We started service sites this week. I am already dreading having to say goodbye to the kids. I am working at place called River of Life or "RivLife." Our first day was insane. We planned out the schedule of what our regular week will be looking like. Tuesdays and Fridays we will be going to a women's HIV/AIDS support group in the morning and coming back to RivLife in the afternoon to play with the kids. Wednesdays we will be going to hang out with the "Gogos" which is a group of old ladies who basically meet because they all want to remain active. They go for runs, they do gardening, they do everything. I can't wait for them. We're going to have a dance class for them. It's going to be so great. Thursdays we will be going out to do home visits to people who are terminally ill to clean their houses or cook food or do anything they need help with.
After we planned out our weeks, the ladies who work there, Gloria and Beatrice, basically told us we were going to play with kids all day. So my team and I, comprised of 7 other girls, took all 30-ish kids outside. We went out to the tent and all the kids sat on chairs and stared at us as if they were waiting for us to do something amazing. So all 8 of us just kind of stood there...Whaaaat do we do? These kids don't speak English. We don't know any Zulu. This is going to be interesting. So naturally we reverted to good-old "Ageko Ofana" which is a simple Zulu song we learned on day one in South Africa. We figured it would be a good icebreaker since most kids we have met know this song. So we all got into it, clapping and doing the hand motions. The kids just stared with blank expressions and mouths wide open.
Aaaalright then. Moving on to Plan B.
Duck duck goose, anyone? We decided it would be semi-easy to teach kids how to play duck duck goose without using words. We figured we could just teach by example. So we got all the kids to "hlala" (aka "sit") in a circle. We brainstormed and squealed with excitement when we realized we knew the Zulu word for duck (idada), but then felt defeated when we didn't know the word for goose. We made it work though. We changed goose to lion (ibhubesi).
"Idada...idada....idada...IBHUBESI!!"
One of us proceeded to stand up and drag a kid along with us around the circle. We did that a couple times, then realized we were not getting through at all. I got picked to be the ibhubesi, and when I went to pick up a little girl she started crying hysterically. Let's just say we failed at Idada, Idada, Ibhubesi.
Then it hit us...SOCCER. It seems like every kid in the nation knows and loves this game. It was the perfect way to get most of the kids involved without having to talk.

Somehow in my time in college, I have forgotten how unsanitary children can be. There was this little boy on the first day eating a plum, but somehow managed to get the plum all over his shirt and hands instead of in his mouth. And for some reason he felt the need to jump all over me. Every kid has snot running all over his face and wipes it on you like it's no big thing. It's disgusting. But they are so cute you can't help but love them.
The second day we went to the women's HIV/AIDS support group. There are about 10 women who meet twice a week and do crafts and stuff like that. When we first got there they were all pretty quiet and didn't seem like they wanted to talk to us. Our Community Engagement professor, Frances, came with us. Thank God he did because he kind of got the ball rolling on asking questions and getting conversation going. The first order of business was getting names down of all the women. That was pretty hilarious. Their names are all so exotic and hard to remember. So we're going around and their throwing out names like Bosolile, Ututu, and then they get to this one lady named Patricia. We were praising Jesus for an American name. Interestingly enough, every time we meet an African with an American name, the name tends to be a rarity in America. Patricia for example. I know one Patricia. Shout out to Aunt Pat. Heyoo. The other lady who works at RivLife is named Beatrice. I have met one Beatrice in my life as well, and that was my friend's hamster. It's still a wonderful day when we have to remember a name that we find familiar. The women are absolutely amazing. They are all HIV positive and look like they are mostly in their late 40s or 50s. The women had the translator ask us if we were sure we wanted to be there and if we knew they were HIV positive. They tried to tell us they would understand if we wanted to bail out early because most people in this country run away at the mention of the word AIDS. It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear that. We assured them we wanted to be there and we weren't scared of physical contact. To show them that we all got up and went around to give each woman a hug. You can tell they don't get hugs very often because they held on as long as possible. After they knew we weren't scared of them or weren't going to run away, they got more comfortable. They pulled out all their crafts and tried to teach us how to crochet. They crochet plastic bags. It's incredible. Like they make mats out of plastic bags they find lying around on the street. I suck at regular crochet, let alone crochet with a plastic bag. It's a bad situation. I'll leave the crochet to the ladies. It's hard to communicate with them because there is only one translator, but we will make it work. I'm really excited to go back.

I already have a favorite child. His name is Aya and I want to take him home with me. He is so cuddly and has the most beautiful big brown eyes. I am in love. I just love love LOVE my service site so much. The next few weeks are going to fly by, but I'm going to love every second of it.

Last weekend, we took a fatty luxury bus around South Africa to tour four different battlefields from different wars that have happened in the past few centuries or so. Rumors say that the Brazilian soccer team is going to be using the same bus when they come here for the World Cup. But that’s just a rumor. I left my number under one of the seats…just in case.

Our battlefields tour guide, Tony, was one of the most interesting people I have ever met. I’m not exactly sure how to begin describing him. He was a precious 75 year old man. I have never met someone with a greater passion for history. He was just PUMPED. Unfortunately, our group of 53 students didn’t feel the same way. I found myself, once again, standing in the hot African sun listening to someone talk about something in which I had no interest. I really wanted to have an interest in what he was saying, but I just couldn’t find it anywhere in my being to be genuinely intrigued. Sorry, Tony. There were so many ways in which Tony unknowingly added humor to our day. The first was the loudspeaker in the bus. Let me just set the scene for you. We’re riding on the LUXURY bus with the cushiest seats I have ever had the pleasure of sitting in. The low hum of the bus on the long open highway slowly but surely lulls everyone into a slumber. Everything is peaceful and then suddenly Tony’s voice comes on the loudspeaker and scares the crap out of all of us because it’s so loud. I think the fact that the loudspeaker’s volume is turned all the way up, and the fact that Tony is hard of hearing makes it that much more intense. Here we are Tony. You have our attention. This better be the best announcement I have ever heard in my life.

“And over to your right, you have a cow. But more on that tomorrow.”

And that’s it. We were woken up for THAT. It was upsetting but hilarious at the same time because everyone was just like “Really, Tony? Really?” We learned a little something else about African culture this weekend. Apparently it is rude to yawn when listening to a lecture like that? Tony got on a couple people’s case about it. He called them tonsil masters or something to that extent. It was so funny. We were so confused why it was such a big deal. Then I got called out because Jake threw a frog at my head and I made a small ordeal about it. But after I attempted to explain to Tony that I wasn’t trying to waste his time and that I just been scared for a small second because I had frog juice on my head, I realized he probably didn’t hear me at all. He just thought I was a rude American for the rest of the day. Woops.

Last Sunday was SUNDAY FUNDAY. We had a lot of fun. Obviously. We made a giant slip ‘n’ slide and played on it all day. I had soap in my eyes and scratches on my arm, but it didn’t matter. I was officially 5 years old again. I actually didn’t do slip ‘n’ slides a lot when I was younger. I’m kind of self conscious as to how I look when I go down one. My family used to judge me on the way I jumped in the pool. They told me I looked like a horse. What if I look like a horse trying to go down the slip ‘n’ slide? I know some people took video footage, so I suppose I’ll find out soon. My body was so sore from that stupid thing. I’m getting too old for this kind of stuff.

The week before last we had finals for our elective classes. So I’m done with Biology, and I have to do a seminar and final project for art class by next week then that class will be done too. We started service sites today. In the words of Tony, “But more on that later…” The children wore me out today, but another update will be coming soon!

When was the last time YOU got a manicure set for going to church? That happened to me yesterday as I was getting on the bus to go back home after church. A man ran up to us and mumbled something as he reached in his grocery bag only to pull out little teddy bears for each of us. It was oh so unexpected. We thought that was all, but the guy had something better up his sleeve. Homie pulls out a MANICURE SET for each of us complete with cuticle scissors (mom, I’ll remember to keep these in my suitcase on the flight home unlike you usually do), nail file, nail clippers, tweezers, and a nail scoopie thing. I was PUMPED. Maybe I should go to church more often. Just kidding, Jesus.
I was sitting next to this little girl during church, and for some reason she thought the ideal time to have a conversation was during prayer. Thankfully, it’s a charismatic church, so everyone else is talking. It just sounds like you’re praying too. Sorry, Jesus.

On Friday night we had a bonfire. We were going to make smores, but somehow we ended up doing trust falls instead. The bonfire pit is like 5 feet off the ground. So it’s really not a pit. It’s more of a stage. I’m not even sure how it started out, but basically we went through everyone. We had them get up on the pit, say a confession, and fall back into the arms of their peers. I have a few favorite confessions I’d love to point out right now.

Staci Beukers aka BEUKIEEE: “My mom really does have it goin on.”

Josh Hulkkonen: “I watched Made of Honor everyday for a week before coming here.”

Tony Jien: “I think I’m attracted to big black women.”

It was such a fun night. My clothes smell like nast bonfire leftovers, but it was worth it. There was chocolate there too. So obviously I enjoyed myself. At one point, there were like 8 girls swarming around the mondo-size chocolate bar. It was as if we hadn’t already had a whole bar to ourselves that day.

Saturday was my favorite day so far. We drove for two hours to get to the Drakensberg Mountains. We hiked up this gorgeous valley…it was just indescribable. The main reason for us to be there was to see these San-Bushman cave paintings. We looked at the paintings for like two seconds. There was a tour guide. She was so strange. I can’t even explain her accent. She told us about the cave paintings, but no one was paying attention. Duble thought the cave paintings were graffiti. The only thing that got our attention was the tour guides clicking capabilities. Zulu is the language they speak in this area. And the language has 3 different clicks. I personally have major issues with the concept. But this woman was crazy. I don’t know if it was because she was in a cave or what, but her clicks sounded like sonic booms. It was so impressive. After the two seconds that we spent looking at the caves, we hiked back down to where the river was. One of our coordinators, Leslie, asked us if we wanted to take a little swim. So of course we agreed. I found a spot on a rock and pretended I was one of the mermaids from Peter Pan. No one thought I was cool. It’s ok, though. I had a lot of fun. The current was so strong. We found ourselves a little rockslide that hurt like hell, but provided so much joy as seen by the pictures. After you went down the rockslide you had to stand up to keep from being swept away by the current. The only problem was the floor of the river was so slippery. You do the math. It was pretty entertaining.

The fight against the monkeys is officially on. There’s even a Facebook group for it. Obviously it’s legit. We all got pepper spray this week to spray in the monkeys face if they’re misbehaving. Yesterday Alex van Buskirk sprayed it on cheetos and lured the monkeys in to eat them. You may feel bad that the monkeys were hitting their hands on the ground because they were burning, but I don’t and neither do half the people on this trip. Those monkeys are Satan in primate form.

The highlight of the week: enchiladas for dinner on Friday night. The kitchen staff made guacamole. It was so fantastic. Given it’s not momma’s guacamole, but it was still great. I’m hoping now that we are making food suggestions, the food will start to progressively get more varied. It won’t just be meat. With rice. And on good days maybe a piece of fruit.

Today is my first day of the last week of classes. I have so much to get done before finals next week. But I have to push through! Thanks for reading ☺

I used to go to the mall to buy clothes. Now I just go to buy chocolate. Even after a day like Valentine's Day, i still crave it. I don't understand what has triggered the chocolate lover in all of us, but somebody needs to do something to stop it.

So this week was crazy with papers. I guess it’s midterm time? I feel like I just started school. I guess technically I did. We only take these classes for 6 weeks then we’re done. Praise his name. I’m sick of school.

I took three field trips this week. The first was to an art gallery in Pietermaritzburg where we went to the cutest coffee shop in the whole world. The second was my weekly bio trip where I had to measure awesome grass plants and determine the species in the biome. Dang, I’m such an expert. Yea, it was ots of fun. Especially when we got lost and had to walk through marshland and grass up to my face. I got jungle scratches all over my body. I was kind of like Steve Irwin. All that was missing was my love for nature. Just kidding. I love nature. Just not when I’m in a bad mood from playing with weeds and yardsticks in the hot African sun. My third field trip was to another art gallery in Durban. We went into the city part of Durban rather than the beach. It is such a cool city. And of course, we had to stop at a coffee shop to have a cappuccino.
My visits to art galleries always seem sort of adventurous. Our teacher has this strange habit of leaving the entire class in the dust. The first trip, people were still getting off the bus in a strange part of the city we’d never been in and our teacher DARTS, and I mean DARTS like a freaking gazelle. She crosses the street, so some people follow her in a frenzy not realizing the light has turned green. Meanwhile there’s a cop waiting to drive. It’s seriously the funniest thing ever. She just is horrible at leading a group.

On Saturday we took a trip to the beach in Durban. I am just loving the fact that it’s February, and I am getting a tan. The beach we went to was chock full of CREEPERS. There were guys walking past us like taking pictures and recording video of tanning girls in bikinis on their phone. Nasty. So at one point in the day, we heard this tribal drum beat coming from the boardwalk. A few of us got up to go see what was happening.

Oh, cool…it’s a Zulu tribe doing sweet tribal dances.

Oh, cool…they’re doing kicks in the air.

Oh….cool….the girls are topless….

I know that in America someone would get arrested for that, but apparently here, girls are allowed to let loose and flop all over the place. Literally. It was total culture shock for all of us. But we had to pretend we weren’t appalled so that everyone would think we were locals. I think it worked.

Last night, the activities committee, which I proudly take part in, set up a Valentine’s Day dinner for everyone. We had a delicious Italian meal and listened to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole all night in dim lighting. It was so romantic. I found out who my super secret valentine was. It was Rob VerWys. He gave me a painting from the market we went to in Durban. He also gave me a card with really artistic borders. He’s the best valentine ever.

I got my first attempt with the paintball gun today. There is a paintball gun on campus that is supposed to be used for monkeys and other animals. However, my target was Staci Beukers. She offered to be my target, so it’s not cruel and unusual punishment or anything like that. Staci is the coolest. I sing Stacy’s Mom to her all the time, and she always tells me how original I am. Thanks, Staci.

Week 3. Complete.

OY.

This weekend.

It was one of the most frustrating, yet one of the most fun weekends ever. We took a field trip for our Intercultural Communication class to a city called Pennington, and stayed at a little summer camp type place. The motive for the week was to communicate. Interculturally. We were "thrown in the deep end," as our professor Clive said.

Our road trip was only supposed to take about 2 hours. But of course, Clive's car had to break down. So we all had to pull over and wait at a gas station while one of our other cars went back to tow him. However, while towing the car, Clive was pressing the brakes so he wouldn't run into the car that was towing him. His brakes gave out. His transmission was dead. Car totaled. Ten million hours later we get in the buses and head out. We must have pulled over for various reasons at least five times. And I swear, every time we pulled over, that song about the ipod stuck on replay would be playing--if that gives you any insight into how much we listen to that song. We finally got to our destination after what seemed like years of driving. Even though we were disgusting and sweaty all day, the bus ride was so fun. We taught our driver's (Philip) son Musa about thizz and gave him Kanye glasses and took pictures of him. We're such great influences. But I must say, he throws up T's like a thug.

So one thing that is a big part of South African culture is the lack of punctuality. If you know my mother, you know that she has taught me to be on time to everything. There was a lot of frustration with that this weekend. We would be told to get to the buses at 2:00 and would not leave until 3:00. It was never the students' faults either. It was always the leaders who held us back. But hey, T.I.A. right? That is what you say when you're late here. It stands for This is Africa. And in Africa, time is of no importance. I'm going to have to get used to that one.

I'll save you the rest of the frustrations of the weekend and focus on the POSITIVES. We got to go to the beach on Saturday for a few hours. I can officially say I've swam in the Indian Ocean. I've decided warm ocean water freaks me out especially when my friend said that we had to pee so we could say we've done it in the Indian Ocean. Um GROSS. It just made me think about how much of the warm water was actually warm water. There were so many people in the ocean too. It was just disgusting. But the waves were lots of fun. And I got a starter tan. Ayoooo!!

One of the points of the field trip was to be completely immersed in the Indian culture which is pretty prevalent in this part of the country. Shout out to Chandni. I ate Indian food and didn't complain, even when there was a twig in my rice. I was proud of myself. We also went to an Indian church. That was weird. It was definitely not the kind of church I'm used to. At one point the pastor asked for anyone wanted to feel the hand of God to come up to the front. Then the leaders of the church would come put their hands on their foreheads and like intensely pray. Then one chick just ate it. She fell on her back and smacked her head on the tile, and no one even went over to check if she was oh, I don't know, alive? It looked like she had fainted. Then other people were like stumbling backwards, and one guy was like yelling and the girl he had his hand on was like screaming and crying. And there we were. Just awkwardly watching because we didn't know what else to do.

I saw a sunrise over an ocean for the first time. To be honest, it's just like a sunset over the ocean, only backwards. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful. But I don't think I'll ever wake up at 4:30 am to watch it again.

I have a million papers to do this week, so I should get on that. Thanks for reading all the way through this :)

biology class=death on a stick

So I know these five hour lectures have to be done so we can spend Thursdays on awesome field trips, but this is quite possibly the most boring class EVER. I am sitting here listening to the teacher talk about oyanthus pyriformis and beetle pollination. She's currently studying beetle pollination, so she's pretty passionate about it. How someone can be passionate about a topic like this is something I will never understand. I feel kinda bad just because everyone in the class has their eyes glued to their computer. Today actually contained a hint of excitement when we got to watch Planet Earth before tea. That excitement was short-lived...especially when we came back from tea and the stupid monkeys had attacked the bowls of mints!! Oh, the mints. So basically some magical mint Santa Clause comes in the night and fills little candy dishes with these "Mint Imperials" in all our classrooms. They are seriously my one vice that gets me through every class. And now I have none. Because of the monkeys.

There's too many monkeys too keep track of. The one monkey I can always recognize, however, is Blueballs. He is the alpha monkey. And yep, you guessed it. He has blue balls. It's not just like blue, but it's like BLUE. Like God took a flourescent highlighter and colored them in. Every time one of us sees him run by, at least one person will shout out BLUEBALLS! It's not inappropriate. It's nature. I should know. I'm in biology. I have to write a journal for this class. Do you think this blog entry counts?

Ok, so I've officially dubbed Cynthia Johnston as my movie quoting partner. The other day we sat next to each other on the bus, and discovered our mutual love for quoting Selena. I am currently iming her back and forth with quotes from Mean Girls. Yea. I'm learning alot. Rodent pollination is the topic in class now. Rodents digest pollination. Who knew!?

Oh score! Class is over. Success.

Week One.

Hello family and friends!! I've been persuaded by the lovely Jamie Hunter to start a blog of my adventures here in South Africa over the next three and a half months. I don't know how good I'll be at keeping up with it, but I'm going to try my hardest to update you all!

So. Where do I even begin? I'm starting to settle in with a new living situation, new food, new everything. My roommate is Amberly Vergason. She's from Alaska, so she was automatically cool. I live in a cute little chalet with 7 other girls and about 102948 different species of spiders and other creepy crawlies. Seriously. There are bugs everywhere. I can't handle it. The other day I walked in my room, turned on the light, and saw a lizard dash across the wall behind the curtain. I had to go to class, so I couldn't take care of it right away. Even if I did have time to take care of it, I have no idea how I would go about getting a lizard out of my room. For all I know it could still be in there. Gross.

The food. It feels like I never stop eating. We have breakfast at 7:30 am every morning, then morning tea at 10:00, lunch at 1:00, afternoon tea at 4:00, then dinner at 6:00. I basically have class all day every day except Tuesdays. So in between eating I am just sitting. It's a bad situation. I'm going to gain 100 pounds. But as far as exercising, this is one of the greatest places you could do it. The game reserve is right down the road. It is absolutely beautiful and full of animals! I had my first zebra sighting the other morning! I'm also going to be doing a lot of different hikes and things like that with my biology class. We sit through a ridiculously boring lecture for 5 hours on Mondays, but on Thursdays we take field trips to different places in the area. This last Thursday we went on an incredible hike up to a waterfall. There's just so many beautiful places in this country. I love it!

I'm meeting so many great people and forming amazing relationships, and it's only the first week. This is going to be a great semester.