St. Lucia and my Other Life Adventures

Hi all!! This past weekend we went on a safari expedition to St. Lucia, the largest game reserve in all of South Africa! I’m studying here through a program called Interstudy, and this excursion was prepaid for as part of that program. It was amazing; my three closest friends I’ve made here are also in the Interstudy group so that made it the best. We had awesome accommodation; there were 4 people to one room/suite (2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, living room, and kitchen! It was like a mini house). The game tour on Saturday started at 6:00 A.M! Good thing I’m a morning person… But it was actually so easy to wake up for it; I was SO excited to see a simba up close and personal! Our guide was incredible, he told us stories about how he’s been attacked by a lion and had his jeep lifted up by an elephant’s trunk! He would spot the animals, pull over, and explain cool facts about the species. The first animal we saw was a giraffe, then we saw zebras and buffalos pretty soon after. In total we saw a lion, zebra, giraffe, buffalo, wildabeest, worthogrhino, hippo, and crocodile! It felt like I saw such an awesome, essential part of South Africa.

Besides that awesome little get away, my life here is getting very interesting. The longer I stay here the more Durban feels apart of me, I’m learning so much about different aspects of culture here. We’ve been spending a lot of time with my friends Thando, Clarence, and Thabiso (Tubs for short). We hang out in the township that Thando lives in to have braiis (delicious, amazing barbequed meat!) and that is always a hilarious adventure. The boys we hang out with don’t quite understand it, but for a white girl to show up in this township isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. So we get a lot of “Can I get your picture??” and how many cows they would offer us to marry them. Part of it is funny and comical, but after the 15th person to tell us how beautiful we are (translation: you’re American and we think you’re rich) gets a little ridiculous. But I try and just laugh it off, its something I’ll miss.

For a while Tubs and I kind of started liking each other, but it is a whole different world here. It’s hard to get close to someone when we expect such different things. Just a small example, the other day when the braii meat was done, I took a knife to start cutting it and got yelled at by my friends because “girls don’t cut meat”, I’ve never wanted to slap someone more in my life. Some parts of Zulu culture are just a little backwards to me, but it’s been fascinating getting to know a different life. This isn’t why things with Tubs and I are over, but a lot of little things like that I think accumulated and I just got really sick of it. To put it simply, a lot of the boys in relationships here don’t show as much respect as I think I would want. But it was a very mature, mutual ending and I like being his friend so much more! He’s hilarious, and kind of an ass hole at times, but when I’m not thinking of him as someone I’m interested in as more then a friend, then I can just laugh it off and look at him as a friend who makes me laugh. Win win!

Let’s see, what else is happening in my life. Classes are trucking along. In my Understanding Violence in South Africa class we just watched the documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” a film by Michael More. The facts/images/ideas of America portrayed here is astounding. I think people look at us as one collective unit; a patriotic, gun loving, war obsessed, selfish country. I wish they could understand how diverse American political systems and thoughts are, because it really makes me feel horrible to have my country be looked at in such a negative light. It gets so tiring having to defend myself, my country, and my culture. If I had a dime for every time someone told me (excuse my language) “American culture is so fucked up” I would be filthy rich. I knew that America didn’t exactly have the best reputation world wide, but I didn’t expect this much hatred. It’s good because most people are able to understand the difference between America and Americans, and are able to get to know me as a separate idea from my country. It was just pretty comical, almost awkward, to sit in that class during the documentary. I wanted to make a little disclaimer saying not all Americans are so violent/ignorant. But it was a learning experience as is everything I am experiencing here!

My Zulu class is awesome as always. I can’t believe I’m learning a little bit of that language. I had my first test/oral and I got a 76%, which here is a B+!! Couldn’t believe it, I can actually speak some Zulu! Gnithanda ukufunda isiZulu! (I love to learn Zulu!) That class is the easiest to make friends in, because it’s relatively small and we all kind of make fools out of ourselves. Just now I met a girl who just moved from Jo’burg and had lived in Cape Town as a little girl! So awesome, I want to see both of those cities SO badly. She said she doesn’t know much about America but she really wants to visit “Route 66”. New friend, yay!

I’d say about 90% of the people I meet here, my first conversation is one of race. It’s awesome because I think I mentioned this before, while there is apparent racism, everyone is so open to talking about it. Even Tubs admitted to me yesterday that this country’s issues with race are very backwards. Clarence told me that if he were to bring me home to his Grandma, she wouldn’t let me in the house because I’m white. So interesting to hear someone honestly admit this. On Friday we met Tubs’ friends who are “colored” (mixed, they don’t actually know what they are, just a mix of many different ethnicities) and Tubs was explaining that their culture is a world apart from Zulu culture. I made a joke about how that sounds pretty sweet right now, because the aggressive/loud/stubborn aspects of Zulu culture have been starting to get on my nerves. But we have been spending so much time getting to know Zulu way of life (which I’ve been loving) and it would be so thrilling to get to know a different culture. Yesterday we met Thando’s family, his mom and mom’s sisters. They are so sweet, all very young and so excited to meet us. Thando’s cousin (who we all call his brother, cousin isn’t really a concept, your Dad’s brother’s family is the same family as yours) is dating one of the Interstudy girls Elena, which is how we met all these boys. It was such a fun time meeting them!!

It’s kind of scaring me that it has stopped “hitting me” that I’m in South Africa. Lately my mind has finally wrapped its head around becoming a part of a culture that is infinitely different then the one I grew up in. Little pieces of South African life are tiptoeing their way into my life. This one I love—Instead of saying “really??” or “seriously?” everyone says “is it?” It just sounds prettier. And “how are you?” is “how’s it?” And “bro” or “dude” is “bru”, which rolls off the tongue a whole lot faster. Later Friends!! Thanks again for readinngg

My Life Update

Hello again! Sorry it has been a while since my last posts, I’m kind of getting caught up in my life here. It doesn’t feel like a vacation anymore, it really feels like I live in South Africa. I’m figuring out this culture slowly and I really do love a lot of what SA has to offer. Everyone is so honest and open to talking about race and foreigners and their culture (whether its praise or disgust); it’s awesome. But there are definitely aspects of this culture that really irritate me. First off, in my Understanding Violence class we talk a lot about “xenophobia”, which is a term used to describe the tendency to discriminate against foreigners. I definitely feel a lot of that, they assume that Americans walk around with a sense of superiority. That makes me laugh because that is probably the last emotion running through my head as I walk through campus. Racism is definitely a part of that as well, I get these intense stares from mostly older black people here. They won’t look at my face, they’ll look at my body as if I can’t see them doing it, and they make a face of pure disgust. Every time this happens, I look down at my shirt thinking I spilled something nasty on it. Sometimes it gets really hard to deal with because I just want to scream “I came to your country to learn about this awesome culture and society, I want to be here, I love it here, and I’m taking Zulu! I love your language!” But I just smile and say hello. And one more aspect here that is getting increasingly irritating is the lack of efficiency. It’s kind of cool because it makes everyone relax and not take things too seriously. But sometimes when I really need something done and a teacher is “out of office” for the day, it really messes things up. It’s kind of just a generally slower pace around here, I’ll explain with a perfect example of how things just don’t work when I tell you about my most recent weekend. So those two things are the only things I’ve learned to dislike about South Africa, but at the same time I love it because it is something I would never discover in the U.S. I’ve also adapted an attitude for dealing with the racism: If I come across a rude person, I just take him/her as just that; a rude person. I have stopped linking those faces with the color of my skin because that will just take away so many opportunities to meet wonderful, nice, welcoming black people.

I am obsessed with my Zulu class. It’s about a 15 person class, most are South Africans from different provinces who speak a different language. SA has over 10 official languages I think! Some of these people pick it up in a snap, as they speak a different but very similar language to Zulu. A couple other people are Afrikaans, which is a Dutch based language and is what most of the white people here speak. It is not a very pretty language and I’m really glad to be learning Zulu instead. Sawubona umama, usaphila? (Hello mom, how are you?) It’s a pretty easy language to pick up on, the structure is very simple. I’m absolutely loving it! So fun to talk with my Zulu friends about it, they see it as a very respectful thing that I’m doing which is awesome! That’s another thing about SA culture I love; respect, loyalty and pride are HUGE here. “Ngifunda isiZulu eThekwini” I am studying Zulu in Durban!

This past weekend a couple of us traveled to Drakensburg, right near Lesotho. We kept joking the whole trip that we were on the set of the Lion King. It was so nice to get away from Durban for a little and into a more rural look into Africa. It was amazing to be there. We stayed at a hostel at the base of the Drakensburg mountains and were surrounded by miles of open, flat fields. I took a bunch of pictures but none of them seemed to do this place justice. It just felt so calming being surrounded by nothing but nature. This place was so much in the middle of no where that we actually got stuck there for an extra night. The bus only runs at certain times and wouldn’t take payment over the phone/internet, so we had to take the bus a day later then we originally wanted. The day we wanted to leave things like this kept happening. We had to pay in cash but none of us took out cash, because it’s so stupid to travel with a bunch of cash. The nearest ATM was 3 kilometers away, and there just happened to be a massive wind storm outside. But we took it as an adventure, rented a couple bikes and took off. The dry, strong, sandy wind was extremely difficult to bike through, but we had no other choice. About an hour later we got to the little shop in town and the machine says “out of order, see attendant”. We ask the owner and she says “oh, right, the machine is out of money.” This is what I referenced earlier in the blog about how things just shut off or break and there’s no solution to fix it. So that day actually turned out to be hilarious, if we were more uptight it would have been a disaster but we just had a comical outlook. We definitely learned a lot this trip, we can’t be as spontaneous as we would love to be, because getting stuck in the middle of South Africa wasn’t exactly ideal. But everything worked out and it ended up being a very successful trip! Next time we travel there we plan to go into Lesotho, we just didn’t have the money to spend on that trip this time.

We’ve been spending some time at the township that our friends Tubs and Thando are from. At first it was not really scary but more embarrassing. We were clearly out of place and pretty uncomfortable, but our friends are so welcoming and fun about the whole thing. We went to a house party one night and at the end of the night the cops showed up (guess the cops crashing parties is a universal thing!). But they were terrifying. We were outside waiting for a ride home when they came, about 2 cars of them came and they all had guns, aimed! I don’t know anything about guns, but these weren’t hand guns they looked more like shotguns, they were slung over their shoulders. One of them posted up next to the gate to the house and had his gun positioned towards the crowd!! My heart was pounding watching this, which is funny because aren’t cops supposed to make me feel safe? But our friends explained to us that there was nothing to worry about. It was a really fun night!

Sorry this one was so long, didn’t realize how much I had to write about!! More soon I promise! Thanks for following

Classes!

Today was my first day of classes and it was interesting, mostly uncomfortable and a little scary, but definitely interesting. Since registration didn’t happen on the day it was supposed to, I went to my classes unregistered. Which wasn’t a problem except that it was really difficult to find the classes I wanted to sign up for. Today I went to my psychology classes: Community Psychology, Youth Risk and Intervention, and Understanding Violence in South Africa. Community Psychology was pretty boring, I’m kind of annoyed that I have to take classes that get me credit at home because what’s the point of studying abroad if I’m just taking classes that I can take at Miami? But I try not to think of it that way and sign up for the most interesting classes possible. My Youth Risk class didn’t seem very interesting today but hopefully it will get a little better; it will focus a lot on how and why adolescence get them into at risk events (unprotected sex, drug abuse, violence). It seems like it will focus a lot on HIV/AIDS because that is one of South Africa’s major problems. It’s really difficult because I love participating in class; one of my least favorite feelings in the entire world is when a teacher asks a question and not one student answers. So in my Youth Risk class the teacher kept asking questions that no one would answer and I so badly wanted to answer, but I felt so nervous. I know hat you guys are thinking, I should just be myself and participate in these classes but it’s scary as hell!! I’m the only white girl in most of these classes and I’m terrified for them to hear my accent and assume all these horrible things about American students. One of the questions she asked was “what does social well-being mean?” and no one answered! Can you believe it, such a simple question. So I raised my hand and answered to have social well-being is to surround yourself with a supportive, happy community/social structure. The answer was fine but my heart just about stopped mid sentence when the entire class turned around and looked at me, because of my accent. I can’t really adequately describe how scary it was. I know they weren’t judging me but just to know that for that time every single person in that class was thinking about me and looking at me, scary scary scary!! So I was kind of shaken up, I know I’ll participate again soon but maybe I’ll make some friends first and get to know the teacher before that happens.
For the last class of the day I had Understanding Violence in South Africa. And this will hands down be my favorite class. I don’t even care if it doesn’t transfer, what I learn and experience in this class will be enough to call my study abroad experience a success. He started out this class talking about how the subject matter doesn’t appeal to everyone, and he wants to know what we’re getting ourselves into. I mean, “Understanding Violence in South Africa”, I’m preparing myself for the worst. He starts a discussion about what violence is and we talk about rape on campus and he asks us what he thinks the percentage of female students who get raped is and the lowest percentage someone called out was 20%...the lowest!!! Someone said 70%! I just sat there in awe. The class dismissed the 70% pretty quickly, but I was astounded that the lowest estimate was 1 in 5 girls. It’s just really interesting to hear about all of this, and how I am sitting there trying not to have my eyeballs pop out of my head, growing up in Ross and then going to college in small town Ohio. But I had to tell myself during this whole class this is exactly the reason I chose South Africa. I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and see how other cultures experience life. My peers here have grown up in South Africa, these statistics aren’t surprising to any of them. As if that question wasn’t eye opening enough, the next question asked was “How many of you have been held to gunpoint with your life threatened?” and TEN people raised their hands!!! It’s about an 80 person class!!! So crazy, I can’t really explain what it felt like to be in that room at that moment but I’ll try. I have never felt more far away from home but it wasn’t a bad feeling, I felt like I had instantly become more open minded and a wiser person. If I had ever come close to being raped or held to gun point (I’m so sorry to put that image in your heads but this is what was going through my head in my class today!) I can’t imagine my life ever being the same, yet these people who I will soon call my friends have experienced just that and it’s not an unlikely experience to have growing up in this country. It kind of blew my mind, it will be really interesting talking openly about my experience (or lack their of) with violence in America, because I have been fortunate enough to grow up in safe communities. Classes were scary but such a great experience, I can not wait to learn more. I’m also trying to get into a Zulu class, I would love to learn some Zulu so I can figure out what my Zulu friends are saying about me in front of my face!

On a happier note, we met our president, Q (her name is actually a Zulu name that starts with a “click” but I can’t pronounce it!) of our Residence Hall today and she invited us to a brie (I mentioned earlier, it’s like an American BBQ 2.0) that she is throwing this Saturday! She’s so sweet and welcoming, she talked to us about race here. It’s still very much segregated, walking around campus it’s crazy to see how segregated the groups are. Whites hang out with whites, blacks with blacks, and Indians with Indians. It’s a weird concept because I know there is very much still a feel for racism in America but it’s not so openly admitted, or talked about. Q told us that everyone is very open to meet international students, its just more of the locals that segregate themselves. White South Africans would love to meet us and hang out with us but would give our black South African friends weird looks if we ever tried to hang out all together. Which is a concept that almost brought me to tears. I absolutely love this loud, flamboyant, fun South African culture and they seem so forward in so many aspects except this race thing, which is understandable once you think about when the Apartheid ended. In America the civil rights movement occurred half a century ago, here its so fresh in everyone’s world its too hard to let go of so quickly. Which I understand, I just hate it. Q told us to keep an open mind, and that “some people you meet will try to close it, but keep that thing open!” I look forward to all these obstacles I’m about to face, and have started to face, because I really think I’ll grow so much from them!!

School's Starting and Melanie's Birthday!

School starts this week! It’s been a hilarious process, we tried to register for classes a couple days ago and it took about 4 hours of our time and we accomplished nothing. My school, UKZN, is a very good school but things aren’t quite as efficient and accessible as I’m used to in the U.S. Registration is all on paper, and we need signatures from the head of the department for each class we want to take. So the day of registration, we all gathered in a room, chose our classes and wrote them down. As easy as this sounds, it was so stressful. Credits are different, and its not easy to convert UKZN credits into Miami credits. Our next step was to go to each department, I needed Psychology and History, and obtain a signature. Not knowing my way around the campus made this step pretty difficult. Luckily for me I got both signatures I needed, but a lot of the other head of departments were “gone” for the day (funny that they chose registration week to leave) so a bunch of the other international kids didn’t get the signatures they needed. So these first steps took about 3 hours, but we finally got everything we needed and the last step was the have the Dean sign our paper. Get this—the Dean was out of the office. So everything we did that whole day didn’t count because the Dean was gone. So I start class tomorrow without being registered! It’s pretty comical to me, I kind of enjoy how different the educational system is so far. In America, everything is almost too efficient, but here everyone and everything is a little more laid back, less stressful.

Last night, Sunday, it was our friend Melanie’s birthday and it was a blast! We went to a place called Joe Cool’s, this restaurant turned bar at 7 pm right on the ocean, such a sweet venue. It was so much fun because our entire group of foreign exchange students came! All 20 of us, plus our good friends Tubs, Lunga, Thando, and Clarence. We took up the entire dance floor! Sunday nights are big nights here, its pretty funny. It’s so interesting to see all the different crowds out at different places. I talked about “Cool Runnings”, the crowd was a lot more laid back, but at “Joe Cool’s” it was such a funny scene! It’s pretty popular to have a faux-hawk going on in a lot of guys, and this is exactly the kind of crowd that was at this place. All the guys were dressed with Ed Hardy shirts, greased mohawks, and dressy shoes. I snuck a picture so I’ll upload it to this post! And the girls that were paired with these guys looked pretty hilarious, ratty looking straight hair with the shortest dress you’ve ever seen, showing as much cleavage as possible. Another fun thing about this place was the outside part. There was the bar/dance floor, then a porch area outside. We hung out on the porch when we were tired of dancing and we looked out by the ocean and saw a group of little boys dancing their ass off!! I kid you not these kids could show up anyone from any dance movie ever. I took a video I’ll upload onto facebook because my words wouldn’t do it justice. These kids could moonwalk better then Michael Jackson. I was sitting with Clarence (Tubs’ friend) and he just said to us “Welcome to Africa!” Made me smile pretty wide. My favorite part of the night was when the DJ played the World Cup song, by Shakira. Every single person you’re around goes crazy when that song is played, it is an absolute blast. “This time for Africa!” Ah, such a good one. I don’t think I’ve had more fun dancing to a song in my entire life. It feels so good to be here after the Cup, every South African has such pride knowing their country hosted the biggest sporting event. Thando was explaining how it felt to watch SA score their first goal, he was out at a bar and everyone’s glasses dropped to the floor and the bar erupted with screams. Part of me would have loved to be here for that, but it feels pretty amazing being here in the aftermath of it all, such pride and accomplishment is felt for this country. The Durban stadium is outstanding! Liz and I watched a club rugby match the other day right next to it!! So spectacular.

Cool Runnings! It's starting to really hit me I'm in South Africa..

The last couple days have been really cool. I’m starting to feel like I know this place a little better. We had orientation for my school and it was with all the international kids, which I thought would be more but actually there’s only about 20 of us. We started with a bunch of lectures about health (mostly HIV/AIDS) and safety on campus, and then went to a brie (pronounced like the beginning of BRIde) which is basically a social party/BBQ. This was so much fun, the diving club on campus threw the brie for us and they are sosooso nice, we had scuba lessons!! I went scuba diving in a pool!!! And it was really relaxed, they all were drinking which I thought was funny, it’s a school sponsored club. That night we went to a spot called “Cool Runnings” which is this Jamaican style restaurant/bar, and it is the coolest place I’ve been to yet. Thursday nights are the drum circle nights!!! This group of people just jam out with drums, and occasionally a couple people will get up to dance to the beat of the drums! It was absolutely crazy to watch them, so much talent. I played the drums in the drum circle!!!! It wasn’t even as scary as I thought, this guy got up from the circle and just handed me his drum (it was a little one) and I just tried to keep up with the beat! Pretty difficult, my hands were throbbing after. But worth it! This place was very different from the spots we’ve been going to. I feel very very very out of place everywhere I go, but this place was definitely the most noticeable. Race here is very interesting, a concept I’m still trying to figure out so I’ll explain better when I’m more familiar with it. But like I said in a previous blog South Africans are excellent at picking out where you’re from, so it was a little uncomfortable being 1 of 5 white girls in the bar. It was pretty cool because this wasn’t just a tourist attraction, it was a place where locals like to hang out. I did feel very out of place but it was nice to know that the people around were interested in where I’m from, not in a creepy way but in a genuine way.

The other night a random, small world moment happened. I ran into Ross from the hostel two nights ago! We were going out to the same bar! Ummmm can you say fate? Such a happy coincidence, it was so great to see him again! I didn’t get to talk with him too long, but the fact that I happen to run into him in this huge city was crazy! But that was a bad night because my phone got stolen! It’s so incredibly common that it’s not a safety hazard it’s regarded more as just an inconvenience. We just went to a street market and bought new ones, which were all stolen phones as well, Annie and I jokily tried to find our exact ones. It only cost us 120R, which is about $15!! I was really upset at first because I was more in the US mindset that if my phone got stolen it would be such a hassle and a lot of money, and would mean that I was in a dangerous part of town. But here people just assume that if you have a cell phone, you have the money to replace it. They figure they need the money to support their own family more then I need it to enjoy my time here. But still, I hate how easy it is to get stuff stolen, I was holding my purse and he still managed it, it was our cab driver home. They are so stealth about it. I just have to start keeping my money and my phone on my body, instead of in my purse. I know you guys are probably thinking its just one more thing that I didn’t keep track of because all of you know me well and know I lose things, but I want you all to rest easy knowing that I am very responsible. I misplace things at home because its safe and I don’t really have to think about my personal safety. But South Africa is a very dangerous place, something that no one could have explained to me, I just have to experience it. Being put into a situation where anywhere you walk all eyes are on you with people thinking “here is a rich American on vacation, in that purse she has a camera, phone, and money”. All essential things to carry around (I leave my camera home a lot though), so I am constantly aware of how close people are to me, what exactly is in my purse, all of these things that take a huge emotional toll, but really necessary. Basically what I’m trying to explain is that I know that a lot of you guys are worried that I won’t be safe here but I am! You can’t afford not to be. And it’s been such a learning experience, so rewarding. I’ll update again soon, thanks again for following!!

HOSTEL!

Hello friends!! Warning: sliiight chance I may never come home. Get excited to hear about this blog, all about the hostel!!! Our amazing cab driver Akay hooked us up and recommended this place called Mantis and Moon, a straight paradise set inside a jungle. Right on the beach, every aspect of this place was packed full of relaxation. Alright, so we get in around 4 pm on Friday and get settled, the guy who greets us is a chiller from Seattle who has traveled to everywhere in the planet. The guys who work the place have the best life I could dream of. They’re travelers who are looking to stop and work for a while, but since it’s illegal for foreigners (unless you have a Visa that allows you to work) to work in SA, they can’t get paid. So instead they help out (cook, welcome guests, bar-tend, teach surfing lessons) and in exchange get a free place to live and free food and drinks. It’s amazing because they get to meet people from ALL over the world. Just in the three days we stayed we met guys from Australia, London, a lot of local South Africans, Scotland, and some other Americans. So all of the guys running the place are the coolest, most interesting people I’ve met. Stories of their travels have made me just want to drop everything and see the world!! I’ve realized how sheltered America is and there is SO much out there!

The first thing we did when we got there was jump in the INDIAN OCEAN!!! How many of you can say you’ve done that?? It was pretty spectacular. We swam around for a little then headed back and ate this amazing dinner the hostel prepared for us, the food so far is not too exotic, pretty similar to what I’m used to, a lot of chicken and vegetables for every meal. After dinner all the guests got together and hung out at the bar area. We met a friend, Colby, who is from Durban and just graduated from our school! She was so excited to meet us and the feeling was mutual! We walked off and started a fire and she came to meet us later saying “Where are my American friends??” We talked for a while around the fire, she explained a lot of SA culture to us. I told her how it’s a little scary and caught me off guard to have everyone immediately know where I’m from and from that base a lot of conclusions about my character. Colby explained that South Africans are impeccably good at figuring out other people. This is a country bursting with diversity, skin colors/accents/clothing, even the way people walk are indicators that South Africans can read really easily. She said that while some people here definitely hate white people as a leftover sentiment from Apartheid, most of the people here are just thrilled and interested to meet you, knowing you traveled so far to make it to this wonderful country. She told us to “be ourselves, because phony’s are ellgghh”, and we all had a good laugh, a huge relief. She promised to take us out to the best spots in Durban. The most amazing thing about this culture is that the random people you meet never stay random. Every single person I’ve met and had a connection with, I’m still in contact with. So there’s no fakeness floating around the social scene. If you spend hours talking to a person and truly enjoying those hours, there is no reason to not spend more hours of your life doing just that. Crazy thought huh?

The second day we had surf lessons!! I surfed in the Indian Ocean! I got up and surfed those waves! So much fun, I think the days of surfing when I was little really did help! we ate another amazing dinner and the second night was fun, because we were better acquainted with the people who worked at the hostel. I really have a hard time calling it work, because we chilled with these guys and they did everything we did. I was particularly interested in a guy named Ross, he’s from Scotland and he is a “tree surgeon”, which he tried explaining but I still don’t get it. He was one of the most interesting people I’ve met in my life. We got along so great, it was awesome to realize that some things (humor, music, optimism) are universal. I’m not trying to jump to any conclusions here but I’m almost positive Ross is my future husband. His Visa is about to run up so he’s traveling to Mozambique for a week and heading back into SA for 3 more months. He’s such a cool guy, it is so interesting and amazing to get away from the American way of getting to know someone. Here, people seem to be so much more interested in a life story. A thousand times more honest and genuine, at least so far I’ve been lucky to meet people who make me feel this way about their culture. This hostel (I’ll put up pictures!) is the most amazing place on the planet, and we definitely made up our minds about staying there again.

Getting to Know Locals

This place is incredible!! We’re settling in a lot and getting to know the area better which makes it a lot easier and more fun to get around! We’ve been getting to know a couple locals who go to the university with us and I cannot explain how much better it is knowing people who’ve grown up here. I’m getting close one of them especially, his name is Tubs. The first night we met we went dancing with all of our friends and had a great time, then all came back to the dorm and stayed up late talking. Liz, Tubs and I were chilling in my room and Tubs was telling us how and why we can come off as offensive because it’s really hard to sometimes not say the wrong thing. Tubs was saying one thing in particular is to not assume South Africans know nothing about America. A couple of the kids here are from Maine and Liz and I said something like “He doesn’t know where that is” referring to Tubs being unfamiliar with the states like Maine (as in not a more well known one like New York or California). We didn’t mean it offensively we meant it more as a respect thing, we didn’t want to be self centered assuming everyone knows everything about America but it came off as us thinking he was ignorant of America. But it was a really emotional talk with him because we all have been feeling a little like the locals here think of us as stupid Americans and its starting to take a little bit of a toll sometimes. Just imagine going out and any where you go people instantly know you’re foreign and assume your stupid and easy to take advantage off. I was starting to feel really bad; if I insulted Tubs then I might have insulted a lot of people accidentally. He said something that made me feel so much better, he said “why should you care if you insult a stranger on accident? They will forget about it in a second and you shouldn’t waste your time worrying about how you make everyone feel. Everyone in America wants to be friends with everyone, caring about how all of these people think of you. But you can’t be friends with everyone! Just worry about how you make your friends feel. I am your friend, I felt comfortable telling you that that was insulting.” And it really got to me, it made me tear up because I really did feel he was so welcoming and I needed to hear him say those things. Last night we all went out and had an amazing time. We went back to the “Booty Bar” and had an incredible time enjoying each other’s company. At one point we suggested drinking games and one of Tub’s friends said “All you Americans always want to play games when you drink, why not just drink?” Which is such a hilarious concept. So much laughter last night, it’s really feeling great to fit in a little better here. We’re off to a hostel for three days! We rented a car and are driving to this amazing spot on the beach, it will be such a fun time!!

Day Three

Hello again!! Durban has been absolutely incredible. The only thing is we haven’t been able to connect to the internet. For one thing there isn’t wifi in the dorm that we’re living at (aannd facebook is banned during the day) so whenever we would want to connect to the internet we have to go to the library but that hasn’t been working for any of us. So I’ve been writing these blogs on a word document and saving them. But if you’re reading this it means we finally connected, yay! And I keep running out of minutes on my cell phone, so no internet and no cell phone, yikes!! It’s bringing us a lot closer though, we have nothing to do but entertain ourselves together! Having no internet at our dorm means we’re going to be going out a lot more to avoid boredom, so that’s the silver lining!

Alright, so it is day 3 and we had our first night out last night! Interstudy hooked us up with the awesome cab driver, Akay, and he is the most caring helpful person in the world! We went out to dinner in the city last night and he took us over and gave us his welcome lecture; “you can do anything you want in my cab, the only thing I won’t allow is that three letter word.” He almost brought us to tears because he was so kind and helpful. Durban isn’t exactly the safest city (sorry Mom, you might want to skip this next bit, I love you! I’ll be fine!) and pick pocketing is super common, so he told the girls to keep our money in our bras and just always be on the lookout. But anyway, we go to this Italian restaurant Akay recommended and it is the chillest atmosphere! The weather couldn’t be better and the restaurant was really open, all the walls were windows. And to top all this off we have the most gorgeous waiter, like the kind of attractive where I couldn’t look at him without giggling. So we finish dinner and ask this gorgeous waiter where we should go next and he recommends a place called “The Booty Bar,” so of course we go because 1. How could you ever turn down a place with that hilarious name? and 2. We told him to meet us after he got off. So we get the this bar and order some drinks and fumble around with the Rands like stupid Americans. The one kind of bad thing about being here is that it is infinitely different, almost opposite in culture/customs. Which means people automatically know we’re foreign and when we talk it’s obvious we’re Americans (who have a really bad stereotype here, we jut kind of get in the way). But anyway we get our drinks, which are super cheap, 17 rand which is about 2 or 3 dollars. Everything is so cheap here!! We start chatting with these boys sitting next to us, Australians! We hit it off and talk with them all night. My favorite one was a boy named Jack, who has dreds and works as a carpenter. He kissed me goodnight! And to top of all this fun our cute waiter came to meet us!! Liz chatted it up with him and they exchanged numbers! Go Liz!!

Today we sat through 3 hours of orientation, which wasn’t too fun after a long night out. But we toughed it out and after that we went to this restaurant “Joe Cool’s” which was RIGHT on the ocean!! It keeps reminding me of San Diego, but in a more tropical/exotic way. When South Africans aren’t in a hurry to get places they are very very chill and sarcastic to interact with. I LOVE the humor down here, an example is a sing of a pool I saw the other day: “Welcome to our _ool: notice there’s no P, try to keep it that way”—classic!! I don’t think there’s a prettier city in the world then Durban. It’s so colorful with tall, unique shaped buildings. Combined with the tropical warm weather and being right on the Indian Ocean, it’s paradise. I can’t wait to show you guys pictures.

I have a feeling it’s going to take me a while to get used to getting around. There’s a couple different modes of transportation, “taxis” aren’t like the taxis in the U.S., they are more like huge vans that carry 13 passengers. They sit on busy street corners and wait until every single seat is filled until they can go. It costs 5 rand, which is less then 1 dollar. But they run generally on specific routes, so you can’t tell them exactly where you want to go. The buses are pretty easy too but it was hilarious because today we didn’t have enough coins (it was 4 rand, about 50 cents) and we held up a long line of annoyed locals. But I figure we’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

So sorry this is so long, there is so many new experiences happening here it’s crazy! Thanks for following, love you guys!

First Thoughts

Hello!! I am settling into my new life here! It’s been super interesting so far. First of all, who knew they hook you uppp on an international flight? I sat down for my 18 hour flight and we’re talking free movies/T.v. shows (kenz/sara/linds—I watched arrested development! The one where tobias was trying to be like ms. Doubtfire, priceless), a nice blanket, socks, toothbrush, eyemask, and ten thousand meals. But still it was a little rough being on a plane for a full day! When we finally landed in Durban the Interstudy people where there to meet us, they could not be nicer! The main person who helps us out is Anita, she’s either Dutch or English (can’t quite tell yet) and is the funniest/cutest old lady you could imagine, I’m adopting her as my grandma while I’m here. And the other students studying through interstudy are super nice!! It’s so great having Liz, a friend from Miami, here with me. It’s one thing to go to Ohio not knowing anyone but it’s actually pretty scarily independent here and knowing someone right off the bat really helped. Today was our first real day here and we set up bank accounts and shopped around a little. The atmosphere here is so tight! My favorite thing about South Africa so far hands down is what they call stoplights: a “robot”. As in “at the next robot take a left,” awesome. They drive on the other side of the road here! Durban is a city RIGHT on the ocean, we drove through a little harbor today and near the water the scenery really reminds me of San Diego, very tropical. Durban has these big monkeys everywhere, like as common as how the U.S. has squirrels, kind of freaky at first because I thought we took a wrong turn and landed inside a monkey cage at the zoo. But I’m growing to love them! We all just finished unpacking and are about to go out to dinner then a night on the town. One of the girls here studied in Durban two semesters ago so she’ll bring us to all the happening places. We’re just hoping the whole country isn’t in a huge World Cup hangover, because we’re ready to party. Thanks for following my blog, I’ll write again very soon!! xoxoxo