First Month in South Africa
Hey everyone! Sorry I have taken so long to post! I have been extremely busy and have alot to catch you up on. From here on out I plan to post at least every other week so as not to get too far behind.
I am now settled in to Cape Town, South Africa very well. I am being hosted by the lovely Kromboom Rotary and they have been absolutely amazing. I have already attended 3 meetings, gotten to know all of the 15 or so members. I have helped with their very large Opera fundraiser and will be volunteering with the Argus Cycling Tour of South Africa on Sunday. The club is very active and has extremely dedicated members. I even had the honor of watching a new member get installed into the club. My host Rotarian, Drew Horner, has opened his family and his home to me and has made the shock of being in a foreign place a much more comfortable transition. I could not have asked for a better mentor and host while I am here and I look forward to spending more time with the Horner family! :-)
The University of Cape Town has been a great cultural experience for me. Registration was definitely an interesting experience for me because everything is done using good old-fashioned paper, so in order to register for any classes I had to have papers stamped in one department, signed by someone else, signed by my lecturers, then taken to get filed, all of which required hour-long lines of people all trying to do the same thing. It was very confusing for someone who is used to clicking a button to sign up for a class I wanted.
I am living in a UCT post-graduate residence called f-block. My roommates are from Swaziland and outside of Durban. We are all getting along really well and I am learning SOOO much from them because they bring new perspectives and traditions into focus. One speaks Xhosa and the other speaks Siswati as their home languages. Just through conversations they have taught me about their schooling growing up, dating and wedding/engagement traditions, and anything in between. We have alternately started many conversations with, "Is it true that..." and have gotten many misconceptions out of the way. My roommate cannot wrap her head around the fact that I don't eat meat because she eats meat in every meal and I can't wrap my head around the fact that she likes the taste of monkey! (She'll kill me if she sees this but I didnt mention her name, lol)
The "O-week" or "orientation week" was alot of fun and was almost a dream come true for someone like me. The entire main part of campus was full of tables promoting all the organizations and clubs offered on campus. I was surprised by the wine tasting society that meets every week, samples free wine from the local vineyards and meets the vineyard owners (while getting drunk in a lecture hall). I don't believe Florida Gulf Coast University would have been too excited about that idea! I became extremely ecstatic and jumped into a few organizations that interested me the most. These organizations were the Mountain and Ski Club, SHAWCO, Young in Prison, and Green Campus Initiative. I will go into more detail below.
The Mountain and Ski Club hosts events every week for students to get involved and stay busy with. Since joining I went on a 6 hour hike over an unpublicized and unmarked mountain in Ceres, slept under the stars (no tent), had to drink from a stream, swam in a dam, woke up to the sound of baboons screaming... I have also been rock climbing in Montagu. To prepare for the rock climbing experience I tried to do the indoor rockwall at the UCT, which was my first rockwall experience ever. Nothing compared to the true rock climbing experience in Montagu. We camped there and woke up to the sound of wild peacocks..... This week there are plans to take a group of disadvantaged high school students with a Mountain and Ski Club project they call Siyenyuka, on a day hiking trip. They are also hosting a hike up Table Mountain, and another night they will have a sunset event on Constantia Nek. A UCT student could never go bored if they are in the Mountain and Ski Club.
SHAWCO- which stands for Students' Health and Welfare Centres Organisation- is an NGO that sends university students into "black" and "colored" underpriviledged and disadvantaged townships to tutor in literacy and math as well as the creative arts. Since I have joined and gone through training, I began tutoring just last week. On Thursday I worked with 6th grade students at a school called Oranjekloof in a township in Hout Bay with Xhosa-speaking students. On Friday I will worked with 4th grade Afrikaans-speaking students in a township called Manenberg. The different dynamics between the schools were incredible. At the school in Manenberg we worked with the students in the library which was a room the size of a standard living room with shelves on two walls that were color coded by grade-level. It was very different from the libraries seen anywhere in the U.S. and I am very happy to have the opportunity to volunteer there because I can now put my Master's Coursework studies into perspective when examining the status of education in various areas of the Western Cape.
Young in Prison- This is an organization that mentors and educates prisoners who are sentenced, awaiting trial, or post-release in the age range of 14-17 years old. This NGO sends volunteers to Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison as well as the Ottery Center. Last weekend I completed my training for this program and I will begin volunteering at the Ottery Center with the literacy program next week as I await my permit to work at the Pollsmoor Prison. At training we were advised to wear our hair pulled back, no make up, baggy sweatpants and t-shirts. The participants in the program are sent to the volunteers (each volunteer has a different focus, ex: sports, literacy, mentorship) based on their social workers request and it is the volunteers job to build a report with the participants and may be required to make statements about the progress of individual participants in the program. It should be a cultural experience like no other.
Green Campus Initiative- The title of this group is self explanatory and I chose to get involved with it because I like to always know whats going on with the "greening" of the university. I am signed up for the outreach program which will be meeting once a month and is preparing to help start a sustainable vegetable garden in a school in a Khayaletsia township school with the help of SHAWCO, and will be teaching the teachers and students how to maintain the garden and use it as a resource.
These are the areas of service and fun I am working on right now, in addition to my Rotary Service projects. Surprisingly enough, I am here studying for my M Ed in Applied Language and Literacy Studies. My courses are Language and Literacy in Theory and Use, English as an Additional Language in Schooling, and Learning and Cognitive Development in Primary School. These courses have been extremely exciting and thought provoking as they are based on many interesting theories and backed by fundamental research. I find it greatly rewarding to be studying such an interesting topic in a country which seems to be so heavily effected by language struggles as it has 11 official languages, and though English is only the native tongue to about 8% of the population, it is the language used for business and higher education.
I have seen so much so far but I know there is still so much to see. I look forward to what each day brings, I am having the adventure of a lifetime!
I am now settled in to Cape Town, South Africa very well. I am being hosted by the lovely Kromboom Rotary and they have been absolutely amazing. I have already attended 3 meetings, gotten to know all of the 15 or so members. I have helped with their very large Opera fundraiser and will be volunteering with the Argus Cycling Tour of South Africa on Sunday. The club is very active and has extremely dedicated members. I even had the honor of watching a new member get installed into the club. My host Rotarian, Drew Horner, has opened his family and his home to me and has made the shock of being in a foreign place a much more comfortable transition. I could not have asked for a better mentor and host while I am here and I look forward to spending more time with the Horner family! :-)
I am living in a UCT post-graduate residence called f-block. My roommates are from Swaziland and outside of Durban. We are all getting along really well and I am learning SOOO much from them because they bring new perspectives and traditions into focus. One speaks Xhosa and the other speaks Siswati as their home languages. Just through conversations they have taught me about their schooling growing up, dating and wedding/engagement traditions, and anything in between. We have alternately started many conversations with, "Is it true that..." and have gotten many misconceptions out of the way. My roommate cannot wrap her head around the fact that I don't eat meat because she eats meat in every meal and I can't wrap my head around the fact that she likes the taste of monkey! (She'll kill me if she sees this but I didnt mention her name, lol)
The "O-week" or "orientation week" was alot of fun and was almost a dream come true for someone like me. The entire main part of campus was full of tables promoting all the organizations and clubs offered on campus. I was surprised by the wine tasting society that meets every week, samples free wine from the local vineyards and meets the vineyard owners (while getting drunk in a lecture hall). I don't believe Florida Gulf Coast University would have been too excited about that idea! I became extremely ecstatic and jumped into a few organizations that interested me the most. These organizations were the Mountain and Ski Club, SHAWCO, Young in Prison, and Green Campus Initiative. I will go into more detail below.
The Mountain and Ski Club hosts events every week for students to get involved and stay busy with. Since joining I went on a 6 hour hike over an unpublicized and unmarked mountain in Ceres, slept under the stars (no tent), had to drink from a stream, swam in a dam, woke up to the sound of baboons screaming... I have also been rock climbing in Montagu. To prepare for the rock climbing experience I tried to do the indoor rockwall at the UCT, which was my first rockwall experience ever. Nothing compared to the true rock climbing experience in Montagu. We camped there and woke up to the sound of wild peacocks..... This week there are plans to take a group of disadvantaged high school students with a Mountain and Ski Club project they call Siyenyuka, on a day hiking trip. They are also hosting a hike up Table Mountain, and another night they will have a sunset event on Constantia Nek. A UCT student could never go bored if they are in the Mountain and Ski Club.
SHAWCO- which stands for Students' Health and Welfare Centres Organisation- is an NGO that sends university students into "black" and "colored" underpriviledged and disadvantaged townships to tutor in literacy and math as well as the creative arts. Since I have joined and gone through training, I began tutoring just last week. On Thursday I worked with 6th grade students at a school called Oranjekloof in a township in Hout Bay with Xhosa-speaking students. On Friday I will worked with 4th grade Afrikaans-speaking students in a township called Manenberg. The different dynamics between the schools were incredible. At the school in Manenberg we worked with the students in the library which was a room the size of a standard living room with shelves on two walls that were color coded by grade-level. It was very different from the libraries seen anywhere in the U.S. and I am very happy to have the opportunity to volunteer there because I can now put my Master's Coursework studies into perspective when examining the status of education in various areas of the Western Cape.
Young in Prison- This is an organization that mentors and educates prisoners who are sentenced, awaiting trial, or post-release in the age range of 14-17 years old. This NGO sends volunteers to Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison as well as the Ottery Center. Last weekend I completed my training for this program and I will begin volunteering at the Ottery Center with the literacy program next week as I await my permit to work at the Pollsmoor Prison. At training we were advised to wear our hair pulled back, no make up, baggy sweatpants and t-shirts. The participants in the program are sent to the volunteers (each volunteer has a different focus, ex: sports, literacy, mentorship) based on their social workers request and it is the volunteers job to build a report with the participants and may be required to make statements about the progress of individual participants in the program. It should be a cultural experience like no other.
Green Campus Initiative- The title of this group is self explanatory and I chose to get involved with it because I like to always know whats going on with the "greening" of the university. I am signed up for the outreach program which will be meeting once a month and is preparing to help start a sustainable vegetable garden in a school in a Khayaletsia township school with the help of SHAWCO, and will be teaching the teachers and students how to maintain the garden and use it as a resource.
These are the areas of service and fun I am working on right now, in addition to my Rotary Service projects. Surprisingly enough, I am here studying for my M Ed in Applied Language and Literacy Studies. My courses are Language and Literacy in Theory and Use, English as an Additional Language in Schooling, and Learning and Cognitive Development in Primary School. These courses have been extremely exciting and thought provoking as they are based on many interesting theories and backed by fundamental research. I find it greatly rewarding to be studying such an interesting topic in a country which seems to be so heavily effected by language struggles as it has 11 official languages, and though English is only the native tongue to about 8% of the population, it is the language used for business and higher education.
I have seen so much so far but I know there is still so much to see. I look forward to what each day brings, I am having the adventure of a lifetime!
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