Tuesday, March 9, 2010






This will be a quick post but I wanted to put up a few pictures from my homestay weekend in Ocean View. The first is my homestay sister and I with the local market's camel. The next is my room (it was a really nice home), and finally my homestay parents. I had a great time staying with them and getting to know more about their community. Ocean View is a product of Apartheid- my family was forced from their home in nearby Simon's Town and relocated to Ocean View when Simon's Town was designated a white area. I am really grateful for having the opportunity to hear a first hand account of apartheid- it's something I didn't really have a tangible understanding of until this past weekend.

OK, well I have a plant test I should be studying for so I'm going to hit the books now.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

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So this is a little late again, big suprise, but it has been a hectic (I'm trying to use some South African lingo and hectic is very popular here) week of school work. TGIF still applies in Africa!

The bottom few pictures are from around Cape Town- the sunset was taken at Rhodes Memorial, a cool monument right near our house, just above UCT campus. The colorful houses are from the BoKaap region right near the city center. We spent some time just walking around and exploring. The one with all the trees and the mountain in the background was from a concert we went to at Kirstenbosch Gardens, a huge garden near our campus. Otherwise, the pictures are from last weekend!

Last weekend I travelled up the Western Coast as far north as Lamperts bay. We had an incredible trip. Words can't describe how fun it was. We drove up early Saturday morning with 6 of us in a little compact car, surfed Sat afternoon, stayed at a backpackers in Elands Bay Saturday night, and then explored and surfed Sunday morning before returning home. The Western Coast was so cool partially because there was nothing there at all. My friend Perri and I walked down the beach a little ways away from the surfers, and realized the entire beach was uninhabited. There was nobody around, and nothing but beautiful, untouched coastline. How much of the African continent's seaboard is like this?
The pictures are mostly from Eland's Bay. The one with the cacti (?) is the view from our hostel, the one with the cave is a spiritual site for rites of passage rituals, the walls were covered with handprints from teenage boys passing into adulthood.
Anyways, here are some pictures of that, it was a great trip and I couldn't have been happier.
This weekend we are staying in one of the townships around Cape Town in a homestay. We leave this afternoon and get back Sunday afternoon. I can't really say anything about it as I'm not sure what to expect but I am guessing it will end up here eventually!

Sorry for the bad formatting again!

Cheers