Orange Inspiration

travel, explore
have drinks with friends
have drinks with strangers
listen to music that moves you
...move
take in your surroundings, collect these images in your memory
be interested
let your experiences make you interesting
share
appreciate
open your mind
and your heart
live a life that loves to be lived

Last Day of Lectures

Today was my last day of school at UCT. I still have exams, but they are spread over a three week period of time. It went by so fast! I would say my classes at UCT were comparable to my UW classes, but I definitely had much more work load at Wisconsin. The thing I disliked to most about UCT was the grading scale. When I first read the conversions, I couldn't believe that a 75% was an A. Then I started getting used to receiving a 65% on a paper that would have earned me at least a 90% at Wisconsin. It is very strange here, it is unheard of to get a 90% or even grades in the upper 80's. Students are pleased with 60%'s. Also, for the majority of my UCT classes, we had very few assignments. For example, in my Sacred Art course, we had one 1,000 word essay, one 2,500 word essay, one 750 word in class essay, and a weekly reading. We haven't had a single test in that class, and the final will be worth 50% of my grade. That is how the majority of the classes are set up, where you have sparse course work and then the final is worth 50-60% of your grade. I'm not complaining, it was very nice only having to write a few essays and do readings for my classes each week but it puts a lot of stress on finals. With that said, I probably should be studying this week, but instead I am going to Namibia! I'm (hopefully) leaving tomorrow morning and as long as the border crossing goes smoothly, we will be in Namibia tomorrow afternoon!

World of Birds

I know, I know, the name sounds somewhat lame, but World of Birds is actually a really cool thing to check out in Cape Town! I had been begging my roommate Ryan to come with me for about a month, so he finally gave in and we decided to give it a go. Situated in Hout Bay, World of Birds is a strange little place located on a semi-eerie street with dog breeders, farms, and horse stables.

What it is, is essentially a zoo, but one where many of the animals aren’t enclosed in a cage. There are all kinds of birds wandering around in the open, including peacocks, swans, ducks, etc. You also go through sanctuaries where vultures, owls, and other more dangerous birds are free to fly around. We came during the “Birds of Prey” feeding time which meant we got to watch the vultures rip apart dead chicken heads from less than 3 feet away, delightful. There are also some very strange things at World of Birds, including a big open area where guinea pigs run around and one with rabbits. The coolest thing by far was an area where you could interact with squirrel monkeys. It was so fun! The minute we got in there one of the monkeys jumped on my shoulder and, without my knowledge, took out one of my earrings and ran away. (No worries, I ended up retrieving the earring!) The monkeys are so cute! They run up your arm, peak in all of your pockets, touch your hand, grab your hair, jump on your back, and sit on your head. Never thought I would get to play with monkeys but I did and I would definitely do it again!

Marimba Festival

On Saturday night, Joe, Nira, Andy, Ryan and I went to Baxter Theater (which is on the UCT campus) for a Marimba Festival. We weren’t really sure what to expect, but I think we all left feeling happy that we had gone. Several local high schools and colleges performed a couple songs each, as well as a few professional marimba bands. There were performers of all ages, from about eight years old to at least sixty. Marimba is sort of like a xylophone, but bigger and made out of wood. They played some traditional African songs as well as contemporary songs such as Akon and Coldplay. The audience really got into it and everyone was clapping along and cheering. It was interesting to compare this organized, professional event with the performances at SHAWCO’s Open Day, which had gone on earlier in the day. It was fun to go to an event on UCT’s campus, and I’m really glad I went.

SHAWCO Open Day

Yesterday we had SHAWCO Open Day, a celebration and showcase of all that this semester’s Manenberg SHAWCO Arts project had done. It was a really great day, it felt really good to be there and enjoy it with the kids. They had worked hard all semester and it was a fun way to show off what we had done! Conor came with, and we arrived at Manenberg around 11:30AM. Rainy and cold, the weather was not what we were hoping for, so we had to move everything indoors. We started by putting a lot of the semester’s artworks up for display: paintings, drawings, and collages. The main focuses were display of artwork, a fashion show, and dance battles. The fashion show was a great success-the girls were so cute! They had outfits made of construction paper, macaroni and straw necklaces, taped on tissue paper, etc. They did cute little model walks across the stage and giggled the whole time. Between models, pairs of boys did dance offs. Let me tell you, some of these kids know how to dance! It was so amusing watching them battle off in dance, and they were all really getting into it. After the fashion/dance show, some older groups performed dances and sang songs. Everyone was clapping along and cheering, it was a really good experience. In a second room, they set up a large bouncy jumping castle for the little kids to play on, and they absolutely loved that! In the back of the room, we had a face painting station, where I painted faces for about an hour. I now know exactly how to draw and color the South African flag, as I painted it on at least 20 kid’s faces. There were small stands with food for sale, (doughnuts, drinks, sweets, and samoosas- one of my favorite South African foods, a filo dough wrapped pastry with meat/veggies on the inside). I was definitely expecting more parents to come, there were very few. Although a lot of the kids brought their cousins, sisters, brothers, neighbors, etc. which was fun because they were so excited to have me meet them! I think the kids really enjoyed themselves. It is hard to believe that I only have one afternoon left with these kids. I’ve really gotten to know a lot of them, and I’m so sad to leave them. I hope I have made some small difference in their lives, and I do think that I have. I wish you could see the way their faces brighten up when our bus arrives, and how they all run to the gates to wait for us to step off the bus. They all want to hold your hand and be picked up and tell you about their day. I really hope that they benefited from this experience as much as I did, it really meant a lot to me and is something I will never forget.

Addis in Cape

Last night Brad, Alex, Ryan and I ate at an Ethiopian restaurant called Addis in Cape. ( http://www.addisincape.co.za )The food was great, things I have never tried before! The best part was the experience and the setting. We sat at a small round table with only enough room for the main plate. Side tables sat between each of us as a place to set down our beverage. Before our meal, the waiter came around and poured water from a silver kettle on our hands so we could wash them before our meal. This reminded me of my mom and dad always washing their hands before every meal! Our appetizer was a huge piece of crispy flat rice bread with a homemade spicy butter on it and two dipping sauces, one out of olives and one out of chickpeas. No utensils were necessary at this restaurant, as you just break off portions of the bread, which is served on a large central plate, and dip into the sauces. It was very, very good. Secondly, our main meals came out which were served, again, on a massive piece of bread which was the unbaked version of our appetizer. It wasn’t really bread, Alex and I thought it kind of resembled gauze and was spongy in texture. Again, no utensils, but rather you would rip off pieces of the rice pancake and dip it or grab the food (which was dumped on top of the pancake). There were prawns in a spicy red sauce, seasoned fish, cabbage, spinach, lamb, lentils, and chicken. An extra serving of pancakes was necessary to scoop up all of the food. It was a pretty strange experience to be scooping up prawns with your fingers and having spicy red sauce dripping down your hands. Afterwards, our plate looked…well, I won’t describe. After dinner, our waiter brought around warm wash cloths to wipe our hands with. We also got to have a delicious dessert of baklava and berries with vanilla ice cream, paired with really great Ethiopian coffee served in tiny little espresso cups. The food was different and delicious, but the dining experience was unlike anything I’d ever done before.

Stellenbosch

A few days after Table Mountain, I checked another big thing off the Cape Town to-do list. Stellenbosch! Wine Country was so fun! We got picked up around 9AM and drove about 40 minutes away to Stellenbosch. The surroundings were absolutely beautiful, with rolling grassy fields, vineyards full of grapes, and beautiful mountains. We toured four different wineries and got to sample a lot of different wine! The first winery we went to was called Spier, and they not only had a winery but also a cheetah sanctuary so we got to see cheetahs. We tasted six different wines, my favorites always being the reds and the dessert wines. Second, we went to a place called Neethlingshof, and they by far had the best dessert wine! So delicious, it tasted like peach marmalade and honey. I forget the name of the third place, but there we got to sit down at a big table and were served wine. After winery number 3, we went to an EXCELLENT place for lunch. A little expensive, btu well worth it. I had a calamari dish on top of couscous with raisins. This place had an incredible view. After lunch we went to our fourth and final winery, Asara. Pretty classy, with a really nice outdoor seating area with live music. I got serenaded by the main singer, quite an experience. After, we got dropped of at our hostel—Stumble Inn—quite appropriate. After a short nap and taking some Advil to cure my throbbing wine headache, we got ready for dinner and going out! Stellenbosch is also a college town, so we went out to some of the student bars and had a really fun night! The following morning we hopped on the train and made it back to Cape Town before noon. Great way to spend part of a weekend.

I climbed Table Mountain!

3 months in and the task is complete. I actually did this on April 22nd but my blog has been so delayed that it has taken some time to write about it. You would probably expect me to start raving about how exhilarating, exciting, beautiful, breathtaking, and pleasant climbing Table Mountain was, but in actuality it was…torturous? Maybe that is a little too harsh, it wasn’t THAT bad, but let me tell you, that two and half hour hike is not easy! I went with my roommates Andy, Joe, and a friend of ours, Thimo. I think we must have stopped at least 20 times along the way, just for a “little break.” The first thing we would say to anyone passing us going down would be “Almost there, right?” And after every response “No, no. You’ve still got at least an hour and a half…and it get’s harder,” we would reply “An hour and half? We can do it in 45.” And then an hour and forty five minutes later we would still be climbing. Now, I’m kind of making this sound like it was a bad experience…which it wasn’t! Not at all! The feeling of getting to the top, knowing that we had hiked up all the way from where we saw those little tiny ant sized cars and those dots that were people. Additionally, we had done it! Who can come to Cape Town and leave without ever having climbed Table Mountain? In a way, it is what Cape Town is known for, and we had finally accomplished it. It was an ongoing joke in my house that we would “do it next weekend…” and that we would eventually all leave without ever having done the big Cape Town things…Table Mountain, Stellenbosh, Robben Island, Distric Six Museum…(Still haven’t done the last two!) My roommate Joe and I formulated a list of some of the things we had to do, and we took the initiative to make sure at least a couple got crossed off on some of the days that we had off school! The view from the top of Table Mountain is unbelievable, and it really is amazing how after hiking completely vertically for 2 and a half hours, you at once come to a completely flat walking ground. You imagine yourself walking along that horizon that you see every day, and that is pretty incredible. Nira met us at the top via cable car, which was a brilliant invention. Needless to say, we took the cable car down (which took about one minute and made us feel silly about our long trek). With that said, hiking Table Mountain is something that I had to do, I did it, and I will never do it again.

I glide across a gorge, we check out the Zambian markets, and I get us stuck on the pot hole road

As our trip was coming to an end, Joanna and I decided to do something adventurous, so we did something called a “flying fox” across a gorge near the falls. It is pretty similar to zip lining, but you get a full running start and leap off the edge of a cliff and glide, suspended by your back, across a super high gorge. It was so exhilarating, and not as scary as you would think. We spent the rest of our day in Zambia at the markets, where I bought a really cool artwork. For this, I traded my flip flops, a hair tie, a small hair brush, and some kuacha (Zambian currency). Well worth it! The rest of our trip essentially consisted of retracing our path. This meant: driving on the bad roads, eating at the delicious restaurant, and elephant sightings. While driving on that horrible road I spoke of earlier, I accidentally got us stuck in the shoulder…whoops! Not my fault, well, maybe a little. We had to wait for two other cars to come and tow us out with a rope connected to a truck. But we made it!

Victoria Falls from the Zim side, trading hair ties and shirts for bowls and masks, full moon, and drinks with the deputy mayor of Livingstone

The next day, half of us went to the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls. Just as beautiful the second time. This side has really nice views and you don’t get as wet. We also went to a market, where you could trade anything! I brought a white undershirt to trade, and also gave up my hair ties and a pen that was in my purse. In exchange for this and a few US dollars, I got a really cool carved wooden bowl as well as a couple wooden masks. One really crazy thing about Zimbabwe is that they don’t accept their own currency because it is so worthless. You can buy a three trillion Zimbabwe dollar bill for about 20 cents. They would rather trade you for anything you have rather than take Zim dollars. That night, I got to see one of the coolest sights I will probably ever see. There was a full moon, and we went back to the Zambia side of Victoria Falls to look at it. Because of the light of the moon, reflected on the waterfall, a huge rainbow formed over the Falls. So strange and so beautiful to see a rainbow in the middle of the night over such an incredible waterfall! Later that night, a few of us went to get food and drinks at a Zambian bar near our hostel. There we had drinks with the deputy mayor of Livingstone—pretty cool!

Chaos at the Border and we experience one of the 7 natural wonders of the world

The border crossing between Botswana and Zambia was definitely the most hectic of the three. When we arrived, there were about 200 taxi drivers, bus drivers, drivers, people, etc. who were approaching us to ask if we needed transportation. They were shouting prices at us, telling us they were the best, telling us those “other guys” we were talking to were crooks, telling us we would be robbed if we went with them, showing us their license, etc. CHAOS. All I could do was sit back and just laugh as I watched 20 different drivers approach the eight of us and each of us having a different opinion and trusting one guy more than the other. We let Joe take charge, and settled on two regular cabs for a pretty good price. They drove us for about 45 minutes to our hostel, Jollyboys Backpackers. This was by far my favorite hostel we stayed at on the whole trip. Lots of young people, good food, outdoor bar, travel books, swimming pool, camping, rooms, a the best part, a massive central “chill zone” which consisted of large pillows all over square seating area where you could just lay down and unwind. Our first day in Zambia, we situated ourselves at the hostel and took a mini bus to Victoria Falls. Our mini bus experience was pretty comical, as we got off followed by an old man who continued to repeat the 3 phrases “Let’s talk about Barack Obama!” “Let’s talk about global crisis!” and “Let’s talk about Nelson Mandela!” (He wouldn’t actually continue conversation on any of these topics, but rather just continuously say them over and over again.) Victoria Falls was INCREDIBLE. Impossible to explain in words, but essentially a massive, powerful waterfall that got you drenched! We were literally soaking wet, just as if we had jumped into a pool. Good thing we had gotten advice about not bringing our cameras to the Zambia side and putting our money in double zip lock baggies. There are baboons ALL OVER Victoria Falls. And you would think they would just be little cuties, but when you walk by 10 baboons who are eying you up and down and start walking after you…it’s a little scary! We did a really amazing hike down to the boiling point, which was like a crazy expedition through a jungle. Under vines, over rocks, fording through water, all while surrounded by a lush tropical paradise.