Hallo! Hoe gaan dit met julle?Its been a while since my last post. I thought I had submitted one last week but for some reason, as the internet often does here, the message did not formally post. So here I am, two weeks since I last talked with you
all, and to tell you the truth, there hasn't been too much going on. I lie. Haha...
I have done quit a bit over the past two weeks so I am going
to try and sum it all up in as little words as possible because of the complaints I received on my comments...cough cough Cameron. Jk haha...
The last week of July concluded a successful month here South Africa. More cooking with housemates and friends. More football as usual. And more partying as expected. Joachim, Jennifer, Sara, and I ventured out to central and township of Walmer, about 30 minutes from Summerstrand and the campus. We left around 1245 and when we got there we were regrettably reminded that weekends are probably the worst day to go out shopping or venturing out. I'm not sure I have said this before but TIA = This Is Africa. It is a saying a way of life you must become accu
stomed to on arrival here. When I say TIA I mean people don't work on weekends because they don't feel like it; shops close whenever they like even if their hours state they'll be open because this is Africa. So weekends are the time that people usually take off work early to go home and spend time with friends and family, cook and most importantly, party! So instead we just walked around to a few different places throughout the city, of which one place we visited was the Donkin Lighthouse (above).
It was erected by Mr. Donkin the forme
r of the town Port Elizabeth, of which he named the town after his wife Elizabeth who died when her ship from the Eastern Asia's sunk off the coast of eastern Africa. We also made
our way out to Walmer which has some really idyllic gift shops, tea gardens and coffee houses. All of which were closed be
cause it was the weekend.
Friday the 1 August, Jo, Sara, Amanda, and I set out at 7am to venture the nature reserve on which the campus is located. I reserve is home to host of different bok animals, 250+ bird species, badgers, zebras (pronounced z-a-bras with an a) and the national animal the springbok. The day was another usual wind day in the windy city so many of the reserves smaller animals were not out and about.
Since its also winter time, so of the small mammals and animals are still hibernating. We were able to catch a glimps of some zabras, as well as some grysbok which are the relatively most abundant animals found on the reserve. It was a lot of fun until about 2 hours into the hike realized we weren't a
ctually on the paved trail but some random maintenance road for trucks. We decided to hike through the reserve to make it back to campus because Sara had to tur
n in a paper by 12. We were able to find our way back without destroying too much on our way.
After the weekend came to end and most of us recovered from hang overs and what not, it was
time for the first of the two celebrations that began the month of August. Monday the 4th was Joachim's 20th birthday and a
few of us decided o host a little surprise party at my flat for him. We worked all afternoon to keep it a secret from him, making Amanda take him to the local Mercado, Spar, where she wasted TWO HOURS trying to stall time for us to braai, blow up balloons, and set up my room for the dinner party. We were able to get everything set up with a huge platter of food and meat for the non vegetarians, as well as the complimentary wine. In the photo you have (from left to right): Kaylie, my flat mate Thomas, Laura, Stephan, and Cecilia.
It was a lot of fun! He obviously knew something was up after his two hour tour of spar with Amanda but as you can tell from the picture he enjoyed the company and was very pleased we put such a thing together for him. We all enjoyed the evening!
That Wednesday was another 20th birthday party for my friend Meredith, another CEA student. Amanda, I, Cristi, and Brian colored her room wall with paper and had everyone we could find in Annie's sign the wall as a form of large birthday card for her. We also blew up balloons and made brownie
s fro her. Some others took her out to dinner and we all met up at the Bowling lane at the Boardwalk for some drinks and a few games. It was a blast, especially when I slipped and ate shit in the middle of the lane trying to throw the ball left handed (for those of you who do not know, I am a lefty but I throw a football right handed and also bowl right handed). It was a blast.
The rest of the week I spent studying and working on homework for my history class as well as my Afrikaans course. I have also been doing a lot of research into places I want to visit once classes finish and exams are over.
This past Saturday was probably the windiest and coldest day in PE since I have been here. Our football team, South West, played our first and only game of the opening tournament. We fell to some weak crappy team 2-1. It was a said morning but the night made up for it completely. haha. Saturday night I spent teaching people the rules of Beer Pong and Flip Cup (now labeled cup flip here in Annie's). it was an amazing time and a great way to make up for our failure earlier that morning. Sunday was a beautiful day and perfect for the even that took place:
American Pancakes vs. French Crepes!!!! Joachim and Thomas, two of the french people staying here in Annie's teamed up against myself and Laura to showdown and see whose pancakes were better. It turned out to be a tie but in my opinion American pancakes came out way better, just because crepes are so hard to make in the lame cooking equipment we have to work with.
Well thats about it I think. I tried my best to keep it short. Its taken me two hours to write this, hahaha. I hope everyone is having fun back in the states; trying to get their final trips in before classes start. Please email me if you'd like me to send you more photos for I don't have time to wait years for the photos to upload on this page so I tend to leave out some good ones.
Cheers!
