Home Sweet Home, South Africa

South Africa, though not Cape Town, will be our new home in January. So, it was an unusual port in the sense that I was getting a feel for this new place in which I will be living for eight months. As Chris suspected and worried, I now want to live in Cape Town instead of Durban. I am sure Durban will be lovely; however, Cape Town offers beaches, mountains, ocean, wine lands, rich culture, and yummy foods. As we were sight seeing, I started to fantasize about hosting friends and family in this beautiful city.

Despite delaying some major sight seeing since we will be here soon, we ended up seeing and doing a lot. The first night we arrived, we hiked Lion’s Head Mountain for an amazing view of Cape Town, including the sunset and city lights. We hiked back down in the dark with our headlamps. We walked down the famous long street and purchased souvenirs at the market. One lazy day, we went to Camps Bay to sit on the beach, read a book, and take in the ocean. Biking through the wine lands and drinking the flight of wines at a vineyard, called Delta, was my favorite day (even though I gave away most of my wine and was more keen to receive a Diet Coke). This wine drinking excursion led students to sing Disney show tunes on the way home. So precious, they chose “Pocahontas” over Lady Gaga, though I would have opted for the latter. The wineland towns are tucked away in the mountains with cute shops and colorful flowers.



The more noteworthy excursion we participated was Operation Hunger organized through Semester at Sea. Unfortunately, the organization forgot we were arriving so we spent our first two hours tracking down one of two employees. Once we found Clement, he taught us about Operation Hunger and the townships they serve. We were all hoping to get our hands dirty; however, it was more learning vs. service. In fact, there was a moment I was shaking my head and refusing to leave the bus because I felt like an intrusive observer. Tell me again. Why would I observe hungry people eating soup? Why would I look at children with HIV sitting at the clinic? In the end, it wasn’t AS bad as I anticipated. We learned a lot about HIV prevalence, alternative healing from a local healer (mostly used on bad marriages), and the townships in general. There was a token weighing of a few dozen township children - pointless due to the lack of data and children accessible – and it was fun to connect with the children and see a Rastafarian community in South Africa. Unfortunately, Operation Hunger had a total of 100 individuals equipped and eager to help and they did not put us to good use. Perhaps the donation of our money was enough…or at least, I will hope.



It was liberating to not feel the pressure to see all the major sites, such as a safari, Cape Coast, and Robben Island. We were able to have some lazy days and take in this new home of ours, finagling how we can live in Cape Town for a month of our South African stay. :)