I’m taking the time to write a bit of an update while waiting in the computer lab for my Zulu tutorial (my last one!). I have just an hour between my Zulu lecture and my Zulu tut so it’s fairly pointless to walk down the stairs, sit at my desk, and walk back up the stairs- have I mentioned that there are 156 stairs between my room and main campus? That’s a lot.
I only have the rest of today of classes and tomorrow and then classes are officially over at UKZN. I can’t believe it. I don’t know how we got here so fast! While generally classes being over makes me kind of sad because that means everything here is coming to an end, I really can’t take much more of Zulu so I’m happy that it’s ending. I have Zulu 6 different times a week- 4 classes, 1 tut, and 1 language lab, then I have to do 15 minutes of practice in the lab every week. Ugh. It is getting so tiring to keep up with the fast pace at which we move. However, I came here knowing nothing of Zulu and now I can read, write, and speak a pretty decent amount of it. As part of our Zulu exam, we have to do an oral of 35 sentences, using all the different constructions we’ve learned. While this is going to be really hard and I wish we didn’t have to do it, the cool thing is that I actually can do that. I can write a whole page of Zulu, talking about myself.
African music and dance ensemble has been winding down since our performance. The performance was two weeks ago and it was really fun. I managed to get over the fact that the costume was just a black sports bra and a wrap skirt after our two dress rehearsals and lots of support from my friends. When I came out on stage I saw that 6 of my friends were all sitting in the audience in a row so that gave me a nice boost. One of them video taped it for me so that everyone at home can see me, the only white girl in the class, hold her own with the Zulu girls and their African rhythms. I’m really going to miss that class and the friends in it that I have made, especially towards the end of the class. It seems like at the end of the semester I’ve started to make more friends outside our group of international students, which is nice, but it takes a while to get to know people…and then I go home just when I’m starting to. The choreographer continues to insist upon teaching us a new dance, even though the semester is over, and it’s a pretty cool one, I wish we had got to include it in the performance.
Weekends lately here I’ve been on campus, experiencing really more of what it is like to be a local student here, rather than traveling all around like the internationals do. I’ve become a fan of watching soap operas in the tv lounge and coming to the lan to go online. I’ve also gotten to see some awesome things right on campus- two really cool dance performances and a jazz show that I didn’t even know we had here until now. I’ve gotten to do a few more “Durban” things like visiting Victoria Street market and the Workshop market. I’ve also spent a lot of time at one of our favorite places- UShaka, going to the shops or eating dinner. There has been lots of dinner out lately as we are getting frustrated with studying on campus all weekend and need to get out.
Speaking of getting out, this week I’m taking the opportunity to travel at the beginning of the one whole week they give us off to study (compared to the single study day that AU gives us, this is pretty luxurious). On Thursday I’m going with two friends, Myrthe and Sarah, to the Drakensburg mountains. This is an enormous mountain range that is in South Africa and Lesotho (one of the tiny countries that is completely surrounded by South Africa). We are taking a shuttle bus there around noon and will get there in the afternoon to get settled and hopefully explore the mountains that are pretty much in the backyard of the backpacker we’re staying in. The next two days we’ll be doing the tours that the backpacker organizes so that we can do and see everything we want to in the short amount of time we have there. We’ll be travelling up the Sani Pass, a windy mountain road, and into Lesotho to see what the mountain villages are like there. There is also a stop at the highest pub in Southern Africa! The second tour day will be to the primitive rock art in some of the mountain caves. I’m really looking forward to the trip. It’s really starting to get cold here (my tolerance for cold is so far gone!) and it’s supposed to be really cold in the mountains so I’ll have to bring all the layers I have. I think it might be warmer at home now, or more likely in DC, which is so strange to think of. Winter in Africa….Anyways, I’ll have to write more after the trip.
Once we’re back in Durban on Sunday, I’ll have to study for my Zulu oral, then my three other exams. I have exams, very spread out, on May 29, June 5, and June 11. Then, although I am still finalizing all of the travel parts, I am going to Port Elizabeth on June 13 to volunteer at the Amakhala game reserve for two weeks. After all this, I should be returning to the US on June 30 or July 1. Things feel like they are coming to and end, but I still have over a month.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Photos
I've added more pictures from my trip to Zululand in February (I'm sooo behind on uploading them) to my Facebook.
Here's a link to the second album that works whether you have Facebook or not.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2150344&id=7412354&l=4b53e7f2b8
Here's a link to the second album that works whether you have Facebook or not.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2150344&id=7412354&l=4b53e7f2b8
Friday, May 1, 2009
Cape Town
After coming back from the 11 day Easter break trip, it was really hard to settle down to being back on campus and going to classes and doing my reading. After just a few days of being back, a couple friends and I were already experiencing some serious cabin fever, stuck on campus in Durban. Durban is great but it's not the kind of place you can just take a walk around if you're feeling cooped up or bored. We also had a huge Zulu test to study for which occupied the better part of a whole weekend. After a weekend in the library and my teeny tiny room (really- Myrthe can touch both walls at the same time...I can't because I'm shorter and my arms are shorter) I needed to get out again, so we started really planning our trip to Cape Town.
I had been planning to go and trying to get some friends to come over the period of April 22-27 because the 22 was a public holiday and we had no school, and the following Monday was also off because of holiday (April has a ton of public holidays in South Africa) so it would mean more travelling with less classes to skip. Myrthe and Annereike, my two good friends from the Netherlands also wanted to come, but Myrthe's mom and Annereike's parents were visiting at the end of the week, so we left for Cape Town on Tuesday, the 21st in the morning and Anne (it's easier to abbreviate her name) came back to Durban Friday morning, Myrthe came back on Saturday afternoon, and I came back Monday morning!
The flight is just 2 hours and we took this domestic budget airline called Mango (everything is orange- even the planes- I loved that!). It all went well and we got to our backpacker on Long Street, called Inn Long Street. Long Street is really awesome- it's a really vibrant and active part of CapeTown. I guess first I should describe Cape Town as a whole- it's not very "African," it's much more European or even American than the rest of South Africa. Several people I met said the waterfront and beach areas remind them of San Francisco. I was a few times reminded of Bost and DC which was surreal and you had to keep reminding yourself of where you were- South Africa. It was so nice for a change to be in a city that you could feel free and safe to walk around on the streets and turn down different streets if they seemed interesting. In Durban, you travel from point to point via taxi and NEVER travel down and unfamiliar street, so Cape Town was very liberating. Long Street has tons of restaurants, bars, shops, and markets. We got there at about 11:30, Myrthe and I, because Anne had taken another airline and to make a long story short, spent about 10 hours in the Durban airport and arrived 12 hours after she was supposed to in Cape Town due to multiple delays. Myrthe and I walked all the way down Long Street, stopping at different shops along the way, down the the Victoria and Albert Waterfront (yah how African does that sound?). The waterfront was really cool- lots of different boats from sail boats to fishing traulers and tugs. We sat by the dock and had a drink and saw a seal swim by! We wandered around the different shops there and checked out the waterfront area, which I really liked. We stayed there until Anne finally made it, then we had a nice dinner, which reminded me of San Diego since all the restaurants have open fronts but it gets pretty chilly at night so they have those big heat lamps ups for you. We came back to the backpacker and watched the nightlife from the giant balcony that overlooks the road, then crashed from our early morning flight.
The next day we went to Table Mountain. It's this really cool mountain that is just behind this city and rises up over the city skyline. It is flat on top, hence the name, and a popular tourist spot and landmark because of the incredible views from the top. Anne and I hiked and Myrthe took the cable car up (she's afraid of heights and has to get them over with quickly so the 3 minute cable car was better than the 3 hour hike). The hike was really difficult, as we had been warned, because it pretty much goes straight up through a ravine, but the scenery was gorgeous and we took plenty of rest stops to take it all in. There were lots of other hikers to chat with as we went. We finally made it to the top and it was totally worth it! You could see the entire city of Cape Town and then from the other side, beautiful ocean views that just stretched forever. You could also see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were imprisoned during apartheid. The top was all rocky and very beautiful and we walked around the top for a while.
After we came back down via the cable car, we decided to go to Simon's Town to see the African penguins (yes these do exist, I swear!). We took the train from Cape Town and it took longer than we thought so we didn't have alot of time with the penguins before our return train but it was fine because it didn't take us too long to find a spot on the beach where they were that actually wasn't inside the park where you have to pay to get in and see them. We could go right up to the rock were a group of them were and watch them from a good distance (they bite). We saw them swimming around too, it was so cute! I was in love...
That night we ate at this amazing restaurant on Long Street called Mama Africa. I had a chicken kabobs with mango and a tasty cocktail that tasted like an ice cream sundae. The live music was amazing. There was a band with tons of marimbas and cool instruments and then this incredible singer who just belted out these cool melodies...bought the cd it was so good.
The next day we went to Robben Island, which actually as I learned has a history dating far back before apartheid. Sailors and explorers had been stopping there since the 1600s and lepers were kept there for a while as sort of a quarantine. It has a strange and haunting history. Of course, Nelson Mandela and other famous political prisoners were kept there as well during the apartheid, including Robert Subukwe who was kept in solitary confinement for 6 years. The tour begins with a ferry ride to the island, then a bus tour around the island (during which it was thundering) where all the sites are pointed out, including Subukwe's prison, the lime quarry that the prisoners had to dig lime in, and the old leper cemetary. The island is also home to the third largest colony of African penguins so penguins came out of the bushes to watch the bus go by (a funny site). The tour ends at the main prison where a previous inmate from the apartheid takes you around, which was really interesting. We saw Nelson Mandela's cell and where all the anti-apartheid leadership were held. It was very surreal because you have to remember that these things were happening as late as the 1990s, during my lifetime. The last political prisoners were taken off the island in 1991 or 1992 an the last civil inmates in 1996. This is something that is not even history yet- it is still in the current lifetime memory. After Robben Island, we wandered around the waterfront some more and then spent what felt like hours weaving through this three story shop- the Pan African Market, where each room is full floor to ceiling with things like huge carved wooden masks.
The next day it was just Myrthe and I and we went to the Castle of Good Hope- a fortress built by the Dutch. It was fun to walk aroun and you could go up on the top of the fortress. We also went to some of the smaller museums in the city, like the District 6 museum. It's like a memorial to District 6, a black and coloured neighborhood that was declared a "whites only" area during apartheid and all of the families were forcibly removed to other worse areas of the city, far from their jobs and schools. We also went to the old Slave Lodge and learned about the history of slavery in Cape Town. We also walked around the Company Garden's, which were pretty. In the evenings we really enjoyed watching the satellite tv in the backpacker with the other really nice and cool guests. It was a nice change from the soap operas we get here, some from the US and some in Afrikaans and Zulu, and the soccer and cricket matches. Their tv had vh1, mythbusters, survivor man, and lots of movies. Luxury.
The next day Myrthe and I wanted to go to Stellenbosch, part of the winelands just outside of Cape Town. It was rainy but we hoped it'd clear up. Needless to say it didnt and our train broke down 2 stops away from Stellenbosch for over an hour....we finally got on the next train and made it there with just enough time to walk to town in the pouring rain and have a nice indoor lunch and glass of wine (because that's just what you have to do there) and walk back to the train station for our return train so Myrthe could catch her flight. The area would be beautiful on a nice day...we tried to see it, haha, but weather happens.
That night I was on my own but I just grabbed some quick dinner down the street and at at the backpacker and watched tv with the guests I was getting to know pretty well. The next day I took a day trip with the Baz Bus, a bus that caters to backpackers travelling along the South African coast, to the Cape Peninsula. The first stop was Hout Bay where we took a short but really cool ferry ride out to Seal Island, home to a colony of Cape Fur Seals. We saw them playing and swimming in the water and lazing on the rocks. It was really cool to see even more animals and I reallly love seals. The other people on the trip were all cool- I was the youngest but had the edge of having been in Africa for several months already. I was giving out travel advice like a pro haha. There were several other Americans and lots of people travelling on their own too. We all chatted and swapped stories. The next stop was a nice overlook, looking down on Muizenburg and tons of surfers in the water. We had a muffin and juice then headed to Simon's Town where I got to the see the penguins again. I knew this was going to happen but didn't really mind returning! This time we went into the park and walked along the boardwalk through penguin territory. Here there were many more and even little fuzzy grey babies and ones that were in between and were grey and glossy. I saw the full cycle from baby to adult and there were even some moms on nests still. It was really great.
Next we went into the Cape Peninsula area and the scenery was gorgeous. It was really raw, untouched nature. The whole things is high up on these cliffs that rise out of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, since they more or less meet here (although technically they come together at Cape Agullus). The area was covered with low thick shrubbery called fynbos and it was beautiful and open. We got to bike ride for about 20 minutes to the place where we had lunch and I loved the ride. I barely had to pedal and just took in the scenery. Lunch was sandwiches- good, then we took the bus (it was really just a big van) down the the Cape of Good Hope which was really cool to really be there. We saw ostriches there too! Then we went on a hike up and around the Cape Point, over an around the cliffs, through the fynbos, and the views were awesome, of just blue blue blue sparkling ocean and rocky cliffs. We ended the hike at the Cape Lighthouse which was awesome and had amazing views of just ocean and other mountains rising out of it. On the way up a baboon ran down the path right by us! There are lots of babboons in the area, and they have issues with home being built in their habitat- they have learned how to raid kitchens! The tour took us back into Cape Town with commentary along the way, then dropped everyone off where they were staying. It was a great day and I'm so glad I got to see the seals and the Cape of Good Hope area because it was amazing.
The trip overall was great. We had a short week of school, just Tues, Wed, and Thurs, as today, Fri, is another public holiday. Since I was just travelling, I'm on campus for this one. I think I may go to the beach later (I love that we can still do that in "winter") and to a dance performance on campus later. We only have three weeks of classes left, then study break and exams! I can't believe it! My laptop is being repaired again so that's why there have been no new pictures lately!
I had been planning to go and trying to get some friends to come over the period of April 22-27 because the 22 was a public holiday and we had no school, and the following Monday was also off because of holiday (April has a ton of public holidays in South Africa) so it would mean more travelling with less classes to skip. Myrthe and Annereike, my two good friends from the Netherlands also wanted to come, but Myrthe's mom and Annereike's parents were visiting at the end of the week, so we left for Cape Town on Tuesday, the 21st in the morning and Anne (it's easier to abbreviate her name) came back to Durban Friday morning, Myrthe came back on Saturday afternoon, and I came back Monday morning!
The flight is just 2 hours and we took this domestic budget airline called Mango (everything is orange- even the planes- I loved that!). It all went well and we got to our backpacker on Long Street, called Inn Long Street. Long Street is really awesome- it's a really vibrant and active part of CapeTown. I guess first I should describe Cape Town as a whole- it's not very "African," it's much more European or even American than the rest of South Africa. Several people I met said the waterfront and beach areas remind them of San Francisco. I was a few times reminded of Bost and DC which was surreal and you had to keep reminding yourself of where you were- South Africa. It was so nice for a change to be in a city that you could feel free and safe to walk around on the streets and turn down different streets if they seemed interesting. In Durban, you travel from point to point via taxi and NEVER travel down and unfamiliar street, so Cape Town was very liberating. Long Street has tons of restaurants, bars, shops, and markets. We got there at about 11:30, Myrthe and I, because Anne had taken another airline and to make a long story short, spent about 10 hours in the Durban airport and arrived 12 hours after she was supposed to in Cape Town due to multiple delays. Myrthe and I walked all the way down Long Street, stopping at different shops along the way, down the the Victoria and Albert Waterfront (yah how African does that sound?). The waterfront was really cool- lots of different boats from sail boats to fishing traulers and tugs. We sat by the dock and had a drink and saw a seal swim by! We wandered around the different shops there and checked out the waterfront area, which I really liked. We stayed there until Anne finally made it, then we had a nice dinner, which reminded me of San Diego since all the restaurants have open fronts but it gets pretty chilly at night so they have those big heat lamps ups for you. We came back to the backpacker and watched the nightlife from the giant balcony that overlooks the road, then crashed from our early morning flight.
The next day we went to Table Mountain. It's this really cool mountain that is just behind this city and rises up over the city skyline. It is flat on top, hence the name, and a popular tourist spot and landmark because of the incredible views from the top. Anne and I hiked and Myrthe took the cable car up (she's afraid of heights and has to get them over with quickly so the 3 minute cable car was better than the 3 hour hike). The hike was really difficult, as we had been warned, because it pretty much goes straight up through a ravine, but the scenery was gorgeous and we took plenty of rest stops to take it all in. There were lots of other hikers to chat with as we went. We finally made it to the top and it was totally worth it! You could see the entire city of Cape Town and then from the other side, beautiful ocean views that just stretched forever. You could also see Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were imprisoned during apartheid. The top was all rocky and very beautiful and we walked around the top for a while.
After we came back down via the cable car, we decided to go to Simon's Town to see the African penguins (yes these do exist, I swear!). We took the train from Cape Town and it took longer than we thought so we didn't have alot of time with the penguins before our return train but it was fine because it didn't take us too long to find a spot on the beach where they were that actually wasn't inside the park where you have to pay to get in and see them. We could go right up to the rock were a group of them were and watch them from a good distance (they bite). We saw them swimming around too, it was so cute! I was in love...
That night we ate at this amazing restaurant on Long Street called Mama Africa. I had a chicken kabobs with mango and a tasty cocktail that tasted like an ice cream sundae. The live music was amazing. There was a band with tons of marimbas and cool instruments and then this incredible singer who just belted out these cool melodies...bought the cd it was so good.
The next day we went to Robben Island, which actually as I learned has a history dating far back before apartheid. Sailors and explorers had been stopping there since the 1600s and lepers were kept there for a while as sort of a quarantine. It has a strange and haunting history. Of course, Nelson Mandela and other famous political prisoners were kept there as well during the apartheid, including Robert Subukwe who was kept in solitary confinement for 6 years. The tour begins with a ferry ride to the island, then a bus tour around the island (during which it was thundering) where all the sites are pointed out, including Subukwe's prison, the lime quarry that the prisoners had to dig lime in, and the old leper cemetary. The island is also home to the third largest colony of African penguins so penguins came out of the bushes to watch the bus go by (a funny site). The tour ends at the main prison where a previous inmate from the apartheid takes you around, which was really interesting. We saw Nelson Mandela's cell and where all the anti-apartheid leadership were held. It was very surreal because you have to remember that these things were happening as late as the 1990s, during my lifetime. The last political prisoners were taken off the island in 1991 or 1992 an the last civil inmates in 1996. This is something that is not even history yet- it is still in the current lifetime memory. After Robben Island, we wandered around the waterfront some more and then spent what felt like hours weaving through this three story shop- the Pan African Market, where each room is full floor to ceiling with things like huge carved wooden masks.
The next day it was just Myrthe and I and we went to the Castle of Good Hope- a fortress built by the Dutch. It was fun to walk aroun and you could go up on the top of the fortress. We also went to some of the smaller museums in the city, like the District 6 museum. It's like a memorial to District 6, a black and coloured neighborhood that was declared a "whites only" area during apartheid and all of the families were forcibly removed to other worse areas of the city, far from their jobs and schools. We also went to the old Slave Lodge and learned about the history of slavery in Cape Town. We also walked around the Company Garden's, which were pretty. In the evenings we really enjoyed watching the satellite tv in the backpacker with the other really nice and cool guests. It was a nice change from the soap operas we get here, some from the US and some in Afrikaans and Zulu, and the soccer and cricket matches. Their tv had vh1, mythbusters, survivor man, and lots of movies. Luxury.
The next day Myrthe and I wanted to go to Stellenbosch, part of the winelands just outside of Cape Town. It was rainy but we hoped it'd clear up. Needless to say it didnt and our train broke down 2 stops away from Stellenbosch for over an hour....we finally got on the next train and made it there with just enough time to walk to town in the pouring rain and have a nice indoor lunch and glass of wine (because that's just what you have to do there) and walk back to the train station for our return train so Myrthe could catch her flight. The area would be beautiful on a nice day...we tried to see it, haha, but weather happens.
That night I was on my own but I just grabbed some quick dinner down the street and at at the backpacker and watched tv with the guests I was getting to know pretty well. The next day I took a day trip with the Baz Bus, a bus that caters to backpackers travelling along the South African coast, to the Cape Peninsula. The first stop was Hout Bay where we took a short but really cool ferry ride out to Seal Island, home to a colony of Cape Fur Seals. We saw them playing and swimming in the water and lazing on the rocks. It was really cool to see even more animals and I reallly love seals. The other people on the trip were all cool- I was the youngest but had the edge of having been in Africa for several months already. I was giving out travel advice like a pro haha. There were several other Americans and lots of people travelling on their own too. We all chatted and swapped stories. The next stop was a nice overlook, looking down on Muizenburg and tons of surfers in the water. We had a muffin and juice then headed to Simon's Town where I got to the see the penguins again. I knew this was going to happen but didn't really mind returning! This time we went into the park and walked along the boardwalk through penguin territory. Here there were many more and even little fuzzy grey babies and ones that were in between and were grey and glossy. I saw the full cycle from baby to adult and there were even some moms on nests still. It was really great.
Next we went into the Cape Peninsula area and the scenery was gorgeous. It was really raw, untouched nature. The whole things is high up on these cliffs that rise out of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, since they more or less meet here (although technically they come together at Cape Agullus). The area was covered with low thick shrubbery called fynbos and it was beautiful and open. We got to bike ride for about 20 minutes to the place where we had lunch and I loved the ride. I barely had to pedal and just took in the scenery. Lunch was sandwiches- good, then we took the bus (it was really just a big van) down the the Cape of Good Hope which was really cool to really be there. We saw ostriches there too! Then we went on a hike up and around the Cape Point, over an around the cliffs, through the fynbos, and the views were awesome, of just blue blue blue sparkling ocean and rocky cliffs. We ended the hike at the Cape Lighthouse which was awesome and had amazing views of just ocean and other mountains rising out of it. On the way up a baboon ran down the path right by us! There are lots of babboons in the area, and they have issues with home being built in their habitat- they have learned how to raid kitchens! The tour took us back into Cape Town with commentary along the way, then dropped everyone off where they were staying. It was a great day and I'm so glad I got to see the seals and the Cape of Good Hope area because it was amazing.
The trip overall was great. We had a short week of school, just Tues, Wed, and Thurs, as today, Fri, is another public holiday. Since I was just travelling, I'm on campus for this one. I think I may go to the beach later (I love that we can still do that in "winter") and to a dance performance on campus later. We only have three weeks of classes left, then study break and exams! I can't believe it! My laptop is being repaired again so that's why there have been no new pictures lately!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Back!
I got back from the Easter break trip on Monday night. It was great, many changes to the plan along the way (you really can't plan for Africa it turns out) but all were good and for the best. I got to see and experience many awesome things and I will have so much to write about! Unfortunately I'm also writing 2 essays this week. The pictures I'm uploading to Facebook now are from February and I'm trying hard to get current, but there will be some serious difference between the blog and the photos for a long time now.
For now, here's a link
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147104&id=7412354&l=08779f5119
This is the album (in progress) of the Zululand trip I went on a while back.
A really quick summary of easter break:
We headed north through Swaziland (we were in three countries in one day!) to Mozambique. We stayed in Maputo for one night and one day. It's the capital of Mozambique and is an interesting city. It is rough and worn down but has uniquely beautiful parts and lots of characters. We went to a cool open market and the local beach, where we were the only non-locals. We then continued north to Inhambane/Tofo where we stayed in an awesome backpacker right over the sand dune from the beach. The beach was gorgeous. A storm by Madagascar made the waves too big to launch boats for some of the activities run there, but I still got to do a scuba dive (saw an octopus in a cave!) and a kayak day trip out to a tiny island covered with palm trees and past white beaches with turqouise waters. We spent an extra day in Tofo to soak up more of the awesome beach atmosphere and then headed back towards Swaziland. We stopped over in Nelspruit on the way to Swaziland and ended up just staying there instead of Swaziland because we had seen alot of it driving through (it's a beautiful but small country) and Nelspruit is very close to Kruger Park. We wanted to go on some game drives and there is nowhere better than Kruger so we took a safari organized by the backpacker in Nelspruit into Kruger for one day, one night of camping, and the following morning. We didn't see all of the big 5 (buffalo, lion, leopard, rhino, elephant) but I finally got to see elephants and lots of them! They're my favorite and we saw about 20 wit some little cute babies! We also saw lots of impala, zebra, 4 rhinos, wildebeast, warthog, cliffspringer, and lots of cool birds, including the zazoo bird from lion king.
The trip was stressful at times doing all the driving and navigating and planning ourselves but it was worth it and I got to see alot of Africa!
For now, here's a link
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2147104&id=7412354&l=08779f5119
This is the album (in progress) of the Zululand trip I went on a while back.
A really quick summary of easter break:
We headed north through Swaziland (we were in three countries in one day!) to Mozambique. We stayed in Maputo for one night and one day. It's the capital of Mozambique and is an interesting city. It is rough and worn down but has uniquely beautiful parts and lots of characters. We went to a cool open market and the local beach, where we were the only non-locals. We then continued north to Inhambane/Tofo where we stayed in an awesome backpacker right over the sand dune from the beach. The beach was gorgeous. A storm by Madagascar made the waves too big to launch boats for some of the activities run there, but I still got to do a scuba dive (saw an octopus in a cave!) and a kayak day trip out to a tiny island covered with palm trees and past white beaches with turqouise waters. We spent an extra day in Tofo to soak up more of the awesome beach atmosphere and then headed back towards Swaziland. We stopped over in Nelspruit on the way to Swaziland and ended up just staying there instead of Swaziland because we had seen alot of it driving through (it's a beautiful but small country) and Nelspruit is very close to Kruger Park. We wanted to go on some game drives and there is nowhere better than Kruger so we took a safari organized by the backpacker in Nelspruit into Kruger for one day, one night of camping, and the following morning. We didn't see all of the big 5 (buffalo, lion, leopard, rhino, elephant) but I finally got to see elephants and lots of them! They're my favorite and we saw about 20 wit some little cute babies! We also saw lots of impala, zebra, 4 rhinos, wildebeast, warthog, cliffspringer, and lots of cool birds, including the zazoo bird from lion king.
The trip was stressful at times doing all the driving and navigating and planning ourselves but it was worth it and I got to see alot of Africa!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Easter Break
Tomorrow morning I'll be leaving for our Easter break. I'm travelling with 6 friends to Mozambique and then Swaziland! We'll stopping in Maputo, Inhanmbane, and Xai-Xai in Mozambique and staying in the Milwane Nature Reserve in Swaziland. We'll be spending most of the week in Mozambique and the second weekend in Swaziland. We've rented a van and will be driving because it gives us more flexibility. I'm excited and a bit nervous for the adventure! We're staying in backpackers so we've booked those and they sound really nice and organize lots of activities like snorkeling, kayaking, and game drives. I also might scuba! Both countries are supposed to be amazing so I should have alot to write about when I get back. Happy Easter!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Strike, Scuba, and Hiking!
It’s been a long time since I’ve written an update but it’s harder than usual to get online. Due to students striking on campus here, the computer labs and library keep being closed to prevent damage to equipment. At this point the library is closed until further notice (ugh!) and I am just lucky right now that the strike is small today and hasn’t managed to close the lab. As they say here “aish!” (it’s like oi vey or ugh or whatever but Zulu-style). The strike is being led by the SRC, student representative council, and is occurring because there are many students who didn’t get on campus residence or financial aid and are living in bad circumstances off campus. I understand that this is a serious issue and I am lucky to have a room here and my finances are good. However, the goal of the strike, to get heard, is to disrupt all lectures and get normal classes and whatnot to cease for the time being. At first they were just marching around campus, singing, chanting, and dancing. Being in DC, I’m kind of used to this. What I’m not used to is rumors of students going into classrooms and harassing other students to join them and getting lectures cancelled. There is also talk that they have broken windows and vandalized cars but I’m not sure how much of that is true. Some of my classes were cancelled on Thursday and Friday but some met and I didn’t have any problems with striking students. However, Monday I was taking a test and two strikers came in the back and were saying that we couldn’t be writing a test while students were on strike. The lecturer (it’s an ethics/philosophy class) tried to reason with them and say that we couldn’t be forced to join the strike and that they couldn’t prevent us from pursuing our education…but the reasoning didn’t work and they turned the lights out on our test. Literally shut them off three separate times so the lecturer was forced to cancel the test and it’ll be rescheduled. I was realllly not pleased since I spent the whole day Sunday studying for it and felt like I was doing really well on it. On the way to my next class, everyone was walking in the direction away from campus and some people were running. I knew this couldn’t be good. I got to the top of the stairs that lead up from the residences to campus (it’s all on a hill) and people were standing waiting and said that the riot police were on scene and it was getting bad. I started to go the back way, around the strike, to class when I heard shots fired. Thankfully there were only rubber bullets and no one was seriously hurt, but I guess that sting pretty badly. After 10 minutes or so, things cleared out and all looked good so I did got to class, with 8 other students who showed up. There were no other problems yesterday, and today things are much much quieter. There are extra security guards around the classrooms and there appear to be no riot police. The only striking I’ve seen was 15 or so students and they were just sitting or chanting. I hope this is the end of the chaos but I also hope something is done to help them. I’m just not sure that this is the way to do it. It’s strange to be here in this privileged position while other students are struggling. One girl told me that when I go back to my country, I should tell them that apartheid is still happening in South Africa. I’m writing this to share my experiences and not to make anyone worry about me. At no time was I in real danger. I wasn’t near the crowds and I will continue to avoid them. I wasn’t even on the same level of campus as the shots fired. I think things are clearing up and I will stay safe.
In other news, I should probably mention the actual dives I did since I wrote about the class. Sodwana is an amazing place! The five dives I went on were all amazing. I arrived Friday night, drove up with two girls from the class, and couldn’t find some of my gear initially. Things were a bit hectic getting all the boatloads ready and all the gear kitted up (check out my diver lingo) and the boats loaded, the camp set up on the beach, and the boats launched, but once you were in the water it was all amazing. I went on three dives on Saturday and we started bright and early in the morning, which is good because we hit a lot of snags along the way. I was sharing gear with another girl so as soon as I came off the boat I had to give her my stuff, including my wetsuit, which is not exactly cake to take on and off, but it all worked out. I didn’t know what to expect for th reef in Sodwana but it was bigger and more awesome than I could have anticipated. On the first dive I saw a huge manta ray sleeping at the bottom and two really big and moray eels! The fish were awesome and so colorful. We were down for about 25 minutes and it was so cool. The second dive was a little longer and I saw a big sea turtle sleeping under an overhang! And more cool fish! The third dive happened after one of the boat motors broke, but we got to snorkel in the meantime and saw some cool stuff close to shore that way. On the third dive I saw a scorpion fish and a puffer (not puffed up). At the end of the day, since your not putting the boat in any more, you get to drive it fast at the beach and beach it up on the sand, this was also really fun (don’t worry, we wear lifejackets and hold on to all these ropes). We did however have to push that boat up to the truck, and then the truck through the beach a good ways. So diving is really awesome and really tiring. It rained at the campsite that night but luckily I stayed pretty dry and so did the inside of our tent. The next day I got to do two more dives, both awesome as well. My cylinder was smaller that day and I breath a lot I guess underwater, so I kept getting to the level of air which you come up at first. On the fourth dive we saw two white-tipped reef sharks! So cool! On the fifth dive we had to do our skills. This means that you kneel in the sand at the bottom of the ocean ( a cool feeling!) and have to show that you can take your mask all the way off, put it back on, and clear it. This was challenging even in the pool but we all managed to do it, a great feeling. We also had to remove our mouthpiece underwater (that thing that you breath through) and find it and put it back in. And we had to breathe through our partners spare mouthpiece (octo-breathing). We all passed and then the rest of the dive was the best for me of them all. We saw a little sea turtle swimming around on one of the earlier dives that I forgot to mention but this time we saw a big one eating! And it saw us, and kept eating, and we got to watch it for a long time. Either I was braver and got closer to the fish, or they got closer to me, these little ones were all around me and near my face. They were awesome colors. We also saw a huge school of fish from the bottom to the surface on one of the other dives and we got really close to it, almost in it, that I forgot to mention as well. So much!
Now I am fully certified beginner scuba diver!
One other thing I should write about is my hike on Saturday. It was epic! Myself and 5 other girls headed to the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve for the day. It’s part of the Valley of 1000 Hills, a really beautiful and mountainous/hilly area about 30 minutes from Durban. We planned to be there the whole day but I don’t think anyone imagined the actual hike we went on. We started off and immediately had beautiful views of the cliff side across from the one we were on, and a waterfall running down it. We continued and entered a forest like area and then headed down to this rocky river bed. Our trail crossed the river at one point so we took our shoes off and waded through, then sat down for our picnic lunch and let our feet dry. Little did we know that the trail crossed the river probably about 5 more times…I think that it was higher than usual because of the rain and some areas that were usually just rock actually had some fast moving water over them. There was on really hard spot to cross. Mio and Myrthe made it halfway across but the rest of us were too short/ too nervous to straddle the rocks they used, so we headed back upstream to a more rocky area. I made it half way across when Sarah was still coming and dropped her shoes in the river! Meg called to Myrthe to lean out and grab them…but they never got that far. They got stuck in the rocks and small rapids somewhere, so Meg and I had to scramble like Gollum over the rocks to find them. I ended up getting both and was just lucky to reach under this huge boulder where the second one was and had to yank it out. After that we cursed the river every time we came back around to it. Eventually the landscape turned into more of a grassland and we started encountering these huge spider webs all along the trail. They were kite spiders with red and yellow patterns (google it, they’re really crazy looking) and we either had to move them nicely (Annereike is afraid of spiders in general, and these were pretty scary) or duck under and around them. Eventually we headed up and realized that we were climbing one of the red cliffed mountains that we had been in the valley of at the river bed. We went up and up and up and up (meanwhile Myrthe is afraid of heights) and the views were incredible. Finally we came out of top in tall grass and there were zebras! At first they were far off but when we were waiting for the cab to come pick us up we edged closer and closer to them and we got about as close as we thought we should. It was amazing to see truly wild zebras (this isn’t a game reserve) that close up. They are awesome. I can’t wait to put all the pictures up from the past month and a half (there are tonsss) but I will have to wait until the library reopens. Hopefully that is very soon! I’ve been here for about two months now!
In other news, I should probably mention the actual dives I did since I wrote about the class. Sodwana is an amazing place! The five dives I went on were all amazing. I arrived Friday night, drove up with two girls from the class, and couldn’t find some of my gear initially. Things were a bit hectic getting all the boatloads ready and all the gear kitted up (check out my diver lingo) and the boats loaded, the camp set up on the beach, and the boats launched, but once you were in the water it was all amazing. I went on three dives on Saturday and we started bright and early in the morning, which is good because we hit a lot of snags along the way. I was sharing gear with another girl so as soon as I came off the boat I had to give her my stuff, including my wetsuit, which is not exactly cake to take on and off, but it all worked out. I didn’t know what to expect for th reef in Sodwana but it was bigger and more awesome than I could have anticipated. On the first dive I saw a huge manta ray sleeping at the bottom and two really big and moray eels! The fish were awesome and so colorful. We were down for about 25 minutes and it was so cool. The second dive was a little longer and I saw a big sea turtle sleeping under an overhang! And more cool fish! The third dive happened after one of the boat motors broke, but we got to snorkel in the meantime and saw some cool stuff close to shore that way. On the third dive I saw a scorpion fish and a puffer (not puffed up). At the end of the day, since your not putting the boat in any more, you get to drive it fast at the beach and beach it up on the sand, this was also really fun (don’t worry, we wear lifejackets and hold on to all these ropes). We did however have to push that boat up to the truck, and then the truck through the beach a good ways. So diving is really awesome and really tiring. It rained at the campsite that night but luckily I stayed pretty dry and so did the inside of our tent. The next day I got to do two more dives, both awesome as well. My cylinder was smaller that day and I breath a lot I guess underwater, so I kept getting to the level of air which you come up at first. On the fourth dive we saw two white-tipped reef sharks! So cool! On the fifth dive we had to do our skills. This means that you kneel in the sand at the bottom of the ocean ( a cool feeling!) and have to show that you can take your mask all the way off, put it back on, and clear it. This was challenging even in the pool but we all managed to do it, a great feeling. We also had to remove our mouthpiece underwater (that thing that you breath through) and find it and put it back in. And we had to breathe through our partners spare mouthpiece (octo-breathing). We all passed and then the rest of the dive was the best for me of them all. We saw a little sea turtle swimming around on one of the earlier dives that I forgot to mention but this time we saw a big one eating! And it saw us, and kept eating, and we got to watch it for a long time. Either I was braver and got closer to the fish, or they got closer to me, these little ones were all around me and near my face. They were awesome colors. We also saw a huge school of fish from the bottom to the surface on one of the other dives and we got really close to it, almost in it, that I forgot to mention as well. So much!
Now I am fully certified beginner scuba diver!
One other thing I should write about is my hike on Saturday. It was epic! Myself and 5 other girls headed to the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve for the day. It’s part of the Valley of 1000 Hills, a really beautiful and mountainous/hilly area about 30 minutes from Durban. We planned to be there the whole day but I don’t think anyone imagined the actual hike we went on. We started off and immediately had beautiful views of the cliff side across from the one we were on, and a waterfall running down it. We continued and entered a forest like area and then headed down to this rocky river bed. Our trail crossed the river at one point so we took our shoes off and waded through, then sat down for our picnic lunch and let our feet dry. Little did we know that the trail crossed the river probably about 5 more times…I think that it was higher than usual because of the rain and some areas that were usually just rock actually had some fast moving water over them. There was on really hard spot to cross. Mio and Myrthe made it halfway across but the rest of us were too short/ too nervous to straddle the rocks they used, so we headed back upstream to a more rocky area. I made it half way across when Sarah was still coming and dropped her shoes in the river! Meg called to Myrthe to lean out and grab them…but they never got that far. They got stuck in the rocks and small rapids somewhere, so Meg and I had to scramble like Gollum over the rocks to find them. I ended up getting both and was just lucky to reach under this huge boulder where the second one was and had to yank it out. After that we cursed the river every time we came back around to it. Eventually the landscape turned into more of a grassland and we started encountering these huge spider webs all along the trail. They were kite spiders with red and yellow patterns (google it, they’re really crazy looking) and we either had to move them nicely (Annereike is afraid of spiders in general, and these were pretty scary) or duck under and around them. Eventually we headed up and realized that we were climbing one of the red cliffed mountains that we had been in the valley of at the river bed. We went up and up and up and up (meanwhile Myrthe is afraid of heights) and the views were incredible. Finally we came out of top in tall grass and there were zebras! At first they were far off but when we were waiting for the cab to come pick us up we edged closer and closer to them and we got about as close as we thought we should. It was amazing to see truly wild zebras (this isn’t a game reserve) that close up. They are awesome. I can’t wait to put all the pictures up from the past month and a half (there are tonsss) but I will have to wait until the library reopens. Hopefully that is very soon! I’ve been here for about two months now!
Friday, March 13, 2009
SCUBA
As I mentioned before, I signed up for the SCUBA course here at UKZN. For the past two weeks I have been taking part in the course and this weekend I will be travelling to Sodwana Bay, one of the top ten dive spots in the world, to do my five qualifying dives.
Getting it all done has been pretty intense for the past two weeks and taken up the greater part of my brain power and time. The group is usually capped at 18 but somehow this time around it got as big as 24 or so, so there are a lot of us to organize and teach at once. We had lectures on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and then last Saturday and Sunday we had two full days of pool training and lectures. They started at 8:30 or 9 and went until 4. This was truly exhausting. To add to that, I got the chance to go out on a boat off Durban on Saturday morning before class, ie 5:30 am. Caroline and Andrew, two of the people who are super involved in the underwater club/pretty much run it (they are the chairman and secretary and are probably somewhere in their 30’s) took 6 of us to look for dolphins. It ended up being rainy the whole time and we didn’t spot anything but little fish, but the waves were really big because of a surge from Capetown and I rode in the front of the boat. It was sooo fun to go over the waves and we had a great time all together.
Pool training started with a swim test that was more intensive that I had expected. We had to swim across the 25 meter pool underwater in one breath and this took me multiple tries to complete. In fact, I didn’t get it until Sunday morning when I went early to try again by myself (pretty embarrassing but when I got it I popped up out of the water, took a big breath and fist-pumped with joy). We then had to tread for 10 minutes straight. I made it through that and then we learned all kinds of other things in the water, including how to take your regulator (the thing you breath through) out underwater and find it and put it back in, and to take your mask all the way off underwater and put it back on. Then we did both at the same time. I got these on the first tries but it was challenging. You have to fight the feeling that you should be panicking and coming to the surface.
That night I went to a nice Thai restaurant with three friends to relax and have a nice meal. The restaurant was on Florida Road, a swanky place with lots of restaurants and clubs. Apparently it’s the place to “see and be seen” in Durban (say the guide books). The food was great but I’d need a second look at the rest of the street to be convinced.
The second day we were more accustomed to our gear and I had more fun in the pool. We learned other things and then played some games at the end which were really fun. We played broken telephone, where you try to communicate the message with only hand signals. This was pretty hilariously impossible. The last game was dubbed “the war game” and consisted of all the students swimming around in the deep end and the instructors “attacking” us. They could take off our masks, take our regulators out, steal our fins, inflate our BCs (like a flotation vest), undo our weight belts, unbuckle our cylinders and even turn off our air! The goal was to recover from these incidences, like get your mask back on, etc. or come up to the surface if you couldn’t. The last person at the bottoms won. Luckily none of the really bad ones happened to me. I just got my fin stolen a few times and my regulator removed a few times. However when one instructor undid my weight belt he broke the buckle off so I couldn’t get it back on. I had it in one hand and then got a flipper stolen. I couldn’t get both back on and then my mask started to fill with water, so I surfaced, about in the middle of the pack. Some people stayed down impressively long!
I had my written scuba test last night and I passed with a 94%. Then we packed up our gear. I finally got my medical clearance form signed (it’s a huge problem when your school clinic doesn’t have their doctor anymore and gives you the run around) which was a huge area of stress. I am leaving tonight and will be there until Sunday evening. It’s going to be hectic but very exciting. I do three dives on Sat and two on Sunday. I’m on the smaller boat which I think will be nice. I got an underwater disposable camera so I should be able to take some pictures. I’m sharing a tent with some girls, two of which I just met in the course and are really nice. The other is my dive partner, Sarah, who is from France. I’m excited and will certainly write another really long blog post about it later. This week I also had my first Zulu test which I think went well. It was a lot like the practice tests they gave us. I also started planning my Easter break trip with some friends. We are trying to go to Mozambique and Swaziland! We have a lot of planning to do but it should be great.
Getting it all done has been pretty intense for the past two weeks and taken up the greater part of my brain power and time. The group is usually capped at 18 but somehow this time around it got as big as 24 or so, so there are a lot of us to organize and teach at once. We had lectures on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and then last Saturday and Sunday we had two full days of pool training and lectures. They started at 8:30 or 9 and went until 4. This was truly exhausting. To add to that, I got the chance to go out on a boat off Durban on Saturday morning before class, ie 5:30 am. Caroline and Andrew, two of the people who are super involved in the underwater club/pretty much run it (they are the chairman and secretary and are probably somewhere in their 30’s) took 6 of us to look for dolphins. It ended up being rainy the whole time and we didn’t spot anything but little fish, but the waves were really big because of a surge from Capetown and I rode in the front of the boat. It was sooo fun to go over the waves and we had a great time all together.
Pool training started with a swim test that was more intensive that I had expected. We had to swim across the 25 meter pool underwater in one breath and this took me multiple tries to complete. In fact, I didn’t get it until Sunday morning when I went early to try again by myself (pretty embarrassing but when I got it I popped up out of the water, took a big breath and fist-pumped with joy). We then had to tread for 10 minutes straight. I made it through that and then we learned all kinds of other things in the water, including how to take your regulator (the thing you breath through) out underwater and find it and put it back in, and to take your mask all the way off underwater and put it back on. Then we did both at the same time. I got these on the first tries but it was challenging. You have to fight the feeling that you should be panicking and coming to the surface.
That night I went to a nice Thai restaurant with three friends to relax and have a nice meal. The restaurant was on Florida Road, a swanky place with lots of restaurants and clubs. Apparently it’s the place to “see and be seen” in Durban (say the guide books). The food was great but I’d need a second look at the rest of the street to be convinced.
The second day we were more accustomed to our gear and I had more fun in the pool. We learned other things and then played some games at the end which were really fun. We played broken telephone, where you try to communicate the message with only hand signals. This was pretty hilariously impossible. The last game was dubbed “the war game” and consisted of all the students swimming around in the deep end and the instructors “attacking” us. They could take off our masks, take our regulators out, steal our fins, inflate our BCs (like a flotation vest), undo our weight belts, unbuckle our cylinders and even turn off our air! The goal was to recover from these incidences, like get your mask back on, etc. or come up to the surface if you couldn’t. The last person at the bottoms won. Luckily none of the really bad ones happened to me. I just got my fin stolen a few times and my regulator removed a few times. However when one instructor undid my weight belt he broke the buckle off so I couldn’t get it back on. I had it in one hand and then got a flipper stolen. I couldn’t get both back on and then my mask started to fill with water, so I surfaced, about in the middle of the pack. Some people stayed down impressively long!
I had my written scuba test last night and I passed with a 94%. Then we packed up our gear. I finally got my medical clearance form signed (it’s a huge problem when your school clinic doesn’t have their doctor anymore and gives you the run around) which was a huge area of stress. I am leaving tonight and will be there until Sunday evening. It’s going to be hectic but very exciting. I do three dives on Sat and two on Sunday. I’m on the smaller boat which I think will be nice. I got an underwater disposable camera so I should be able to take some pictures. I’m sharing a tent with some girls, two of which I just met in the course and are really nice. The other is my dive partner, Sarah, who is from France. I’m excited and will certainly write another really long blog post about it later. This week I also had my first Zulu test which I think went well. It was a lot like the practice tests they gave us. I also started planning my Easter break trip with some friends. We are trying to go to Mozambique and Swaziland! We have a lot of planning to do but it should be great.
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