Monday, June 15, 2009

Dire Bacon Situation...

So I just asked Taylor what to title my blog and she decided upon that. We spent an hour searching on google Saturday night as we sat home for a much needed relaxing girls night (Erin, Taylor and I) searching for places to have an American breakfast. We finally found a place with pancakes, maple syrup and bacon! Taylor has been getting very frustrated because there is often Macon on menus here because there is a large Muslim population in Cape Town so many places are Kosher and Halaal meat, when all she wants is real bacon! The bacon was still a bit odd at the restaurant since it was in a circular manner and I had to send it back so it would actually be crispy. If you didn't look at it while you were eating it it was pretty close to the real thing!

Saturday Erin, Todd, Chris, Taylor, Noelle, and our SA friend Mark all went to the Western Province Rugby game against the UK Lions. It was quite rowdy but a ton of fun. We had gone on Wednesday night to the Dubliner to watch the game prior to that one and decided it would be really fun to actually go to the game. The people we went with on Wednesday were helpful in trying to teach me the rules of rugby but there are so many! I had to look it up before we went to the game on Saturday so I would be better prepared with the vocabulary etc. Its a big thing here right now because the Lions only tour every 12 years to South Africa and they play a series of games leading up to the big game against the South African Springboks (which is this Saturday). All of the games leading to that one are insignificant for whether they win or lose but will help determine who gets to play in the big game! Don't I sound so knowledgeable after just 2 incidences with the sport! :) The hardest part on Wednesday before I read up on the game was my friend kept referring to the field as a pitch and that just sent my mind to a whole different place since I take that as a verb, but that is just the rugby term for the field.

Today was really quite wonderful. Erin and I were able to spend the day at an event held in a nearby town called Newlands. Nomzamo got an invitation for a few people to attend and Ethel asked me if I would like to go and bring another volunteer. Erin has not been super thrilled with her internship placement here so I figured her interests revolve around youth as well so she would probably enjoy the day also! It was a mixture of speakers and performances from youth and adults. The adults were from sponsors like ABSA bank and then the Minister of Education for SA was there, 2 people spoke from the Department of Social Development, and a woman from the Department of Education spoke. It was pretty impressive the caliber of people in attendance but the really moving and inspirational aspects were when the youth performed or spoke. Many of them did poems, one sang, and they performed a skit and had an informal dance off at the very end! One of the young girls spoke about sexual abuse from a family member and the backlash she experienced from her father who then spread around the entire town that she was a 'slut' and even had her pastor talking to the congregation about her transgressions. She was unbelievable though at such a young age to be able to talk about it and then to continue on by saying she was strong and powerful though and couldn't let those things bring her down because she knew she was going to be somebody. I was a bit choked up by her courage. Another boy read his poem, which was quite cynical but also very moving in his belief in himself, but he spoke about not choosing his family but choosing his friends and that those are the people he loves and those are the people that love him.

There was also a young man who came in who was in the Beijing Paralymics in 2008. He was a swimmer for South Africa and had missed the world record for one of his events by .5 seconds. He joked that he wished he had just grown his finger nails a little bit longer! He told us the story of how he lost his leg and it was unbelievable! He was working with a training company for divers and water rescue persons and was out on a routine trip. He was in the water with his brother and a friend waiting for the boat to come and snatch them up fooling around humming the jaws theme song with the other two and saw a shadow near where his brother was floating. He noticed that it was indeed a shark and that it was heading right for his brother. He began to frantically drum the water hoping to get the attention of the shark away from his brother and he watched the fin turn and come straight for him. He was actually quite funny while telling the story but it was very suspenseful for the audience! The shark came at him with his jaws open and he tried to jump around the shark (as he said in a 'juke' manner) and he had decided that the best place to be would be riding on top of the shark! He didn't quite get his second leg over the shark since the shark had it in his jaws. The shark tried to drag him down but he fought back and kicked and punched until his knuckles bled. He obviously made it out alive but just barely! What a story! The day after he woke up in the hospital he decided he was going to train for the paralympics with the encouragement of his brother. That was in 2006 and he made it to the Olympics nearly breaking records by 2008!

So yeah that was today and this past week. Tomorrow we have the day off from placement because it is Youth Day which is a National Holiday to commemorate the death of a number of youth in 1976 who were non-violently protesting the implementation of exams and instruction in entirely Afrikaans which is one of the languages of South Africa but those who speak Xhosa don't normally speak Afrikaans and vice versa. Language is an interesting subject here because you often don't know how someone would have been classified in the Apartheid era until you hear them speak. Those labeled 'Black' would speak Xhosa, and the next higher up classification would be those labeled 'Colored' (anyone who is of mixed race or Malay) would speak Afrikaans. So it was a way to further oppress the most oppressed group at the time. No one knows how it turned into shooting and riots but the children were singing and all of a sudden turning and running in the opposite direction. The children who died were shot in the back. There is now a memorial for one of the famed students Hector Pieterson who died on that day to remember all that was lost but also the attention gained from the actions taken on that day. We were able to see it one of the first days we were in Cape Town. Now June 16th is a National Holiday to support the positive actions youth are taking within South Africa. That was the reason we were able to go to the Youth Day event today because most things are closed tomorrow!

Okay that was a lot of information for one post but I hope some of it was interesting and/or new! I'll update again soon.

Peace & Love,
Alyssa

Saturday, June 6, 2009

The Other Other Side of Cape Town

Well it has been a pretty lazy week since this is our first week we have not had activities planned for nearly every afternoon we are here and it was quite rainy so we ended up reading and napping a lot as a group. We did go out a few nights during the week for some more karaoke and a few dinners out since it was Erica, Swapomthi, Emma, Karli, Theresa, and Ran's last week and we are all going to miss them terribly :( The good thing is we won't be spending near as much money after this week so I will be able to do some better saving!

I am getting much more information about the project I will be working on while I am here and I am really getting excited about the prospect of what it could be. I had a meeting with Luann and Tahira, my supervisors and CCS head staff, to talk about what it will mean for me to be heading this project. They are putting a lot of responsibility on me because it will end up being a project more for/through Cross Cultural Solutions than it will for Nomzamo but it will still be very beneficial for their work/mission. I was excited to hear that actually because that means more resources will be available to me when researching and making connections within the community. We are going to try to have one big day when the mural painting will take place with food, music, games etc and I am going to try (with lots of help) to get a celebrity sports player or someone like that to come and to get a radio station to broadcast from the backyard at Nomzamo. It will be a lot of networking and "creative persuasion" as Luann put it to get sponsors for the day and to make this a big event. I think it will be great for the community, for Nomzamo, and for CCS so I hope I have the skills to pull it all off! I am actually doing work on it tonight and writing up a force field analysis and maybe just for kicks also do a SWAT analysis for all you Social Workers out there! haha Anyway its feeling good to actually get to do use some of the skills I have learned this year at U of M.

On another note, I had my first attempted mugging today :( wah wah. Its okay we made it out unscathed and with just a bit less cash, but it could have been much worse. Its frustrating because it was just Erin and I and we were out during the day and we took the train into Cape Town to save some money and get to know the city a little better and this happened! We got off the train and walked out, not exactly sure where we were but we knew we were downtown Cape Town, and the day was beautious so we started walking. Well I guess we went the less traveled route and a man approached us asking for money. We said we didn't have any and tried to keep walking. Well he was not having that and was asking for a 'note' or a paper bill not just change (which I tried to give him). Then he kept saying 'I dont want to commit a crime here ladies dont make me commit a crime' and he had this real intense look in his eye that definitely scared us. He was also commenting that he just got out of jail and was trying to get some bread for his family but he was definitely not in the right mind if you get my drift. So we walked across the street while he followed (and while many other people passed us by I might add!) and I saw a man that looked nicely dressed and bigger than this guy and I just walked right up to him and stood next to him and said 'were just going to hang out here for a little while' and he was receptive but still did not say anything to this creepy man. But it did the trick and scared him off so needless to say Erin and I hurried along to the busiest street we could find and made our way but opted for a cab back to the train station for the way home!

A few of our adventure things this weekend fell through, we were supposed to go sandboarding but the weather has been pretty not great and then we were supposed to fly to Robertson on a friend's plane for the Wacky Wine Festival tomorrow, but that has also fallen through because of a double booking on the plane! Ahh well good thing I have 2 more months to experience those things :)

I'll update again soon hope everyone else is doing as fabulously as I am here in this amazing place!

peace & love,
alyssa