Africa Update

Hello! So I am officially the worst blogger EVER. I am keeping a journal out here as well, and can barely manage to keep up with that! There is just so much to do out here, it’s hard to find time to sit down and write, when you could be doing so many other things! I am still going to Sunrise in the mornings, with my same class, they are so incredible. Yesterday we had a little mishap though.  I was outside on the playground, when Gregory came up to me, crying hysterically.  He’s not one of the kids that cry a lot, so I was a little concerned. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t tell me.  After about 10 minutes, he stopped crying and went to sleep on my lap, where he proceeded to sleep for the next hour! Everytime I tried to move him, he would just start crying again. We began to get more concerned, and so we examined him, and he had a huge bump on his head! So we took him inside and didn’t let him sleep during nap time, we think he got a concussion. He wasn’t at school today either.

Other than that it’s been good though. We’ve just been practicing for the spring recital this Saturday.  The kids are doing “Twist” by Elvis, and the girls are doing “California Girls” by Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg. Today we walked to Capricorn Primary School to have a dress rehearsal. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get into the gym to practice, so we had to walk straight back. It was quite the journey getting my 20 little hooligans all back in one piece! 

We have also found chameleons at Sunrise!! The other day, I found one and named him Cornelius, and held him for an hour. I wanted to bring him home, but then I realized that he would get tame, and then be too dependent when I had to go home.

There’s been a few incidents in the township. Well, I’m sure there’s been more than a few, but just a few that we’ve heard about. One event that frightened me particularly happened just outside of Sunrise, at 1 pm, about an hour after we left. A guy around our age was trying to steal a car, and a group of guys caught him, murdered him, and wired him up on a lamp post. 

Onto happier subjects, I have found a really good church here: Hillsong Cape Town!! It is incredible, I am really enjoying going there. The praise and worship is amazing, they have a lot of musical talent! And the pastor, Phil Dooley, is a really good speaker, he has a lot of energy for God.  The church is only two years old, so they haven’t had a building yet, but they just bought one! The building that they bought used to be the biggest nightclub in South Africa, how cool is that! In the meantime, we have church at various venues, usually at a conference centre, but last weekend it was at Ratanga Junction, a theme park! There was a morning service, and then a praise and worship service in the evening, they had Jad Gilles from Hillsong Sydney leading worship, it was really really good. 

As for free time, well quite a bit has happened! I went on a safari weekend, I’m going to make a separate post for that, just to break it up a little bit. Other than that, hmmm...

At the beginning of the month, a group of us went down to Boulders Beach and visited the penguins, they were really cute! Gone to Camps Bay a couple of times, went swimming in the ocean, it’s really chilly!!! I went to a soccer game at Green Point Stadium, that was awesome!! It was Ajax vs. Santos, Ajax was dominating for most of the game, but then near the end of the game, the ref made a cheap call, and gave Santos a penalty shot, which they scored off of the rebound, making it a tie game. 

It was really cool to be in a stadium where the World Cup was!!! BUT it did make me really angry that I didn’t get my act together and come here 3 months earlier! So I have decided that I am definitely going to go to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014.  :)

(It's not letting me post any of the soccer pictures, but if I get it working I'll post them later!)

I have started running here as well, there is an awesome route that I take that goes along the ocean from the Muizenberg train station to St. James. As you’re running, the mountain is on one side of you, and the ocean is on the other. Although I seem to have a habit of going at high tide; the last few times I have gotten soaked by waves! But that’s okay, it keeps you from getting too hot. :) I also see some nice seashells sometimes, and the other day when running with Ross, we saw a whale! That was very exciting for me, as somehow I hadn’t seen one up close yet! It was jumping and merrily flailing in the water, I didn’t want to stop running but I couldn’t look away so I jogged in place, staring at it, got a few funny looks from people, but that’s okay.

All in all, things are going great here.  The weather is really starting to heat up, I am already pretty tanned, kind of scared for how dark I”ll be in a few months! A new blonde girl, Nancy, has moved into House One as well, making us the Five Blondies. Us five, and Silvana, a new girl from Switzerland, are moving into the back flat of House Two next Monday sadly, as Mandy (the program co-ordinator) wants to privately rent out the house we are staying in right now.  I’m not looking forward to it, but it will be nice to get away from the fleas! We are all currently covered in flea bites! See, in our house we have two gay male cats, Simon and Bajangles. Bajangles is pretty loyal to Simon, but Simon is a frisky little cat, and likes to roam the neighbourhood, doing who knows what with who knows who!  We have also had about five different stray cats in our house, as they just come in through the cat hole in our door.  We’ve tried spraying our mattresses, which has helped a little bit, but we’re still getting bitten, so hopefully when we move, the bites will go away!

Anyways, that is a very brief sypnosis of what I have been up to, I will make another post shortly about my safari weekend, and hopefully write again soon!