April!

There is nothing like posting all at once so you have some good reading material instead of working. Feel free to thank me later…

Life in PE….

Time seems like it is FLYING by more and more. As of today we have officially been here ten weeks. That means 10 weeks from today we will be standing in Iowa again and that is crazy to me. Term 2 started for us on April 3^rd so that means a whole new set of classes. I know that we only seem to post about our exciting adventures but we have been doing work over here as well. We both had 3 papers last term and as always Alyssa did really well. I must say the grading system is really weird here and it is hard to get a paperback saying 65% or 75% even though when it transfers back that turns into a B and an A. Not to brag about Alyssa or anything but even half way around the world she gets the highest grade on tests in class. As for me, it’s weird not taking Anatomy and science classes but they South African history classes we have been taking have been really interesting and we have learned a lot about the country and it’s brutal history.

This term Alyssa and I are both taking World History and a Black South African Jazz class. It’s interesting to learn about history from a different countries perspective and while history is still boring when it comes to names and dates the lecturer makes it intriguing (though Alyssa COMPLETELY disagrees). As for Black South African Jazz it is kind of a sore subject for me (Ask Alyssa)! We were supposed to be in a different music class, however, when we got there we found out that the class doesn’t exist anymore and the professor who we had that was suppose to teach it left the university 3 years ago. After a “fun” conversation with the international office and talking with the study abroad office back home we decided to go with the only music class open. It definitely isn’t my favorite class but I will admit after four classes I think it is going to be tolerable. However, that doesn’t stop me from complaining to Alyssa and making it seem as if somehow it was her fault we are in it! Haha. Those are the only two classes I have this term but Alyssa has a Youth Studies class as well. From what she tells me the professor isn’t the nicest lady and she tend to pick on Alyssa, Donna, and Maria the only 3 Americans in a class of well over 100. Overall, classes are going well. We are going to have a really busy/stressful first couple weeks of May with multiple tests and papers but other than that class is good.

As for everything else going on in our life we have kind of started to just settle in. The new factor is wearing off and we just have a routine like you would back home. We are more and more familiar with PE although I will never get used to the lack of transportation that I take for granted back home. Iron Man was here this last weekend and it was such an amazing thing to watch. They estimated 100,000 spectators were here and the atmosphere was incredible. I can’t ever imagine swimming 2.5 miles, biking 111 miles, and then running a full marathon. It was insane! There were runners from all over South Africa and the world. The winner came in at just over 8 hours and set a new course record. As for the females Chrissie Willington set a new Iron Man world record and she was a lot of fun to watch. Some of our friends went to a nature reserve this weekend but we stayed back with some others to save money and to watch the race.

Zanethemba has been a mix of emotions. We are having a lot of fun with the kids and we have really established a close relationship with them even in the short time we have been here. Last week was really hard because one of the boys Ntando left as he was placed with a foster mom. It was a really bittersweet moment as we were happy he found a home but were sad to see him go. All of the other kids were sad and crying as we gave him hugs on the side of the road and watched him drive away. It was really hard for the two older kids and Ntombyovo wouldn’t talk to anyone the whole time we were there. Alyssa and I were talking and we were sad after 8 weeks of being there. Ntando has been there since he was 2 and he is now 4 ½ and I don’t know how the house parents can handle that. Either way it was a hard day that I’m sure we will always remember but we do have pictures and I’m happy to know he is in a good home and gets to start school now. As for the other kids we continue to do a different activity with them every week. We have made cake, bubbles, chalk, crafts, and movies. We did an activity with “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” that the kids loved. We gave them the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks that Mom sent over and they have watched it 5 times in one week. They were quoting the movie yesterday and Elena the house mom said they are starting to pick up on English humor so that was funny. I have really taken to Henry and really wish he could just come home with us. We have lots of fun together and he always seems to do whatever I do. I always call him buddy and after teaching him what it meant he never stops calling me his buddy! As for Alyssa, the little boy Zen and Sino are in love with her. Zen is always attached to her and I have a feeling it will be hard to say goodbye in June.

As for the rest of our time we just continue to hang out at Annie’s with our friends and explore PE. We went out last night for our friend Becca’s birthday to this club called DnE. It was this awesome underground dance club with really cool music. We went there for her birthday but the cover charge at the door was to raise money for a South African guy named Bantu. He is going to come study in the US at our friends Mike and Phil’s university in North Carolina in the fall. We went to a church service a couple weeks ago on campus and that was a cool experience. I must say after going there and listening to a bunch of African’s sing hymns in Xhosa and dancing and singing American service may never seem quite as cool.

Alyssa has been making some really good meals lately and I have enjoyed trying all of them. Vegetable lasagna, chicken vegetable trams, pasta salad, and many more. I think I will keep her around!

That has been life the past few weeks. Nothing overly exciting but we are still having fun. Tomorrow we are going on the frontier trip where we stay with a family on a farm in the mountains. It’s lots of things I have already seen but it will still be fun to watch our other friends sheer a sheep and milk a goat. Plus we get to hike in the mountains of South Africa and food and wine are included. We have one more week of class before Easter Break!

Sorry for the lack of pictures. With our internet it would take an hour just to get one picture uploaded. They will be coming soon.

After a slight delay...Coffee Bay!

Sorry it has taken us so long to post on the blog but our internet connect has been bad plus I have been rather lazy when it comes to writing, but can you blame me when it’s 80 degrees outside I’d rather be doing something else! Anyway about Coffee Bay…

Sunday morning we got up really early and drove to the top of the mountain that we were at for sunset so that we could watch the sun rise. It felt like we were in a James Bond movie racing up the side of a mountain, and reaching the top where the air strip was driving down it as fast as we could because we didn’t want to miss the sunrise. It was just like the movie arriving just in time with the car angled on the side of the mountains watching the sun come up over the ocean. Only difference was instead of dodging bullets on the way up the mountain we had to dodge cows! Anyway it was a beautiful site and well worth waking up at 5:00 a.m. After the sunrise we went back to Jungle Monkey and got our bags and checked out of the hostel to head to Coffee Bay. It was about a 2 ½ hour drive and we did pretty good thanks to my awesome navigating skills (although if you ask Alyssa and the rest of the car they may say differently but hey we made it there)! The arrival to Coffee Bay was not what we expected. We took the worst road I’ve ever been on to get there and I will now NEVER complain about our gravel roads again. Our washboards have NOTHING on the ½ cement ½ dirt road with no shoulder, tons of deep pot holes, and animals and people walking on the sides of you at all times. The town pretty much consisted of nothing and it was really run down. We had planned to stay at a hostel for the night but they never got our confirmation online and they were booked for the night as well as all of the other hostiles in the town. We decided to see “Hole in the Wall” since we were still in Coffee Bay and go to the beach since the scenery was indescribably beautiful, but then drive to East London to spend the night.

Hole in the Wall was so cool. We drove the car down another horrible dirt road to get there and then walked on a little trail to finally reach it. The pictures are neat but it doesn’t really do it justice. The water was really warm there so we decided to swim for a while. Alyssa was super nice and said she would stay out and take pictures for us so “Thanks Lys”. The waves were pretty crazy but Patrick is an adrenalin junkie and decided to jump into the hole in the wall off the side of the cliff. I made it to the rocks but then decided on the chicken out path of walking on the rocks and cut your feet way back. Patrick on the other hand jumped TWICE. Alyssa got some really cool action shots of him jumping so that was awesome. Maria and Sara just swam in the water and didn’t really venture onto the rocks. So after the swim and a few candid pics we decided to head back to the car and then go to the beach. We were really low on gas but we ran into Scott and our Austrian friends and they said a gas station was only 15 minutes away. Thus began our new adventure that could have ended very badly haha. What the estimated to be a mere fifteen mintues was more like forty minutes coasting as often as we could because we were on fumes. The light kept dinging low fuel and so we stopped and asked a guy on the side of the road and he said it was another 30 km. Needless to say we were a little pissed off/relieved when we made it to the bar on the side of the road. Yep, I said bar. We went pulled up to a sketchy tavern and they had a barrel of gas behind the bar. It was definitely a monopoly business as they charge a ridiculous amount for only a quarter of a tank. Either way we were relieved to have found gas, even if they did fill our car using a Sprite bottle as a funnel. After that we jumped in the car and got out of there because they weren’t really the friendliest people we have run into since being in South Africa. We made our way back into Coffee Bay and filled up the tank and went to a pizza place our friend Gregor had told us about. We had to park our car at the bottom of the hill and then walk up this hill to get there. The pizza was good but pretty expensive. We saw our first TV show while we were eating and of all things it was MTV’s “The Buried Life” It was the first TV show we had seen since we had been here and go figure in the middle of nowhere MTV would be on. After the pizza we were all ready to just get to East London so we packed up in the car and hit the road for another 4 hour drive back toward PE.

We made good time and arrived in East London around 7:00. The hostel was nice and pretty much empty. Patrick and I went to Spar and grabbed some snack and then we all just watched movies on the laptop and crashed. The next morning we got up and went to the beach for a couple hours. It was Human Rights Day so everyone had the day off and the beach was starting to get busy when we left at 11:30. We made it back to PE around 2:30 and thus ended a fun and memorable road trip on the Wild Coast. It was a lot of fun, and even with some sketchy situations we had a great time.