Classes are over, time for fun

Last week was pretty terrible from the work stand point which finally ended on wednesday with my last lectures and final papers turned in. That means starting wednesday night it was time to have some fun.

Wednesday night we played too many rounds of landmines and made our way off to Stones for 2 for 1 hour. It was fun, but nothing too crazy.
The next day we managed to get ourselves out of bed and off to the aquarium. It wasn't a particularly crazy aquarium but fun no less. The seahorses and jellyfish were mind blowing as usual. We headed out from the aquarium, but were down at the Waterfront (the very very nice part of cape town) and wanted to make the most out of being there. Just out of curiosity I checked out the menu at this fancy fancy sushi restaurant called Sevruga. We weren't planning on eating at all, expecially not at that kind of restaurant, but when we found out it was half priced sushi we couldn't afford to say no. The classy decor and rich old men sitting around made us feel a little out of place, but we sucked it up. Sushi was amazing and not terribly expensive. I'm always a sucker for half priced sushi.

Afterwards, we went home and rested up for the night ahead. Plans were to head to the casino with my buddy Max since I have never been. We headed to Grand West Casino, Dave, Adha, Max and I, to try our luck on the newly opened hold 'em tables. I wasn't sure how much money to buy in at the table for but the minimum was R500. The wise words of Big Dub were "only play for as much money as you're willing to lose." With that in mind, I bought in for the minimum and immediately was the short stack at the table. I lost a couple of tough beats early on, but snagged some blinds and a few small pots to get myself in a descent position. It one point I had an amazing beat on this guy where I made a full house to his three of a kind and took about R500 from him. At that point I was sitting pretty. A couple of split pots later I found myself at abot R1000 total. The other guys had lost all their chips at this point so rather than holding them up much more I cashed out.

There's a lot of kids who have rooting interests for the Celtics, and that night was game 6 of cavs celts so they all wanted to watch. There was only one bar around that was playing the game (started at 2am). So we drank some Redbull and got hyped for the game and stayed at the bar until 5 am. The Celts won, which sucked, but it was an awesome time.

We didn't get much sleep that night since we were getting up earlyish the next day to headed to Stellenbosch, the wine country. We drove about an hour to get there and checked into our hostel. At this point it was raining and we were feeling a neutral about or choice to come. This changed though at our first wine tasting. We showed up at Tokara who were the most generous with their wine. Free tasting of 6 different kinds started the day off right. We then headed next door to another winery valled Thelema. This was our least favorite of the bunch because the lady in there was not friendly and they were stingy with their wine. Next, came Zorgvliet which was more remote and very private. They had perhaps the best wine in the most beautiful atmostphere. None of us are winos (yet), but it was really fun casually drinking wine and chatting with friends all day.
That night, we headed out to dinner on the recommendation of a random guy at the ATM which ended up being a great call. It was a student bar with really cheap beer and we had a great time there. We went to a few other bars and clubs that night, none of which was very clear due to the alcohol and general unfamiliarity with the area but everyone had a great time. Some funny points in the night include: drunk, homeless women singing boom boom pow in the middle of the road, karl saying "Waiter, Another round?" (addressed to us and the waiter simultaneously), adha smashing my mcdonalds glass on the floor, and me for some reason running off with random people to another bar without telling anyone. We all made it home in one piece so its all good.
They kicked us out of the hostel early the next day and continued our drinking escapades at Van Ryn, a brandy distillery. Here we tasted their 10yr and 12yr aged brandies. Surprisingly the 12yr was SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 10yr which was almost undrinkable by itself. Brandy is nice to sip on, but I don't like it more than whiskey. After this, we made it to our final tasting at Spier. Spier is probably the most touristy place i've been in all of SA. It tries so hard to display african culture to the rich tourists it attracts and does so in a particularly disingenuous way as it uses african culture as its catchy theme. The food is great and so is the wine, but this is not real africa. We had our final wine tasting here, and it was quite nice like the rest.

It was a great weekend, and now I must get back to real life with two exams coming up next week. As of today, I have exactly one month left in Cape Town. It will definitely be the best month of all because school is ending, I've got lots of trips planned, the world cup, and KARA IS COMING TO VISIT! It should be an amazing time and a great way to cap off the semester.

More to come soon.

SHAWCO

Though most of my escapades this semester have been all for fun, I've also been trying to give back a bit. UCT has this program called SHAWCO which tutors and gives guidance to underprivileged (a drastic understatement in many cases) students in the area. Any extra help these kids can get will do them a tremendous amount of good considering how little personal attention they get from their real teachers. SHAWCO is divided up into different age groups and different subject matters and my program is called SMART. We tutor 11th grade students, from the township Khayelitsha, Math and Natural Sciences. Townships are essentially ghettos with mass poverty, violence, and informal housing and Khayelitsha is the largest of these in all of SA.
Each Tuesday, we load up in the van and drive out to Khayelitsha were we tutor at the Manyano High School.


I tutor three kids, Trish, Akhona, and Sibobalo. My kids are primary Xhosa speakers so at first it was hard dealing with the cultural and language differences, but quickly we became comfortable with each other. This semester the kids are learning chemistry so even though its not my expertise, I've been teaching about moles and chemical bonding this semester. The speed at which they have picked up the material has been different very each kid, but overall I've been impressed with how well they've done. Some concepts we've been doing took me a long time to get and they seem to be taking it in stride.

Most recently they've struggled with balancing reactions and doing mass to mol calculations. I brought in with me some props, erasers and pins, to help illustrate the reactions, and after that they were able to do the example problems! It was incredibly rewarding to watch these kids go from struggling to understanding.

The state of the classroom was surprisingly bad. Most chairs in the jammed room are broken and every desk is completely carved up and written all over. The chalk boards have little no chalk and the erasers pads were busted. The floors are completely dusty and dirty and in the corner of the room there usually is a pile of trash including wrappers and banana peels. A school's needs are pretty basic, but with such a poorly run public school system and a lack of funding the schools are more or less in disarray.

Thus far, its been an extremely rewarding experience and one of the most worthwhile parts of my trip to so far. I feel like I'm having a real impact by doing something on a personal level that will make a big difference in their success as adults. With everything going against them, I'm happy to do what I can to make their lives better.

Side note: I've been missing everyone from back home a lot recently. Its hard being away from everything that is familiar and from the people you love. I especially miss Mom and Dad, Jackattack, and Kara. I love you and miss you.

EXTREME

Some of you might have been there the day I broke my fear of roller coasters (8th grade band/orchestra trip to Cedar Point anyone???). Even then I never thought i'd do anything more rash then get on the Millennium Force but I have news.

About two months back, 4 of my friends and I got the balls to go skydiving. It sounded awesome but we were all really scared. The drive over was the worst. Roughly an hour in the car anticipating the worst. When we arrived at Skydive Cape Town, for some reason my fears subsided. Seeing the same jump instructor go off with two groups before me made the fear of dying much less real. I, somehow got roped into going first. The ride up in this rickety plane took about 25 minutes. It circled higher and higher up to 9,000 feet. Once it got close to the time, my jumper, Jason, hooked me into him and we edged closer to the door. The door slid over our heads and there was no turning back. I leaned my head back and stuck my legs out the door and tucked them under the plane. Jason leaned back and then threw the two

of us off.

EXHILARATING. You're going sooooooooo fast its unbelieveabe. After the initial

shock of falling out of plane it becomes shear joy. 30 seconds of free fall went by in only a moment. We then coasted with the parachute out for about another 6 minutes to get a nice view and make an easy landing. When we hit terra fimra, I was ready to go again. I'd recommend it to everyone.

Skydiving...check.

I mentioned the gorge swing in my last message so I won't elaborate too much, but 3 seconds of free fall was awesome.

Gorge swing...check.

I also went shark cage diving with a few friends about one month ago. We drove 2 hours out of cape town the top shark population density area around. When my term to jump in the cage came, I wasn't too scared because I had seen others go and the cage was attached to the side of the boat. We waited about the water, but when a shark came by we all dropped below the surface to catch a glimpse. They threw chum out in the water to attract them. When I was under I saw a HUGE great white come right at our cage chomping at the chum. It was somewhat scary, but mostly just really really cool. No good pictures from this unfortunately. When I got out of the water, our guide said that shark was the biggest he had seen in a year on the local waters, 5 meters long!

Shark Cage diving...check.

Bungee jumping to come soon.

Comp is dying so that's it for now!

Spring Break 2010

Hey,

I've been supremely busy running around Cape Town this semester and I've been a bit lazy on the whole blog thing, but here goes nothing.

Spring Break 2010-Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe:

About a week ago now, I went on this 10-day camping trip organized by a student travel agency at UCT. There were five groups/buses that went on this trip and ours was called the

"Buffalos". I knew a couple girls from my program on this trip, but not any of my closest friends. That was okay with me though as making new friends is always an exciting experience.

The trip started at 4am Saturday (3/23) morning where we bused to the airport to catch our flight to Jo'burg. I slept for the majority of it. We then boarded our HUGE truck which carried all of our bags, supplies, water etc. This was the one of the biggest trucks i've ever been in. Though I was told the itinerary many times, I was surprised by how long we had to drive. We were headed north out of SA and into Botswana. For the first two days, we just drove and drove and drove but it was a good opportunity for our group to start getting to know each other and getting comfortable.

Serious sessions of Euchre, Hearts, and Righty-Drawy went into action to pass the time as well as rewriting the lyrics to Buffalo Soldier which became our anthem. Our group became pretty tight and we all got along really well.

With us the whole trip were our group leader George, the driver Stephen, and the cook Mxolisi. George is only a year older and goes to UCT but is a very experienced outdoorsman. Stephen was always a character, and Mxolisi was an amazing cook. With only a gas stove and a few pots and pans made the most delicious food. Meals during the trip include: steak and potatoes, fish and chips, as well as some amazing stews and vegetables.

Eventually, we got to the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. The Okavango Delta is the largest inland delta in the world (inland delta= river that spreads out like a delta but does not feed into an ocean and disperses over the land). That evening we hopped in a low flying prop plane to get a cool view of the delta from the sky. It was a much needed reward for many hours of busing.

The following morning we left to camp in the Delta. We bused to the edge of the swamp where we met up with the local guides who took us in mokoros through the swamp to our campsite. Mokoros are a local kind of canoe which is cut from the tree trunk of sausage trees. The guide stands in the back with a long pole, where he pushes and maneuvers the boat. I gave this a try one day and it is surprisingly difficult. It took about an hour and a half to reach the island where our camp was, but it was quite a relaxing ride.

We set up our camp in this cluster of trees which made us feel like it was a home rather than just the bush. That evening we went out on our first walk through the bush to see some animals and the landscape. The animals are generally only out in the early morning and just before sunset because the rest of the day is far too hot to be running around. That evening walk did not yield any good animal sightings, but it was still fun to see the termite mounds, the sunset, and some other common features of the delta. Our guide Cisco, or maybe Sysq

o, was one of the older guides and was thus incredibly knowledgeable about the delta. These men have lived their entire lives in the bush and know how to find animals, avoid trouble, and escape from animals if need be. They did not carry any kind of defense in case of emergencies though, which at first was frightening.

The following morning we had an extended bush walk where we left at the crack of dawn in search of the Big 5. Our first sighting was a large pack of Zebra and Wildabeast. These two creatures generally stick together in the delta because Zebra have good sight but poor hearing and wildabeast have poor sight and good hearing. The duo work together to protect one another. We got pretty close to them and snapped some cool photos.

Later on, we came around this cluster of trees where we came face to face with a wild boar. It was perhaps 30 feet away, just staring at us before it got spooked and bolted. Next, we saw a swarm of vultures perched in two nearby trees. What this inevitably led to was the discover of a dead wildabeast carcass. It was pretty gross to look at and smelled twi

ce as bad as it looked. Later on we found another herd of around 30 Zebra, which we got within 20 yards of. They were all staring us down and seemed a bit threatened, but it was really cool to see them from that close up. We unfortunately did not see any of the big 5 on this hike but it was still really cool. The closest we came we hearing the roar of a lion off in the distance. Our guide estimated it to be 3 km away.

The following morning we had planned to go on another game walk, but the rain came and we were unable to go out. Instead, we packed up and headed back through the swamp to our camp. Our mokoro guide, Julius, seemed to be the leader of the group and so we were one of the two final mokoros to leave from our camp. We loa

ded into our mokoro and waited for another guide to come steer the second one with all of our gear loaded on it. The guide never came though. We went out into swamp to see if we could find this person, but they were no where to be found. We went back to the camp where Julius hopped off our boat and scoured the camp for the missing person. The rain continued to dump meanwhile my tent-mate Ben and I sat getting soaked. After 10 minutes of searching, Julius returned with no luck of finding the driver. Since the trip back to our bus was over an hour long, we could not afford to leave the last mokoro behind so Julius chained the two boats together and steered them both from the back of the front boat. This was an incredibly impresive/bad ass feat when considering it took me about 10 minutes to go 100 feet in one of these things when I had only one boat and nothing loaded in it. Even for the seasoned pro, it was slow going and he was getting tired. Luckily we heard voices of some other boats nearby and they came over to help us get to their camp.

At this point we found out what happened to our missing driver. One of the older women at our camp was supposed to drive, but she ran away from our camp. Why did she run away? Julius said, she was "scared" and "thought something bad was going to happen" and that "she is sick". Ben and I interpreted this to mean that she was scared of the the rain storm and that she thought it was some kind of evil spirit coming to do harm.

We arrived at this other campsite where we found this old women sitting by the burning fire where she just was staring into the fire and rocking back and forth. It would have been more sympathetic to her plight if she didn't have a huge umbrella with her while Ben and I stood there in the pouring rain getting totally soaked. After about a half an hour here, another guide arrived at our new camp to steer the second mokoro and take us back to the camp. We eventually arrived, where our whole group had been waiting and worrying about us. Cell phones don't exactly...work in the delta so they had no idea what had happened or if we were even alive. All was well though, and the couple beers on the drive back to our truck made for a good time as we recounted this story.

Another day of commuting followed as we moved to Chobe National Park in the most northern part of Botswana. In the evening of our arrival, we went on a sunset river cruise down the Chobe river. With our respective drink of choice, we had a fun time cruising and seeing more animals. The highlight of this were all the hippos chillin in the water. We saw probably over 20 hippo swimming, chomping, and playing. The following morning we went on a game drive through the national park. Just before dawn, we hopped in safari vehicles and drove through the park and rough, dirt roads in the park. Within the first 10 minutes we had a flat tire so that set us back a bit, but without too much trouble we fixed it and

moved on. It was really fun driving through the park seeing all kinds of animals. Sights included a sleeping hippo right by our truck, many kinds of birds, impala, kudu, mongeese, and jackals, giraffe, and springbok. The highlights we when we came across an entire herd of buffalo. There were probably over 50 of them crossing the road and as we approached them they surrounded us. It was really really cool and considering our was called the Buffalos it was particularly appropriate. Just after this we also saw 3 elephants, one of which was a baby. Towards the end of the drive we found some fresh lion tracks and followed them, but we never saw the elusive cat.

We Chobe later that morning and continued our travels to our final destination, Victoria Falls. We crossed from Botswana into Zambia and got our the most luxurious camp of the trip. It wasn't too late by the time we got there, we all of us went to the falls. Victoria Falls is epic. From so far away you can hear the rumble, and from high up you can see the splashing water up hundreds of feet in the air. The falls divide Zambia and Zimbabwe, and most of the splashing water fell down on our side. It was hard taking pictures there due to the perpetual rain, but I got a few good ones. Pretty early on everyone was running around only in their swimsuits because of how much water was coming down. The highlight here was a b

ridge connecting to sides of this gorge. The water spray hit here the hardest of anywhere. It was incredibly because it was the air and water are warm and the surroundings are totally lush and beautiful. It was the pinnacle of the trip and made all the driving worthwhile.

We had the next two days to spend at our campsite and around the area where various excursions were available. The following morning I ventured out with some friends to do an extreme sports package. First we repelled down this cliff face in the gorge nearby. Then, we did this zipline across the gorge which was super fun. Lastly, the highlight was the gorge swing. Basically you step off this cliff face, free fall for about 3 seconds and then the swing tensions and you go zooming across the bottom of the gorge and swing around for a bit before you eventually get lowered to the ground.

In the afternoon, I went fishing on the Zambezi river (that which feeds Vic Falls) with the other 5 guys on our trip. We split up into 2 teams and had a little competition to see who could catch the most tiger fish. The Zambezi is a quite fast flowing, so it was hard to fish at times but it was my lucky day. I ended up catching 3 tiger fish, the biggest measuring about 20 inches long and 4 kgs heavy. George, our Buffalo group leader, caught one and no one else caught any. Our team won the bet, and as an additional bonus we got to keep two of the biggest fish. That night we had the local chef cook them up and our group got to a late night snack on some really tasty fish.

The following and final day, started with torrential rain.

We had planned to go on this Lion Encounter in Zimbabwe but it had to be pushed back to mid day. Instead, in the morning we went to the main market across the border. Our group of 8 were the only people in this market aside from the dozens and dozens of vendors all encouraging us to come visit their stand. Bartering can be quite tiring, but after an hour I came away with some cool stuff. At this market they like cash, but even more than that they like to trade for actual goods. I brought some dirty tshirts, a pair of socks, my sleeping bag, an old pair of shoes, and my head lamp. These all were considered quite valuable and I got some good stuff for them. For example, I trade my shoes for a small drum with elephant carvings in the side and I traded my sleeping bag for a cool tapestry.

After the market we visited the Lion encounter where we got to walk with and pet 4 month old lion cubs as well as 11 month old lions. The lions were involved in a rehabilitation project where they would eventually be released into the wild. It was really fun, and after not seeing lions the whole trip it was awesome to come face to face with them. We chilled a bit around the pool in the early afternoon before we headed out for our last excursion, the sunset cruise aka booze cruise. Our whole bus along with many other people hopped aboard this large boat and cruised down the river. There was an open bar the whole time as well as food and good company. It was super fun and afterwards we had a hilarious dance party in this covered auditorium area. The night was full of shenanigans but ended with pranks between the buses at the camp and us sneaking into and sleeping in our bus instead of our ant infested tents.

We flew home the next day from Livingstone to Jo'burg to Cape Town. The trip was a blast, i made some great friends and saw some amazing things.

If you've made it through this entire post, I am most impressed with you and I hope you've enjoyed it. Check out my facebook for more pictures.

More posts to come soon.

High Africa and Cheetahs

During the first week, our program organized a bunch of activities for us to get acquainted with each other and with the area. The first of these was called “High Africa”.

So all of our group bused southeast through Stellenbosch and the wine country. When we arrived at High Africa, we discovered it was a camp like facility with small cabins, high and low ropes courses, rock climbing wall, river rafting, and this aw

esome outdoor patio/bar. Our group really got to bond at this camp and we had some of our first great memories of the trip.

There was a massive river right next to the camp and a bunch of us wanted to swim in it. We were hesitant to get into it for fear of what might be in it. We were convinced it was safe though, by the hosts of the camp. Swimming out into the rich African river was one of the most invirgorating experiences I’ve ever had.

The last night at High Africa involved a massive party out on this awesome out door patio/bar. Everyone there was quite smashed and we all had an amazing time. Spiders, shaving cream, urine, music, and alcohol were involved.

On our way back from High Africa, we stopped through Stellenbosch which is the wine country of South Africa. We stopped at this amazing restaurant called Moyo which had every kind of meat imaginable (ox was my favorite). The food was amazing, there was live music, and we got our faces painted. At this restaurant, there was also a cheetah reserve. For a small fee, we I got to go into the pen with an adult cheetah and was able to pet it for a few minute and talk to its care taker. SO COOL!

We got back later that night and decided to venture out to a local bar because it was really our first chance since we’ve been, and who did I randomly bump into? Kara Brown..wtf!

Hey everyone. I’ve been a little slow in getting this blog together, because of how busy I’ve been and how I’ve not had internet available to me readily since I’ve been here. Its been awesome so far and here's how it began...

Flying High

Cape Town is far away. Very very far. My flight there contained two legs. Detroit to Amsterdam was 8 hours, then a 5 hour lay over, and then Amsterdam to Cape Town was 11 hours. If you know me, you can guess where this is going. My future roommate, Ian, and another kid in my program happened to be on my flight from Detroit, so after the plane we met up and decided to venture into the city for a taste of the local bud. I had done a little planning before hand (Thanks Daboosh) to find out that there’s a train that runs right from Schipol International to the center of the city, which is right next to about 20 coffeeshops. The three of us made our way to the city and walked around at 7am local time to find the nearest place.

We found a place called Resin which was thankfully just opening. Inside the walls, tables, etc were mostly some shade of green or glowing green. We chatted it up with the guy running the store and then attempted to make our way back to the airport. The bunch of us slightly underestimated the whole “getting back on the plane” part. After staring, incredibly confused, at the train map for 5 minutes, I had to end up asking at the information counter. We eventually made it back through security where we first began to meet other kids from our program.

The flight to Cape Town, to me, felt shorter than the first leg due to the epic four hour nap that hit me almost as soon as we took off. Highlights of this flight were, waking up still feelin good, five episodes of The Office, free red wine and actually good airline food.

The Penthouse

When we arrived, I found out that me and my two roommates were not going to be able to live in our originally planned housing. Basically, the renovations made on the place we were supposed to live in still made the apartment too shitty to live in. As a replacement we would eventually move into the top floor of a small apartment building with many other Arcadia students. In the meantime, we stayed at a nice bed and breakfast for the first week while our place was getting furniture.

Our apartment now is small but pretty nice. I’m in a double, and the third roommate is in the other bedroom/common room. A little kitchen, little bathroom, but two HUGE porches. We also threw down cash to get ourselves a coffee table and speakers to go with the couch and chairs already here. Its been a nice upgrade and it finally is starting to feel like home.

This me and my two roommates Ian and Dave at Robben Island. Good times. Many more to come.