Acclimating to South Africa

Thursday, May 14
I have officially arrived in Cape Town, South Africa. It has been quite a surreal experience because while I can completely tell that I am in a different country, it is still hard to believe that I am on the African continent between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

After an 8 hour flight to London, 7 1/2 hour layover in the Heathrow Airport, and another 12 hour flight to Cape Town, I arrived safely and only slightly exhausted. I immediately saw my two suitcases circling around the baggage claim and was extremely relieved. I have never lost a bag on a flight yet--knock on wood. Another girl in the program, Jackie, was on the same British Airways flight to Cape Town with me, but neither of us even saw each other so we didn't know!

A slight mishap
When I got out of customs to the transport area, I did not see anyone with my name to pick me up. After waiting approximately 20 minutes, i decided to go to the information station and asked the man at the desk if there was any phone I could use to call Romer Tours, the company that is in charge of driving us everywhere during our stay. He kindly used his phone to call, Rithwann, who is basically our personal driver. Apparently my name was missed on his excel sheet because it was the first name on the list of students to be picked up. But not a problem! As he had picked up Jackie already, they simply turned around and came back to get me. Then we were off driving through some morning traffic through the City Bowl down to Sea Point, the area in which we are staying.

Stonehurst
Our group, along with my professor, David Hirschman, is staying at the Stonehurst Guest House. It was quite a splendid place with a lot of character. There are a couple of permanent residents here who have been extremely gracious in welcoming us. As Jackie and I were the first to arrive, we were given a grand tour and basically asked to pick any room we desired for our stay. Initially I chose a room with two twin beds, as the rooms with double beds require two students to share. (The house is relatively small and there aren't enough beds for everyone to have his/her own). However, as we were ready to go to lunch with Professor Hirshman, Jackie and I fell in love with two of the rooms by the entrance. We are in separate rooms (I share with Megan) and Jackie with Ashley and Cydney. However, these rooms are two level "flats" where each floor has a double bed. I lucked out only having to share with Megan, so I have the entire upper level to myself. We share a shower (on my level) and a bathroom (on her level). My bed is extremely comfortable and I have sleep pretty well so far as well.
The house itself have a quaint sitting room with a huge flat screen TV which seems rather silly juxtaposed to the older furniture in the room. We also have a cute kitchen with all of the essentials and more where I will soon be cooking. Jon (pronounced as Yon) -the manager- has been extremely gracious and is providing cornflakes cereal, apples, oranges, bread, butter, and milk for our group whenever want it. The owner and his son also live in the house as well and have been great hosts and continue to work to accommodate every request we make.

The rest of Thursday included a lot of exploring: eating brunch at a local cafe, walking approximately 4 miles up and down the coast of Cape Town with just my professor, unpacking, then out to dinner at a local Indian/Pakistani/Chinese/English restaurant - what at interesting mix!

Friday, May 15
We had a breakfast from the professors at the House and discussed the week, blogging, and our internships. I was extremely excited to find out that I will be interning with Grassroot Soccer starting June 1st! The office is in the City Bowl, right in the center of everything exciting in Cape Town!!

We then went to Cape Town University (now after referred to at CTU) for our first lecture from our Professor Hirshman about the history of South African democracy and apartheid.

After the lecture, we began our "transportation exercise" which allowed us to learn all of the means of transportation which would bring us from CTU to Stonehurst. We began by taking the Campus shuttle to the train. After riding the train, we arrived at what could be considered the "Grand Central Station" of Cape Town. From there we took these really ghetto bus taxis which cram a lot of people in--but are super cheap. Finally we arrived back at our house.

For dinner we went to Mama Shiela's in Lelapa, Langa which is a black township created during the apartheid. The food was absolutely marvalous. This woman has created her own business by struggling from the very bottom by working two jobs and going to night classes to learn how to manage and finance. She now only takes groups by reservation and creates an entire story with the dinner which is a lovely African Buffet. Everything she made was delicious and throughout our dinner we were entertained by a lovely xylophone trio of three men who would sing songs in Xhosa (one of the national languages of S. Africa).

Saturday, May 16
We visited the South African Slave Lodge. It was quite interesting to see the influence of Malaysian and Indonesian slaves brought TO Africa, rather than the US traditional study of African slaves brought to the United States. It never occurred to me that the Dutch colonies in Cape Town would have brought slaves from other countries instead of enslaving the indigenous already in the area.

We went to the Castle of Good Hope which was built by the Dutch to protect themselves from a potential battle by the British who were also settling in Cape Town. Ironically, there was never a
battle but it is now the oldest building still standing in Cape Town.

We had originally planned to travel to Cape Point of a peninsula tour, but due to poor weather conditions, our professors booked ourselves for a wine tour at the oldest and largest wine estates in S. Africa. We then had a lovely wine tasting, but many of us did not particularly enjoy the wines enough to purchase a bottle. However, we were excited to see baboons on the estate!!

Sunday, May 17
Finally to today. Today was a very simple day that we had completely to ourselves. We only had one task at hand- to read some South African newspapers and prepare an issue we find interesting for a group discussion as 7pm at Stonehurst. I picked an article directed to the new Minister of Sport, explaining the problems of money administration, management, and distribution. It also covered the issue of the need to increase grassroot sports development in order to create more organized sports at the club level. Finally, it emphasized the financial inequality between women and men in sport. Women's sports in South Africa lack sufficient funding and are not supported equally. Additionally, sports teams have become owned by corporations rather than the government, leading to potential to create human rights abuses when corporations allocate sponsorship to sportsmen without allocating assistance to sportswomen.