Dazed and Amazed

left cape town saturday morning and got to johannesburg later in the afternoon. We have have had days full of great food, sightseeing and learning about apartheid and what it was like to live through it and now be free. We went to the Hector Peterson memorial, The Apartheid Museum and Constitution Center/old prison that was closed in 1983. I am still trying to soak everything in and understand what was happening here while I was a teenager in America with nothing more to worry about except new clothes, my favorite song and maybe even boys. Contrast to Hector who in 1976 (I was 13, the same age as him) who became famous in is death. A famous photo of him being carried by another teen ager with his sister close behind was taken during the riot in Soweto that was fueled by Apartheid laws mandating that all children had to be taught in English and Africaans. He was shot by the police during a peaceful demonstration that went out of control.

The townships of Soweto and Kilptown are miles and miles of "informal housing", but honestly they are nothing but tin walls and roofs held in place by rocks. No running water or electricity, women were doing their laundry in buckets on the ground and hung them to dry. There are some communal structures that are used for toileting, again, no running water. Very hard to imagine unless you are here.

Spent an amazing three hours with the Boys and Girls Club of Soweto. They are open to the neighborhood from 3p-6p for kids to play, get a snack and do homework. On an average they see at least 120 kids every day. It is modeled after the boys and girls clubs at in America and tupperware has been a large sponsor. The NBA also sponsored a basketball court for them then sent a few players to celebrate the opening of it. The children there were amazing and so full of energy, happy to be there and even more happy to have extra adults to play with them. I have posted a few pictures. One is of Joe giving kids helicopter ride, he had gotten at lest 20-30 of them involved in a soccer game. There is one with me and my hair looking especially good because 1. I have no way to blow dry my hair and 2. a few of the kids decided that my hair was fascinating and wanted to play with it, two of the little girls tried to style it the way they are used to seeing their moms do it, I didn't have the heart to change it! The kids loved getting their picture taken, this little girl was especially beautiful and loved to pose.


PS---This post was done while I was on Excursion in Johannesburg but I am just getting it to you now a week later, sorry!

Hakuna Matata

hi everyone

I am very excited to post my first blog thanks to one of my students who is a computer wiz. In case you're wondering Impilo means cheers in Xhosa, one of the languages spoken here in Cape Town. The picture you see is from my balcony window and is Table Mountain. It literally comes out of no where. When the cloud starts to cover it, they call it the "table cloth" because that's what it looks like, a table cloth draping over a table. The students and the professor here with me have climbed it and I am anxious to get Joe and I out there, be on the look out for pictures from whatever elevation I make it to!

So, as you have figured out, we are here - got here without incident, but am suffering from a little jet lag. The first leg to Johannesburg was a straight 15 hours, then a 3 hour layover, which we needed every minute of because we had no idea where we were going, then got on another flight to Cape Town which is two hours from Joburg as they call it here.

I was so happy to see our friends pick us up from the airport and was greeted with the typical warm hugs from everyone. Even people I don't know, it's just the way people are here, hugging is very normal and just feels right. Anyway, Joe being the better traveller than I am made me stay awake until 10pm that night. The next day, bright and early, Vernon picked us up at 8:30 to show us around the city, university of cape town, the townships and some of the clinical facilities that we will be working in. More about that later. We went out to dinner to a Thai restaurant with the students, Nancy and her husband Kevin, and Vernon and his wife Esme. What a great night. The students are so happy and full of great adventures and stories about their first few weeks in cape town. They were also very relieved to have finished 1/2 of the leadership course and all of pedi clinical and classroom, the caveat was having 3 tests in one day....needless to say they had a little steam to blow off last night.

So today is Saturday, we left again at 8:00, went back to the airport and flew back to Joburg where we will be for the next few days sight seeing and then off to the Kruger National Park. We are having an amazing thunderstorm right now which I hear is normal, but it is supposed to clear up soon. We are going out to dinner tonight (which Joe is being very good about), but for now the students are sleeping and I am catching up on work, etc.

So far this is amazing, I have a lot to say, but will keep this short for now. Don't want the electricity to go out and loose all this info. Miss everyone, but having a great time.