i'm here. i'm alive!

Well I’m here…haha I’m sure you all know that already! Sorry I haven’t written yet. I don’t think I’m going to be so good at this journaling thing…just warning you now. The power and internet goes out frequently so that definitely doesn’t help the situation. I'm apologizing in advance for the scattered brain mess that follows...haha.

It is absolutely beautiful here! Mountains, clear blue ocean, city, vineyards, and warm weather. It’s pretty perfect. But only a few minutes in the other direction you can be in the middle of the poorest of the poor—a poverty like I’ve never seen before. Millions of Africans still live in these “informal settlements.” It literally looks like four sheets or metal for the walls and one as the roof. Quite shocking at first. It doesn’t seem right, only a few kilometers difference and you can be in a completely different and separate world. During apartheid, all of the black and coloured people were pushed out of the center of the city (the beautiful part) and forced to move to the Cape Flats which are essentially flat, sandy areas.

We are living in “trendy, bohemian” suburb of Cape Town called Observatory or Obs as the locals call it. Our house is pretty amazing. There are 13 of us from Marquette and then we have 4 other roommates, all from the US. 2 are students and 2 just graduated and are traveling the world---pretty much living the life. Each bedroom is a double so I have one roommate named Molly—yet another Molly in my life! Ha.

We were at UWC last week registering for classes and orientation. We were in the union eating lunch and walking around—and what song was blaring—none other than “All or Nothing” by O-Town…dance version. I laughed out loud for quite a while about that one. American music is everywhere, and they sure like those dance versions. I have also heard KC and JoJo’s “All My Life” dance mix…haha that used to be my favorite song.

Annnnyway (sorry Anth but you’re going to have to get used to me adding multiple letters---it’s just what I do) we went to Robben Island last Saturday. It was quite the experience. For those of you who don’t now, that was the prison that Nelson Mandela was kept for 18 years along with many other political leaders during apartheid. I have been reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography and it was really amazing to see all these places that I had read about.

Then we made our way over to beach in Muizenberg! I truly felt like I was in Africa at this beach. Boys were playing soccer on the beach right in front of us, there were colorful lil huts lining the beach, and the water was just beautiful (I swan in the Indian Ocean!) We befriended a couple barefoot lil boys in the town playing with slingshots. adorable.

We went to a holistic fair aka hippie fair last Sunday in Obs. I was pretty much obsessed with it. Last Sunday we went to a concert and packed a picnic at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens—absolutely breathtaking.

School started last week. I’m really excited for my classes actually. I’m taking an anthropology course, social problems, peace studies, theology of forgiveness, and leaders in grassroots organization. Service learning also started this week! I’m working at the Amy Biehl Foundation. It’s a really great story and organization, look it up! (http://www.amybiehl.co.za/). I’m really excited about it. I started working at St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School this morning. I’m working with 6^th and 7^th graders in the Young Readers Role Model Program. It was my first day and they threw me in a room with 12 6^th and 7^th graders for 45 minutes with no direction whatsoever. Their regular teacher said I could create any curriculum I wanted—I was pretty much on my own. The kids decided they wanted to read Harry Potter, the 2nd one, because they read the 1^st one last semester. So now I’m on a search around Cape Town to find a Harry Potter book. I have to create worksheets for them with vocabulary, characters, summaries, and I even have the power to assign them homework! I’m a real life teacher—finally, this is what I was practicing for all the years when I played teacher and made my mom be the student. I’m pretty excited about it, but it’s definitely a little bit intimidating…

In the afternoon I go to another primary school called Nomlinganiselo and work with the 1^st-3^rd graders in the after school program. They already learned my name today and as soon as they did they didn’t stop yelling “Christa Christa come” (close enough right). They were adorable, I loved it! They mostly speak Xhosa (the language with the clicking sounds!), I’m trying to pick up a few sayings—we’ll see how that goes.

It’s really hard to be in these schools though especially thinking about what I had in the schools I grew up in. These kids just run around bare foot. I don’t know what kind of pencils these were but I was trying to sharpen them for the kids to practice writing the alphabet and they have to come back after every letter to get them re-sharpened—they hardly worked. I happened to arrive early at St. Mary’s and saw the kids during morning snack. I don’t even know how to describe it. They were eating some kind of mush off of a piece of newspaper. Both of the school are in townships and surrounded by a mix of informal and formal settlements in the Cape Flats. Despite everything, most of these kids are always running around with smiles on their faces…the are quite amazing lil kids. It makes you never want to complain again.

Well sorry this was so choppy. I felt like I had a lot to say and it kind of came out as a mess, but I figure it’s better than nothing.

And I just uploaded some pictures finally!

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/cluchetta/FirstWeeksInCapeTown

(copy and paste link in the search bar, i don't know how to turn it into a link.)

I love and miss you all a lot!!!!!