Reasons this weekend was SO African (Fri 07/10, Sat 07/11, Sun 07/12)

1) Hip-hop concert

One of the first things we learned about our graduate coordinate Karlyn is that she break-dances. But she has yet so show us some serious break-dancing moves. Instead, she organized a trip to a hip-hop concert Friday night so we could finally see some real break-dancing. I’ve definitely seen hip-hop and break-dancing before, seeing as how dancing took over my life for, oh I don’t know, around 14 years. It was still pretty sick. Kind of like me through the whole show. I wasn’t feeling too well, but the production and the passion of the people performing made me want to spin on my head with them. Even though I probably, ok definitely, would have vomited afterward.

2) Aquila Safari

Yes, it happened on Saturday. An African Safari. And everything was SO African. You have to say that phrase in a valley-girl voice by the way. Danielle said it mockingly at one point during the safari and it was absolutely hysterical. We woke up at 5:15 this morning to have Chris drive us the 2 hours it takes to get to the Aquila game reserve for our safari tour. The breakfast was amazing and an excellent start to the day. But of course, the highlights all came from our game drive. Aquila is a pretty small reserve, nothing like Kruger Park which is so well-known in South Africa. That’s where we really wanted to go, but it was too far, too expensive, and too time-involved for us to be able to. So Aquila it was, and it was totally worth it. The four of us who went (Anthony, Danielle, Lauren, and I) had such a great time together being American tourists. We saw teenage elephants play fighting, rhinos and baby rhinos, an annoying water buffalo who wouldn’t go away, zerbras, springbok, fat-ass hippos, lions and cheetahs, oh my. But of course, the best part of the entire safari were the giraffes. I have developed this association with them while here, courtesy of Danielle. It’s ok, I totally appreciate and accept the comparison. It makes sense and I recognize that. Besides, they are my favorite animals. Bottom line, the game drive ended up being everything I wanted and more. The landscape was breath-taking throughout the entire excursion, the animals were what you want to see when you go to Africa, and my company was spectacular.

3) Shark-diving, fail. Jade, fail

Reason 3 for this weekend being SO African is that our Sunday ending up being a series of fails that luckily turned out to be fine. Our first fail came with the crappy weather that kept us from being able to go shark-diving. I got a text at 4:15 AM saying that the trip had been cancelled. Dang it. We can go next weekend, but still, I got my hopes all built up and then SPLAT. Squashed. No, it wasn’t that serious. Our second fail of the day happened a good number of hours later when after we had all planned to go out to Jade to listen to some live music, we go to the door to find that the event is taking place at a different venue, far, far away at the waterfront. The other car decided to go home, but Victoria, Anthony, Julian and I went to one of Julian’s recommendations, Cubana Loungae. It was a fusion place of Latin and Middle Eastern ish. Pretty cool. They had sheshas, which made me reminisce about evenings in Cairo.

Clearly the day wasn’t that horrible, but I figured three reasons of things being SO African were better than only two.

Ukuthula,

Lynn

Can you be down-to-earth while you’re on top-of-the-world? (Thurs 07/09)

I feel like Thursday is such a tease in a week. It feels like Friday so many times, but it never is, but you don’t remember that until Friday actually comes, so you still do things like it’s a Friday, only to wake on an the actual day of Friday feeling like garbage after you forgot on Thursday that Thursday wasn’t actually Friday and you still had more day of work before Friday actually became Friday. Bah.

My down-to-earth side: Today was one of those days, but totally in a great way. I took a few hours away from work this morning to go to a protest which was partially organized by the NGO that Danielle and Rose are working at. I know what you’re thinking… How on earth did TAC function without me there for 2 hours. I’m sure it was very difficult for them, but it looks like they survived, if only barely. The protest was about a statement made by the head of the African National Council Youth League about the raping of a girl by South Africa’s current president, Jacob Xuma. He basically said that because the victim had stayed at Xuma’s for breakfast the next morning and asked for money for the cab ride home, she clearly had enjoyed the night so it wasn’t rape. Bull****. It is statements like this that are keeping the country from moving away from gender-based violence and the general acceptance of rape. It is horrific. The head of the ANC Youth League was going to the Equality Courts in Johannesburg, but women’s rights group all over South Africa were protesting today. There were four of us there from Duke, and Naomi was asked by the elader of the protest to speak to the crowd about the American perspective. She did such a great job. I would have been wicked nervous, but she held herself together! We were very proud and had an email chain going on about it for the rest of the day. J

My on-top-of-the-world/Cape Town side: After a pretty standard day at work, a couple of us stopped into this adorable boutique Mememe that we walk past everyday on the way home from work. We’d gone in there before, and I hadn’t bought anything. Nice self-control on my part, that lasted about 3 days. I bought a little skirt and dress. They’re my birthday presents ok! And they’re designed in South Africa by various local designers, including the girls who are working the store. So it’s legit. At least in my eyes.

The night was so much fun, too. We all had been planning on going to one of the most posh clubs in Cape Town, Hemisphere. It’s on top of a skyscraper downtown, so you can see so much of the city from up there. On top of Cape Town. It’s also just fun to get dressed up sometimes, especially here. Ok, here comes my superficial side. Yes I like clothes, and nice clubs, and make-up, and getting dressed up, and fixing my hair, and shiny objects, and diamonds. But whatever. I also want to save the world. Who says I can’t do both? At least for a little while…Anyway, now that I’ve unnecessarily defended myself, the club was really cool with good music and AWESOME company, as usual. I don’t expect anything less from this group. Cause we’re the best. Ok, that's enough. I'm coming back down now...

Ukuthula,

Lynn

18 days with DukeEngage- 14 days of work= 4 days of my self-made time in Cape Town (Tues 07/07, Wed 07/08)

It is so crazy to me how fast our time here has been going. I know that it seems like 18 days is a really long time to have left somewhere, but it’s really not at all. I mean, we spend 5 days out of the week working until 4, which means that by the time we work out, get home, shower, eat, it’s already 9 or 10. Our only days to really be able to do anything in Cape Town are the weekends, and everything in this country closes early on Saturdays and doesn’t even open on Sundays. Basically, of the million things I still feel like I want to do before leaving, there are barely four days to get them done before we go home…

So today and yesterday were days of proactive measures. We sat down as a group and listed things that we want to do and how we plan on doing them. I feel like it’s taken this long for us to get comfortable enough in South Africa and with our group dynamic to be able to go out and do things on our own. The same thing kind of happened in Cairo. It took almost 2 months for me to trust myself in the city to go out and do things on my own. But at least in that circumstance I still had over 2 months to do the things I wanted. Not so here. That’s one thing I definitely think should be considered in the design of DukeEngage. 8 weeks isn’t enough time to establish a routine that you have to become comfortable breaking. Does that make sense? Building a routine before you’re comfortable breaking it? It does to me. I need more time in Cape Town.

Top of my list of things to do: safari and shark-diving. Everything else can be worked in, but those are both whole-day, involved activities that I refuse to leave Cape Town without doing. We booked both events for this weekend. That way if the weather sucks on one day we still have next weekend to make-up for it. Good plan, yeah? It felt SO GOOD to plan something on our own, that wasn’t structured through Duke. Don’t get me wrong, I am more than appreciative of all the opportunities that DukeEngage has organized for us that I otherwise would have never experienced. But it just felt good to take some of our own initiative to turn our time in Cape Town into a more personal experience. And to me, that means adventures. Fighting off sharks and bonding with the giraffes. Maybe some of you understand…

Other than our initiatives, the past two days have been relatively uneventful. Minus the accident on Bob’s last night with us when he spilled red wine all over my Citizens jeans and Lacoste sweater. That sucked pretty bad. But life could be worse. Way worse. Besides, now I can buy a new clothes! Sorry mommy. Anyway…

Let’s hope my last weeks here are what I want them to be. I’m making that my number one priority for the next 18 days.

Ukuthula,

Lynn

 

You ain't never had friends like these (Sun 07/05, Mon 07/06)

Sunday morning started out with us hiking up Table Mountain, which was INCREDIBLE. I had never hiked any sort of real mountain before. It was so killer. Everyone in the group went. The original plan was to have a fast group and a slower group. What ended up happening was that Rose is an expert hiker (from what I can tell) so I hiked up with her, while Lauren and Anthony were shortly behind (clearly Anthony would have beat all of us but he’s a nice guy), and Naomi, Danielle, and Victoria were a little behind them. By the way, when I say I hiked up with Rose I actually mean that she set the pace and I kept up with her. She’s a quick one. It was such a work-out. We were told it would take us about 3 hours to get to the top, but we made it up in about an hour and a half. Nice. It is breath-taking all the way up the mountain and is totally worth the climbing and slipping (if you’re like me, I have a battle scar on my palm) and sweating that it takes to get to the top. CABLE CARS ARE FOR WEAKLINGS! Or those with injured limbs. We spent quite a bit of time just enjoying the top of the mountain, taking pictures and having a snack at the café, before deciding to hike back down. Going down was more difficult and less enjoyable than going up. You’re so worried about losing your footing that you can’t even look around at the scenery. Lame. But it was such a great experience and I feel like I had conquered the world by the time I reached the top with Rose. The air was clear and the view awesome beyond belief. Totally worth it.

The evening was the beginning of my birthday festivities. The group all went to dinner at Café Paradiso, a really yummy restaurant that has amazing desserts. It was a little bit of an ordeal to try to coordinate something for everyone. The original plan had been to go out Sunday night, but nothing was really open so instead we settled on dinner. But I was having difficulty choosing somewhere because you know how you don’t want anyone to feel obligated to spend money or do something for you? That’s how I was feeling. There were 10 people waiting for ME to make a decision. That’s a lot of pressure! They were so funny though, being sneaky with a cake for me. First clue I got was when Julian called our room and asked to speak to Lauren, and she told him “I sent someone else to get it.” (The cake by the way was ammmmmazingly delicious! Chocolate layers with whipped icing stuff and some fruit. Mmmmm I love Lauren for knowing me so well.) Second clue was Karlyn trying to sneak down the stairs with a huge box in her arms. Third clue was the reflection of candles I saw in the glass after dinner at the restaurant. It was so nice though, everything and everyone. They’ve all been so nice to me and treating me like a princess, literally even calling me princess. And we all know how much I love being a princess haha. It was more than I could have asked for.

The rest of our evening was pretty relaxing, just hanging out for a bit before bed and work in the morning. Work was decent on the day of my actual birthday. Catherine (the girl who took me around the first day and has become one of my favorites in the office) wished me a happy birthday in front of everyone, so of course the rest chime in as well. The highlight of my day though was easily my present from Hasnain that I downloaded in the morning. Here’s the link if you haven’t seen it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkvlDlhvfEY I cried so hard when I saw it the first time this morning, and have since watched it every hour or so. I love it to no end. We went out to dinner again, and that was basically the end of my 21^st celebration.

If you had asked me before what I expected my 21^st birthday to be like, I would have probably told you something along the lines of “VEGASSSSSSSSSSSSS.” I was so convinced for the longest time that is where I was going to be spending it. I don’t know what part of my birthday being in the summer during people’s internships and travels made it seem plausible that I would spend the weekend of July 6 partying it up in Vegas with all my best friends, but it seemed very logical to me. If you would have asked me post-acceptance to DukeEngage South Africa what I expected by 21^st birthday to be like, I could not have even begun to imagine how great it would be. Everyone here has made these past two days beyond incredible for me, and I never would have been able to predict how great of friends these people have become to me.

It was fantastic. Nothing less. Thank you everyone, no matter where you are in the world, for making me feel so special.

I love you all and ukuthula,

Lynn

A Muslim's How-to-Guide to Wine-Tasting (Sat 07/04)

Another early Saturday in Cape Town. It’s hard to wake-up every day of the week knowing that there is only a slight chance that you’ll get to sleep in on Sunday. Our Saturdays have all been great, but they just start waaaay too early for college kids. We headed to Stellenbausch today for a wine tour. I’m sure you all can know exactly what I was doing today. I mean what else do you do at a vineyard besides…

Play with the owner’s grandson, DUH.

Clearly that’s not all the tour was about, but that’s what was the most interesting to me. The owners of the vineyard are the only black owners of any vineyard in South Africa. I can’t remember how many vineyards they are, but South Africa is one of the biggest producers of wine in the world. So there are A LOT. The history of the family and the vineyard were narrated to us by the owner, who was hilarious. He definitely rambled a bit, but he had some priceless quotes during his talk. My favorites was “Ferment please!” as he described the process of wine-making. After we learned how to taste and smell and whatever whatever with wine we had the opportunity to explore the vineyard a bit, including the guava orchard. We picked out different guavas and ate them as we walked around. They were pretty good I guess, minus the 59394579385 seeds in each one.

While the family was grilling lunch, I managed to make friends (or so I thought) with the owner’s grandson. Our adventures started out well. We went to China, America, Stellenbausch, Johanessburg, and the grocery store on our motorbikes. And he bought me ice cream and juice. We were becoming buddies. This kid is hilarious. He has these crazy dreadlocks and really, really enjoys semi-violent playing. As in he’d purposely crash into my bike, or into the wall. We had some adventures for a bit before I got tired and decided I wanted to sit inside to hide from the flies at the vineyard. My little buddy did not like that too much. He actually got pretty upset with me, so our friendship ended when he decided it was funny to attempt to smack my eye out. So my overall conclusion from this experience is don’t piss off the violent children and expect to get away with it.

After our absolutely delicious lunch at the vineyard, we were off to downtown Stellenbausch to spend some time there. The area was very wealthy, very Afrikaaner, and very closed. Everything except a few over-priced souvenir shops and cafes were closed for the weekend. I swear I don’t know how things stay in business in this country. They close at 5 during weekdays and don’t open on weekends. We basically just wandered through the town for a bit before everyone exhaustedly got back into the bus to head home.

The remainder of the day was a mixture of fails and tiredness. Gym fail as Lauren and I walked down there, only to find it closed. Internet café fail, as I always manage to pick a computer that doesn’t have a working mike and/or video camera, or decides to freeze. The only other events of the evening included an ostrich burger for dinner and out for the evening on Long Street. Pretty standard.

Tomorrow we’re planning on hiking Table Mountain which should be intense. I’ve never done something like that so it should be awesome. And painful.

Ukuthula,

Lynn

p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICAAAAAAA!

Home in Cape Town is where I want it to be (Wed 07/01, Thurs 07/02, Fri 07/03)

Who knew that after only a little over a month in Cape Town that it would feel like we were coming home to MedVilla after four days in Pietermaritzburg. But that’s how it’s felt! I guess in a way you almost have to establish a routine before you can be ready to break it, and that routine is all it takes to make you feel comfortable somewhere. That being said, it is unfortunate to say that the last three days have not been my favorite in Cape Town. Work has been horrendous. And not due to me having too much work or work that’s too hard, no. It’s because I have had NOTHING TO DO. Despite having internet access, I can’t even manage to entertain myself during the day. One of the other interns put it an interesting way, he said sometimes he “finishes the internet.” That’s such a good explanation. There are only so many times I can check my email or read cnn.com before I start to go crazy. The most excititng event of my past three work days didn’t even come from TAC but from the District 6 Museum where two other interns are working. The museum was giving a small presentation on the Civil Rights movement in the States versus in South Africa. A group of us left our individual work sites for a short bit during the day to go listen to our professor speak to some students. I only got to see the brief film that they showed and not the actual discussion segment, but the movie was, well, strangely inaccurate. They chose to show a movie about Rosa Parks and the bus boycott, and while the story seemed straight to me (for the most part) it very much made it seem as though Rose Parks was the primary reason that blacks finally began their quest for human rights in the US. They even made MLK seem like a minor player in the whole ordeal. It was kind of comical to me in a way, but really off-setting if someone isn’t even relatively familiar with the civil rights movement. You know what else is funny? Apparently (according to Julian) they teach this story in Germany! Clearly it’s not in a lot of detail, but I thought it was neat how widespread Rosa Parks’s story has spread.

The past three evenings have been pretty relaxing. I’ve been going the gym, no change. I’ve watched Will Ferrell SNL shows and rugby, which may be the most confusing game ever, nothing exciting. I’ve been emailing a lot, no difference.

Friday Evening

Definitely the highlight of my past three days, hence it’s own section. Bob drove us out to Camp’s Bay to watch the sunset and have dinner at one of the many charming restaurants near the water. The first group (that I was in) went out to spend some time walking around before the other group was ready. The waves were huuuuuuge. The weather was quite windy and the swells were crashing back on each other. It would have been amazing to swim in, but I probably would have drowned. So maybe not so amazing. The funniest things happened though. We were admiring the scenery all around us, the volatile ocean, the majestic mountains. All of it. I was also admiring all this with my back to the waves, which of course decided to take advantage of my obliviousness. Despite the fact that someone yelled “Surf!” I still wasn’t paying attention and found myself calf-deep in saltwater and sand. My feet were so effing cold. Luckily I was wearing waterproof shoes, but they were flats, so no socks. I 

spent the rest of the evening with sand in my shoes and freezing feet until I had the chance to go back and change before going out that night.

As we all know, the world lost its King of Pop in the past week. Like there has been all over the world, one of the clubs here was having a Michael Jackson tribute party that we all decided to go out to. The night was pretty fun overall. We started out a bar called Neighbourhood, which looks like an old house. I’d been there once before and it had been straight filled with white people, but this time it was a better mix. When people were ready to head out after a brief stay there, we went to the MJ party. The venue was pretty sweet, but the music was kind of off. They didn’t start playing the good MJ songs until later in the evening. Sad story. They also had these really cool posters hanging on the wall that most of us decided we were going to take with us. I was a dummy and didn’t take one, but I think Victoria might give me one of the two she took.

You will be missed, Michael Jackson.

Ukuthula,

Lynn

Quality Time in Pietermaritzburg (Sat 06/27-Tues 06/30)

Saturday 06/27

Our experience here in Pietermaritzburg has been an interesting mix of intellectual/ cultural/social stimulation. Actually not what I expected it to be at all! Honestly, when I learned that the majority of our time in Pietermaritzburg was going to spent in lectures and discussion dinners, I was really not ridiculously excited. Luckily, the lecturers were for the most part extremely interesting and the discussion dinners turned into some of my favorite evenings in South Africa! Surprise!

Our Saturday morning began with a mini-tour around Pietermaritzburg with us trying to get a feel for the history and area. Pretty typical educational tour with the group. The highlights of that for me are in a tie between the wildfire that almost engulfed our parked cars, or the random man who came in to contribute to our little lecture. Ok, clearly the second part was more reflective, but the fire was crazy! The man provided an interesting perspective and input to Jumbalani’s (our guide) story and knowledge. It is still so beyond comprehendible to me how recent all of this history is to South Africa. To have a random stranger walk up to our group and listen and comment was not something I would have expected else where, but I wasn’t really surprised by it here. The afternoon involved listening to Jumbalani’s own story of his involvement in the ANC and how his life had been shaped by the volatile politics around him. I always prefer the personal reflections and experiences to wandering around a museum or listening to generic history. Oops on my part, but I just find personal accounts much more valuable since they are more relatable and almost tangible. And so I appreciate them more.

The evening was most definitely one of the best evenings I’ve had in South Africa. Jumbalani’s wonderful family had invited the group to their home for dinner and an eve

ning of bonding. It was FANTASTIC. For one, there was this adorable little baby who didn’t let anyone hold or entertain him except for me. I don’t know where some of these maternal instincts are coming up from in me, but a part of me is definitely changing when it comes to children. So I spent a significant amount of time with the baby. This family is one of the warmest I’ve ever come in contact with. The experience reminded me a lot of the one that Deandra, Ella, and I had in Luxor when we went home with a random family for Eid dinner. Except this night was centered around a Michael Jackson tribute dance party that everyone was participating in, even the baby! We also had a really great dish cleaning party to help out the family after they’d cooked us a delicious dinner. They had bought halaal meat to be sure that everyone (aka me!) could eat. How nice is that??? All in all, the day was good, but the evening is GREAT GREAT GREAT. Such an experience.

Sunday 06/28

I love Sunday mornings in South Africa. Would you like to know why? Because they usually equal SLEEP, but for some God-forsaken reason, our B&B has a very strange concept of what customer service should be, as in they feel like it’s ok to come into our room where there are five girls sleeping, clearly sleeping, and laugh and talk and clean so freaking loudly. Sorry, I understand that not everyone has the same schedule, but it was really ridiculous and really rude. Anyway though, so our morning basically involved sleeping, waking u for breakfast, and then going back to sleep before waking up to listen to another former of the ANC give an interview to our group and Jumbalani. His discussion was interesting as well, but honestly the majority of it was lost as we were FREEZING our butts off on the porch in the cold and rainy weather. Victoria, Danielle, and I all cuddled under the blanket and our hoodies the entire time. Not comfortable.

Our evening was just as good as last night, but very different. We were invited to dinner at the lovely home of Rod and Fiona, two white South Africans who had played an extremely proactive role during apartheid. Their story is quite fascinating, especially the perspective of their almost-30 year old daughter who was quite young when her parents were so active. It was definitely a perspective I had been waiting to hear. We’ve heard so much from older people, both black and white, but I didn’t feel like I had really any insight into what was going on with the younger generations until tonight. It was great to get the memories of a young white girl who had grown up with the majority of black friends, who then moved to an elite high school and was frustrated with the narrow-mindedness of the students there. Fiona and Rod were so dynamic, with Fiona being one of the strongest women I have ever come across, and Rod having this dead pan humor that I absolutely love. The entire evening held my attention, which says quite a lot actually. Especially when if comes to long discussions.

Oh and in the evening, GOOOOOO BRAZIL!!! J

Monday 06/29

We finally had a chance to explore Pietermaritzburg on our own this morning. All in all, there is nothing particularly enthralling that we found about the city. It’s pretty small, and apparently kind of dangerous, but those aren’t unusual characteristics for a South African city. Victoria, Anthony, and I just walked up and down some streets looking in random stores, the like 5 Rand shop, which is worse than a $1 store/better than any other store, depending on how you look at it.

We went back and took naps before our second part of the interview with Jumbalani, and then it was getting ready for cook-out this evening. I made the salad. Sweet. I didn’t chop any of my fingers or drop too

much lettuce, only a little bit. It was beautifullll. Not really, but I was ok with it. The cook-out was spectacular. (Yes, I just used the word spectacular.) There were soooo many people there, including Jumbalini’s family again which I was very excited about. The baby was asleep so I didn’t get to spend too much quality time with him, but I spent a while talking to the other youngsters in the group. We discussed everything from safety in South Africa and how comfortable/uncomfortable they are most of the time, driving and driving in the States versus here, how our names sound so weird to them and how I could probably do four backhandsprings before pronounce most people’s names here. They were all great conversations. These kids are so cool, really. And so curious about life in America. We’re trying to convince the oldest boy to apply to Duke next year, so we’ll see how that works out. Hopefully well.

The highlight of the evening outside of my time with the kids was our farewell song to Bill. He’s leaving for home tomorrow morning, so we decided that he needed a go

od-bye present. Which equaled a parody of Build Be Up Buttercup, DukeEngage South Africa style. It was filled with inside jokes of our time so far, but he loved it! And we loved singing it. Sort of. I totally recorded it so if anyone wants to watch it later, let me knooow.

Tuesday 06/30

How about we keep this short and simple…

Things I did today:

1) Woke up

2) Ate Breakfast

3) Bought a rugby hoodie

4) Said good-bye to Bill L

5) Slept on the airplane

6) Back home to the Med Villa in Cape Town

Ukuthula,

Lynn