Pictures

I’m Home!

So.. it is noon, Wednesay, L.A. time – my time!  My body still feels like its 9:00 pm, Africa time, but I’m home! I have never felt more out of it. After a 6 hour drive from Kruger to the Joburg Airport, and then over 24 hours of flying, with some stressful events thrown in, I’m finally in the comfort of my own home.

I woke up today after my first night sleeping in my own bed, in my own room.  I had the best night’s sleep, but woke up today very out of it.  I’m sure within another day or two I’ll be feeling better.  I am so happy to be home, but I am MISSING South Africa!  It’s weird not to wake up to the people I spent so much time with these past few weeks.  Before we left the airport we all talked and we’ll be getting together soon to exchange pictures and “debrief” and get back into our own culture.

Thank you so much to everyone who supported me during this trip – you have no idea what that support meant.  Thank you to everyone that donated money; again, you have no idea how far that money went, it made quite the difference.  I only wish you all were able to see the smiles your help put on so many faces like I was.  And thank you for reading up on this blog and participating in my trip.

So glad to be home!

xoxo,

kate

Iyakubonana Africa!

So, I got to the Johannesburg Airport about an hour ago.. and still have like 2 hours till I even board the plane.. BUUUUUT I’m comin home!!  I have about 24 hours of flying and I’ll see you all!  After what seemed like ages without internet, I found a wi-fi hotspot in the internet and just saw all your comments.. needless to say I was crackin up to myself!  Thank you!

We’ve had a CRAZY few last days, that I wanted to tell about.. my last blog before I’m back in the states.. it includes Dennilton, a Buddhist Temple and a lion.. let me explain..

On Friday, we woke up to our last day in Joburg and drove about 2 hours to Dennilton, which is rural, pretty much in-the-middle-of-nowhere South Africa. We worked with a different organization called Youth With A Vision, which ended up faring much better than Hope did with us. The man that showed us around told us a pretty interesting story. He used to live in Pretoria, a city a few hours away, with his wife, Cynthia. His grandmother lived in Dennilton. Upon becoming sick, she persuaded him and his wife to move out to Dennilton to help take care of her. They ended up moving out there, and while there, got a first hand experience and interaction with the surrounding community, especially the children. When his grandmother passed away, they (mostly his wife) had become so invested in the people living in Dennilton that they decided to permanently moved there. A bit later, his wife, Cynthia, met a woman from California who belonged to Next Aid, an organization working around the same area. Together, the two (Cynthia, and the American woman) formed Youth With A Vision. Their main goal is to get children off the streets, off drugs, and to teach them the sustainable skills they’ll need to start thinking about their future. It is, in essence, an orphanage, and designed to take in those that need support. He said the organization was started in 2000. Since its inception, Cynthia and her husband have successfully seen several of their youth off to college and much better futures due directly to consequences of their organization.

So, we spent the day at this organization, which is comprised of a few buildings, an outdoor kitchen/eating area and an outdoor auditorium for the children. Currently, they are also building a new structure for HIV orphans that they will soon be housing. We spent the late morning planting palm and orange trees to help sustain the community. We then had lunch prepared by one of the boys in the organization – chicken, potatoes, salad – and it was amazing food. After lunch, we were treated to a talent show put on by the kids.. we could tell they worked so hard for it. One of the girls was telling me how nervous she was. They are so talented.. it was mostly singing and dancing, and we were all blown away! Afterwards, we had about an hour to play around with the kids. We had beach balls, yo yos, paints, and other things to play with that many of the children had never had a chance to play with before. To say the least, by the end of that hour, no one was really ready to leave. As my friend, Alison said, she’s never not wanted to leave the middle of nowhere so bad in her life. But we had to in order to make it to the Buddhist Temple by sundown.

So, we leave Dennilton, and drive about an hour, and, still being in the middle of nowhere, pull up to the gigantic, out-of-place, gorgeous Nan Hua Buddhist temple – our stay for the night. I don’t doubt Luke when he tells us it took 10 years to build. It is a compound. We pull up to the main building and retrieve our keys and poke around a bit. Then we headed over to our “chalets”. This temple serves also as a retreat center; the chalets have two bedrooms each, housing four. After dropping our things off, we headed over to the dining hall for dinner, where we found several monks in there eating silently. We got in line for food, which being Buddhist, was strictly vegetarian, and quietly took our seats and tested it out. The food, to my surprise was so delicious. We all got up for seconds, making sure not to make any noise as they ask for silence in the dining hall. After that, we went to the small museum and gift shop where I bought some tea and incense.

The next morning was the peak of the Buddhist experience: getting up at 5:30 to head over to the main temple and watch the sunrise. The temple is preceded by a lavish courtyard – completely surrounded by walls and atop a little hill. My roommates, Jody, Alison and Tammy, and I stood in the courtyard; it was literally glowing gold as the sun came up – it was beautiful. We proceeded back towards the dining hall to have breakfast, and then it was back in the bus for about 5 hours to Kruger National Park.

We arrived Saturday afternoon at Kruger at about 2:00. Our hotel isn’t actually in Kruger, but about half an hour away. We checked into our rooms, settled in and then headed out for a 3 hour sunset bush drive. Despite it being FREEZING, it was a lot of fun. I wasn’t able to get very many good pictures, but we saw buffalo, deer and, right before we headed back to our rooms… a LION.  It was literally like 5 feet away from us, it was amazing.  Sunday, we got up and did the day long safari, where we saw a lot more animals.  At one point we turned around a corner and found ourselves looking dead in the eye with an elephant.  We saw four of the big five (the “big five” are the five animals that can protect as well as charge in South Africa).. we saw elephants, hippos, a lion and a leopard (in a tree).  The only one we didn’t get to see was a rhino.  But, according to our safari guide, we were more than lucky to see what we did.  We came back to our hotel, had dinner and went to bed.

We woke up today at 6, had breakfast that was ALMOST stolen by a monkey that frequents the hotel, and then packed up for a 6 hour car drive from Kruger to Joburg.  Now we’re here, waiting for our plane!

It’s Monday afternoon here.. 4:37, so it’s Monday morning, 7:37 L.A. time.  I’ll arrive at LAX Tuesday, L.A. time about 1 in the afternoon..

Can’t wait to be home!!

Iyakubonana! (See you later!)

xoxo,

Kate

Joburg..

We arrived in Johannesburg yesterday!!  It has a bit of a different feel from Cape Town.  We’re in a more touristy hotel here where as in the Cape, we were in apartments.  The hotel is amazing.. I’ve got pictures to prove it.  Yesterday, we went to the Apartheid Museum, which was moving to say the least.  Today, we took a little tour through Soweto, the largest Black township in the world.  We’d had our experiences in the townships, Longa and Khayelitsha, back in Cape Town, which was very desolate, very poor.  But, surprisingly, in Soweto, in between the shacks and poverty, was a flourishing middle class as well, which was interesting.

We learned about Youth Day on Monday, which commemorates June 16, 1976.  Over 600 children were killed that day while peacefully protesting school conditions; among them, they were being forced to be educated in Afrikaans, a language they weren’t familiar enough in.  So, on June 16, they partook in a very organized and peaceful protest.  The police came and pretty much attacked them.  They were forced to run into a nearby Church for safety.  Well, in Soweto today, we visited that Church.  In honor of those that lost their lives, there are still bullet holes in the ceiligns and walls and the alter is still broken in a spot where a police man had hit it with the butt of his rifle.  Again, I can’t even express what it feels like to hear these stories, see these places knowing the recency of it all.  It’s mind blowing.  I bought a beautiful rosary froma  woman selling them outside the Chuch and a priest blessed it.

We then went to the Hector museum – on that June 16th day, Hector was a 13 year old boy that was shot and killed by the police.  A picture of another little boy running and carrying Hector’s body, pretty much became the face of this day so to speak.  It is the picture that comes to everyone’s mind of this day.  Outside the Hector museum, was a monument that Nelson Mandela unveiled some years ago, which was beautiful.  We got a chance to poke around a bit inside the museum, and then headed to Constitution Hill.

Constitution Hill is home to one of the most notorious and vicious prisons of Apartheid, as well as the new ground-breaking Constitution Court, home to South Africa’s current government.  South Africa’s constitution is the most progressive in the world and its a beautiful testiment to human dignity.  It was remarkable to walk Constitution Hill, and not only see first hand the struggle these people went through, but the amazing spirit of theirs’ that came out of everything.  I felt really fortunate to see such an incredible piece of history.

We’re getting up tomorrow and heading to Dennilton, where we will be working with children in an AIDS orphanage.  Tomorrow night, we are spending the night in a Buddhist temple, and we get up early Saturday to head out to Kruger Park.  Then its three days of safari and I’m back in the states!
I can’t wait to see you all! Thank you so much for all the well wishes! God Bless!

xoxo,

Kate

Bye-bye Cape Town!

So, Saturday, we had the whole day to just sightsee. We got up at 8:00 and went to the Waterfront to the Robben Island museum. We got to look around there for a while and then we took the ferry out to the island to get a tour. First, we got in a tour bus and went around the island, stopping at frequent sights to take pictures and learn a little more about the history there. My favorite part was going to the lime quarry where Nelson Mandela and others worked for over a decade every day. The prisoners worked day in and day out, digging limestone, which was to be used to repave the roads on the island. Our tour guide spoke to the symbolism of this back-breaking work these men endured to pave roads that led to nowhere – it was simply work to break them – work intended to make their struggle in vain. He told us that in 1995, those prisoners that were able to – 1,200 of them – came back together to Robben Island as a reunion and testament to what they went through together. According to our guide, at one point during the reunion, Mandela snuck off on his own, picked up a rock, and set it down in the exact spot where he began his years of digging in 1965. Soon, the rest of the men followed suit. We saw the pile of 1,200 rocks that lay untouched since that day – it was amazing to hear the story.

Following that, ended up at the maximum security prison. All the tour guides in the actual prison are past political prisoners from Apartheid. Our guide arrived in 1983 and was in for 7 years, participating 3 hunger strikes during his stay. It was unreal to hear such an experience first hand as we walked the halls of the prison. The tour ended with Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, where we spent some time.

We got back on the ferry and headed back to the waterfront where our bus was waiting to take us on a gorgeous hour and a half ride to the Cape of Good Hope. The majority of the ride was hugging the coast, and as we went along, Arlene, one of our tour guides, told us stories about the various areas we passed. At last, we ended up at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the south-western most tip of Africa. It is also exactly where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. We couldn’t see it because it was a bit cold and cloudy yesterday, but apparently, on a nice, clear day, you can see right where the two meet, by the mixing of their two different colors.

Sunday, we had a free day to ourselves. So we got to sleep in longer than we usually can. We got up, grabbed some food at the café, and headed over to the Sunday outdoor market, to check out what the vendors brought out today. I got more of your gifts!

Yesterday, Monday, we had our final day working with the kids through HOPE Worldwide. Today marked the anniversary of a very important national holiday – Youth Day, which commemorates the killing of more that 600 children by policemen in 1976 who were peacefully protesting harsh conditions in school during Apartheid. So today, there was a huge forum in an auditorium with about 5-600 kids. They had prepared skits and dances all in memory of the children’s lives that were lost more than 30 years ago. It was interesting to see their take on things. At the same time, the disorganization of it was a little frustrating. We had a bad experience when it came to giving out food to the children at lunch time. HOPE asked us to do it, and it was just mass confusion from the start. We were told to only give the children wearing uniforms food, as the they were to wear their uniforms in honor of the day. So, to begin with, we had to bypass those not in uniform and hand out food to the handle in uniform. We soon realized that there was crates and crates of food left over, so going against HOPE’s wishes, I started just giving it out to the rest of the kids. I looked around me and realized everyone else had started doing that too, so I didn’t feel too bad ignoring them. It was horrible; you don’t pack hundreds and hundreds of hungry kids into an auditorium and only give a handful of them food while the others are swarming us and telling us that they are starving. Many of these families can’t afford uniforms; the children shouldn’t be reprimanded for that. I got quite a few packets of food to kids that weren’t really supposed to receive food before Ricardo, the man in charge from HOPE came up and grabbed my box of food. Many many children still did not receive anything. Luckily, my professor sided with us and was disappointed in how things were run. We were supposed to help clean the auditorium before we left, but we were all so upset that we ended up leaving shortly after lunch.

Today is our last day in Cape Town. We made one last run around the Green Street Market for souvenirs. We came back, had some food and did laundry and packed up. It’s actually Dr. Robert’s birthday today, so we’re going to have a little get together for her, finish some homework that’s due tomorrow and get some sleep. We have to be up at 6:00 am tomorrow morning to catch our flight to Johannesburg, which is where we are staying for about 2 days, and then we’re off to our safari. Hope all is well and see you all soon!

Pictures!

best day yet..

Though it was a long one, today was my favorite day yet. We’ve been so busy trying to fit in sightseeing, touristy stuff in to our schedule along with our work here, that though we’ve had a few days now with the kids, they’ve tended to be kind of short days. We haven’t had too much time with them – until today.

We first got up and visited two preschools. The children were adorable, but the situation was sad. In one of them, the woman running it is running on 50 rand a month (about $7) to keep it going. The actual preschools were the same as the houses – pretty much shacks. On top of that, some of the kids were HIV-positive, so it was just kind of hard to witness. But the kids were amazing as usual. I got a video of them singing to us, so you can all see it.

Afterwards, we went back to the Church in Khayelitsha, where we had worked with the neighborhood kids a few days ago. Previously, we had taken each of their pictures. We had them printed and today were able to give them their pics. Being that many of them have never owned a picture of themselves, they LOVED it. We gave each kid a few copies, brought out the paints and markers and let them draw on some of their pictures. We gave them stickers, glitter, temporary tatoos – you name it, we had it for them. By the end of the day I was covered in stickers – this little boy kept running up and putting them on me.

Last night, we went out for sushi, but decided against seeing the movie. Tonight, we’ve decided to lay low for once and catch up on our mountain of homework. We’ve been going non stop this whole trip, so its nice to relax for a bit and not have anything to do. Tomorrow, we take a boat ride out to Robben Island to see the jail that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned it. We’ll also go to the Cape of Good Hope and see the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, so its going to be another long day, but I’m excited! I’ll try to get some more pics on here so you can see all of this for yourself.

Can’t wait to see you all!

God Bless,

Kate

girls night!

So, yesterday, we ended up going to a shebeen (a local pub) at 8:30 in the morning – not my idea. Not really having anywhere else to get together, the men in the township normally gather to discuss things going on in the community. They were speaking in Xhosa, so we had to have translators. They completely welcomed us onto our turf and showed us a really unique insight into life in the township. To be expected, the things we heard were definitely not pleasant, ranging from corrupted police to violence by and on the refugees from mostly Zimbabwe. It was really interesting to hear their perspective on the refugee incident going on here. Following that, we had lecture, and then a quiet night at the News Cafe before going to bed.

Today, we got up and headed back out to the Rehoboth Elderly Center, for our final day there. Again, split up into different groups, this time, I ended up in the Iris room, which is dedicated to those with Dementia. I had touched on this area on Tuesday, but today spent the majority of my day here. It was a little harder to be in this area today; there were only three of us girls designated to this room this time and there seemed to be a lot more patients in there. It was a little difficult to be around, but we did a pretty good job of giving some company, just tried to brighten their day a little.  One of the men asked me where I was from.  When I told him California, his response was “I knew it! YOU must be the girl the Beach Boys sing about!” hahah. When we left the center, Dr. Roberts gave them some of the donations I raised for this trip; they were ecstatic.  It was really amazing to see.  So thank you again for your support of this trip – you have no idea what your donation meant to someone out here.

We just got out of lecture, and one of the girls, Courtney, and I ran down the street to a cafe to pick up a newspaper to check movie times – girls night! We’re goin to head down to the Waterfront – a really fun area where the mall is in the harbor – and have some sushi and catch the Sex in the City movie. Should be fun! I totally did not expect to be catching sushi and a movie in South Africa, but we had a free night tonight, so that’s what we decided.

I hope everyone back home is good! Like always, I miss you!!!

Can’t wait to see you all! God Bless!

xoxo,

Kate

working with the old and the young..

So, it is about 8:00 pm on Tuesday night, and I’m sitting at the News Café working on some homework. Yesterday was an interesting day.. we actually went to Rehoboth Hanover Park in the Cape Flats. Rehoboth is an elderly facility. Beginning with just generally walking around the center and interacting with the clients, we then separated into different groups, to visit with the men and women more intimately. The group I was working with was strictly hospice, which was interesting. The motto at Rehoboth is “Adding life to years”, and it has a very hopeful and energetic atmosphere to it. A couple, both of them in their 80’s, who met at Rehoboth just recently got married. The people there seem very happy. Before we left, we got to sit down with them while they were being served lunch and get into some interesting conversations with them. There are some characters there!

Today, we woke up and had lecture. Immediately following that, we headed back out to the Hope headquarters to see what they had in store for us this afternoon. There are three different programs that we’re operating with over at Hope. Being in the OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) program, my group was inevitably going out in the field to work with the kids. The Care and Support girls actually ended up going on a house call and visiting a man dying from AIDS, which turned out to be pretty intense. The Intervention girls went to an after school program and played with the children there.

My group, on the other hand, got our first glimpse of one of Hope’s kids clubs. Like I mentioned before, many of these children are running households themselves. If they haven’t yet lost both of their parents, then usually their parents are so ill that these children are completely taking care of themselves and/or any siblings they might have. We are working with kids who are infected/affected, meaning that even if they themselves are ok, they are still affected; they are completely surrounded by the grips of this disease. So, we met Zwai, Gabrial and Lennox, the three guys who started working at Hope last week, and who, first took us to the store to buy apples and yogurt for the children, and then took us to the field site. It ended up being in the township, amongst the shacks and government-subsidized housing, and was just a tiny, little shipping container. Soon after we arrived, the children started showing up. After about twenty minutes, we had so many children running our way, we had to pack up and move down the road to a church, which provided more room. About half an hour after we got to the Church, we Zwai had to lock the doors because so many kids came running, but we didn’t have enough food for them all. It was really hard to have to keep so many kids out; they stood staring into the Church from the windows.

We had coloring books and stickers and art projects for the kids. They loved them. We also brought along a camera. Most of these kids have never owned a picture of themselves. So we let them take one picture of each other. On Friday, when we see them again, we’ll have printed out their individual photos so that they can keep them.

One thing I didn’t bargain for was that most of them didn’t know very much English. Speaking mostly Xhosa, the age group we worked with today hadn’t had much schooling yet meaning haven’t quite learned English, so there was a bit of a language barrier. I realized, after talking to Gabriel, that they could understand English pretty well, but had a hard time speaking it yet. But we got by pretty well. We had an amazing time playing with them. It was a little hard to picture the lives these kids leave, the responsibility and burdens they have at such young ages. One girl walked in with a baby on her hip and couldn’t have been more than 12. So it was nice to make today all about the kids, give them a place where they can BE kids and just try to give them a good day.

So there it is, we finally got to get some time in with the kids, and we’ll be seeing a bit more of them to come. We are also going back to Rehoboth on Thursday for “game day” which pretty much means beach volleyball, and apparently it gets pretty cut throat with the old folks, so wish me luck! haha

Besides that, we’ll be with the kids the rest of the days. Then we leave not tomorrow, but the following Wednesday for Joburg.. and THEN we have a three day safari in Kruger National Park. Following that, I’ll be seeing all of you back home soon!

Miss everyone, hope all is well!

xoxo,

Kate

Conquering Table..

Well.. before I get into that, I just have to say, last night was fun as well.. I went to the Dubliner! In South Africa! I went to the Dubliner, in South Africa, and had a Guiness.. I loved it. The girls ALMOST made me get up and do the Irish jig in front of everyone!

And then we woke up today to face Table Mountain. We left our apartment at around 1.. got to the base of the mountain at 1:30ish, and by 3:30, we had hiked up to the top of it, and were sitting on the banks of a reservoir, taking in the much-worth-the-hike views. Though a lot of the girls thought it was pretty challenging, I was so excited and pumped to be there, I was one of the first to reach the top. Once we got up there, we had a little snack and then got to exploring. Walking along the sides of the reservoir, you meet a bridge which leads you through a mess of huge rocks and you end up right on the cliff of the mountain with gorgeous views surrounding you.. pictures are below. After some time there, and plenty of pictures, we descended, which was a little scary because it was SO windy. Every step you took felt like you could just be swept off the mountain. But we made it down safe!

Time for some homework and sleep!

I miss you all!

God Bless,

xoxo,

Kate