Wow, 12 days since my last update...whoops! :/ While I haven't been updating on here, I've definitely been journaling my thoughts and just haven't had the time to type everything up. So here's a little shpeal to get things going:
Okay so the first week we were here felt like we had done a month's worth of tourism stuff jammed into 1 week. Here's a taste of Day 1 through Day 8:
- Sunday – exploring, went for a run, pizza with group (the pizza was surprisingly good), train ride to the BEACH, out to dinner/Stones
- Monday - visited some people's service sights (got to see mine!), went for a run, café garnish with group and Melikaya and his wife
- Tuesday – Signal Hill, more service sites, run, stayed in at night to hang pictures of friends and family on my wall and paint nails
- Wednesday – UWC orientation/registration (9 am - 5 pm), traditional food at awesome authentic African restaurant (see previous entry for my "food for thought" haha sooo punny!)
- Thursday – District 6 museum, Slave lodge museum, photographs exhibit, fruit and veg market, waterfront (went on HUGE ferris wheel!), run/walk up part of mountain
- Friday – Parliament, UWC to find classes, lay outside, yoga, Long Street - 1 bar and 1 clubby bar
- Saturday – free day! old biscuit mill market, horse races, laundry
- Sunday – robben island, train, nap, run up part of mountain without stopping (wicked steep), house meeting
...phew! It may not seem like that much but combine that with an 8 hour time change and major jetlag and you've got quite the schedule. But I'm not here to give you a play-by-play of my day(s). No, I'm here to offer my thoughts and reflections on my experiences. That said, week 1 was super busy but totally awesome. Week 2 I started classes, which I am taking 4 of them: Theology of Forgiveness, Leaders in Grassroots Organizations (both required Marquette courses), Topics in Film (counts as my English literature credit and I get to watch Shakespeare movies for homework - love!) and finally Social Problems and Development (Honours level course through UWC's Institute of Social Development). Theology is awesome so far because it's designed to be a reflective course on our experiences here in Africa, Grassroots is very interesting because I know very little about social development and how these things work, English seems pretty laid back and won't be too difficult, and finally Social Problems is challenging because it's more of a work load than I expected (3 page papers every week) but I am definitely going to learn a lot. Oh well :)
Also in week 2 my housemates and I had a traditional "braai" which is an Afrikaans term that is synonymous to an American BBQ or cookout. We all prepared an American dish, invited South African friends, and it turned out to be really awesome. We even had a hula hoop contest in our backyard - totally sweeeet! And then there's week 3...A LOT has happened this past week and because of that I will be blogging about it separately (cliff hanger!). On that note, it's 12:30 AM and I have to get up in 6 hours to go to my service site so off to bed for now.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall
Isaiah 40:30
Sleepily yours,
Janelle
Keep enjoying life
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