Maybe you could watch and learn (Mon 06/15)

Aaaaaaah another day of sleep. (I should probably add that the TAC office was closed today for a four day weekend before a public holiday tomorrow, so I was not skipping out on work.) Not quite as much but still a decent amount. Also a day of working out. Not only did I go on what I considered an almost-intense with Anthony, but I also went to the gym. I’m an exercise fiend, let me tell you. Not quite but I can pretend. Anthony goes running every day, and almost every day he asks if any one wants to go with him. Today, I said yes. Running up the hilly streets of Cape Town didn’t kick my butt quite as much as I expected it to, but it was not a walk in the park either. I’m sure Anthony wouldn’t agree with me, especially since he went running again after we came back. Lame on my part. Running here is an experience though. Between gasping breaths (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration) you can just look around and see how beautiful everything is around you. Anthony took me up the road and on this path over part of the mountain, and at the end of the run (aka when I didn’t think I’d make it back if we went any further) you can stop and see Cape Town below you, with the ocean off to the left and the mountains framing it all. Breathtaking. And not because I had been running but because it was pretty thank you very much. Anthony and I also had a good conversation during our time together. Actually, our entire group is so good about striking the perfect balance of deep, reflective conversations along with the goofiest comments and moments. These people I’m with here are truly incredible.

After the run and a short gym session with the Lauren, the two of us plus Anthony went to a travel agent office to check out what adventurous things we can do in Cape Town. So far, we have decided that we will be going cage diving with great whites and on a mini-safari. Please, try to control your jealousy J I am so so SO excited about it all. It’ll require a little bit of planning and cash investment, but I’m sure it’ll totally be worth it.

The major excitement of the whole day started around 5:00 when we all started getting ready for the alumni dinner that Duke coordinated for alums in the area. Between the 10 of us plus three other Duke students who joined us, we made up more than half of the people at the event. While the food at the even was definitely sub-par, the conversations were good and the open bar was definitely a plus. Of course, after everyone was feeling good about themselves post-event, we decided that the perfect thing to do was go out. Of course! Please note that this included Bill and Karlyn as well (our professor and grad student coordinators). It was epic. We our massive group made our way down to Long Street singing and dancing like the loud Americans that we are dubbed to be. We decided to meet up with Julian and a friend of his at a place called Fiction. Highlight of the night for me: getting to dance with Bill. I wish someone would have recorded it because I would love to be able to watch it over and over and over and over. Second biggest highlight: Karlyn FINALLY pulled out some of her break-dancing moves for us. Despite the fact that tomorrow is a public holiday (aka no work again!) there was hardly any one at the bar other than our group. When Bill and Karlyn decided to go back to the B&B, the rest of us decided to relocate to a place with more mainstream music. (Much more my scene by the way). We headed over to a place called Chrome, where again, we were basically the only people there besides a group of younger kids there who kept having dance offs with Anthony. I don’t know what it was about the evening, but it was definitely what I would consider our most fun night out together so far. Sometimes I wonder if our group of “black,” “white,” and “coloured” people throws off the South Africans that see us together. They could probably learn a thing or two about truly getting along. Or maybe they just watch and admire how great of friends we all are becoming right before their eyes.

Ukuthula,

Lynn

And on the seventh day in Cape Town, we rested (Sun 06/14)

This glorious Sunday morning on the 14^th of June, I finally was allowed to sleep in for as looooooong as I wanted. Probably the first time since before finals started at Duke. It was amazing. The only reason I even woke up by 12 is because Anthony came in to ask if Lauren or I wanted to go running. The answer, not today. Not because I don’t love Anthony because I do, but because the only thing I love more than a cozy bed is God. And my parents and my brother, for good measure.

Honestly, today was not exciting. And I loved that. I do not want every Sunday to be a lame day of sleeping in and then gyming it, but today it was well needed. The only semi-interesting thing that I did was go to Green Market with Rose, Victoria, and Lauren, before meeting up with Danielle and Naomi at a late lunch.

The night out tonight was also pretty chill with drinks at an Irish bar here called Dubliners that is usually packed with foreigners. Rose and Victoria started up a little dance sess in front of the band that attracted a number of over-weight men to us, but other than that nothing too exciting. The hot chocolate I had is worth raving about however, it was goooood.

Hopefully I’ll have something exciting for tomorrow because I’m already over the relaxed times. At least for now.

Ukuthula,

Lynn

"Storey" time in the Cape of Good Hope (Sat 06/13)

After what I would like to think has been a successful and productive (for about 85% of the time) week, it’s finally Saturday. But of course, because our lovely group coordinators do not seem to understand that some of us need to sleep extensive hours in the morning, we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to go on an adventure today. Ok maybe not the crack of dawn, but it was still way to early.

Our first stop of the day was to the lovely home of Reverend Peter Storey. Reverend Storey and his wife Elizabeth may actually be the NICEST couple in South Africa. They happily welcomed all 11 of us into their adorable home, and served the yummiest buttered scones I’ve ever had in my life. After we spent a few minutes admiring their beautiful house, we sat down to listen to Reverend Storey discuss various aspects of his life, ranging from his roles in fighting apartheid to what he knows in life to be absolutely true (courtesy of Lauren’s random but enticing question). Embarrassingly enough, I did nod off during some of Rev. Storey’s talk. I could kick myself in the face for it, but I honestly can’t help it when I start falling asleep at the most unfortunate times. He called me out on it at our lunch later, but in the nicest way possible. He also proceeded to tell me that he had been falling asleep at the World Economic Forum, so now I am even more fond of this man. (Note: He was falling asleep at the global meeting I protested last week, how great is that?) Our time with the Storeys was more reflective than anything. As lazy as this sounds, there are only so many academic conversations about history and policy that I can handle before I definitely start zoning out. But Rev. Storey conveys to others his missions (in a non-religious sense) with such a deep understanding of what it means to be truly passionate about something that you can’t help but admire him. It makes me wonder (and hope) if I’ll ever consider something so important to me that I’ll choose to dedicate my life to it.

The rest of our day is where the active adventures took place. After we said good-bye to the Storeys at lunch, we walked to…wait for it…a penguin colony! It was so exciting. Except I was shocked about something. As dumb as this sounds, I completely expected these little guys to be in snow or at least in the distance on snow. Of course that makes zero to none sense. There is no snow on the beaches of South Africa, I do realize that. But I just immediately associated

penguins with snow and was so thrown off to see them in muddy bushes. We were all so excited and took way too many pictures of them. The little boardwalk and park area are made so that you can walk right up to the penguins to take pictures. I wouldn’t recommend trying to catch or pet one because those critters can bite your finger off with their beaks. Pictures definitely sufficed. In the area with the penguins, you can climb over these massive rocks to be standing above the ocean. Our entire group climbed up there, in our rainboots and raincoats, and started singing and posing and taking random pictures for God only knows how long. We can keep ourselves entertained forever, I swear. This is when I wish I could post video clips and pics so that I could show you how ridiculous we were being.

When Bill and Karlyn finally called us down from our ocean-rock-stage, we all packed back into the bus for the drive to the Cape of Good Hope. This was the first time I really felt like I was even close to being in Africa. While we were driving, we say an ostrich in the reserve, and on the way back guess what we saw??? Baboons!!! I was ecstatic beyond belief. This whole trip everyone else has had part of their major at Duke come alive through history or policy or politics or whatever. But this time, my primates finally made their appearance into my life. Unfortunately, the poor animals are about to go extinct and the ones in the reserve are so accustomed to humans and their food that they are in even more danger of dying out, but it was still awesome to see them. We climbed up to the lighthouse at the Cape which looks over an amazing view of the ocean. This part of the world is really breathtaking. It almost feels like we’re actually at the bottom of the globe and that looking out you could maybe but not really see the South Pole if you squinted hard enough. Such a beautiful country with a horrendously ugly past. On the way home, I passed out on Anthony, literally until we got back to the hotel. I was exhausted after jumping on rocks and climbing a little mountain all day. But not too tired to go out at night of course. Julian, Anthony, and I were the only ones up for going out, so we made our way to Joburg and Pretoria, two semi-sketchy places on Long Street. Note: I went out in a long sleeve t-shirt and tennis shoes. But it's all good because I'm pretty sure that I'm the only female in the whole place that came in with two guys :) Life is good.

Welcome to South Africa ladies and gents: Spend the morning reflecting on history, the afternoon appreciating the torn country's beauty, and the evening partying it all away. Kind of sounds like Lebanon actually...

Ukuthula,

Lynn

Bipolar Cape Town (Fri 06/12)

Today was back in the office for me. It’s ok, I wasn’t that disappointed. As exciting as yesterday was, I was exhausted after running around Cape Town from 8:30-2:30. I spent the day rewriting an article about girls getting abducted and being forced into marriages with men 50+years older than them who also tend to HIV. (Article is here http://www.tac.org.za/community/node/2611) I learned a lot from the article. At first I wasn’t too excited about the fact that I would be doing a lot of editing during my internship, but I’m quickly discovering that reading up on things that TAC has done or researched is the best way for me to learn things. Reading=Learning, since when? Joke.

So I finally had it…my first really unsettling experience on the streets of Cape Town. This afternoon on my way back from meeting Lauren and Ryan for lunch at a cute little café, some sketchy guy hissed at me from across the road as I was crossing it. After living in Cairo, guys making comments doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I don’t even really notice it most of the time. But this guy was being really obnoxious and caught up to walk with me. He kept trying to talk to me, and while I know the best decision to make at that point is to completely ignore the guy, it is quite difficult as he’s in my face asking me questions and following me. We won’t go into what he was saying to me, but let’s just say they weren’t dinner table comments. He followed me back to the office which makes me a little nervous now that he knows where I work, but whatever. He probably has found some other random girl to stalk in the streets anyway. I did ask Rose and Danielle to meet me at the office to walk home though, just in case.

The second bad experience came later in the evening when the group went out to celebrate our first week in Cape Town. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that we picked the most ghetto bar on the already sketchy Long Street to go to. We were all having a great time, but keep in mind that when we go out it’s usually 7 girls plus 2 boys (Anthony and Julian from the B&B who is volunteering there for year rather than going into the German army). Not the best protection ratio. After we’d been at the bar for a little while, this guy (as usually happens to a group of girls) came up and started to be gross with everyone. Anthony and Julian both attempted to step in (especially Anthony), but the man, who happened to be black, blew the whole thing WAY out of proportion and turned the whole ordeal into a black vs. white issue. He was going crazy, literally. As in Naomi and I both think he was bipolar seeing as how he later came up and apologized to Anthony. Normally, I wouldn’t think twice about some guy getting pissed about a guy getting in his way to a group of females. But again, because of all the hype around muggings and violence, I couldn’t help but be a little worried about this guy taking things to a different, more violent level. Fortunately, nothing happened and we left soon after. Everyone except Naomi, Ryan, Anthony, Julian, and I went back, but we decided to stay out. Julian took us to this reggae-ish club called Zula where we had a much more relaxed time dancing like fools. Naomi and I started people dancing on the stage, as in we both went up there and then 15 guys followed us up there. Nice J

Ukuthula,

Lynn

We are Watching: Day 2 (Thurs 06/11)

I was right, today was even better than yesterday! After some miscommunication with the the coordinator of advocacy for ARASA Paula,  I ended up following her to the ARASA to help with the poster making. I know it sounds lame, but it was way way WAY better than failing at finding any helpful stats for Marcus and Pouya.

I can’t even count how many posters I made that said things like “Knock Out the Stock Outs!,” “HIV/TB are not in recession,” etc. But what I can tell you is that it was super cool to see all these people carrying my posters around at the march today. If I can figure out how to post pictures, you can see for yourself all my craftiness. If not, you’ll see in August.

The march was really powerful, an exaggerated version of yesterday’s protest. African people do protest in an interesting way though. It involves a lot of singing and dancing, which I definitely got in on. If you were watching from a distance, you would think that the protestors were celebrating. Odd. I feel like protests in the States tend to be more somber and/or angry. It was truly amazing to see all these different people coming together for one cause. I feel like this country is so often divided into White, Coloured, and Black, but when it comes to HIV/AIDS/TB, the fight is colorblind. People of all colors finally have the same enemy, not one another, but this killer disease. I guess there is something that unifies the majority of this country. Now if we could only get rid of all the AIDS denalists…

One interesting pressing moment that I did have today involved me getting yelled at by a coloured women while I was helping to guard the massive eyeball. (p,.s. It was still there in the parking spot this morning!) Thinking that I was a coloured South African, this woman started speaking to me in Afrikaans. I told her I didn’t speak the language, which I clearly said in English, and she started to yell at me! Her English speaking friend told her that I was AMERICAN and that there was no need to yell at me for not claiming my mother language. What the hell??? Afrikaans isn’t even the language of South Africa, there are 11 remember lady? It really threw me off. But only for about 30 seconds, and then I was off on the march.

Maybe I’m making a little bit of a difference? I’d like to think so…

Ukuthula,

Lynn

We are Watching: Day 1 (Wed 06/10)

Remember my wish for things getting more exciting than sitting at a desk all day?? The wheels are in motion! I got to go on a mini protest today! The day started out pretty slow, with me doing a little bit of research on how money could be better spent towards the health budget. Let’s just say I have not been succeeding too greatly at that. Google is letting me down. Or maybe I just suck at researching stats. Either way, it’s not all that enticing.

But about the protest…The World Economic Forum is being held in Cape Town this week. In blunt terms, it basically means that Africa plus some of the other world’s big shots in finance and business sit around at a big shiny table and discuss how everyone’s life is taking a turn for the worst during the global economic crisis. What does this mean for me as an intern? A lot of time out of the office, yes! Around 10 (a mere hour after I arrived at the office) everyone in the office made their way downtown to the protest site. But first, we had to pick up The Eyeball. Yes, you read correctly. A 3 meter by 3 meter helium filled eyeball that says “We are Watching” on it. The idea is that even during the economic crisis that Africa is watching to make sure that certain promises that were made to the public health sector will remain a priority. From what I have seen so far, health care in this country is not often placed at the top of the government’s list of priorities. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy soccer just as much as anyone else, especially the world cup. But I am a little confused as to how the government can afford to support the tournament while its also promising that every person in South Africa who was HIV will be on ARV treatment by the year 2010. Puzzling right? Maybe watching the Fifa World Cup is actually a cure for AIDS. Who knew.

Anyway, back to the protest, it primariliy involved a lot of different advocacy groups standing in front of the Conference Center in downtown Cape Town, shouting catchy phrases at what I assume was the building holding all the important people. I’m not going to lie, while I do find protesting exciting, I do question its effectiveness. Apparently, though, it is a strong way to get a message across in this country, so more power to them. I mean, to us.

After my few hours of excitement, it was back to the drawing board, sifting through the 239589754 sites that come up while trying to search for a health budget. At the end of the day, Rebecca (the head of the department and the coolest boss EVER) told me to “take a walk” with her so she could fill me in on my project for the next two days. During this “walk,” I ended up four blocks from the TAC office (keep in mind my excellent sense of direction), helping to squish the 3mX3m massive inflatable eyeball up three stories of a parking garage who’s height level equals 2 meters. Do the math, NOT POSSIBLE. After some clever readjusting, deflating, and unfortunate balloon popping, we finally managed to squeeze the balloon into a parking spot in front of Rebecca’s car. Let’s hope it’s still there tomorrow.

During this whole balloon pushing process, the project Rebecca had for me was never discussed, but I did somehow manage to get nominated to help the ARASA folks (Aids Rights Alliance for South Africa, the group running the protest/march) make posters for tomorrow’s march. Summing it up, tomorrow should be even better than today J

Ukuthula,

Lynn

And today...We welcome you to advocacy (Tues 06/09)

Today was my first full day of work. Excitement! The TAC office is a lot different than I originally anticipated it to be. First off, like I mentioned yesterday, there are a lot of interns. In a way, I feel like this is probably for the best in the sense that at least the majority of people in the room are in a similar boat as me. I know that at this point, there is still so much for me to learn, about South Africa, about TAC, about AIDS. It makes me feel a little better knowing that a couple other people in the room are in the same boat as me.

From what I can tell. I’ll be doing some research, editing, and protesting during my time at TAC. Today, for instance, my first (and only) assignment was to edit an article for a magazine that TAC puts out every month. I now know a lot more about the TB/HIV relationship than I did before. Learning already! While I normally get fairly bored reading an entire magazine, I didn’t mind so much on this one. Maybe that’s a good indication of where my interests lie? I guess we shall see…

That was basically the only work I was given for today. Which was good since the office internet is freeeeeee! I don’t think I ever realized how amazing it is to have internet at your fingertips. So I am taking full advantage of that at the office whenever I can. Don’t worry, I’ll do my work too. But emails are important too you know?

Also, get this. The office has free peanut butter! How perfect is that?! The staple of my diet is officially there whenever I want it. You might not find that especially exciting, but if you know me well enough, you know of my obsession with and need for peanut butter. So don’t worry, I’m eating just fine in SA. Actually, apparently that “Africa diet” I had decided I would put myself on when I got here involves a large plate of dessert every night. Who knew? As such, a couple of the girls in the group have joined a gym. An all women gym at that. It’s really nice, with machines, classes, a hot tub. The plan is to go every day after work, so we’ll see how that goes.

Getting back on track…

Overall satisfying first day of work. Honestly though, I do hope it gets a little more exciting. The thought of sitting in an office, at a desk for the whole summer is not so appealing. And not such a great idea given my reputation for falling asleep at any given moment.

Ukuthula,

Lynn