch our next train and arrive in Rondebosch around 5:15pm. We were expecting this train station to be near the town center, with the 2 hostels and perhaps some restaurants close by. Instead it dropped us in the middle of a neighborhood that looked spookily quite due to the holiday. We started to walk (our destination still somewhat unknown) and hadn’t taken more than 20 steps when Evan saw 2 girls that he recognized. They were Drew’s friends that he’d met the previous week when they were all staying in Stellenbosch. They recognized him too so we went over and talked for a few minutes before they said “do you want to go upstairs and see Drew?” We were caught off guard but accepted the invitation as they opened up a gate and sent us up a flight of stairs into the SIT headquarters. This is a study abroad program where you take informal classes for 2 months, live in different parts of the country with different families, and then spend the final 2 months doing your own research. So we now found ourselves in the SIT classroom where Drew was just as surprised to see us. After some laughs and an explanation of what we were doing in Rondebosch, we used his computer to find directions to the hostel I’d been emailing previously. We weren’t sure if the woman had given our beds away yet, but we figured it was our best bet since this town didn’t seem to have much else to offer us. After leaving Drew, with directions in hand, we acknowledged the fact that someone up above was looking after us. (From this point onwards in the trip we continuously asked each other why we never thought to bring a map of the town with us when we left home).

So we walked about 2 miles until we reached the Vera School. This is a school for autistic learners that turns into a hostel for the weekend of the marathon each year. I knew it was legit because it was one of the five hostels recommended on the marathon’s website, but it was in the middle of a neighborhood and looked completely abandoned. The entire campus was fenced in and we couldn’t see a person or a car inside the fence. We walked around the outside of the fence twice, while alternately laughing at the ridiculousness of our situation and worrying that we may never find a way inside this place. I was becoming a bit skeptical when a guy on a bike rode by us and said “good luck in the race tomorrow.” I was immediately reassured that there were other runners staying in this hostel, if only we could get in. At this point I called my roommate and had her look up the woman’s phone number for me (Anita) so that we could ask where the entrance was. Anita didn’t answer. Luckily a girl a bit older than us was walking towards one of the gates and she appeared to be heading out for a run. We explained our situation briefly so she unlocked the gate and told us where Anita lived. Awesome, we breathed a sigh of relief.

Once inside the fence we could see some cars and a group of older runners making dinner in the kitchen/lounge. This reminded me that I was hungry, but we had no food because we had wrongly assumed that the hostel would be near a downtown area with restaurants and whatnot. Anyways, we needed 2 beds first and foremost. After quite a few knocks on Anita’s front door there was still no answer. We turned around and saw a friendly looking guy who asked if we needed anything. We told him or story and he gave us Anita’s cell phone number before heading back inside to the lounge. Evan called and someone answered, but it was the wrong number. We weren’t sure what our next move should be, so we decided to sit on a bench by a little playground and see if Anita would show up. After about 10 minutes Evan tried the phone number from the website again. This time we heard it ring inside the house that we were sitting next too, as at the very least we had the correct number. As Evan heard someone answer through the telephone, we could both hear the person speaking inside the house as well. Once Anita was on the phone Evan explained that we knew it was very late notice but we were wondering if there were two beds available. She asked where he was and he said he was standing outside her house, we all laughed and she said she’d be right out. Now I have to mention here that in my emails with this woman she had seemed very quick and perhaps somewhat irritated with me (although it wasn’t my fault that the bank was closed), so I didn’t want her to know that I was the same girl from the emails. I never would have thought to do this, but Evan suggested it when I had said earlier that I didn’t want to make this woman any more irritated with Sarah Regan. Looking back on it this was probably unnecessary, but whatever. So she came out and Evan introduced himself and I decided on the alias of Joey Potter (yes, from Dawson’s Creek). Anita explained to us that some people had asked for beds but hadn’t shown up (which was me, but in my defense she had emailed me that morning and said she gave the beds away because I hadn’t deposited money yet), so she did have 2 available. Again, we thanked God for a warm place to stay.

I put my bag in my room, made my bed, and before I could think about my hunger again the group of people in the lounge offered us pasta! They had made way too much and were strongly encouraging us to eat with them. It didn’t take any coaxing for me to make a big plate and thank them repeatedly. Fortunately Evan wasn’t all that hungry because all the pasta had meat sauce on it and he’s a vegetarian. They poked fun at him for only eating an 8th of what I had, but he was polite and did eat some of it (luckily only enough to give him a small stomach ache later). The people staying in the same building as us were so friendly and welcoming, and it was really interesting talking with them. Some were family members, others just friends, but they run the ultra-marathon together each year (Two Oceans has no standard marathon, just a 21k and 56k). Some guys were doing it for the 9th year and they were in their mid-sixties now. They told us all about Comrades too, which is the biggest ultra in South Africa at 90k (~54 miles)! They asked us how we were getting to the race in the morning and we said we’d planned on walking since it was only 3km away (the one thing I did right was pick a place close to the start so we didn’t have to worry about transportation). However, they insisted that we catch a ride with one of them to save time. The guy who had given us Anita’s (incorrect) cell phone number earlier immediately agreed to drive us. We thanked him profusely and chatted a bit longer before heading to bed around 8:30pm.

I got up at 4am, after tossing and turning all night, and got dressed for the race. We were in the car by 4:30 and at the start by 4:45. We bought some crackers for breakfast, pinned our numbers on, put our bag in a van that would take it to the finish line, did a quick warm up jog, and joined the 11,000 people who were lining up for the race. While standing in the crowd with 15 minutes to go before the gun went off we replayed the previous night in our heads and appreciated the fact that we made it to starting line. We may have been ill-prepared, but we had a lot of fun. It was the first time we’d done something more than a day trip on our own here in South Africa, because we’re always with the other 45 Americans in our program whenever we travel. With that many people you rarely get to interact with the locals and make connections with people like we had last night. And most importantly, even though we didn’t have a concrete plan, we knew we were in safe areas and were aware of any places that should be avoided.

So the gun went off at 6am, while it was still dark outside, and after about 3 minutes of walking with the whole crowd we could begin jogging. The first 3k was pretty slow because the pack was still tight, but we were able to pick it up after that. I felt really good from 4k-10k (and by this time the sun was up), then from 11k to 16k was quite a bit tougher. The middle part of the course had some rolling hills, but after that there was a gradual up hill that last for about 4 kilometers. The final 5k wasn’t too bad and we both finished in 2 hours and 11 minutes. It was 1 minute over my goal, but I was still pleased. Plus we got bronze medals for finishing within 3 hours so that was sweet. The most amusing thing about the race was that they offered Coke at every single refreshment stand (along with water and Powerade), and at the end of the race you got a voucher that could be redeemed for either a Coke or a water. From what I saw it looked like roughly 80% of the runners were drinking Cokes behind the finish line. Apparently this is true of most races in South Africa, which doesn’t actually surprise me because people are crazy about Coke here.

We sat for a few minutes, rested our legs, and retrieved our bag from the van before taking off in search of the nearest train station. After a mile long walk, a 15 minute ride back to Cape Town, an 80 minute ride to Stellenbosch, and a 30 minute walk we were finally back at home. It had been an awesome adventure and a great race.