Day 19 - September 17, 2006

Again, since we have no class today, I got to sleep in until 10:30am. Then, we all got up, had breakfast, and went in search of working internet to do some work for our final paper/presentation. Around 12pm, we went to the grocery store, and I picked up some halal mince pot pies for lunch. Others ordered in halal pizza for delivery.

At 2pm, Steve came and picked us up to take us to Green Point market, which is a large market near the waterfront that is only operational on Sundays. I ended up spending way too much money on gifts for friends and myself. What was interesting about the market was that nearly all of the vendors were from other African countries and hardly any from South Africa. I talked to several vendors who were from countries like Sudan, Malawi and Uganda. Steve came to pick us up again around 4:30pm to take us back to Ivydene.

I worked on my paper for a little bit until dinner. Katherine made lasagne and a pineapple upside down cake for dessert, which was quite nice. The rest of the night was spent working on my paper on the Vryheidsfront Plus party and my group presentation on community redevelopment. After a few hours, I went to bed.

Day 18 - September 16, 2006

Finally, a day to sleep in! Since we had no class today, Summer, Nora and I decided to sleep in until 11am. We leisurely got dressed, watched our favorite South African soap opera, Backstage, over breakfast, and planned the day. Nora met up with a local rugby player, who invited her to play with the provincial team, so she left around noon. Summer and I met up with Danielle and Cammie, and we got a cab to Green Market Square downtown. It was raining a bit, but it mostly cleared up by the time we reached the market.

Green Market Square is a typical African market, with lots of stalls, in which everything is negotiable. I spent way too much time and money here, mostly buying jewelry and gifts for friends. After an hour, we decided to walk to the Waterfront, so we walked all the way down Long St. Once at the Waterfront, we had lunch before doing any shopping. Most of us had halal thai food in the food court, and I ordered pad thai with beef, which hit the spot. We walked around the mall for a bit, as well as some of the craft sheds. Then, we headed for the Computicket counter at the Waterfront and purchased tickets for the jazz concert tonight. Around 4:45pm, Bradley the cab driver came to pick us up and take us back to Ivydene.

We had a few hours to rest and check up on our email before getting ready to go to the jazz concert. Tonight Abdullah Ibrahim, the foremost pianist and jazz musician in the country, is playing along with the national jazz orchestra, based in Cape Town. Just like jazz is big in New Orleans, jazz is very highly regarded in Cape Town as well. Eight of us, along with Lauren, got tickets to the concert, which is being held in the convention center downtown. We all dressed up, and then Steve picked us up around 7pm to take us to the venue.

We reached the convention center around 7:20pm, but the doors did not open until 8pm, so we decided to head someplace close by for dinner. The Arabella Grand Sheraton was connected to the convention center, so we went across the street and to the Sheraton lounge to have light dinner and drinks. The Sheraton was quite a nice hotel, definitely up to standards, and the lounge overlooked a nice pool and fountain. I ordered a smoked salmon sandwich and a ginger ale. We ate quickly and then rushed back over to the concert.

The concert started around 8:15pm. First, the national jazz orchestra performed, and it happened to be the debut of this orchestra. They played several American big band pieces for an hour. Then, we had a short intermission, after which, Ibrahim and his quartet came out. They were amazing. It was only the four of them, but they captured the audience's attention and played their style of South African jazz. When they finished, the audience called them back for an encore, and they played once again. It was about 11pm at this point. The jazz orchestra came back to close the concert, but we left since it was quite late. Steve took us back to Ivydene, and it had begun to rain again. I checked my email once more before going to bed.

Day 17 - September 15, 2006

Since we are traveling to the University of the Western Cape, we had to leave Ivydene at 7:45am, meaning we all had to wake up at the early time of 6:45am. All of us were on time to the bus at 7:45am, however, the bus was nowhere to be seen. We ended up waiting 40 minutes for the bus, which would have been valuable sleeping time. The bus finally arrived, and we headed to UWC, located in Belleville about 45 minutes away. We were met by Dr. Zelda Groener at UWC, who facilitated the day's events.

First, the Vice-rector of UWC came and gave us a brief history of the university, which was created to serve coloured students. It had a long history of student struggle during apartheid, and now is a top university in Africa. Then, we got back on the bus and headed to the township of Langa for a visit to the Langa High School. However, we had left Rachel and Anacely behind at UWC, so the bus dropped us off and then went to pick them back up. LHS is the oldest high school for blacks in Cape Town. We met with the principal, an Indian man, as well as the teaching staff for the school.

Then, we were taken to a brand new computer lab, donated by some South African technology companies to the school. The computer teacher gave us a presentation on the new computer class offered by the school. After, two well-spoken female students from the 10th grade gave us presentations about their experiences with the program. We presented them and 2 other students with fee bursars, basically paying off their school fees for the year. We took several pictures with them and chatted for a bit. Then, the principal toured us around the school, and we visited a biology class. Finally, around 12:30pm, we left and returned to UWC.

Once we reached the campus, the Centre for Adult Education, where we had class, had lunch ready for us in the form of tuna and cheese sandwiches with fruit and drinks provided. Then, a UWC student gave us a tour around campus. UWC has a fairly nice campus, and the architecture reminded me of LSU. We returned to the Adult Education Centre at 1:45pm. Then, Zelda gave us a lengthy presentation on the state of adult education in South Africa, in which over 10 million people are illiterate. She had many handouts ready for us and was able to talk in depth about ways to increase the adult literacy rate. At 3:30pm, we wrapped up and headed back to Ivydene.

Once we returned, many of us were exhausted and decided to nap. I checked my email and caught up with my wikis. Then at 5pm, the community re-development group (me, Nora, Cammie and Tabari) met to discuss the details of our group presentation. We fleshed the outline out and divided the parts for research. By the time we were done, it was time to get ready for dinner. Joel is treating us to dinner at Mama Africa's on Long Street tonight. Unfortunately, it started raining, but we all dressed up and piled into Steve's van for the drive into town.

Mama Africa's is one of the touristiest restaurants on Long Street and always needs reservations. We made reservations for 18 people, which they separated into 2 tables. Mama Africa's serves typical African food, along with seafood and game meat. The best part was that like Cape Town's many restaurants - they served halal food too! We ordered different dishes and shared food. I tasted crocodile for the first time, as well as kudu. The only downside to the restaurant was that the service took forever. We arrived there at 8pm and did not finish dinner until at least 11pm. Some people went to Marvel, Zululand, and Lepht afterwards, and the rest of us headed home. Tomorrow we don't have class, so we can sleep in!

Day 16 - September 14, 2006

Today we woke up at 7:15am in time for a 8:15am departure. We are spending the morning in District Six today. We first met up with Dr. Crain who is a professor at UCT. He gave us a lengthy history of District Six, as we sat in the District Six Museum. District Six was a predominantly coloured part of Cape Town, whose residents were forcibly removed after the Group Areas Act in 1966. Then, there homes were demolished. Now, the majority of District Six remains barren, grassy land with no development. Only a few mosques and churches are left in the area.

After his talk, we went on a tour of what was District Six and walked around the area with former residents showing us where they had previously lived and played. I ended up taking a lot of pictures. Finally, we walked back and had some time to look around the museum. The museum had lots of objects and photos from former residents and could be considered a living museum. A large group of us decided to head over to Long Street for lunch, and we ate again in the Long Street Cafe. I had pasta and ginger ale.

Since the day was quite clear with relatively no wind, we decided to head up to Table Mountain after lunch. Steve picked us up from Long Street and dropped us off at the cable car base. There are two ways to reach the top of Table Mountain - either by climbing or taking the cable car. We decided to take the cable car, which was open because of no wind. Also, since we had our student IDs with us, we got a student discount at R84 a piece for a return trip. The cable car ride was amazing, since the platform revolved 360 degrees as we reached the top. From the top, the view was absolutely amazing, and I took lots of videos and pictures. Since Table Mountain is flat on top, we were able to walk around for a while and get different views of the city. We could even see down the Cape Peninsula to Cape Point.

Around 4pm, we decided to head back down on the cable car. There were many taxis waiting at the base, so a group of 10 of us boarded one mini-bus taxi, which took us all the way to Rondebosch. We took the inner roads to get back to Ivydene and got back around 5pm. We had a little time to rest before dinner at 6pm. Katherine made a more traditional South African dinner with snoek pate, ostrich sausage, lentils and potatoes, and some more African dishes. We had an Afrikaner koeksister for dessert.

After dinner we had a lengthy discussion about our visits to both Robben Island and District Six and our perceptions about how there is a sense of pride and hope among many South Africans for the future of the young democracy. Then, a group went out to Claremont, a mostly white area of Cape Town, which turned out to be a bust, so everyone went to Long Street instead and chilled at Marvel and Baghdad Cafe. Steve took us all home to sleep, as we had to wake up quite early the next morning.

Day 15 - September 13, 2006

Today I woke up at 7:30am and washed my hair. We weren't in as big a hurry this morning, since we're having class in Ivydene. At 8:30am, we all met in the Mountain flat and had a short discussion about the concept of the "ugly American" and how we perceived ourselves to others, especially when we are in foreign countries. Then, we had a longer discussion on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that came into effect post-apartheid. The purpose of the TRC was to find out the truth about what happened during apartheid times and in exchange, it offered amnesty to those who had committed crimes with political motives.

At 11am we headed to the V&A Waterfront. We were given about 2 hrs for lunch, since we needed to be back at the ferry landing by 1:30pm. Rachel, Summer, and I went to the Fisherman's Market restaurant and had fried snoek and chips for lunch. Snoek is supposed to be the quintessential South African fish, but it was quite bony, and we were not impressed. This was probably because it is early in the snoek season, and this fish was probably imported and frozen. I had a halal fried chicken piece too to supplement by meal. We walked around the shops for a while, and then by 1:30pm, headed to the red clock tower.

Today we are visiting Robben Island, the maximum security prison where Nelson Mandela and other freedom fighters were held. We boarded the ferryand made the 45 min journey over to Robben Island. The seas were quite choppy, so we were hit by mist. When we arrived on the island, we first took a bus tour around, where they showed us the officer barracks, village, primary school and prison of the island. Then, we got down from the bus and were met by an ex-political prisoner who took us around the prison. We saw several jail cells, including the cell of Nelson Mandela. It was pretty informative. At 5:30pm, the boat arrived and took us back to the Waterfront.

Steve was waiting for us by the time we arrived and took us straight to Cafe del Mar at Camps Bay beach. We watched the sunset over drinks at the cafe, which was really beautiful. Tabari and I had halal chicken sandwiches from Nando's next door, and then joined the rest. I drank a yummy hot spiced chai and a tutti frutti. We stayed there for a few hours, just talking and relaxing by the water. Steve came to pick us up again around 9pm, but as we were heading back, the bus ran out of gas. Unfortunately, we were at the top of a hill, and so we had to get out a push the bus. At one point, it was perpendicular to the road and blocked both sides of traffic. Some girls started freaking out in the car, but we managed to get it straight. Since the car was a stick-shift, we could get back to a gas station. Once we filled up, we were on our way back to Ivydene. I was on the computer for a while before heading to sleep.

Day 14 - September 12, 2006

Today since we are traveling to the City Council chambers, we got to sleep in to 7:30am. Unfortunately, everyone in my flat slept through the first alarm, and I woke up at 8:05am and had to hastily wake everyone up, since we only had 25 minutes to get ready and make the bus. Fortunately, we were all fast and were at the bus in front of Ivydene on time. Today was a lot colder than the other days, and the wind was fiercely blowing.

We arrived at the City Hall around 8:45am and checked in. We were met there by Dee Smythe, who took us up to the 6th floor - the Office of the Mayor. We met in one of the council meeting chambers with one of the top urban planners of the city. He showed us several powerpoint presentations of projects the city was working on in the townships of Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain, in an effort to encourage economic growth in these areas. It was great to finally be able to see maps and designs of projects, instead of just hearing grand plans and theories.

Then at 11am, the Mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille walked in. She was something on an anomaly because she was not a member of the ruling ANC, but instead an opposition party, the DA or Democratic Alliance. Her party won the post in a groundbreaking election in Cape Town, although the ANC is still contesting the election. I, for one, was very impressed by the mayor. She was a no-nonsense personality and answered our questions straight to the point. I appreciated her brutal honesty, as she even told us about times when she was hijacked, attacked, and held at knifepoint - all at separate times! She also told us that the two biggest problems in South Africa were crime and education and that problems like HIV/AIDS could not be solved before addressing these previous concerns. I really enjoyed her commentary.

At 12pm, we left the City Centre for the township of Khayelitsha. We had lunch there at Star Catering, a township run restaurant in the training centre. The food was pretty good, but the meat was not halal, so I could only eat veggies. Then, we were greeted by volunteers and participants in the Mothers2Mothers Programme, an organization that helps prevent mother to child HIV transmission. They talked about their success and then took us to a workplace, where they teach mothers in the program bead-making skills, so they could make money on their own. Then, we went to the program shop, and I bought a beaded AIDS pin. We stayed there until 4pm and then headed back to Ivydene. I wished we had the chance to walk around Khayelitsha, like we did with Ocean View and like we did this past weekend in the small group, but unfortunately, we just stayed in the training centre area.

We were all really tired on the bus ride back to Ivydene, but I finished "Buckingham Palace" - our required reading - on the trip, so I felt productive. We had some time to rest in our flats before dinner. Katherine came and served us hake - a typical, South African fish, for dinner along with yummy vegetables and another amazing dessert. She is a great caterer, plus she brought her young daughter along, who was really cute. After dinner we had a short discussion about the day's events and then watched a movie, Yesterday, about the AIDS crisis in South Africa. We worked on our wikis for a bit before going to sleep.

Day 13 - September 11, 2006

Coming off an eventful weekend, we spent the entire day at UCT today. We got up early and made the hike up to campus. The morning was spent discussing economic policy and redevelopment schemes after the transition election. We talked about the RDP and GEAR strategies, including the outcomes and failures of each. Then, we had our second and last Xhosa lesson. Our Xhosa teacher gave us a lot more vocabulary, but also went into some necessary detail on sentence structure. Nevertheless, it was good to get some more useful phrases under our belt.

At the end of the lesson, it was time for lunch. A group of us went to the student union at the Upper Campus, and I ordered a mushroom cheeseburger and fries from Steer's - a fastfood joint. Again, I must say that I love how there is so much halal food at UCT. We went and sat out on the main steps of Jameson Hall and ate our lunch. During the 1.5 hr lunch break, a group of UCT students approached us and asked us to give some comments regarding fashion and trends for a class project. Summer and I started mentioning American brands, and all we got was a couple of blank stares, until we talked about Apple and the iPod and luxury cars - then we were all on the same page.

At 1:30pm, we headed back to class. For the first part of class, we watched a documentary on race. Actually, it was a video of people reading personal statements about how they view race, so it was a little boring. Our discussion was a lot more animated and we even got into a few arguments. At the end of class, we watched In a Time of Violence - a soap opera about South Africa at the time of the transition election. We headed back to Ivydene around 5pm.

We are not having dinner at Ivydene tonight, since UCT is hosting a welcome braai for us. We went to the tennis club on campus, where they had set up a nice spread inside. UCT had also invited several students representatives from their university government council to come and have dinner with us. The best part of the night was that the food was halal! We had beef bratwurst, chicken, and lamb ribs, plus salad and cake for dessert. We chatted with the UCT students for a while, and then head back to Ivydene at 9pm.

While at Ivydene, the internet finally started working again, albeit slowly, so many of us stayed up and worked on our wikis before going to sleep. On another note, it's the 5 year anniversary of September 11th, yet there is hardly any sign or news here of the attacks, aside from mentions in the morning news and local newspapers. Just goes to show that there is a whole other world out there.

Day 12 - September 10, 2006

Today was the day in which we explored the townships from an insider's perspective. Nora's friend Cleopatra and her boyfriend Serge took us to Gugulethu - the township where they grew up. The part of Gugulethu where they live is called Barcelona and was comprised of tin-roofed shacks. We visited Cleo's mother, who owns a shebeen - an illegal bar where they braai and sell drinks. The tin shacks are actually a lot bigger than they seem inside. But the conditions are deplorable. There is no running water, and they have to use buckets in order to use the bathroom and then carry the buckets out to the government bathrooms, which only get changed once per week.

We then visited Cleo's sister Hillary, who lives in a shack behind the shebeen. Hillary is HIV+ and has a little 2 yr old son, a single mother. She talked to us for a while about what it's like to be HIV+ in her community. It was frustrating to hear her speak because she was under the impression that a good diet would keep her healthy instead of ARVs, a position that the current Mbeki government espouses. After speaking to her for a bit, we continued on a tour of Gugulethu and walked around. The township used to be a landfill, and there are remnants of trash and stink everywhere. It was important to see it with my own eyes though.

Then, we got into taxis, called cockroaches, and drove to Mandalay, a part of the black township Khayelitsha. It used to be a completely coloured area, but now it is a mixed area. It is also more upscale than the rest of the township. The people here live in actual houses with running water and electricity. First we went to one of Cleo's friend's house, who was a Rastafarian. They were deeply spiritual and even grew ganja in their backyard. It was quite an experience to say the least. Then, we headed to Cleo's dad's house, who has a pretty nice home in Mandalay. He even drives a nice Camry and is relatively well-off in comparison to the people in Gugulethu. They had prepared us a lunch there, which was nice to share with them.

Around 4pm, we decided to head back to Rondebosch, so we went to the Nyanga bus terminus station. This was probably the most unsafe part of the day, just because there were lots of people around, and we were in a sketchy location. But, we ran into some more of Cleo's friends, who served us coke in her bar, while we waited for them to flag down a reliable taxi. Finally, we got a taxi and headed back to Ivydene.

We arrived in time for dinner, and Katherine did a great job again with it. We chatted for a bit, and then went our separate ways. Cammie, Nora, Summer and I went to Lauren's place and shared music and checked our email, since the internet wasn't working properly in Ivydene. Then, it was bedtime as tomorrow would yield another early day.

Day 11 - September 9, 2006

Today was the first day in a while in which we were allowed to sleep in. We all got up around 10am, since we did not have to meet our tour guide until 11am. Today we are touring the Cape Peninsula down to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. At 11am, we met up with Colleen again aboard the SHAWCO bus and starting our journey down the peninsula. We first drove through the City Centre, past the Waterfront and Clifton and Camps Bay beaches. Our first stop was a seaside area called Llandunwo. Apparently, lots of movie stars have houses here on the coast, and there are several beaches below. We stopped to take pictures here.

Then, we boarded the bus and drove down to Hout Bay, a fishing village that is shaped like a horseshoe. We again stopped and took some great pictures of the scenery. Next, we headed towards Chapman's Peak, a mountain pass through the peninsula, giving us some great views of areas where great white sharks and whales reside. From this point we passed Kommetjie, a mostly white neighborhood, and then went down to Cape Point. On the way we passed lots of craftsmen selling their wares and an ostrich farm.

We reached the Cape Point reserve, which was part of the Table Mountain National Park around 2pm. First we grabbed lunch at the restaurants there and then made the trek up to the Cape Point lighthouse. This is the point where the Indian meets the Atlantic Ocean, and the scenery was beautiful. We ended up taking lots of pictures there, before heading back into the bus.

Next we drove down to Boulder's Bay and Simons Town, where a large colony of African penguins reside. We ended up getting really close to the penguins, although they were on the stinky side. In Simons Town, we got down from the bus and Colleen gave us a quick walking tour of the area. This is the spot where lots of coloureds were evicted to townships such as Ocean View. Apparently, the only coloured allowed to stay in Simons Town was an Indian man who ran the aptly named Patel Bros - the ubiquitous grocery store.

Tonight we are having dinner at Zelda Groener's house, a faculty member at the University of the Western Cape. She lives in Glencairn, a mostly white neighborhood, even though she is coloured. Her house is quite nice and has a great view of False Bay and the Indian Ocean. She even had halal meat prepared on my behalf for dinner. We had snacks, drinks and dinner, which was great. We also had very good conversation and discussed everything from American politics to the housing crunch in the townships of South Africa. Around 10pm, we got back on the SHAWCO bus and headed back to Ivydene for the night.

When we reached home, however, we found out a bit of unfortunate news. Tabari and Calley had left a side room unlocked and got their laptops stolen. Tabari also got his laptop bag, containing his passport and plane ticket, stolen too. So definitely a bit of bad luck for them! The police came to take their statements, but it's a good lesson for the rest of us to always be careful here in South Africa!

Day 10 - September 8, 2006

We are having classes at UCT again today, so we all woke up early and made the long walk uphill to campus. Joel made several changes to the schedule, so we spent the morning discussing HIV/AIDS in South Africa and the high rates of incidence, especially among women and children. We also talked about the ethics surrounding drug testing for HIV and then got into a heated debate about the role of pharmaceutical companies in providing aid to developing countries. Joel (finally) gave us the afternoon off, so at 12pm, we all went our separate ways.

Summer and I went down to Main Road where there were some shops, and then we went to the bank, where I changed some money. We then walked back to Ivydene, where a group of us were having lunch. Lauren and others wanted to go to Long Street for some shopping this afternoon, so we booked Steve and the Boogie Bus to take us to Long Street at 2:30pm. About 9 of us went together in the bus to Long Street. We first went to Clarke's Books, a famous old-tyme book shop, specializing in South African books. I picked up a few comic and political cartoon books. We spent the next few hours walking through various shops, including a clothing and music store.

We were meeting up with others at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, so we started walking down Long Street. We came upon the Greenmarket Square, an African crafts market, and looked around for a while. Then, we continued on to the waterfront. The waterfront was the place in Cape Town that reminded us most of the U.S. Heather, Kara, Cammie and I decided to have seafood for dinner, so we walked to the Ocean Basket restaurant. Cammie and I shared a massive platter for 2 that included prawns, kingklip, mussels, and calamari. It was really good and nice to have fresh seafood. After dinner we walked around the mall for a while. It was done in the American style, with lots of shops, including Guess and the Body Shop.

Later, we joined the others at the Manenberg's Jazz Cafe, a famous jazz establishment. It was really nice as a group to chat together over tea and drinks and listen to the music. Everyone was pretty tired by 10:30pm, so we asked Steve to pick us up at 11pm, and we returned to Ivydene.

Day 9 - September 7, 2006

Today we are having class at the Groote Schuur Hospital, which is where the Health Sciences/Medical School of UCT is located. We boarded the bus at 8am, which took us on a short drive to the hospital. We went to the Gender, Health and Justice Unit of UCT for a morning session. Dee Smythe, the acting director of the centre, along with several other scholars gave us a shocking report of the status of violence against women in South Africa. The country has the highest incidence of reported rape in the world, with estimates of over a quarter million raped each year. A majority of the rape is in connection with gangs in townships and other areas, often used as a retaliatory gesture. How horrific it is that the public has to internalize and live in constant fear and trauma!

After this introductory session, we had several activists from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) come and talk about their work with the organization. TAC is the most successful HIV/AIDS organization in the country. They are currently asking for the Health Minister to be sacked and for ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs) to be provided in prisons. Then, we were joined by a forensic pathologist and a human rights lawyer to talk about law reform concerning sexual offences, specifically trying to shoot down a law that basically criminalizes people with HIV+ status.

After this intense and incredibly powerful morning session, we broke for lunch. A large group of us went to a nearby shopping center and had italian food at a sit-down restaurant. The food was decent, and I had a hot milo (like horlicks) drink too. At 1pm, we returned to the centre and boarded a bus with Dee Smythe that would take us to Ocean View. Ocean View is a coloured township, in the suburbs of Cape Town down the peninsula past Simonstown. Dee was an outsider, who as an expert on law reform, joined a steering committee to increase housing in the area.

Ocean View was one of the nicer townships I've seen, which isn't saying much. About a quarter of the residents are Muslim, with the rest being coloured Christians. Members of the steering committee greeted us in their multi-purpose hall, and then gave us a brief history of Ocean View. Most of the residents used to live in Simonstown, but the Group Area Act in apartheid times relocated all non-whites to the Ocean View area. Surprisingly, many of the steering committee members viewed their lives as being better during apartheid and that they faced reverse racism, as before they were not white-enough, and now they are not black-enough. Another issue was that when we mentioned that we saw the Premier yesterday, the committee members seemed to think that because the Premier was Muslim, he did not represent them. Apparently, there was a division between the coloured Muslim community and the coloured Christian community. We did not realize that even within certain racial groups, there were all these divisions.

Next, we divided into 3 groups, and the committee members gave us a tour of the township. Some areas were a lot nicer than others. One area called Mountain View was the worst, with small shacks and a communal bathroom. The whole area smelled like sewage. Other parts had individual bathrooms, but many of the homes were in disarray and crumbling. The steering committee was in talks with the mayor of Cape Town to rebuild many of the homes and to receive more land to build homes, as many families are on waiting lists to move into their own homes.

Ocean View was one of the safest townships, but they still had a major crime problem. The biggest adversary, however, was drugs, and parents were deeply concerned that their children were wasting away and resorting to crime because of drugs, namely tik (methamphetamines). Due to the vast unemployment in the area, it seemed like their children did not have a future, so finding jobs was a big worry. But another great part about seeing the township was visiting the children and noticing the innocence in their eyes, as they ran to give us hugs and walk with us through their homes. We took some pictures with them and the steering committee, and then we headed back to Rondebosch.

When we arrived, the vast differences between where we were staying and the townships struck us deeply. The caterer had already arrived before we got there, so dinner was almost ready for us whwn we returned. We had dinner and then had a lengthy reflection period, where we discussed all the intensity of the day's events. Then, people dispersed. Some watched Sex and the City, while others played on the internet before heading to bed.

Day 8 - September 6, 2006

Again, we woke up today at 7am. I decided to wash my hair and felt quite refreshed afterwards. We missed the Jammie shuttle again and thus had to walk to class. We timed ourselves better this time around and took 30 min to get to UCT, all uphill. We had lectures for several hours until 11am on South African history during the last few years before the '94 election.

At 11am, we had a Xhosa language teacher from UCT teach us a few phrases and grammar structures. It was lots of fun trying to learn a new language, and we did relatively well with it, even though the clicks were hard on everyone. Then, we had a break for lunch. A group of us went to this sandwich stand (again all halal food), and I had a thai chicken sub - pretty good. When we finished up, we noticed that a large group of students was setting up for a protest. Apparently, it was a health awareness week, so they had invited Zackie Achmat, the chairperson for the Treatment Action Campaign - the most successful AIDS NGO in the country - to speak. After, they planned a march to one of the Deputy President's home.

We resumed class at 1:15pm and had a short session about our research projects for the end of the seminar. Then at 2pm, we packed up and got ready to meet the Premier of the Western Cape. The Premier is similar to a state governor, since the job is head of the provincial government, except the Premier has a lot more power. It was really cool b/c the Premier of Western Cape was a Muslim man named Ebrahim Rasool. One of Joel's friends Tahir Salih, assistant to the Premier, helped set up the meeting. We drove downtown to the Premier's office and went to the meeting. They had us meet in a very nicely appointed conference room, with chilled sparkling drinks, cookies, candy and tea waiting for us. The Premier also gave us all gifts of outfitted planners.

We got food and drinks, sat down, and then the Premier came in and gave us a thoughtful speech on race and identity in South Africa. After, we had the chance to ask him questions and some of us asked some pretty hard hitting questions. It was really refreshing to have the Premier not skirt the questions but answer each one in a complete manner. I really liked how he discussed health in relation to the empowerment of women. Then, he took a group photo with us and ran off already late to his next meeting - with Russian President Vladimir Putin! We made the Premier late for his meeting with a president!

After, Tahir sat and talked with us and answered more of our questions. He then gave an extensive talk on the history of Muslims in Cape Town, which was fascinating, as many are in positions of skilled labor and are holding government rankings. He then discussed how South Africa doesn't have the same problems with Islamophobia as the rest of the world and how they have integrated the Muslim population well into the country.

We left downtown around 4:30pm and drove back to Ivydene. We got stuck in traffic on the way and reached Ivydene around 5pm. I had a little time to relax and wash up, before the caterer Katherine came to set-up dinner. For dinner, we had a casserole, vegetable dish and salad, with lemon meringue pie for dessert. We had a discussion afterwards on the day's event. Then, we all ended up chatting for a bit, blogging in our wiki sites, and getting ready for bed, as tomorrow would bring another busy day.

Day 7 - September 5, 2006

We woke up this morning again at 7am, as class would start at 8:30am. The Jammie shuttle leaves at 7:40 and 8:20 am, so we decided just to walk at 8am. It took us quite a while to walk to UCT, and we were late by almost 10 minutes. It was a good thing we had a group of 6 people with us, so we were late together. We hadn't started class yet, which worked in our benefit.

Today we have a guest leading classes, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, who is the Dean of Faculty of Education at the University of Pretoria. He was a really interesting man and delivered a thought-provoking opening round of statements on the status of education in South Africa today, many problems still based on race relations. We saw a short clip from a film about integrating schools.

Then, we left the UCT campus and traveled to Trafalgar High, a local high school in the District Six area of Cape Town. Trafalgar was the first school in Cape Town for non-white students. To this day, the school is almost 50-50 coloured and black students. We first met with the principal and then a group of 30 students were brought in to chat with us. It was great speaking to the students or "learners" as they are called. The students were all 10th and 11th graders. I spoke to mostly girls, who wanted to know about America. Some were scared about the safety situation, as crime was rampant in some of their neighborhoods and there were drug dealers too. The students who I spoke with were coloured and spoke Afrikaans at home. The school itself required both English and Afrikaans. I even exchanged email contact with the girls.

After, we went out to lunch near the parliament building in a restaurant located in a city garden. The food was decent, and I also had a yummy lime milkshake. Many of the patrons of the restaurant were white, and they were definitely giving us a few dirty looks, since our group was so ethnically diverse.

Then, we headed to the Centre of the Book for a panel with a group of education activists, including Neville Alexander - a former prisoner on Robben Island. Prof. Jansen led the discussion which was very insighting on their views of everything from South African history books to affirmative action. We concluded with a wrap-up discussion on the importance of making sure everyone is included in the educational system from Afrikaners to coloureds.

At the end of the session, one of our group members Kara was sick and had to be taken to the emergency room. She was fine though. We headed back home, and the caterer came and set up for dinner. It was a simpler dinner, pasta and salad, but it was still pretty good. Then, many of us took out our computers to write in the online journals. We fooled around online for a while and then headed off to bed.

Day 6 - September 4, 2006

Today is our first day of class. Unfortunately, we had to meet the bus to take us to UCT at 8am, meaning a 7am wake-up. We all managed to wake-up on time, shower, get dressed and make it to the bus. It took us about 15 min to reach the campus by car, which was up on the hillside. We first drove to the Middle Campus to the All-Africa House, which is where our seminar classes will be held. The campus is quite beautiful, with lots of trees and Mediterranean architecture.

Today was a basic introduction/orientation to South Africa and the University of Cape Town. First, we had a visit by the International Centre at UCT, who gave us a quick orientation about the university and safety on campus. Then, Joel gave us an orientation lecture on South Africa, which was quite general. At 11:15am, we had a short campus tour and walked up hill to the Upper Campus. The Upper Campus is where most of the students were hanging out and where most of the campus buildings were located. We were led immediately to the student id card office and all given temporary id cards.

Then we walked to the student union for lunch. To my surprise and absolute pleasure, all the restaurants in the food court were halal! I bought an avocado and beef bacon burger, which was really good. I'm really excited to be eating on campus, when so much food is halal. After, I went to the bookstore, which was right next door, and I bought a navy blue UCT sweatshirt - clothing that always comes in handy. We then walked around the campus for a bit and took in the sites, including a great view of the city from up top.

Our next session started at 1:30pm, so we headed back to the All Africa House. For the next few hours, Joel gave us more information on South Africa and the transition period. Finally, we got into a discussion on education and the educational system in the country. This was the most interesting part of today's seminar, and the discussion was heated for many parts. After the session, we walked back to Ivydene.

Tonight for dinner we are having a braai, a traditional South African barbeque. I met with the caterer, who would be serving us food Mon-Fri, and she was really nice. She bought separate halal meat for me and kept it in the packaging, so I knew it was halal. I helped out with the braai, and I had a whole plate of lamb ribs and a beef bratwurst for myself. There was so much meat and really good salad and garlic bread, plus drinks. I definitely overate. For dessert, we had fruit skewers, cake and a South African delicacy called cook sisters, which reminded me of jalebi. Yummmmm all around. We helped wash dishes to clean up.

Then, since it was Jessica V.'s birthday, we went to Long Street and listened to House music in Orchard Bar and a karoake singer performance at The Dubliner. There were all these old couples dancing to 70s and 80s songs, including ABBA and Cat Stevens. It was a fun time. After, we returned home and went to sleep.

Day 5 - September 3, 2006

Again, it took me a couple of hours to fall asleep, but around 3am I fell asleep and woke up around 9:50am. The Cape Town city tour started at 11am, so we had about 1 hr to get ready. I decided to wash my hair this morning with the new shower set-up, and it felt good to have clean hair. I put in charged batteries into my digital camera, and then we were ready to go.

We used a UCT bus to tour around town with our tour guide, Colleen. She spent a lot of time giving us the background history of South Africa and of all the sites we visited. I'm really glad I had my digital camera, since I took many photos. First we drove to the city centre to the Castle of Good Hope, Parliament buildings, Courthouse where Mandela gave his first speech and old slave quarters. Then, we drove to Bo Kaap, the Cape Malay/Muslim quarter of town. The tour guide said that the Muslim slaves were the most educated (king of kings slaves) and all were professionals and had skills. They opened the first schools for blacks and coloureds and were really influential. We passed by several mosques as well.

Then, it was time for lunch, so we headed to Long Street, where we had gone as a smaller group for dinner before. We had lunch at the Long Street Cafe, which was a pretty nice cafe/bar setting. The total lunch came to R52, which is a little more than $7, and I had a main dish plus 2 soft drinks.

After lunch, we went to Signal Hill, a high point overlooking the city, which also had really great views of Table Mountain, Devil's Peak and Lion's Head. We ended up taking lots of pictures, including a group picture. We stayed there for a bit, and then headed down to the beach areas. Unfortuntely, we could not go on the cable car to the top of Table Mountain because high winds were a danger to the route.

The area below Signal Hill is one of the most affluent parts of Cape Town and reminded many of us of Los Angeles, especially the Orange County/Newport Beach parts, where there are sprawling beach houses overlooking the ocean. The beaches were also beautiful, with nice restaurants and hotels on the shore. We stopped on a vista point by Camps Bay beach and took lots of pictures. The scenery was amazing, with the mountains in the background and oceans in front.

In sharp contrast, we headed to the townships next. We did not get down from the bus but instead drove through Langa. The differences were obvious, and we saw small houses, shacks and shantytowns. Then, we passed by some coloured townships, which were nicer and more affluent. We even drove past a majority Indian Muslim township, which was nicer than the others too. This concluded our tour, as we headed back to Rondebosch.

The tour ended around 5:15, and we had a movie screening scheduled for 7:30, so we all grabbed dinner in between. Many of us headed to Chippie's, a Portuguese fast food joint a short walk from Ivydene. I got a grilled calamari dish. Then, we went to the Mountain flat, which got better internet reception, and I checked my internet for a while. At 7:30, all of us gathered in the Mountain flat, and we watched "Amandla," a movie about how songs fueled the resistance against apartheid. It was pretty well made, and we had a short discussion afterwards.

After the movie, we all headed back to our individual flats. We ended up getting a little bit of internet connection in the Dolphin flat, so we all gathered in the common room to chat and surf the internet for a little bit. Since we have to get up at 7am for the 8am bus tomorrow, we all changed and went to bed around midnight.

Day 4 - September 2, 2006

This was probably the first night in 4 days in which I had a relatively good night's sleep. Last night it took forever for me to fall asleep. First, it was freezing, and so I was sleeping in my Stanford sweatshirt but only had a thin blanket over me. I kept switching sides, and then around 3 am, I decided to turn on the thermostat. Unfortunately, the thermostat only gave off heat about 6 inches from the heater. Finally, I realized that I was sleeping on top of the covers, so I got up and under the covers, which was much warmer. I managed to fall asleep this way.

I fell asleep for a good stretch and then woke up when I heard banging on the door and realized that my roommates had probably arrived. It was 10 am at that point, and I had gotten at least a good 6 hrs worth of sleep. A bunch of new seminar members were here, so I quickly "showered" - more like splashed water on myself, brushed my teeth and changed my clothes. I met one of my roommates Summer Jackson, and she had a quick shower and change of clothes too. We wanted to go explore the area around us, so we tried to rally some of the other seminar members. Also, apparently one of the other showers was leaking, so we had people come to our place to shower. Finally, me, Summer and Danielle decided to go walk around Rondebosch.

Right outside the street where we live, there was a park and a market/fair set up in the park with different food stalls and vendors. We walked through but didn't buy anything, since it was still pretty early in the seminar. Then, we walked up Campground Road and to a strip mall about 5 min from our place. In the strip mall, there was a halal grocery store - where I grabbed a Cornish pot pie - a pharmacy and a Portuguese fast food place. We then turned on Belmont, which would take us to Main Road - the aptly named main road in Rondebosch. There was a mall, a bunch of smaller boutiques, and several fast food joints. I could tell that the area was geared to University of Cape Town students, since UCT was right behind us up the hill. There were even some fast food chains serving halal food. We stopped at Checkers, a supermarket, to pick up some groceries for breakfast. Then, we walked back to Ivydene.

It was around 3pm, and our third and final roommate in the Dolphin flat moved in, Nora Levinson. We moved all our stuff around and unpacked a little and then tried to find working internet. The outside patio and main hallway had working wireless, so I was able to check and send a lot of email. We then went back to out flat and watched tv, including rugby and wrestling! Around 6pm, we were called into the main meeting room, which was Tabari and Calley's Mountain flat and had the first group meeting of the seminar. Cammie Lee came in at that time too. The only person we were missing was Anacely, who apparently missed her flight from DC. Prof. Joel Samoff handed out copies of the syllabus, and we chatted for a bit.

We decided to have dinner as a group, so we walked to a nearby Italian restaurant Borruso's. The food wasn't that great, but the portions were big. My end of the table had a pretty intense discussion about economics and China, so it stayed interesting. After dinner, we were tired, and so we headed back to our flat. We finally found some internet in the flat, so we all busted out our computers - all of us have Macs - and fooled around for a bit. Nora, who is studying engineering, figured out how to hook the hand shower to the wall, using a wire hanger, so we now had a pretty functional shower. The only thing we are missing - sadly for me - is the shower curtain. Finally, we all got ready for bed, as tomorrow we would be touring the city.

Day 2 and 3 - August 31 and September 1, 2006

I probably slept at most 3 hours last night. I was just too excited/anxious to sleep properly, but I figured I could probably sleep on the plane. I had finally gotten to sleep, when of course, the alarm goes off. It's 7:30 am, and so I prep myself for the flight ahead. I grab a quick buffet breakfast, using my free coupon :), and pack up all of my luggage. The shuttle bus comes at the top and bottom of every hour. I decided to take the 9 am bus, so I would arrive at the airport with at least 3 hours to spare. On the bus over, there were several other groups traveling on South African Airways. At the airport, I saw that the majority of people on my flight were going on safari/hunting in Africa. It shouldn't have been, but it was pretty surprising for me. When I reached the ticket gate, the counter was not even open. Talk about getting there early. I saw Rachel Linn waiting in line early too, so we chatted it up until we got our tickets. Then, we headed for the security line, which took about 30 minutes to get through. We then had to take another shuttle to get to Concourse B - the international terminal. In the international terminal, we ran into Danielle Green, another student in the seminar. SA 208 was supposed to board at 12pm and take off at 12:50pm, but we learned that the plane was delayed by 1.5 hours. Rachel and I went to get Starbuck's and Potbelly's sandwiches for a quick lunch.

Finally, it was time to board the plane. My seat was 42A, so it was up front in the Economy section. I had the window seat and my seatmate was an elderly, old female, who was a former Canadian missionary to SA. Unfortunately, she was quite large and invaded my "personal space" which bothered me to no end throughout the flight. It took almost 8 hrs before we reached Dakar, where we had a stopover. We weren't allowed to get down in the airport, so we all stayed in the plane for an hour, during which they refueled and we got a couple new passengers. We also noticed how very few of the passengers were black, and those that were black mostly got down at Dakar.

Finally, we took off again for Johannesburg. Again, it took us almost 8 hrs to reach the city, and during the 17-hr flight, I had about a total of 1.5 hrs of sleep; it was horrible. I just wasn't comfortable and didn't have as much space as I wanted to sleep. I ended up watching movies and playing video games, since every seat had a video screen, similar to Emirates. Also, for every meal time, they gave me a special "Muslim" meal, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, the food was always very bland, and most of the time, I wished I had just taken the regular food. But still, they served us 3 meals, which was decent. When we landed in Joburg, it was 1:15pm, and we were 1 hr 15 min late. Our connecting flight to Cape Town was at 2:20 pm, so we thought we would miss the flight. Fortunately, it only took us literally 5 min to pass through Immigration and Customs. We had to wait a while longer for our luggage to arrive, but thank God it was at least with us in the country. We had to quickly head over to the Domestic Terminal. We were immediately spotted by a porter, who took our luggage and literally ran over to the Domestic Terminal with us chasing after him. Finally, out of breath, we reached the terminal and they threw our luggage on board. We had to give the guy a hefty tip in USD, but whatever - at least we didn't miss the flight.

Joburg itself looked almost like I imagined it - the ground was dry, as it didn't rain during the winter and the sky was hazy with the high rises in the distance. The Joburg airport looked like an international airport however and was fairly nice. The flight to Cape Town took about 2 hrs, but when we were landing, the view out the window was amazing. Cape Town looked like the exact opposite of Joburg. Everywhere was green, and there were rolling hills and mountains cutting through the landscape. When we landed, we had a great view of Table Mountain in the distance. It did not take very long to collect our luggage, and I even had time to change $20, although the airport currency exchange ripped me off. Stanford had even sent a guy to meet us and collect us from the airport. Danielle got split up from us coming to Cape Town, so while we waited for her, the guy treated us to coke at this bar in the airport. Finally, it was around 6pm, and we were on our way to Ivydene - the place we would be staying for the next 3 weeks.

The drive to Ivydene was amazing. The sun was setting behind Table Mountain, which was a pretty awesome view. Also, we passed two townships on the way to Ivydene - Gugulethu and Langa. When we arrived in Rondebosch, we saw the University of Cape Town as well, which was up on the hillside of Table Mountain. Finally, we arrived at Ivydene, which is a converted farmhouse. It's quite cute and comprised of a series of flats. I'm in the Dolphin flat, which is one of the larger flats as it has a large sitting area and full kitchen. The only problem is the bathroom, as there is no shower but instead a tub and hand shower. There is also no shower curtain. Some of the other flats have showers though, so I might end up using those showers to wash my hair, etc...When we arrived in Ivydene, Tabari and Heather were already there, as they had arrived from Germany in the early morning. We were all pretty hungry, so we decided to go out to eat. Steve, one of our drivers, took us to Long Street in Cape Town, which is a well-known street with lots of restaurants and nightclubs. We walked around for a bit and settled on Cafe Mojito - a Carribean style restaurant. The food was pretty good, and while we were there, we ran into Calley and Jessica V., who had arrived a few days earlier to sightsee before the seminar. We hung out for a bit before seeing them off in their hotel; they would join us tomorrow. We took a taxi back to Ivydene, where we settled in to our respective flats.