hello all, sorry it's been so long since i posted but not that much has been going on. mostly just going to class, doing reading, and going to volunteering. At volunteering i've been trying to practice my xhosa. it's funny because the babies don't usually understand because our accents are so bad, but the older toddlers will try to correct us. It's pretty cute. classes have been fairly interesting. xhosa is terrible. the language isn't that difficult (except trying to make the click sounds), but my teacher is awful. He can't hear very well and he can't really spell in English or in Xhosa. so we are constantly asking questions about him clarifying something he wrote down, but he always hears us wrong and starts going off on a tangent. in my archaeology class i'm learning a lot of pottery, iron smelting and Bantu language migration. actually pretty interesting because it was so recent so they do a lot of interpretation from "the ethnographic present", which basically means they are using modern peoples as "living history." That can be a very controversial thing to do. Also today I learned how to do technical drawings of pottery sherds; a skill that is sure to come in handy someday.
I saw the movie tsotsi last week. It was so frightening. I didn't know the story line at all so it caught me off guard. But it's a beautifully made movie and I really recommend that you all go see it. Just know that it takes place in Jo'burg, not Cape Town and the crime types are very different in the two cities. In cape town they usually just take your money or your phone, they don't hurt you. keep that in mind. Now that i've been here over a month i think i had a different perspective on it than i would have had i never been here. So i have a firmer grasp of the politics that influence the movie and the lifestyles of the characters make more sense.
Also last week the Cape Town Festival started. It lasts all month and is a giant arts festival. The kick-off event was a huge outdoor party in Long Street with 30,000 people. They had a fashion show in the streets, street performers, food stalls, and general mayhem. It was pretty fun. I went to my first event with the wine tasting club also. it was an introduction to cape whites. I didn't like most of them. Chenin Blanc is the most popular grape here and it turns out i hate chenin blanc. This week is Cape Reds, maybe i'll like that better.
Didn't really do anything this weekend. I've been sick so i kind of layed low all weekend, just hanging out around the house. I went on a quest for hair dye, and since i was too lazy to go all the way to the mall i had to try out the different chemists and grocery stores around my neighborhood. Turns out they don't really sell products for white hair in this neighborhood, so I had to settle. The hair dye brand, while a beautiful color, didn't have enough in the bottle so the back of my head was blond, and the rest of my hair was red. bad news. had to buy a second bottle and fix it the next day. In the future it might be worth to just haul myself to the mall.
There are a lot of funny habits that people have on campus. There are a lot of people who walk around barefoot, which i find appalling. Also, people are constantly drinking juice. and they drink it out of cans with a straw. weird. and the girls are always eating pastries and yet they are still skinny. hmmmm.
oh the other day I saw a friend from high school, Liz Bokan, on the street on my way home from grocery shopping. I knew that she was in Cape Town, but I had no idea where at. Turns out she's living in a township, and they are doing homestays the whole time. They don't go to regular UCT classes either. It's a completely different experience from the one that I'm having.
yesterday i made hamentaschen (i have no idea how to spell it). They are a cookie that jewish people make at purim. So i made those with my jewish friends and they attempted to explain the holiday to me. We were making them and couldn't figure out why the dough was so grainy and dry and then we realized that Adee had bought and used Maize meal (what they use for pap) instead of sugar! so we were making pap cookies. gross. Then we found some sugar and started over.
This weekend most of my friends are going on a road trip of the garden route, which has bungee jumping, ostrich riding, caving. i can't go though because i have a test on friday and everyone is leaving thursday. So i think instead I'm going to build a house in the townships for a family in desperate need of a safe place to live. I'm doing this with the Philani Nutrition Center that is based in Khayelitsha. It should be pretty neat. And then also I'll hopefully hang out with some new people.
I saw the movie tsotsi last week. It was so frightening. I didn't know the story line at all so it caught me off guard. But it's a beautifully made movie and I really recommend that you all go see it. Just know that it takes place in Jo'burg, not Cape Town and the crime types are very different in the two cities. In cape town they usually just take your money or your phone, they don't hurt you. keep that in mind. Now that i've been here over a month i think i had a different perspective on it than i would have had i never been here. So i have a firmer grasp of the politics that influence the movie and the lifestyles of the characters make more sense.
Also last week the Cape Town Festival started. It lasts all month and is a giant arts festival. The kick-off event was a huge outdoor party in Long Street with 30,000 people. They had a fashion show in the streets, street performers, food stalls, and general mayhem. It was pretty fun. I went to my first event with the wine tasting club also. it was an introduction to cape whites. I didn't like most of them. Chenin Blanc is the most popular grape here and it turns out i hate chenin blanc. This week is Cape Reds, maybe i'll like that better.
Didn't really do anything this weekend. I've been sick so i kind of layed low all weekend, just hanging out around the house. I went on a quest for hair dye, and since i was too lazy to go all the way to the mall i had to try out the different chemists and grocery stores around my neighborhood. Turns out they don't really sell products for white hair in this neighborhood, so I had to settle. The hair dye brand, while a beautiful color, didn't have enough in the bottle so the back of my head was blond, and the rest of my hair was red. bad news. had to buy a second bottle and fix it the next day. In the future it might be worth to just haul myself to the mall.
There are a lot of funny habits that people have on campus. There are a lot of people who walk around barefoot, which i find appalling. Also, people are constantly drinking juice. and they drink it out of cans with a straw. weird. and the girls are always eating pastries and yet they are still skinny. hmmmm.
oh the other day I saw a friend from high school, Liz Bokan, on the street on my way home from grocery shopping. I knew that she was in Cape Town, but I had no idea where at. Turns out she's living in a township, and they are doing homestays the whole time. They don't go to regular UCT classes either. It's a completely different experience from the one that I'm having.
yesterday i made hamentaschen (i have no idea how to spell it). They are a cookie that jewish people make at purim. So i made those with my jewish friends and they attempted to explain the holiday to me. We were making them and couldn't figure out why the dough was so grainy and dry and then we realized that Adee had bought and used Maize meal (what they use for pap) instead of sugar! so we were making pap cookies. gross. Then we found some sugar and started over.
This weekend most of my friends are going on a road trip of the garden route, which has bungee jumping, ostrich riding, caving. i can't go though because i have a test on friday and everyone is leaving thursday. So i think instead I'm going to build a house in the townships for a family in desperate need of a safe place to live. I'm doing this with the Philani Nutrition Center that is based in Khayelitsha. It should be pretty neat. And then also I'll hopefully hang out with some new people.
posted by kerry at 5:45 AM
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