South Africa so far

We left Minnesota on Wednesday the 20th of January, and I only knew one person going on the trip Eric my roommate for the past two years. Our entire group of 15 was spread on different flights, and we had to go to Chicago. In Chicago we had a layover of 4 hours so it was a perfect time to meet the rest of the people I will be living with for the next 5 months in South Africa, we played cards, and just got to know one another. We then flew to Washington DC, and had to go meander throughout the Airport to get to our gate. I checked in and asked the desk agent if I could get exit row seats because on my flight home from Germany I was able to get exit row seats, and they give you about 10 more feet of leg room. I got on the plane and the seats were a bit tight, and to top it off my TV would pause every 30 seconds and it became quite annoying so I tried sleeping instead. I was able to sleep a bit, however I woke up to being very hot because the emergency exit was very hot from a heater in it. I then moved spots because I could not handle being so hot and a broken TV monitor. On the flight we also had a layover in Senegal to get more passengers and it became a 3 hour wait stuck on the plane since we could not get off for security reasons. And the craziest thing about the stop was that when the doors shut and we were ready to take off there was an announcement that they would be spraying bug spray in the cabin and it may cause slight discomfort in the eyes and mouth so you may want to cover them. So the two flight attendants walk down and sprayed aerosol cans of bug stuff in the air to kill flies and mosquitoes because Senegal is a third world country and contains bugs that are not good. After another 8 hour flight we made it to Johannesburg South Africa, and we were to stay a night in a hotel right outside of the airport because it is another hour flight to Port Elizabeth, my final destination. All in all I was in airports or airplanes for around 30 hours. The night we went to a casino/ mall center and ate food and walked around however I didn’t think gambling would be a good idea because the south African currency is in Rand and 1 us dollar equals 7.5 rand so I figured I would go crazy with my money since I am not used to the exchange rate. After spending a bit of time there we went back to our hotel and went to bed for the morning.

The next morning we went to the airport, to take off to Port Elizabeth. At the airport we found we were missing Bitsy and Khrystyna and had to call them because they overslept and Shazad was not very happy, but they were able to get a taxi and get to the airport. We were on the plane for awhile and were to make our decent and when flying into the airport we could see all the beaches, and mountains in the background and the palm trees on the ground. It was very beautiful and comparable to Florida but much nicer. After landing and collecting our things we made it to our residence called Annie’s Cove. It is in the suburb of Summerstrand in the used to be named city Port Elizabeth. It is now called the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality after the South African President Nelson Mandela. Our residence consists of 29 “huts” with 4 rooms in each. My hut has 6 people in it and one living room. We have to bathrooms and 2 kitchens. I share a room with one person, and the room is pretty large. The first day we got in P.E. we went to the beach right away, the beach is a 15-20 minute walk from where we live, and it was a bit overcast so we decided against going in. We walked around for a bit and went to the grocery store and headed home.

The 22nd of January we woke up early and headed off to “Bush” Camp, it was said to be a 2 hour drive out into the farmland where it looks more like a desert and they raise lemon and citrus trees. On the way we drove through a township that was run down and it was quite sad to see little shacks that people live in not too far from my house. About an hour into the drive we stopped at a crocodile/ lion farm. At the farm we saw many crocs, a tiger, and a few lions. Also about 7 baby lions that were about 2 months old. And to top it off we were able to see 6 week old baby lion cubs and we were able to hold them, and I was able to feed them milk. It was really cool because I never would have thought I would be able to hold a baby lion, or even see one. After being in animal farm for a bit we made it all the way to our camping site. It was 104 degrees when we first got there and we were all hungry and cranky but we got feed some food and made the camp become a little better because at first we had to do getting to know each other games which I wasn’t too fond of since it seemed as if I was in summer camp when I am 5. After some beginning intro games, we got some free time to go swimming, and cool off since it was 104 degrees, (40 degrees Celsius). They also had a zip line that you could go up on and go into the water. At the camp there was about 90 of us in total, all international students at NMMU nelson Mandela metropolitan university the school I will be studying at. The first night we went on a night walk, and had sat around the camp fire and had a braii (barbeque).

The next morning we woke up and did little adventure course with a rope swing and some other activities and basically had a free day to swim, hang out and what not.

The next day on Sunday we headed back to PE and went out and chilled out around Annie’s Cove and the beach. Also the next few days we registered for classes, hung out at the beach, and the beach is sort of like a wave pool sometimes since the waves are coming in at a good rate and you can either jump up and be washed away, dive under the water, or go down and the waves will spin you around. There are also surfers and boogey boarders all over the beach and it is quite fun to go and just lay out. School starts Monday.

1-30-2010
So far there are two things that I love about Africa the most. The first is the beach. The beach reminds me of typhoon lagoon at Disney world because it’s like a wave pool. You swim out a bit and you can jump into the waves, dive underneath, ride the waves by swimming, or do many other different things, the possibilities are endless. My other favorite thing is called a com-bi. A com-bi is essentially a mix between a taxi and a bus. It is like an old hippie Volkswagen van that has a driver, and a guy sitting by a sliding door in the passenger area who is in charge of navigating the driver, and also sticking his entire body out of the moving vehicle and yelling out where they are going, and trying to get people to ride in the com-bi. They will say Town Town for town and other places. You just flag them down and say board walk and they will bring you to the board walk for only 6 rand so less than a dollar. They pack these vehicles very tight, and they are also blaring loud African music. You also hear a bunch of different languages when riding in these vehicles it really is one of the most awesome things to do; it is not comparable to anything we have in the US. We took a combi today to go out to dinner at Barneys which is right on the ocean. We got in the com-bi and were pretty packed and it was so loud I couldn’t talk to Eric who was sitting next to me. While on the com-bi the navigator saw someone and we stopped to pick him up. The guy was short and maybe around 17. He had an alcohol bottle in his hand, and usually the navigator opens his door for the guy to sit in the main sitting area but it was all full so the driver opens his door, and I thought he was going to get out however, he slides over and what looked like this random guy from the streets gets in and starts driving. Then we stop at a gas station before we got much further and had to fill up a bit. Eventually we made it to our restaurant in one piece, but it was quite an experience and I was essentially laughing the entire time while on the com-bi.

One other big event today was at the beach. On the beach we had seen these little jelly fish things that have quite a small top but a long blue string with a stinger at the end of them and they are called Blue Bottles. They are basically jelly fish but smaller. Well when the wind blows right these things come ashore and you have to watch out in the water. When I was getting out of the ocean in the shallow water, at Blue Bottle hooked around my left knee and stung me behind my knee cap. It hurt like a bee sting, but I was the first person in our group to be stung by a Blue Bottle. The pain went away after about and hour or two and it were no worse than a bee sting. Needless to say I am no longer afraid of being stung by them since, nothing happened my first time. Tomorrow we are going to a flea market that sells art and other items every first and last Sunday of the money.

2-1-10
Today we had our first day of classes, and I am taking Finance, Marketing, A community service course, and a photo journalism course. The system for picking classes is very messed up here, and very inefficient, however we have found that is mostly the case in all of South Africa. So we had class, and after class one of the guys we met, Peter who works at the bush camp took us and 10 other students to a township, outside of Port Elizabeth. We first drove through some historic places on the way, places where freedom fighters of apartheid gathered, and acted. On the way to Peter’s area we stopped at the street corner and there were “Mommas” older woman making goat heads. There were goat heads, goat feet all over. We ended up buying some goat heads and taking them back to Peter’s friend’s house. Once we arrived, we saw the house where Peter and his friend live, they live outside of a township in government made housing that is not very spacious, but the inside of there house was nice, but a bit crammed. Half of us were then taken on a township tour, and we just walked around in the shack houses that consist of a township. It was very windy and many people were inside, so we walked around talked to some of Peter’s friends, took pictures and then encountered a bunch of little kids. They would just follow us, and pose for pictures and kind of play in their own sense. We walked for about 3 hours in the townships and made a giant circle back to Peter’s house. While walking around one guy invited us in his house, and they had couches in the middle of the living room and just a few guys hanging out on them drinking. And then we were stopped by a lady who sang a church song for us, she only was wearing one shoe, which was quite sad. And then we saw kids playing soccer so we played a 7 on 7 matches with the kids and it seemed more and more people came over to watch us play since I am sure many of them have never seen Americans come into their township and play with the children. While walking we would say molwani which means hello in X’hosa, which is the clicking language it is very hard and they say X’hosa, as the X as a click and a C sound then hosa. I cannot say it properly even though I have been trying. Our last stop on the tour was at a shebeen which is an unlicensend drinking house. It had a TV and a pool table, and it is made in a shack, the ceilings were low but bending wasn’t too bad. There were some of peters friends in there and we got to talk to them. A lot of them said we were the first Americans they had ever met, and that was also crazy for me to think of. After hanging out a bit in the shebeen, we headed back to the house for dinner. We had chicken, and a dumpling of some sort, bread and juice. It was very good, they brought out the goat but I however did not eat any of it because everyone’s reaction was not good, and they ran out of the meat. All in all it was a crazy experience seeing how those people live, and the craziest thing I noticed was that no one complains about living there, they all have so much joy. It is what they are used too and they seem like they don’t mind it. They have so little but seem so happy. I was glad I went because some people didn’t go and I don’t think they will have that opportunity again. We then headed back home for class the next morning.

2-6-10
Today we had a booking with a tour guide to go to Addo Elephant National Park, our tour guide Vernon picked me, Eric, Chris, Mike, and the other Charlie up at our accommodation Annie’s Cove and we set off for the elephant park. We were told some history about the park, such as around 100 years ago the elephants in this particular area would destroy the citrus farmer’s crop so they hired a hunter to kill the elephants in the area if they were near the citrus. The government did a count and after a few years only 11 elephants were left in the area after the killings, so they decided to buy land fence it and put the elephants there. Now in 2010 they have over 500 elephants and a huge amount of land for them to roam. This park also contains Africa’s big five (Elephant, Lions, Buffalo, Rhino, and Leopards). And if you want to get technical it contains Africa’s big 7 which also includes a blue whale, and the great white shark, but those are on the coastal areas of the park much further away. So once entering the park we first saw a bird of prey and then closely followed by our first two elephants of the day. We took many pictures of these because we were unsure if we would see more. We moved along and then saw a larger elephant who had been brought in from Kruger national park and he was not very happy to see us and stomped his feet at us, and made a loud sound like he was going to charge us, and our driver took off but we didn’t go far, and he didn’t really move up closer. We took a few more snaps, and headed up a hill and we were able to see the next watering hole, and around it were no less than 200 elephants. They were all drinking and playing in the mud and separated into families respecting each others time in the hole. It was an amazing site being so close to 200 elephants playing drinking and walking around. We all were in awe and took many pictures. We moved on after a while to drive around more and we took a lunch break and had a braii (BBQ). We ate came back to the park and drove around saw some warthog, ostrich, kudu, hartebeest, tortoise, jackals, other birds. We then eventually saw a bunch of cars in an area so we were up high and our guide looked and said he saw 4 lions. We booked it down the hill and drove up to the lions and sat and watched them for quite awhile. Then one eventually got up and started to walk but many people did not see him, so we followed him and then saw he went to go drink to the watering hole, and we had the best vantage point of all the cars. Then later another lion came walking up next to it and they were drinking together. The tour guide, who had been going to Addo for 40 plus years, said he had never seen such great opportunities of lions we had seen then we did that day. He wanted us to email him pictures because they were such great opportunities and he said he had never seen a lion go up to the watering hole and drink in his 40 years. The crazy thing is that this park is huge, comparable to Yellowstone, and they only have 11 lions but we saw 4 of them. Also most people do not see lions when they go there we were told, and we got to see them. During the day we ended up seeing 3 of the big 5, Lion, Elephant, and Water Buffalo. Once it got later in the day we went on a night drives where the guide took a flash light and shined in the bush to see animals. We saw the lions again, another lion included which was the biggest male in the park, Kudu which is like deer, spring hare’s, spiders, jackals, birds, and a few others but it was a little disappointing I would say. All in all we spent a lot of time in the park and it was such a beautiful trip. We then headed back to the guides reserve and stayed in cabins after another brail. In our cabin it was Mike, Eric, and I in one and we were in our room and see the largest spider we have ever seen. And to top it off we see the second largest we have ever seen. We first tried killing the smaller one, and we all three tried but the thing was too fast and if the shoe got to close to it, it would sprint off. So we lost that one but then I tried to kill the quite larger spider, and on the first strike we got it, but it was quite a scary experience since these things were big! We went to bed and then woke up and chilled around for a bit and saw even a bigger spider on the dock that could run on water, so we didn’t stick around there too long. We also saw a bunch of monkeys just observing us looking for food. We headed home after that point.

2-7-10
We got home from Addo and decided we would go to the beach. Our friend Charlie O’Connell said he knew of a secluded beach so we decided we would go there. He said it wasn’t far so we set off. We cut through near the school and after about 30 minutes Charlie told us we had to jump a fence. It wasn’t hard but kind of sketchy. We then continued for about an hour until we finally reached a set of random clearing to cut into the beach area. After a while we made it to the beach all of us feet hurting since Charlie didn’t tell us it would take an hour and a half to get there so we all wore sandals. The beach was the most beautiful beach I had ever seen so it was I guess worth it, but I am not sure if ill go again due to the distance. We then proceeded to the beach however it was not secluded there were about 7 guys there all spread along, not with each other. We see one guy to our left go into the water with his bathing suit on, and then suddenly he pulls down his pants, and we were like what the heck, but figured he was cleaning his shorts off, but after awhile he had them still off we slid down further along the beach but then we notice another guy way down always, he was also nude. In fact our friend had taken us to a Nude beach and the only nude people were old men. There were only 7 at least but it was quite weird, but we moved far enough down away so we didn’t see them anymore. We all laughed and gave our friend Charlie some grief due to the beach wasn’t secluded but a nude beach. We walked home in the heat and we all were sore and decided to do nothing but go in our pool in Annie’s Cove.