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!

Update from Africa!!!

Hello everyone! I’m sorry I have been so awful with my blog, I’ll try and write more regularly from now on, it’s just hard to find time to get to the cafe during the day, it turns out there is no internet at our house, so I’m just writing it offline now and then will hopefully post it tomorrow afternoon.

So AFRICA!!!!!

I love it.

It is so incredible here, I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful it is.  I’m staying in a tiny surfer’s village called Muizenberg, it’s about a 20 minute drive/50 minute train ride to Cape Town.  The ocean is about a five minute walk from my house, and there is a huge beautiful mountain that overlooks the town.  (below is the view from House 2)

It has been going amazing so far! My last flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town was good, I sat next to a guy named Muzwi who lives in Cape Town, so he told me all about it, and got me really excited! I arrived at the airport around 9:30 and just went to House 2, and went to bed that night, but it was 3:00 pm Winnipeg time, so I didn’t really sleep at all! It took me about 4 days to get adjusted to the time difference, but I’m used to it now.  Monday we had orientation, that was really good, I met all the other volunteers, such great people, I’m very blessed to have made such good friends already! Lots of Brits and Americans, a few Canadians and Australians, one of my really good friends is from Denmark, that’s really cool.  There’s this one guy named Ross.  He’s from Texas.  Very classic American.  Then there’s Rachel.  She’s from London, and is awesome.  Ditte’s from Denmark, Lizzie’s from LA, Smit lives close to New York, so we’re really from all over the world. 

In the morning, we drove through the township where we work, the poverty level is heart-wrenching.  Everyone lives in shacks, there’s no insulation and it gets VERY cold here, so you wonder how they stay warm at night.There’s stray dogs everywhere, pretty big ones too, but they’re so feeble, you know they don’t have the strength to attack you. We visited all the different projects, Sunrise is the childcare centre where I’ve been working, a different school is called Shack 10, and it is literally a shack amongst the other houses. When we walked in, Tim said that they had just done a lot of work on it and that it looked a lot better, and I couldn’t imagine what it must have looked like before. It really makes you appreciate how blessed you really are!    There is also Christian Davids, and the art project, and then surfing and football in the afternoons.  In the afternoon of our orientation, we took the train into Cape Town, such a  beautiful city.  We walked around for a little bit, and then went through the Company Gardens, that was really nice.  However, just as we were exiting the gardens we hear a man shouting in Afrikaans at another man.  He runs past us, holding a huge knife trying to stab the guy!  We all stop and stare (which probably wasn’t the smartest idea looking back on it), and then he starts throwing the knife at him, and we decide that we should probably keep on walking.  I was definitely thrown off by that, a stabbing in the middle of the day in a busy area of town, and no one was doing anything about it.  I definitely experience major culture shock the first couple of days, but now I’m settled in.  

Tuesday morning was my first day working in the township, it’s about a 30 minute walk from our house.  As a safety precaution, all the volunteers walk together in the morning to the township.  A few volunteers were mugged a couple weeks ago, so we like to stick together.  It’s weird, at home if I was walking downtown and I was scared of someone, I would look away and not make eye contact.  But here, if I’m a little uneasy walking past someone, I look right at them and say Hello or Good morning.  I’m not sure why, but it seems to be working pretty well so far. I have been working with this one class at Sunrise, and wow, I am in love with these kids.  Within a minute of walking into the classroom, all the kids are hugging you, yelling “teacher, teacher,” and trying to jump on you.  They adapt very quickly to new volunteers.  It’s been almost two weeks working there now, and I really feel like I’m starting to know the kids.  There are a couple of them though, it’s going to be awful to leave them, they really tug at my heartstrings.  One little boy named Nawaaz, and a girl named Michaela.  (picture on the left) Nawaaz is 4 years old, and the biggest sweetheart.  We have this routine on the playground where he’ll climb up to the top of the structure, then I’ll put my hands on my hips, frown at him, and say “Are you ready?” in a low voice, and he’ll be like “Are you ready?” and point at me, trying to frown, but usually smiling, and then he’ll jump into my arms, and I’ll swing him around upside down, he has the cutest biggest smile the entire time.  Oh, and he loves to grab my hand and then climb up my legs and flip, that’s quite popular with the kids, I remember I used to love doing that to my dad when I was little.  Michaela is the cutest little girl.  She’s in her own little world sometimes, and will just start dancing, she has some good moves!   She also has epilepsy.  I brought my camera to Sunrise one day, and out on the playground, she followed me for an hour.  First it started out, “And me, teacher, and me!” meaning she wanted me to take a picture of her.  So I took a ton of pictures, they always love taking pictures and looking at them afterwards.  So that was good.  But then it changed to “And you teacher!” and she wanted to take pictures of me.  If you give one kid your camera, then you’ll have 500 kids all over you, so I was trying not to give it to her, but she really wanted it so I gave it to her, it was so cute, she would lead me to certain areas where she thought would be a good background for a picture.  The best part was that she wouldn’t actually take the picture though!  She didn’t quite understand that you had to press the button all the way down, she would just quickly tap it.  She is so adorable, I can’t even describe it.  I was shocked on my first day though, the kids I work with are between 3-4, but wow, they are so much more mature than that.  They know way more than they should at their age.  Living in the township, they have to be very street smart.  A lot of the children live off the food we make them at school, they don’t get any food at home.  You can tell, they always scrape the very last of their bowls, some try and steal extra food as well.  It just breaks your heart to think of what these kids go through.  We don’t know a lot about their home situations, but some kids have knife scars on their faces, things like that.  It’s so sad, there’s this one girl who we know is HIV positive, and none of the kids want to play with her because of the sores on her face. Today she was wearing a turtleneck, and she pulled it up to try and cover her face so that they would let her join them.  It’s a very emotional experience, but I am loving every second of it.  The kids are having a concert on October 30th, so we’ve been practicing, we’re doing a dance to “Twist” by Elvis, it is so cute, I’ll have to record it at the concert and upload it, it’s adorable.  I love having dance parties with the children.  :) Their favourite song though, hands down, is “Baby” by Justin Beiber.  Somehow, every kid knows that song, but only the one line, so they’ll all sing “Baby, baby, baby, oooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh” over and over, it’s so adorable.  So I am loving working with the children, it’s so amazing.  We’re done volunteering around noon, then go over to House 3 and have lunch.  The surfing project runs in the afternoon, so usually a bunch of us will go down there and watch for a bit, hang out with the kids, and then go to the cafe or to get groceries.  But yesterday I decided to tag along and go to the soccer program, that was so much fun! Apparently it’s a lot different this week, because the older kids are on holiday from school, so there’s a big tournament going on and whatnot, so I’ll tell you how it goes when I go again.  But yesterday, the tournament went late so we watched the game, the kids were probably around 12-14, and wow, they were incredible.  The game was taking a long time, so we took the kids out to a field and just played monkey in the middle with the ball, then once the tournament was done for the day, we had a scrimmage.  The kids were probably around 9-13ish for the most part, and they are so good! They put me to shame, and I love it!  I think I’m going to start going to the soccer program on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as well, it’s so much fun. The kids here are really so incredible.  The locals are awesome too, I’ve met some really cool people! Supper is at 7, and then usually we’ll sit around and talk, play a card game, watch a movie, or go to the melting pot (the local hangout). It is very laid-back here, so different from North America. 

On Friday, we had the day off, since it was Heritage Day, so me, Ross, Rachel, Ditte, and Julia climbed Table Mountain!! That was an exhilarating experience!  We took the train to Cape Town, then took a taxi from the train station to the foot of the mountain.  It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the top, but we stopped a lot, and we also had a half hour detour when we made a wrong turn!  It was really cool, you could feel the change in the air as the elevation increased, the air became more watery. I drank some of the spring water from the mountain, which I thought was really cool haha. It was so beautiful, I had to stop a lot to take pictures, I got some really nice ones though I think.  The view was so spectacular, especially when we finally reached the top!! I remember when the end was in sight, me and Rachel ran, I think I was screaming “Yes!” over and over, a lot of people were looking at us pretty strangely, but we were so happy to finally be at the top.  It was so beautiful to overlook the city, and to be at the same height as the clouds, we were even above some of them.  

The temperature difference was astounding though! When we were climbing the mountain, I was hot in tank tops and shorts, it felt around 27 degrees. At the top of the mountain, it was 8 degrees!! And very very windy.  So we didn’t stay up there for too long, the other girls were so cold, but me and Ross were determined to get a few pictures of us on top of the world! It was such a wonderful feeling, such a spectacular view. We took the cable car down the mountain, that was really cool, it only took two minutes to get down! And the floor spun around, so you were able to get a panoramic view as you descended. 

Friday night we went into Cape Town and went down Long St., that was really fun. On Saturday, Rachel, Julia, and I took the train to Claremont to do a bit of shopping, it is a lot colder here than we were anticipating so we all bought blankets that we carry almost everywhere. Saturday evening we just took it easy, my throat was really sore, I actually lost my voice this morning, I’ve had no voice all day, it’s awful! On Sunday morning we went to the market, that was lots of fun! I bought two nice bracelets for R20, two pairs of knee high socks, two South Africa shirts, and an amazing  African toque. After lunch, we went down to the beach where a big surfing competition was taking place.  They were trying to break the world record for the most surfers on a single wave.  Muizenberg currently holds the record at 110 people.  Unfortunately, we were only about to get about 90 people, but it was still really cool to see! On Sunday night, we just had a night in, watched 3 movies, one of which was Blood Diamond, I would highly recommend the movie! Most of the movie was filmed in South Africa and Mozambique, Tim was able to point out where each scene was filmed, which was really cool! This week we haven’t done too much, just volunteered during the day, and then hung out in the evenings.  Last night, me and Ditte saw the strangest animal! We were walking from House 1 to House 2, and a cat ran across the road, except it had the strangest fattest tail!  We went over to the yard to look at it, and its face looks exactly like a typical cat. But then it scurried away, and it jumped like a rabbit! So we’re going to google it, and try and figure out what it was. Anyways, we’re headed off to dinner now, I’ll try and write again soon though!!




*update: I googled the animal this morning, and it is called an African wildcat!!!!*

*Delayed blog from the Johannesburg airport*

Wow, what a crazy journey it has been! I am currently sitting in the Johannesburg airport, IN SOUTH AFRICA, but i can’t get onto the internet here, so I’ll post this entry as soon as I get internet access. I am almost there! It has been so crazy. I guess I’ll start at the top.

I left Winnipeg at 5, went to Calgary, and then flew from Calgary to Newark, New Jersey.  That all went very smoothly.  I then had a shuttle pick me up in Newark and take me to my hotel. That took about two hours, traffic was pretty bad, I had forgotten just how crazy New York driving is.  There are lanes on the road, but they aren’t really followed, you’ll often see 3 lines within 2 lanes, all kind of half in each lane.  I got to my hotel around 7:15, and it was already dark outside!  So that was disappointing, but I still decided to go out and walk around.  So I walked from my hotel at 77th St, to Times Square, which is around 42nd St.  It was good to stretch my legs after all the sitting.  The flash is something that I haven’t had the chance to fool around with on my new camera, so the pictures weren’t as good as I was hoping, but I think I got a few good ones! 

I was walking back to my hotel(the picture on the left), and figured I should probably get something to eat, since I’d only had a muffin since Calgary at 9 am! I made it back to my hotel room, and talked to my parents, it was nice to hear their voices, I didn’t realize how lonely it is to travel by yourself! I didn’t really sleep much that night, my hotel was right on the corner of Broadway, and the city was so loud! Around 1:30, it sounded like garbage trucks were picking up garbage! It quieted down around 4am, but I had to get up at 5:30, I got around 2 hours of sleep though.  I woke up at 5:30, as my shuttle was coming up at 6:30. I went to open my laptop to check my emails, and my laptop wouldn’t turn on. I tried unplugging it, plugging it back in, different outlets, pressing and holding the button, nothing. So I started freaking out, naturally - my laptop is only a month old too! Thankfully, I had my iPod Touch with me, so I went onto the internet with that, looked up Apple Support, tried some stuff, and managed to get it to turn on. Yay!! By that point, it was 6:15, and I thought, “I should double check what time my shuttle is coming.” Turns out it’s 6:20!!!!! OH no. So I’m quickly scrambling around, madly throwing stuff in a bag, and my phone rings. I pick it up thinking it’s the front desk saying my shuttle is here, but no, it’s my mom! Apparently the shuttle called my home phone, saying I wasn’t here and he didn’t want to wait for me. So I quickly raced into what is the world’s smallest elevator (seriously, I could hardly fit in it with my bags), got down there, and thankfully, he hadn’t left. When I got into the van, it said 6:19. Meaning he was early, so he couldn’t have left anyways! So that was a bit of a stressful morning, but it all worked out okay. I got to JFK airport at 7, and had a few hours before boarding, so I found a little corner with an outlet, and charged my laptop (except the plug wouldn’t stay in the outlet so I had to hold it in the whole time!) I got onto the plane, and wow, it’s huge! That was my longest flight, 13 hours from New York to Dubai.  I had never been on an international flight before, it’s so different/amazing!! When I got in my seat, there was a pillow, a blanket, headphones, and a little goodie bag (socks, eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste etc.) on it!  The meals were better than I was anticipating as well. I had pre-requested a vegetarian meal.  The first one was a pasta with cheese and asparagus, along with some salad, a bun, and some mousse with coconuts! The supper was a cheese wrap that was pretty gross, but then breakfast was good, scrambled eggs, a croissant, fresh fruit, and some yogurt. I also used the time to get caught up on my movies.  Legit that’s pretty much all I did. I slept for almost 2 hours, I had the window seat which I LOVE. I got to watch a beautiful sunrise this morning as we were flying over Kuwait.  And it was really cool to see Dubai as we were descending. So I love Dubai. That was the layover I was most concerned about, just because I wasn’t sure if there would be a language barrier, and it’s the most foreign for me.  But no, it was amazing! As I was getting off the plane, a nice man befriended me, he was from the US going to North Siloam to deliver school supplies. He helped me get through security, and then find my appropriate gate. So that was nice guy number one.  Then I had to go look for postcards for my collection, found 2 I wanted to get, but only had American money, so I went up to the till, and asked if I could pay with that. He asked if I had a $1 bill, and I said no, the $5 bill was the only one I had.  The guy in front of me was lingering around, and he asked me if I had enough money. I said, “I think so!” But he pulled out his wallet, took out $10 dirham bill (Dubai currency), and told me to take it. I said no it was okay, but he insisted, saying he wasn’t going to use it. I thanked him profusely, and then he even went so far as to ask the cashier if that would be enough. Seeing as my postcards came to $1.50 dirham (which I now know is about $0.40 US), the cashier said it was more than enough, so I got back $8.50 dirham! I looked around to give him back his change, but he was gone.  That was nice guy number two!! So then I had some leftover money to spend, as well as the US money I hadn’t used yet.  There was a huge junk food store, it was crazy. They had separate sections for Kit Kat, Toblerone, Mars etc. I thought it’d be cool to get something different, so I got a little peach can drink and some milk flavoured candies, but I haven’t had the chance to try them yet.  I wanted to keep the $5 dirham bill for a souvenir, so I was hoping that the three coins I had would be enough, but of course they have Arabic writing on them, so I have NO idea how much they’re worth. So I went up to the cashier and asked him if it was enough to get it, and he said it was (it came to $2.25 dirham, and each coin was worth 1 dirham) But he gave me back one full dirham, so that I would have enough money to get a drink or a chocolate bar if I wanted.  That was nice guy number three. :) Everyone was just so friendly! At this point, I was in love with Dubai, it was such a cool airport.  They even had a Ferrari kiosk in the airport! (I looked at stuff for Taylor, but it was all very expensive). Oh, speaking of Taylor, they had a toy store with a huge model car selection! Who would have thought? They had so many Lamborghinis and Ferraris, I was very tempted to get one for him.  And then I saw a really nice S2000 model... and I wanted to buy it, but I realized that it was fairly large, and probably wouldn’t be fun to carry around for the next number of months, so I held back. Anyways, I loved Dubai, so I decided I should use my leftover American money to buy something to keep from Dubai, because realistically, who knows if I’ll ever get back there again!  But I only had $5 US, and all the nice shirts and whatnot were a bit more than that, but I managed to find a nice basic hat (bright pink with a palm tree and the word Dubai on it) for 10 dirham, which turned out to be less than $3 US! Such a good deal. :) I’ve been wearing it ever since, which is good because my hair is looking pretty nasty by this point! I am so looking forward to sleeping in a bed tonight, and hopefully showering soon!!! I did have a hazy view of the world’s tallest building, it was in the distance, and was foggy, but I can see I’ve seen it! 

The flight from Dubai to Johannesburg was good, I was able to sleep for quite a bit, which was a blessing.  I was on a window seat from New York to Dubai, which is amazing, but from Dubai to Johannesburg (which was another 8 hours), I was in the middle of a section of 4, I felt very constricted! But thankfully it went pretty fast, as I slept for about 4 hours I think! And now I’m in Johannesburg. I’m pretty sure I was swindled, but not too much I can do about it... I knew ahead of time that on my flight from Johannesburg-Cape Town I was only allowed to check one bag for free, and that I’d have to pay 40 pounds to check an extra bag. I went in to check my bags and they said I had to go to a different line to pay my fines, so the guy came out of the till and said he would help me, so he led me to a different line, and they said I would have to pay R1800  and to go upstairs. So the guy took me and said that I could pay him, because it would only be  because me and the guy from the other till had a deal where they help each other out.  I think they take the money for themselves and don’t process it.  I didn’t really have time to challenge it though, and there was a bit of a language barrier, and it was two guys who work there, so I didn’t really know what to do. He was leading me upstairs and said that I should pay him in the middle of this moving floor because there are no cameras there.... I only ended up paying him R80, like I said, super sketch but I didn’t know what else to do so I just went along with it! 

Anyways, I got to go board my last flight, I will soon be in CAPE TOWN!!!!!!!

Waking up to go to the airport in less than 3 hours!

Hello everyone.
So as most of you know by now, I am still in Winnipeg. But ONLY for a few more hours!!!

My new flights are booked!!!!
The cheapest flights out of North America for when I wanted to leave were in New York. However, they leave New York at 11 am. The problem that I found was that I couldn't get from Winnipeg-New York in time to make this early flight. So I will now be flying out a day earlier and staying overnight in New York! I went to New York for the first time earlier this summer, and fell in LOVE, so this is very exciting news!
So I will now be leaving this Friday at 7:15 am, and flying to Calgary (the wrong direction I know!) and then to Newark, which is an airport just outside of New York in New Jersey. I booked a hotel (the same hotel where Mark Twain used to live coincidentally!) in Manhattan, a few blocks away from Central Park. Then in the morning, I will go to JFK (their huge airport), where I will fly to Dubai of all places! I'll arrive there Sunday morning and have a three hour layover, then to Johannesburg and Cape Town, where I'll arrive around 9 pm on Sunday. 
So that's the new plan! My organization has been very gracious in deferring my start date for two weeks, so I will now be starting this Monday. Crazy!!!

I always like knowing what's going on in the city I'm going to be in, so I looked up what's happening in New York this week. And it's FASHION WEEK. But I'm getting there the day after it ends, so all the celebs will probably be leaving, maybe I'll run into some at the airport! But the amount of big names that was there right now astounded me. Just in reading one article, they named like 50 big names, including: Ralph Lauren, Naomi Campbell, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Gwen Stefani, Nicole Richie, Victoria Beckham, Tom Ford, and pretty much anyone else you can think of! Then I looked at concerts happening this week. I'm missing Jay-Z and Eminem by three days, they're there tonight actually. Seawolf is playing the day after I leave!!! But even on the one night that I'm there, there are two concerts that I would love to go to: Trey Songz (my gangsta guilty pleasure) and Of Montreal.  That's my favourite thing about New York, how there is always so much going on.

Anyways, so that's what's happening with me. I am happy to report that I am now feeling all better, it took about a week, but it's all good now. :) 


I've said most of my goodbyes, that's been the toughest part, but I am very excited for this adventure to begin!!

Wasn't meant to happen that day...

Hey everyone, as many of you know, this has been a pretty rough week for me, but I figured I'd let you know what's been happening/what the plan is.
I was set to leave for Africa last week, I managed to pack six months worth of clothes and everything into one huge backpack! I was pretty impressed about that, because I really really really don't like packing light!
Me and Taylor thought it would be nice to go out for dinner on my last night here with  the fam, so we went to Boston Pizza where I enjoyed a caesar salad. Had I known how much trouble that salad would cause, I definitely would have gotten something else!!
Spent the evening with Taylor, said goodbye to him, and headed up to bed to get a few hours of sleep before my long journey began. My stomach was a little uneasy, but I figured it was just nerves, excitement, or a combination of the two. After spending the majority of the night in the washroom, I wasn't so convinced. (Total puke count: 17 times by the way, not fun!) With the help of my family, I managed to get to the airport. However, even there, I couldn't keep anything down. At one point I had to race out the airport doors and puke in a corner. Not my finest moment. We talked to the airline, and they said that I wasn't able to fly in this condition, and that I would have to reschedule my flights. Devastated, I returned home, where I slept all day (which was good since I had been up all night), while my mom took care of all the important stuff (cancelling all my flights and rescheduling them to Sunday, even making a phone call to South Africa to inform my organization of the situation) Then we went to the doctor's. She said that I most likely had food poisoning, or perhaps a stomach flu, but either way I was not to travel for 5-7 days.
That is precisely what I DON'T want to hear at that time. So we had to cancel my flights AGAIN (which is not a cheap thing to do, let me tell you), and we contacted my organization to figure out what I should do.  The program that I was to be doing starts every two weeks, so they suggested that I just defer my start date for two weeks. So, that's what I think is  going to happen, I'm going to start working on September 20th, so I'll probably fly out there for the 18th or 19th, depending on flights. Now I need to hope for a great flight deal!

Anyways, that's what's been happening the last couple of days, not exactly what I thought I would be doing right now, but as Big Brother (which I have watched 26 episodes in about 3 days NBD) says, "Expect the unexpected." I know God has some reason for me not flying out that day, but I would sure love to know it!!

So I'm here in Winnipeg for about a week and a half still. Got no money to spend, but a lot of free time. Suggestions on what to do?

What I'll Be Doing

A lot of people have been asking me what I'll be doing while I'm in South Africa, so I thought I'd let everyone know!

For the first six weeks I will be working at an orphanage! South Africa has a very high HIV prevalence rate, so as a result, there is an increased amount of orphans. I will be working at an orphanage teaching the children, as well as feeding, cooking, caring, and just providing the children with love and attention. Most of these children's families can't afford to send them to school, or even to feed them sometimes, so the orphanage tries to help them in as many different areas as they can. I will be working at an orphanage in the Capricorn Township for 6 weeks. This is put on by an organization called IVHQ. (www.volunteerhq.org) If anyone is considering volunteering abroad, I would definitely recommend this organization! They have been very helpful in helping me plan my trip, and are very organized. They have very reasonable prices too! 

After the first six weeks, I will be volunteering with the same organization, but doing something different: sports development! Although some children do go to school during the day, they don't have anything to do after school to keep them out of trouble! It is not uncommon to see kids begging for money on the streets, stealing, drinking, doing drugs, and causing havoc after school. This project gives them something positive to do. By promoting an interest in sports, it encourages them to focus on that, it also gives them something to look forward to.
During school hours, I'll be teaching football (soccer to all you North Americans :) ) at the local township, and then after school I'll be teaching skateboarding, swimming, and even surfing! (I'll have to learn that first myself, which is an awesome bonus!) 
After that I have a week off. As of this point, I have not booked anything for this point, I think it would be best if I evaluate once I'm there what I've already done, what I would like to do, what all the other volunteers are doing etc. HOWEVER, that being said, there is a really awesome tour that I am very seriously considering doing! It is a 7 day tour put on by Travellers Worldwide, this is how their website describes it:

"Our 7 Day Cape to Addo Park Safari is a unique, safe and affordable way to experience the thrill of game driving in an authentic BIG 5, 145 000ha National Game Park, while touring the coastal regions of both the Western and Eastern Cape. On this tour nothing is left out as we explore the Whale Route, Route 62, the Karoo and Garden Route all the way to Jeffrey’s Bay, Mandela Bay and Port Elizabeth."

You can read about it fully at: http://www.travellersworldwide.com/08a-south-africa/xtras/08-sa-add-on-tours.htm#7-day, but basically here are the highlights.
Day One: Sea boat cruise to look for whales and dolphins, walk along "Die Plaat", the longest beach in the Southern Hemisphere!

Day Two: swim in 43-degree natural hot spring, and then either: ride an ostrich!!! OR pet a cheetah, see endangered species and go cage diving with crocodiles (don't think I would do the cage diving part, although it is the only place in the world where you are able to!)

Day Three: Cango Caves, Bloukrans bungi jump (the highest bungi jump in the world!!!!!!!!)

Day Four: zipline at Tsitsikamma Falls Adventures, Jeffreys Bay (apparently one of the best surfing waves on the planet!)

Day Five: Addo Elephant Game Drive Park (the only park in Africa that has the Big 7 (Elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, leopard, the Southern Right Whale and the Great White Shark))

Day Six: Crags Orphaned Elephant Sanctuary (you can feed, walk and ride an elephant!)

Day Seven: go to an aloe factory, return to Cape Town

That would be one action-packed week! But I think it's a great/safe way to explore other parts of South Africa.  Now I just have to figure out when I'll get up to Johannesburg and Kruger National Park!

After that week off, I will be volunteering at a Penguin Conservation Centre in Cape Town. Until recently, I didn't even know that there were penguins in Africa! The African Penguin is actually considered a vulnerable species.  As recently as the mid-twentieth century, penguin eggs were considered a delicacy and were still being sold. Nowadays. their main predators are sharks and seals in the water, and mongoose and genets on land. 

At the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), I will be taught how to catch, hold, feed and tube feed the penguins! 

Below is a picture of oil-slicked penguin chicks waiting to be cleaned up!

We will be taking part in boat release programs at Robben Island, which is an exhilirating experience from what I've heard. Of course, there will be lots of other tasks that need to be done daily, including the preparation of fish (yuck!), cleaning the pens, pools and mats, and sterilising syringes. I will be working with the penguins for 8 weeks. I booked this trip through AVIVA, I was very impressed with them as well, they have a phenomenal website that is so helpful for planning your trip. Their website is: http://www.aviva-sa.com if you want to look around further.

That brings me to the end of January, at which time I'll have to see how much money I have, and what I feel like doing next! I might come home, might travel elsewhere, or might go to another country to volunteer! But I'll keep you posted as I make all those decisions!

This time next week I will be somewhere en route to AFRICA. So crazy!!!!!

Oh, the places you'll go!

Congratulations!

Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."

With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.

In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't
Because, sometimes, you won't.
I'm sorry to say so
but, sadly, it's true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump,
you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...
...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,
once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. there are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.


Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes, they won't.
I'm afraid that some times
you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win
'cause you'll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl

Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike
and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!




Oh Dr. Seuss,
what a wise man he is.
That book is the inspiration for the name of my blog.


I leave in 12 days, I can't believe it!
I'm excited, nervous, happy, scared, a whole plethora of emotions, but I know it'll be an amazing experience!