So I started writing this post like two weeks ago...for some perspective...

So, I've been bombarded with work and will continue to be until I leave for Mozambique on Thursday evening.

On a lighter note...this past weekend all of CIEE participated in a home stay in Ocean View, a colored township nearby. Many of the residents of Ocean View have lived there for their entire lives, along with their parents and grandparents. During the Apartheid era, many of these people lived in a beautiful beach front area called Simonstown. Eventually being forcefully removed from Simonstown, a majority moved to Ocean View, which was developed in 1972 (i think).

On Friday night, we took a bus to Ocean View Secondary School, where I was greeted by Henry and Natasha. The casual introduction was followed by, "you're not a vegetarian are you?!" and then, "what's your religion?!" I passed one of the tests! Tasha and Henry have pictures of Jesus in every room, and even a lovely clock with Jesus as the clock face! In their living room, there is an enormous...thing...hanging on the wall with the lord's prayer on it. They're die hard roman catholics, and the other CIEE student staying with me, Kaitlyn, passed BOTH tests because she is catholic as well. Haha, when Tasha introduced me to some people one time she said, "and this is michelle...her dad is catholic!"

Tasha and Henry have three kids; Cheslyn, 9, Chante, 12, and Kyle 17. Unfortunately Kyle was away for the weekend so I didn't get to meet him, but Chante and Cheslyn were entertaining enough to make up for the absence of one sibling. The family is very popular, therefore I met tons of Ocean View residents...friends and family alike! My first new friend was Father Ashley, the priest at their church. He might have provided a bottle of Wild Turkey American Honey Whiskey...we might have finished it. After we headed back to the house, we hung out there for a little bit before moving on to the gathering going on a couple streets up. This township is a more developed township, all of the homes have walls, running water, and electricity. Me and Kaitlyn shared a bed that didn't really have its own room, but it worked out well. On Saturday morning, we were woken by Henry blaring a hip hop song from a "well known cape town DJ." These were the lyrics..."WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP." Let's just say I've been a happier sleepy person before. We watched TV which is something I hadn't done in a couple of months. High School Musical II was the preferred movie, followed by Eurotrip, ha.

We got to my family's friends' house and there were other American kids there, like 3 or 4 families. We started watching the Olympics, which was cool, since I haven't been able to watch them at all since they've started. I wish we coulda done a little better than table tennis, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. Then, to my pleasant surprise we started playing dominos!!! I'm going to pause to give a shout out to grandma freer right here. :) The only thing was, after I talked up my dominos game a little, we started playing a version of dominos that I was not so good at after all, ha. It was fun, I learned a new way which I will someday teach you grandma, don't you worry. We all played, and chatted and sipped on the whiskey until the bottle was gone, forcing Henry to grab an American and run to get some beer. In this township, there are no liquor licenses. Therefore, there aren't liquor stores. People go to the back doors of particular houses, using a special knock in order to buy booze.

The next morning, we went to a soup kitchen to cook for the poor/homeless. We chopped up veggies for a couple of hours, and then spent the rest of the time playing fun games like musical chairs. Chante got peed on by Adriana, her cousin. She had to walk around in a comforter for...a while. Let me just say that I've never had so much coffee in such a short amount of time. I must have had atleast 30 cups of coffee this weekend; everytime you finish a cup, another one is offered. We served the people stew and soup, and after that we packed up to leave the soup kitchen. Henry took us on a scenic drive around Ocean View, we drove through the mountains, watching the sunset out of his pick up truck. He also pointed out the last refugee camp in the area, and we talked about that for a bit. We drove through an ostrich farm, and saw some camels. Next time, Henry is going to take me to ride a camel!

That night we went back to the soup kitchen to have what was almost like a braai, except the food that was made was cooked over a fire in pots. I forget the name of the gathering tho...There were a bunch of families that I had met the night before there, and a bunch of CIEE kids. The Ocean View residents think boxed wine is a hilarious concept; they call it the "magical silver bag" or something like that. We ate really good curry that night (everyone loves curry in Ocean View). On the way home, two of our friends from CIEE were going out to a bar with some of the kids in their host family, and wanted me and Kaitlyn to come too. Henry had a little too much to drink, and Tasha was not keen on the idea of us going out. To make a long story short, we got lectured by them, in a very nice way, about the differences between educated kids and uneducated kids are...among other things. One of their nieces, who is 17, had a baby last year, and their other niece is pregnant right now. It's just such a different culture, and it was really interesting to get input from other people are topics like that.

The next day was the day we were leaving. We were again woken up very early, and went to church of course. It was similar to a catholic service in the US, except the music was more fun and gospel-like, and it was much less formal than catholic mass' that I've been to before. Again, it was funny just because I'm not Catholic, and that was so weird to them for some reason. After church, Jeremy, a friend of the family, and...a guy that does something with the church, I actually have no idea what his position is, took me and Kaitlyn to give communion to all of the sick people that couldn't make it to church. Kaitlyn read from the Bible, haha, I passed up the opportunity. That was very interesting, we went to some very poor areas, and visited some extremely sick people.

After church, we had people over the house for a delicious lunch, and Tasha's sister came over with her husband. It was really fun to meet her; she was hilarious. My mom knitted me a scarf, and Cheslyn bought me a bracelet with a matching necklace and ring! It was a cute little gift. The family really wants us to come back and visit them, which I hopefully will get time to do since it's only a train ride away.

Yesterday, I went to the beach for the first swimsuit day since I've arrived in Cape Town. Although I would have been much more comfortable if it was 10 degrees warmer, it was very pleasant. We went to the beach in Muzenburg which is beautifully surrounded by mountains on three sides. It's so easy to get to so when it gets warmer I feel like I'll be frequenting that area. The train station, which is in walking distance from my house takes you directly there. Literally you step off the train and onto sand, very convenient! The train was 11 rand round trip, the cheapest form of transportation I've found yet. The train isn't always safe tho, unless you're traveling in a group, and you can never take it after dark. Some people went surfing...it was 100 rand for board/wetsuit rental. I thought about going but I want to take a lesson and these peeps already knew how to surf and were just goin' for it. I'll go next time for sure.

After the beach we went to get some food at this really cute cafe right on the water. Something I've noticed about eating out in Cape Town is the lack of good service. Often words are misunderstood and orders come out not quite right. We had the best waitress ever and I had really good lasagna! Lots of meat was in it, I like meat. Then, we took the train home. Successful day.

I just got out of class for the day, and I just had some soup before I go to volunteer for a couple hours.

On Saturday there was a huge rugby game here. We played New Zealand and lost, but CIEE took us to a local restaurant/bar, and we got some free drink vouchers and a ton of free food. It was pretty cool. The whole city was drinking all day on Saturday. There were carloads of people smashing beer bottles all over the city streets. Comparable to St. Patrick's Day.

On Thursday night, I went to this awesome little live music joint called Zula. There was a live band and an opening act, who was amazing. This guy played like 20 different harmonicas, even covered a couple Radiohead songs. He was truly mesmerizing; everyone was just staring at this man for his 45 minute set.

Gotta go for now

Shark cage diving etc.

Yesterday, I went shark cage diving!! At 4:45 am my alarm went off, and I met 4 friends downstairs. At 5 we were picked up by a large van, that was to take us to meet the sharks. Unfortunately, we were the first group to be picked up, so we had to pick up 5 or so more groups before even heading in the right direction. We arrived at our destination around 8 am. I downed like 2 cups of coffee and 8 croissants before getting onto our boat. We were warned that the water would be rough because of the intense winds, but nobody expected THAT much roughness. A boy that lives in my house was signed up to go through a different program, but his trip had been cancelled due to the wind. Literally, half the people on the boat threw up before the end of our journey. We were also given pills before boarding to reduce sea sickness. I was fine, no sickness for me. Although, I was wearing about 10 layers and was still shivering the whole time.

We saw the first great white shark after about an hour of sitting and waiting. The first group of divers, 7, were getting into wet suits, ready to get in the water when the captain starts telling everyone to sit down. There was a huge commotion and we all returned to our seats and tried our best not to get into anyones way. It turns out another boat, similar to ours, was in trouble. A big wave came and knocked out both their engines and 3 passengers had gotten head injuries!! We had to rescue them!!!!! We took off in the opposite direction at a very speedy pace. For a while, the crew on our boat was tossing the other boat a rope while they were caught in some rapids between two islands, and some rocks. The water was rough. Finally, our boats were able to connect with a piece of rope so we could tow the other boat. As we towed, the rope broke and snapped back, hitting a crew member on the other boat in the eye!! It was wild. Eventually, another boat came and helped. In the end, I guess they were the heroes.

Everyone was a little bit curious about whether or not we were even going to get to cage dive after all this, I heard someone ask a crew member about it, and his response was. "THIS IS ABOUT SAVING LIVES HERE!!!!!!" Pretty intense. We did get to cage dive after all...and it was awesome. Some of my friends weren't feeling too well on the boat , but we were the second group to get in the water. We put on full body wetsuits and we all got in a cage that was attached to our boat. The man throwing the bait would tell us when to go down and which direction to go to. We didn't use oxygen because the bubbles scare the sharks away. I was on the end of the cage and the shark was trying really hard to be my friend. We made eye contact and at one point he was about a foot from my face. The trip was very much worth it; I had a great time.

On Saturday, CIEE took us to a vineyard called the Nelson Estate in Stellenbosch. It was beautiful and we got a small tour and then got to taste 5 or 6 wines. The owner also came out and talked to us about a project that he has been working on to redistribute land to colored people in South Africa, since the majority of it is owned by white people. We also got a delicious lunch. After that we went to this other place in Stellenbosch where there was a rehabilitation center for cheetahs. I saw lotsa cheetahs they were cute and cuddly. We also got face paintings!!

This afternoon I am hopefully going to this township that I might volunteer at. It's pretty intense and time consuming, which is the only reason I might not do it. You also have to teach a class of 30 kids all by yourself...I'm not sure how good I'd be at that.

Tomorrow is my friend Danni's birthday, it's gonna be real fun, and we're having a huge party at our house on Friday night.

On this past Friday night, my friend Stephen had made a South African friend on campus and invited us to his friend's party that night. We went, and it was a blast. I met a ton of new people and they had multiple bon fires and an ice luge. I might even go rock climbing at a climbing gym with one peep that I met at the party tonight. We'll see!

Bye friends