Greetings Americans, how is life not in Africa? Here it is good! This morning I woke up after a much needed sleep to the sound of Mr. Cochrane telling Kelby that it is 8 and we need to get up to be at the meeting (which was at 8). We both set alarms, and we both must have either slept through them or else set them wrong (I think I did that). But we got there, although without breakfast, and learned a little bit about South Africa from one of the people who works for the local tour group, Spirit of Africa, I believe. I missed the introduction, though, so I don’t really know her name.
We then got on the bus and traveled to the township of Langa. Townships were established during the early days of Apartheid as places for displaced blacks and coloureds to live, as certain areas of the city were designated white residential zones. (The term “coloured”, or “colored” refers basically to everyone not white or “African African”, including Indians, Arabs, people of mixed heritage, and Asians.) These non-whites were forced to move away from their homes in these districts, and were moved to townships. Life in townships is very hard, often living in very, very small homes, shacks, hostels, and now, government housing. Langa, where we went, is the oldest township in Cape Town. One interesting thing about the townships, especially Langa, is that they are close to highways. Back in the Apartheid days, the government would build very nice houses in the areas visible to the highway, and tell people, “we don’t know what those black people are complaining about.” In this way, they hid the true life in the townships. On the outskirts of the townships are open areas where people have now built shacks. One thing that the guides told us was that township life is not ideal, the people don’t want to live here their whole lives, as many of the adults were born in other areas, such as the Western Cape, and moved to the city only to find work. Life in the township is simply survival, and many people build shacks on the outskirts. Many shops are ran out of cargo shipping containers. One thing that is tough about living in the townships is that, because they are farthest from the main areas of the city, the people who live there but work in the city have to pay a lot for transportation. But these are the poorest people in the city, so life is very hard.
Many people find it hard to get food. We visited Rosie in another township, which is also the largest, Khayalitsha (spelled right I hope). Rosie makes hundreds of meals everyday for the kids. They consist of porridge or sandwiches. The bread for sandwiches she gets for free from a bakery in Cape Town. She cooks in a very small building, but is still able to feed over 200, maybe even 300 kids.
For lunch we stopped at a church, not sure where though, that had an upside down map of the world, but the words printed on it were right. They did this to place Cape Town at the top of the world. The meal was some sort of rice, sweet potatoes, cabbage, and beef, with ginger beer, and custard with guava for desert. After lunch was the other surprise…
Because of the weather, we might not be able to do the shark cage… so instead of Robben Island today, we went to a pool to learn scuba diving. This is so that incase of not being able to cage dive, we could scuba dive instead at the aquarium right down the street. It was really fun, but it was hard not to breath through my nose, and the water was freezing! Only 13 degrees Celsius they said.
Chips with tomato sauceThursday, June 4, 2009
Today we landed in Joburg after another long flight. I just forgot about how tired I am and how bad the flights were because of the food here in the airport. I am eating a burger from wimpy and it comes with chips and tomato sauce. First the chips are what we would call french fries. The tomato sauce is similar to ketchup but not as good. Mr cochrane just said it right as a mix of ketchup and sweet and sour sauce. Then the pop was warm, with two pieces of ice, and flat I think. I'll have to get cans or bottles from now on. I also got like 800 rands today. The burger meal was over 40 rand. Don't know what I'm going to buy. I'll probably just wait. We'll be going through security here soon to get on the plane to cape town where we'll spend the first couple days.
______________________________________________________________________ Flights and day 1Wednesday, June 3, 2009
So whenever tuesday was, yesterday I think, I rode a plane for the first time. It went alright. The flight was only a little over half an hour to Chicago. Then we hung out in O'Hare for a couple hours until we left on an airbus A330-300 I think that took us all the way to Frankfurt, Germany. That's actually where I am now, waiting for our flight around 10. While in Frankfurt we first had a hard time finding our guide, but when we did she took us on a bus to the city center where we met up with everyone else. We then went to the Main tower (called Main because of the river Main that flows through Frankfurt. The viewing platform is at 200 meters. I'll post some photos later when I get access to the computer. After the tower we went to the Romerberg which is the old city center of frankfurt. Near the romerberg is St. Bartholomew's cathedral. After WW2 almost all of the area around the cathedral was destroyed but the allies left the cathedral standing on purpose in order to mark where the city center was. Many things in frankfurt are very old, even dating back to roman times. In front of the cathedral was a group of stones that our guide said were part of a holy roman palace. The palaces were usually in front of cathedrals. The emperors had many palaces because there was no capital, rather the kings or emperors moved from city to city. Inside the cathderal was a huge organ in one of the balconies off to the side. Anyway, we're just hanging out now in the "fraport" waiting to get on the plane.
______________________________________________________________________ First Official PostFriday, May 29, 2009
Ok, so due to the complaints from parents and my friend Matt about having no posts... here is the first OFFICIAL blog to Sean's Blog.
The blackberries we got are pretty cool. It will be really helpful to be able to talk to everyone with the email address (seanmcquade@netmobile.com) and to be able to get online. I've been looking at the Australia blog, and it sounds like they're having a great time. Hopefully we enjoy ours as much, but I'm sure we will. It also seems that they use the blackberries and computers all the time! Again, it will be great to have those tools with us. Today, KGAN channel 2 news came to interview all of us during lunch. Hopefully I'll get on TV! It was really funny when they asked me about shots and stuff, and I told them about the polio, typhoid, and malaria stuff, but then also about the anti-diarrhea pills! That got everyone laughing. I like how today, I officially signed my life (almost) away. There was one line on one of the waivers that said, "I give up all my legal rights" or something like that. Maybe that's not good? But I'm sure they will all come back upon arrival in the US. According to my official phone calendar countdown, there are only 4 days left now until June 2! I am getting really excited. After the class I'm in right now, I will only have 7 classes left for the school year! The only finals I have to finish now are Spanish and chemistry. Maybe I should start an hour/minute countdown since it's getting so close to June 2. Can't wait to meet everyone in Germany and have a great time in South Africa. Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Trying out the blogging capabilities from the blackberry.
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