Hi again! Hope you have been having a great week. It has been a busy and event-filled week for us. We have had a few orientation type events at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU). We had a tour of the school and it is huge! A gazillion times larger than good ol’ CSB/SJU. And there are monkeys on campus. They roam around campus looking for food. There are signs all over that say “Beware of monkeys. Do not feed!” It is so cool!
By the time I go back to MN I am going to be so in shape. We walk a lot! I love it. We have walked to school and home a couple days this week. It is 5k (about 3 mi) from our flat to NMMU. The walk is super pretty. It is right along the ocean. You can walk, take a bus or a combi (mini-van type taxi thing). We decided we are going to try to walk there and home as much as possible. It will save us some money and is good exercise (don’t worry dad, I won’t walk alone).
On Monday we had our first laundry experience. There is a Laundromat down the street that we bring our clothes to. They have people there that wash, dry, and fold them for us. It is really nice. Monday night, we went to our first rugby game. It was at NMMU. We were playing against a team from Pretoria I think. It was interesting but I was so lost. After realizing that understanding the game was a lost cause, I just started looking around. There were so many people. The part of the game that I did think was cool though, was every once in awhile a few of guys would throw another teammate up in the air to catch the ball. It looked like they were attempting to do a cheerleading stunt.
Tuesday we had a little bit of a money fiasco. Katie, Heather and I tried to exchange some US cash into rand at an American Express location and had some difficulties. The teller stole $120 dollars from us (we had pooled our money together). Once we realized what had happened, we talked to the people in the office at our flats and asked them for advice. Steve (one of the owners…who just happens to be quite intimidating looking) took us back there and talked to the teller in Afrikaans. Long story short…we got all our money back and the teller said “sorry, I must have made a mistake counting the money.” Tuesday night we made some chocolate chip cookies to give Steve as a thank you gift…and because we had all been craving them.
Wednesday morning we got tour of two of the three potential service sites, Missionvale and House of Resurrection (aids orphanage). Going to Missionvale left me in awe. The entire time we got a tour everyone in our group was silent. We were shocked to see the sharp difference between the living conditions of the people in Missionvale to that of those who live closer to our flats. Both of which are in Port Elizabeth. When people think of the poor of Africa living in shacks, they are basically picturing Missionvale. These people had no running water, no electricity, and it was super crowded (120,000 people lived where maybe 15-20,000 would live in the US). We got a tour of the care center in missionvale. The Missionvale care center was started by an Irish Catholic sister, Sr. Ethel. She has persevered through many hardships to keep this a place for people to come, meet their needs, and be loved. She even received a visit from Queen Elizabeth II and Mother Theresa who wanted to commend her for her hard work. It has a school, a food shelf, a clinic, a Catholic church, a garden, and a few other things. Their main mission is to give the people hope and not to let them feel hopeless. For example, the garden is for the people of the township to work in. They are given free seeds and then they must do the work to get the food for their family. Or in order to get food from the food shelf, they must bring in something that can be recycled. The Aids orphanage was our second stop. There are about 30 kids under the age of 13 living there currently (22 of which are HIV positive). They live in groups of about 6 with a house mother. When we would be volunteering, the older kids would be in school so we would primarily be working with the preschoolers and toddlers. We got to play with them for a few minutes and let me tell you…they are heartbreakers. Their smiles are beautiful. I can already tell it is going to be super hard to leave (ps- dad we might be adopting a child at the end of the semester…just fyi) J
After the two tours, we went to NMMU for a service learning workshop. This is a class we will be having a few times throughout the semester to help us process our experiences at the service sites.
Thursday we got to ride on a double decker bus for a tour of PE with our tour guide, Bradley. He showed us a lot of the historical areas of PE, the nicer, more modern areas, and then also some of the run down areas and townships. I always thought Plymouth was large because you can drive around for quite some time and still be in Plymouth….but PE is much larger! It really surprised me. We made a few stops on our tour at the RED location, Sacramento trail, and Pendla elementary school. The RED location is a museum that showcases the stories of many of the men and women who played some sort of role in the fight against the apartheid. The Sacramento trail is a beautiful trail along the ocean. We didn’t get to stay long or take many pictures but I will definitely be going back there some time soon. Pendla is the third service site. It is an elementary school where we would be paired up one on one to be a teacher’s assistant.
Friday we had nothing going on. We ended up spending a lot of time at the beach (little did I know at the time, but this was turning my back and back of the legs into beautiful and painful tomatoes...apparently I missed a few spots when applying sunscreen)! It was such a beautiful day. However, it was super windy and we ended up getting sand everywhere. We ended up having to leave because we couldn’t stand the sand being blown into our faces any longer. Instead we went up to the roof of our building and had a picnic. In the afternoon, we went grocery shopping and then got ready for another rugby game. This time we went to the World Cup Stadium to see the Southern Kings of the Eastern Cape play. I don’t really care much for rugby, I just really wanted to go to the stadium to see it. It was awesome! It reminded me a lot of the metrodome. This game was a lot more interesting than the last rugby game. Katie and I ended up sitting by Eric, a guy from our group, who explained a lot of what was going on to us.
Today is Saturday. We are planning on doing some baking this afternoon. Our study abroad group is having a potluck tonight and my flat is in charge of the desserts. It should be fun. We also found out which service site we will be going to. We had to pick our top 2 choices and then the directors chose who would go where. Missionvale and House of Resurrection were my top two choices. I could not decide between them. I ended up getting put at House. I am excited. There are about 8 of us going and it should be a good group.
Well sorry once again it is so long. I feel like all of my posts are going to be long. Oops. Oh well. Hope you are having fun back home. More pictures will be up soon.
Love & Prayers,
-Laura
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