One Last Post...

so its about 630 am here, and i can't get myself to stay asleep. (thanks to this lovely fear of flying) its really crazy to say goodbye to people here, and know that we won't actually be seeing eachother that often again. 3 people already left, and 5 or 6 of us are leaving today. I think after tuesday there will only be 2 or 3 people left in the house.

most of the other students in the house are taking a re-entry class spring quarter together. however, this whole me having graduated now thing puts a halt on that for me. i've promised that i will try and make special guest appearances, though :)

these last couple days have been really good, although a little sad. On Friday I said goodbye to Zanele. She's the lady who cleans the common areas of our house. I got fairly close to her when I was here two years ago, and again this time. I decided this time to take charge and raise money from everyone in the house to help pay for her children's school fees this time around, and I am really really happy that we were able to raise about 1000 rand for her. Here's a picture of Zanele and I together in our kitchen:

Zanele lives in Guguletu, and is planning to remodel and add on to her house so that people can start renting rooms and staying there with her. Especially with the world cup coming to South Africa in 2010 it is all over that there will not be enough places to stay downtown or any of that, so anyone across the city can make a good few bucks by renting out places to stay. I really hope to be able to save up enough money to make it back (with my mom!) by then and stay with her! Also, she is in the process of learning to drive and getting her drivers license, and is really excited to get to drive us around the next time we are here.

Friday night almost our whole group went out to a happy hour/dinner in our neighborhood together one final time. Most everyone went downtown to Long street for a final night, but Rebecca (my roomie) and I decided, as usual, that we'd prefer a quiet night in.

Yesterday (Sat) i spent a good deal of time packing, checking weight requirements, and getting bags on and off of our one scale in the house. Then Rebecca and I decided to do one final sundowners on Camps bay. Despite the massive winds (we had 60mph gusts), we settled in for one last time and watched the beautiful sunset before taking a taxi home. I got great pictures of it, but unfortunitely my camera cord is already packed away, so I cant share them right now. Perhaps when I am back home in seattle.

Anyway, so its now about 650am on Sunday, and i'm getting ready to hop on to my plane(s) to make the long long looooooooooong journey home. First, I am going from Cape Town to Johannesburg, then Joburg to Washington DC, then (finally!) Seattle! Just yesterday, there was a big article out on the front page of the newspaper (www.capetimes.co.za) to be careful in the Johannesburg airport because of roaming gangs, which was really comforting for someone who is already afraid of just the plane! I already disliked the Joburg airport when i was in it in january (it was really confusing and inconvenient), and now I have more reason to not want to travel through it!

Also, on my flight from Joburg to DC we have a random "technical stop" somewhere during the flight. however, i cannot find anywhere that says where this stop will be, so i'm a lil freaked out! Additionally, on that same flight (which, i might add, is 17 hours long) i checked my seats and i am in the very middle of the middle row at the frong bulkhead IN BETWEEN FOUR BABY BASSINETS. I fully intend to beg, grovel, and cry in order to not have to sit there. Its more for the baby's sake than mine! My layover in DC is only 2 hours long, so hopefully the plane is not delayed since i have to go through customs there before racing off to my plane in seattle!

Anyway, I need to go shower and finish packing and calm myself down some more, so I shall be off. I will see a lot of you really really soon on your side of the world!

xoxo

wish me luck on these flights

kate

Getting ready to leave....

I can't even believe how fast my time here has gone by! Although I am quite ready to come home, I am really going to miss Cape Town. I really want to try my best to come back for 2010...

I'll do a quick recap of my last week:

I forget which one it was (maybe Friday?), but either thurs or friday my roommate Rebecca and I went to do some gift shopping downtown at green market square, and then headed to Camps bay beach to sunbathe and then eat and watch the sun go down. Rebecca got pick-pocketed for 300 Rand (about 40 dollars) while we were downtown, so I decided to treat her to dinner while we were at the beach. Pictures of the beach/sunset:

On Saturday 3 of us got picked up at 530 am to go to Aquila game reserve and see animals: yay!!!! It was really really nice, we saw a lot of animals, and they gave us champagne to welcome us, mimosas with breakfast, and champagne during the break in our game drive. Its a good thing they fed us lots of food to go along with it! Here's some pictures:

Ostritch:

Zebra:

Buffalo:

Elephants:

Rhinos:

Wildebeast:
ground beetle: Lions:

giraffes:

On Sunday, our entire group left for Boulders Beach (the one with the penguins) for our final retreat. Here are a few pics from that:

We got home from Boulders Tuesday, and then our group from the Hands for a Bridge/Literacy Through Photography project went to say goodbye to the Bellville learners on Wednesday, and the Isilimela learners yesterday (Thursday). Also, yesterday morning was my last class of college ever!!!! I'm really really scared, but excited at the same time. Last night is when the first girl from our group left, too. It really drove home that we are at the end of our time here...

Today we all woke up at our own pace, and a lot of us ate breakfast together. (One of the girls here is a vegan and made these amazing vegan chocolate pancakes and vegan coconut pancakes with pinapple sauce). Then Rebecca and I slowly got ready and headed to the mall to do some last minute shopping. I picked up a few really really cute things that I'm excited about!

Tonight is our last night haning out together as a whole group (besides Suzanne who left yesterday) because tomorrow is when everyone else starts leaving. I think we're going to dinner then out to Long Street. Tomorrow during the day i plan on finishing my souveigner shopping and heading to the beach, and then i'm packing!

Sunday I have to leave for the airport at 11am. It feels so surreal!

update on my update...

so we seemed to have topped out temperature-wise for the day. i would just like to put out there that we topped out at about 95 degrees. however, the discomfort index (temp. it actually feels) was 43 degrees. THAT'S F 110 DEGREES. and we're at 60% humidity right now. this type of weather usually does not happen in cape town!!!

i'm burning up

this is what i get for complaining that the weather was cooling down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is currently 35 degress here, aka 95 degrees with no breeze and no ac anywhere in our house or the school i'm going to in about 5 minutes

10 days till i leave, 11 till i'm home

Alright, so as usual it has been forever since i updated last! i'll just have to do a quick day-by-day at this point.

Tuesday the 26th: All piled in minibuses to go downtown and see Woza Albert. Unfortunitely, it had sold out in the 1 days since we last checked ticket availability. Trekked back home to Obs and went out to the sushi restaurant in the neighborhood.

Wed the 27th: Sat around and did a lot of nothing. Did some laundry. Read a book. Sometimes its really nice just to sit at home

Thurs the 28th: Went to class, ran last-minute errands for the HFB community celebration. Went to Isilimela after school and set up the photographs and collages in the room and worked on piecing together the final performance with all 3 schools. Awesome final performance, then all of the CHID students booked it out of there because we had to go to dinner for Joy's birthday. We piled 23 people plus a driver into our kombi (minibus). Illegal? yes. Hilarious? yes.

I sat on the floor between the driver and front passenger seet with several peoples' feet all over me :) Everyone was either sitting on top of someone else or had someone else on top of them or some combination of the two. We all dressed up and then went out to dinner at this fun performance-dinner place where all the service staff are performers and did songs, skits, dances throughout it. Then, our whole house managed to get in a fight- I retreated and went home.

Fri the 29th- Went to class, then thanked the god that I dont believe in that Roosevelt students/teachers are leaving town and I have far less things to do now. Bummed around Obs some more. Took the cable car up table mountain with my roommate, Rebecca, and another girl in the house Katie (her full name is Kathryn spelled just like mine!) to watch the sunset. it was amazing!!!

And all the clouds starting to come over the top of the mountain were beautiful! (they're known as the table cloth) I think i took about 60 pictures of them alone Went to the sushi place in our neighborhood again (vegetarian sushi is so refreshing! given all the oily pastas and pizzas around here, i've been craving sushi a lot lately) and had a great dinner with the 3 of us.

Saturday the 1st: Woke up fairly early, read some, worked on my journal/scrapbook some, waited for most everyone else to wake up (they went out the night before....) and then we piled ourselves into a taxi and headed down to cape town's pride parade! it was quite lovely, although smaller than seattle's. (and from what i hear i dont think anything could ever compare to san fran's) We ended up joining the parade, and then after having lunch we went to the carnival afterwards and enjoyed some music and wine before heading home.

Sunday the 2nd: Woke up really really really early to be out of the house by 630 am to go canyoning. (walking/abseiling down a canyon with waterfalls in it) it was scary as hell, and, me being me, i managed to hurt my knee fairly badly. i got half carried down, half forced down the mountain. i think the best pep-talk i ever had was when i was sitting at the bottom of one of the waterfalls crying in pain and they told me there was no other way down. there's no cell service, and they cant do helicopter rescues. thus, i made it down. however, i did have to be lowered down the last waterfall because i couldnt even get myself down. and people took turns giving me piggy-back rides back to the cars

Monday the 3rd: No class (yay!) I got escorted by two of the girls in our house to the doctors office. He said that one of the tendons in my knee was extremely inflamed and might have a small tear in it. Also, my knee cap was really gritty feeling, and got irritated, but was probably just acting up due to previous injury. He prescribed me seriously strong anti-inflammatory medication and told me to stay of my feet for a few days, and if it didnt start feeling significantly better i had to go see the orthopedic doctor. Bummed around the house all day being bored while everyone else was at the beach mostly. :(

Tuesday the 4th: Swelling in the knee went considerably down, and I could even put a little weight on that leg again! Still, no class. Still, I had to stay home. Also quite unfortunate: the main side effects of the anti-inflammatories made me sick as a dog. I had quite a rough night on Tuesday.

Wednesday the 5th: Knee looked considerably better, could put a substantial amount of weight on it. Gave up on taking the prescribed anti-inflammatory because I did not need to feel that sick ever again. Switched to tylenol/ibuprofen. Recovered from the sever illness the night before with lots of bread and energade (gatorade). Cleaned my room and did laundry. Highlight of my trip: one of the friends we have met here,Maggie, is origionally from seattle, but lives here now---WITH HER DOG!!!!!!!!!! We went to the dog park yesterday with Naartjie (the dog), who is part pitbull part mutt of questionable descent. Naartjie also has a thing for ears like Louisa, so i got TONS of kisses and ear nibbles. After that, I went to sushi (yet again- haha) with my roommate. Also, it was sooooo warm!!! It hit about 32 degrees (90), but there was no wind to go along with it.

Thursday the 6th (today!): I got woken up lastnight at about 330 am by 1/2 of our house coming home drunk as usual, being loud, and banging around making food in the kitchen. I seriously cannot wait to go home to my nice beautiful bed and only the sound of dog noises to wake me up! Dog noises at least come with fun dogs, these noises just come with annoying drunk people. We have class at 10 this morning, and then those of us who worked with hfb are headed to Isilimela to have a quick debrief with them and pick up some film.

I dont know about our plans for tonight or friday, but on saturday i'm going out to see more animals!!! 3 of us are headed out to do another safari-thing. i just cannot get enough of seeing animals! On Sunday our whole group is headed to boulders beach to start our end of the quarter retreat, and then we are getting back on tuesday afternoon. the time is flying by so quickely now!

Anyway, after that long, long wrap-up, I hope you guys are still awake!!! Hope all is well, and I'll be seeing a lot of you soon......

I don't miss the rains in Africa

hey all!

sorry, it has been a while since i last wrote again! Its been a hectic week. Right now it is pouring rain outside- booooooo. We're kinda transitioning from summer to fall over here, so the weather is going to be going downhill permanently soon here. Since I last wrote we had time with all three schools from hfb together, and went on the retreat this past weekend. CHID (and thus UW) as a program might be pulling out of participation with hands for a bridge in the future. I dont really feel like explaining everythign, but basically our role is not being acknowledged, nor are we treated as adults with a stake in the program. It was overall a really really frustraiting week that made me wish I had chosen a different project to work on this time around.

Yesterday I managed to get this 24 hour flu that is flying around our house, so I did not do much of anything. Today is a day off for all of us working with hfb, until around 7 tonight when we are all going to see a play called "Woza Albert". It is a two man protest play that was written during apartheid and hypothesizes what would happen if jesus came and saw what was going on during that era. We shall see if i enjoy it.....

The final community celebration with HFB is on thursday, which also happens to be one of the birthdays of one of the girls in our house. So i think we are community celebrating, and then all going out together. yay! This upcoming weekend should be fun, too. Not only will the Roosevelt students/teachers be out of town, but it is also the second weekend of pride here. Some of us are going to go to the pride parade and celebration on Saturday, and then we are going canyoning on sunday. (repelling down waterfalls, etc. -i'm a lil nervous!)

Anyway, I'll try and keep this thing updated more often this week!!! Hope you all are doing well!

p.s. i know i already wished all 3 of you this, but happy birthday dusty (21st), oma (22nd) and lani (25th)!!!!!

...and the chaos begins

Hey all! quick update here...

Our whole group did an absolutely fabulous Valentine's day bash together! There has been a lot of tension brewing in our house lately (understandable when we all live, work, and go to school together), so three of the girls in the group decided to arrange this whole dinner to bring us all back together as a house. They stayed home from their community engagement projects on Thursday, and when the rest of us came home from ours there were personalized invitations for a valentine's day event and instructions to dress our best and meet in our courtyard. So, everyone got all dressed up and excited and we all met out there at 715. The girls who arranged everything then came out and explained that they were cooking for all of us for the night! We were served cosmos and bruschetta in the courtyard as our appetizer as Michael Buble was playing from a laptop for us :) After that, we were led into our candle-lit living/dining room where we all had full place settings complete with name cards. We had a first course of caeser salad, a main course of pasta casserole with mushrooms and all kinds of good cheese and veggies with another drink called the love potion #9 to go with it, and then dessert of flaming turtle chocolate fondue with pink champagne. I could go on and on, and i'll post a few pictures later, but it was the most fun i've ever had on valentines day, and it really did bring our house back together.

Our entire group did Robben Island together on Friday. Its amazing what a toursit trap it has become, and the script that guides are supposed to follow. Even within two years I can see some of the changes, and its a shame how many of the just plain tourists were there and not quesitoning anything. It felt like there were a lot of people there to just go through the motions without really thingking about the fact that they were on on island that was once a place to send criminals, then turned into a leper colony, and then a prison where some of the most notorious political prisoners were kept. I could talk a lot about this, but i just dont have the time right now!

We had a fairly low-key weekend. I spent a lot of time around our neighborhood and working on my journal/course pack that is due ina few weeks. My roommate, Rebecca, and I went on a 4 hour shopping adventure at Cavendish mall which is about a 15 minute combie ride up the road from us. I spent about 1250 rand ($160) on 3 dresses (one of which i'm almost positive i'm wearing to graduation because its purple!!!), a pair of shorts, a pair of leggings, a shirt, and a pair of shoes. My roommate cleaned up just about as well with a few dresses and shirts etc. Sunday Rebecca and I had brunch with Sarah, one of the girls who was on our program two years ago. Sarah is actually staying about 2 blocks away from us in the other house that is owned by the same guy that owns ours, and she is here until right around when I leave as well.

Now I am off the the first meeting of all 3 of our hands for a bridge student groups together! ack! Also, EVERYONE in our house is freakin sick with either the stomach flu or a really really bad cold, so i am taking massive amounts of vitamin c and echinaccea (sp?) trying to ward the germs off! Wish me luck!