1/13/11 9:10 PM
It’s after 9, and I still have energy! I sound like such an old fart. I got a good 10 hours of sleep last night, and I think that helped a lot. Yahoo!
Yesterday was a history-filled day. We had our daily History of South Africa lecture in the morning. These lectures have actually been pretty interesting. I’m not a huge history buff, but one of the main reasons I wanted to come here was to gain a knowledge of their rich history. The lectures are a bit long, 3 hours every morning, but very useful. Or professor (or lecturer, as they call them here) makes it way more interesting because he has put a lot of time into his powerpoints. Instead of just words on a screen, he incorporates pictures, songs, quotes, and history facts all in one lecture. After our lecture, we had a break for lunch and then got on a bus to head off on our afternoon excursion. We went into downtown Cape Town (with an awesome view of Table Mountain) to visit the Slave Lodge. It was a little eerie, knowing that it was the exact place where so many slaves were held in such miserable circumstances. It’s one of those moments when you wonder, “how could a human being think that it’s ok, in any circumstance, to treat a fellow human being in such horrible ways?” It’s been on my mind all day today as well. There was so much information, and we were there for such a short time that it’s hard to not think about it more. After the slave lodge, we went to Bo-Kaap, a primarily Muslim community in downtown Cape Town. If you’ve ever Googled pictures of Cape Town, you most likely will have seen images of brightly colored homes. This is where we were. It was crazy hot, and I almost passed out in the oldest mosque in the southern hemisphere, but I still enjoyed it as much as I could…considering the circumstances. I learned a lot about the religion, which was cool cause I really knew nothing beforehand. At the end of the day, I was exhausted and not feeling so good. I was ready to be home and rest my brain after a day full of history.
Today I got to Skype with my parents for a short while before class. Unfortunately, I got there late and we had a little misfortune on getting the sound to work. But once it was up and running, we got to talk for a few minutes. I’ll be honest, I started crying the moment we started talking. It was a weird feeling. It’s like… you don’t realize how much you miss someone until you see them or hear their voices. I was on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for the rest of the day, but I am still grateful to have the opportunity to talk to them. I’ve also gotten to Skype with Taran a couple times, which has been great, of course! J After class, we had group reflection time. We’re going to have these every once in a while with the study abroad group to be there for one another and reflect on the experiences we’ve been having. Afterwards, we came home and headed to a field down the street to play soccer with our host brothers. It was really fun, and I think it allowed us to break the ice with them. We were joined by a random neighbor kid for the game, who managed to ask me on a date and tell me I was beautiful. He’s 12, don’t worry Taran. ;) We came back and made a batch of sugar cookies, but managed to smoke out the kitchen when trying to preheat the oven. OOPS! We waited for Lavona to get home to put them in the oven, and now we have a delicious batch of cookies to enjoy. I did a little homework (I have 5 papers to write in the next 2 weeks, and that’s just for one class), and now I’m writing to you all!
Each day gets a little easier and flies by a little faster. Hallelujah!
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