[a little truth].

so.. i needed to vent somewhere.. and so i turned to my blog. it has been a little over a week since i have been back. but already it feels like it has been too long. not a day goes by where i don't think about south africa. everyone tells me it's normal. but i feel like this is very different from the normal post-travel symptoms. i honestly miss it like i am homesick.

i think i am struggling with getting back into mn life without forgetting everything about cape town. so, the result is, i am being a loner and trying to avoid my life. it is a weird feeling. i feel very impatient with everyone around me. maybe i am still processing my whole trip. it is hard for me to explain just exactly what i experience.. and i think that is frustrating me.

i just want to be able to place everyone in my shoes. and i am frustrated even more with the fact that i came back with this whole new sense of love.. and yet i cannot find a little bit of patience for the people around me. hmm...

[the aftermath].

it has now been a little over a day since i have been back in minnesota. what a weird feeling.. the moment i stepped foot into the minneapolis airport, i realized i left my heart in cape town. we were warned that coming back to minnesota would be very difficult to face minnesota culture. i feel like nothing could have prepped us for what we actually would be feeling.

i don't know how to describe i feel at this moment. gray? i feel like a stranger trying to take over someone else's life. it has only been a day.. but i miss everything about cape town. it is not even my hometown.. but i miss it like crazy. i feel like i have left my home. it's an awful feeling actually.

i have been feeling quite short with everyone around me... like please don't ask me "how was africa" or "was it awesome?" i don't know. blahh... bring me back! i never wanted to leave.

[with love].

just the beginning.. and already the end.

so today was our last day of class at university of cape town. and i cannot believe it has already arrived. i wrote this to aaron today, but i feel like it was just yesterday that he was telling us about the possibility of a trip to south africa. and now, three weeks later, it is coming to its end. (i am now crying like a big fat baby).

today, we had an exercise that we had to do in class. it revolved around what truly mattered to each of us individually. we then took turns going around with a different person to share what our thoughts were. and here is my response:

what is truly important to me? i guess i have never really thought of that question.. or the answer to it. but i have thought of the one thing that pulls everything in my life together.. and that is love. love is what keeps my life connected. also another connection i made is that love is my passion. and i love being passionate. love is found with my family, my friends, my community.. and i hope in the future, that love is found in career. someone showed me their tattoo (i won't disclose who.. just in case) and told me the meaning behind it. it was a rope tied with a pendant that symbolized love.. it meant that everything is tied together by love. just amazing.

and how do i relate it back to leadership? (since this is a leadership minor trip)... in my personal definition of leadership, love is an important part. you need passion to be a good leader.. and passion stems from love. you have to love the people you are serving, and you have to be passionate about what you are doing. if not.. in the end, it will feel like a burden or an obligation. i do not want to look back on my life and see burdens or regrets.

also, i want to be honest when i say, that i am truly scared to go back home. i do not want to lose this feeling that i have at this moment. i feel like i am going back a changed person to a place that i had left three weeks ago. i am not the person i was three weeks ago.. or at least i hope not. i am truly scared at how well i can assimilate back.

ah.. our last night here. we're having a big braii tonight.. which is basically a bbq. i am so glad to have met all the people i have on this trip.. but goodbyes are bittersweet. but i know, that tonight will be filled with love. and (corny part).. love is all you need (but true).

love always.

[a walk in the park].

so.. i miss being in gugulethu. i mean sure, people are nice here, but it's very different.

the option of staying a couple extra days was brought up recently.. and it was something i was very interested in. however.. biochemistry got in the way. so i will be home very shortly. but part of it, might be the fact that i am trying to avoid going back home. i'm avoiding the fact that i don't live here.

hmm... let's see how this goes. i mean.. for sure i will be home.. but let's see how this transition back home will be. i think it was easy to get used to the culture in south africa.. but i honestly feel like i am going back a different person. or at least i hope i am going back home a different person.

[feels like home].

so i will preface my blog to begin:
first of all.. this blog will contain the stories of my four days spent in gugulethu. i really do not wish to blog about this experience. do not get me wrong, i had a life changing week there.. but somehow.. i feel as though this blog will not do justice to the time i spent in gugulethu.

i can give you the stories.. but i cannot give you the experience.

so, i should start with how i felt going into our homestays. i think i mentioned the xenophobic violence that occurred in cape town, like right before we arrived here. immediately, that put a little extra tension on to my nervousness. however, it helped to meet my host mom that sunday at church prior to our stay. i was paired up with erin as my homestay sister, and our mama was noxie! she's a single woman.. well actually.. she has a boyfriend, but she lives in her house with her sister and nephew. she has the brightest smile and a big heart. first thing she did was wrap her arms around both erin and i. and we were called her "babies".

noxie had one son. she told us that he was 18 when he was murdered. her son was killed in a tragic case of mistaken identity. however, noxie told us that she forgave them.. like they actually came to apologize. i mean how do you forgive people who "accidentally" killed your son. a very hard situation i would like to believe.

anyways.. we spent the whole time at jl zwane community center just going along with people to homestays or volunteering with the kids of the rainbow program. and there was one situation that happened during one afternoon at the rainbow program. i went and hungout with the 4th graders. it actually was quite a lot of fun. i love working with kids so it was a treat to spend my afternoon with them. it was so refreshing because the kidsd were just so excited that you were there to spend time with them. they tried to teach me the native language of xhosa. xhosa involves clicking of the tongue as part of the language. very, very difficult. but extremely fun to learn! unfortunately, i still don't have the clicking down completely.. meh.. still working at it! but as we were sitting around talking, one of the boys told me he wished he was "colored". he said that i was very pretty, but he wished he was "colored" so he could date me. it seemed like it was the lingering aftershock of the apartheid in south africa. it was just a difficult comment to hear because i think it is extremely disheartening to actually witness, that these children are growing up with the notion that they are inferior due to the color of their skin. like he did not even give it a second thought saying that comment.. it was just a truth for him that his skin color wasn't good enough for people who aren't black.

this next story is really.. something i would like everyone to read. it is about a woman named prisicilla. prisicilla is a woman who has four children of her own. on top of that, she adopted two children.. and on top of that, she took in another family of five children. so that is a total of .. yup.. eleven children. a few are out of the house now, but still, she has at least seven in her care at the moment. however, like most of the houses in the township, her house in not completely finished. basically, priscilla spends all day worrying about what to feed these children and how to care for them. she goes around during the day to find little jobs to make money to feed the children. they don't even have basic things such as toilet paper or feminine products for the ladies of the household. i cannot imagine being a woman in this household, not having feminine products.. those are just basic things in my life. i cannot imagine worrying, daily, about what to eat or if i could eat. i don't know.. it was just a story that cracked me. i had tried the whole week, not to get emotional about everything that i was seeing. i felt like that being emotional implies that you are pitying these people.. and pitying people almost automatically implies that you are superior to these people. but that was not the train of thought that was working in my head. my heart honestly breaks for these people because they don't even have the basic needs... and here i go again with the word vomit.

in conclusion: haha.. if i can even put a conclusion on this experience.. it was amazing and life changing.. and honestly i will not be returning home the same girl that left minneapolis.

[reality check].

PS! i will be in gugulethu for the next three days.. so i will be away until friday. see ya'll then!

another jam packed day. again.. it was an early start. today, we made our way to the township of gugulethu. there we spent the day at jl zwane community center. by the way.. it's a gorgeous place!

let me break this down. disclaimer... this might be the worst word vomit ever. yea.
we started off the day with three speakers.. ! the first one was edwin louw, who is one of the leaders at the center. he told us a little about himself. his mother was a white woman and his father was a black man. he had experienced a lot of hardships and racism due to that fact. a lot of that racism came from his mother's side of the family. due to this fact, he came to hate white people. he continued to tell us how that world that he lived in with hate was so constricting and it came from him viewing the world through his father's eyes. he decided he did not want his children to grow up with hate. so.. amazing. he made that choice.. he had the willingness. that was our first speaker.

second.. was dr. rev spiwo xapile (the director for the center). he touched on a lot of the leadership aspects of being at that community center. he talked about how there needs to be trust between the leader and the community until a reason not to trust occurs. also.. i don't know if i heard this right?.. but he talked about how there needs to be some sort of opposition within the community.. like not everyone needs to believe/trust that the change is going to happen. there needs to be some skeptics that keep people accountable to their goals. i think that i agree.. not necessarily that there need to be skeptics?.. but that there do need to be people in place to keep the community and leaders accountable.

he also said something that sparked a discussion in our class after he left. he said, "black people have no place in the world". he said that black people are constantly trying to prove themselves in this world. he prefaced this statement by saying that this was something he realized. and the concern that was brought up was what he meant by that statement. to me, it is exactly that.. a realization. it is not a statement of surrender, but it was an identification of the issue at and. although racism is a huge issue, i think that he means (and this is just my own opinion and interpretation of his statement) that there are larger issues. this seems like a bold statement saying that there are other issues other than racism that might be not more important..but more pressing?... i don't know. for example.. HIV/AIDS.. poverty.. blah.. i don't know how to organize that thought at all. and now that i am reflecting on it, i am not sure i thought it through the first time. but i guess that is what reflecting is for. maybe, i feel like as we work on those issues, it could lead to unity.. like a bigger answer to that statement. whatever.. that made no sense. i'm done with that thought.

moving on.. third speaker was kenneth from the institute for justice and reconciliation. he was one of the first black students at his school when he was young. whenever their class would go on field trips and board trains, he would have to ride a separate train due to apartheid. he also educated us a little bit about the recent xenophobia attacks.

can i just say.. i still cannot get over the fact that apartheid was such a recent piece of history. these three speakers, all three of them lived during apartheid. it is really just an experience getting this history first hand from them.

so then we had lunch! most amazing food since i have been here. all like made from scratch food. this is the type of food that we will be eating the next few days.. and i thought i was going to lose a few pounds.. ha! the next part of the day was just.. a reality check? maybe not the best phrase.. we toured gugulethu. and i have witnessed poverty before in mexico.. but not like this. literally.. shacks built from four different pieces of metal or wood. smaller than my room? or about the same size for families. i actually am speechless about that situation.. and maybe not ready to reflect or reflect on this blog.

sorry to my group if i seem very quiet or it seems like i have no thoughts.. it just feels like i have so much to process.. and don't know how to put my thoughts into words on the spot.

a question to ponder: how much of how you view and live in the world is seen through your parents' eyes?

peace out kids!

[lions, cheetahs, and rhinos.. oh my]

soo... friday was quite an interesting day. we started off with a "lecture" by steve. he told us his story of how his family was exiled from south africa before he was born. i still cannot get over the fact that some of the history of south africa is so recent. like we actually can converse with people who have gone through those events.

then, it was off to robben island. and holy crap.. was that the most terrible boat ride EVER! we had to get on a boat.. and robben is about 13 km from the mainland. it was soo rocky. i felt so sick. everyone told me how terrible i looked.. haha.. thanks guys! i ended up getting sick in the men's single bathroom in the bottom level of the boat. i've never felt so terrible on a boat ride.

robben island was.. depressing. it was a great experience being there and just witnessing the place where nelson mandela was prisoner for about 18 years. we got to hear of some of the terrible things that occurred in the prison and look at the cell. to be honest, i felt so drained from the boat ride before, i do not think that i could fully appreciate where i was at that moment. we then continued on a tour of robben island and learned there was more history to the island than just the prisons.

saturday.. was a very long. and it started off quite early! it was our safari day. to keep it short and sweet.. we saw some very cool animals.. including cheetahs! oh.. and we saw two young male giraffes sparring. it was pretty sweet!

sunday.. today.. we went into the township where we will be staying with our host families. we also attended a church service. it was just amazing! the congregation sounded like a professional choir! awesome, awesome experience. i loved how faith goes beyond language. erin and i are paired for our homestay.. and we have the most amazing mom! her name is Noxie. she has this radiant smile that makes you just as happy. she is so warm and kind and excited to spend time with us. she is a first grade teacher, and we will be following her to visit her class. AND.. she's gonna teach us how to cook.. and the last day of our homestay.. we're gonna party at her house! potluck style.

i am having a bit of trouble putting up pics.. but i will try later!

i really miss everyone.. and i hope all is well back in the states!

peace out!

[blessed by rain].

so i might start blogging every night because trying to summarize two days is a difficult task. today is thursday.. and i will start with wednesday.

wednesday (5/28/2008):
we started off the day with a lecture at the uct campus. actually.. the day started when we freakin hiked vertically uphill, across a highway to our classroom. haha.. it was okay.. we took the "scenic" route. the lecture was covering a brief view on the history of south africa and the apartheid. it was such a brief lecture and there was so much that was probably left out. i could have spent hours learning about the history of south africa.

the next thing we did was go to the district six museum. district six is a section of cape town, where during apartheid, thousands of people were displaced. they were forcibly moved from their homes.. and their homes were destroyed. the museum was a memorial of all those who had lived there. the centerpiece of the museum was a map on the floor of district six, and the former residents came back to sign their names on the place that they used to live.


we then moved on to long street and to the markets. it was interesting to see all the stalls and the items that were for sale. i wanted to buy everything.. but i held back. hilary and i need to work on our haggling skills. i felt like we had "sucker" written across our forehead. it must be the minnesota nice!

oh.. and for dinner.. we went to nando's. very delicious chicken. enough said.

thursday (5/29/2008):
today.. was.. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. this is where i have to slowly try and organize my thoughts. first of all, i would like to mention that these first couple of days seems very touristy. we are taking tours and just taking in the beauty of the country. today was our tour of the cape. we had several stops during the day.. all of which were maybe once-in-a-lifetime kinda thing.

our first major stop was a boat ride to see the island where the seals mate/breed/make babies. it started off sunny and great.. and were just coasting in the atlantic ocean. then all of a sudden, it grew very gray and wet. haha.. here in south africa, rain comes horizontally due to the winds that meet. so it was raining sideways! although, one of our tour guides told us that is a blessing to be rained on in south africa? or in general? anyways.. the waves got rough so we had to go inside the boat (which was filled with awkward-aged children and the odor of stinky fish). we got to were the seals were hanging out.. and there were so many of them. they were just floating on the top. but it was hard to watch them because the waves were tossing the boat around. so that is the first time that day we got rained on.


then! drum roll.... dee dee dee. PENGUINS. we saw penguins. amazingly cute penguins! up close and personal. they were amazing! we went to a shore where all the penguins just hang out. and this little guy let me get a close up of him. we bonded.

.. and frolicked in the indian ocean! now.. i have been in three oceans! the water was so clear and blue.


i will give a very brief summary of what happened next because there is something i really want to talk about.. but i refuse to go out of order. we also so baboons.. and oh wait.. that might be it until the next little bit. our next stop was cape point. cape point is the southern most part of the continent of africa. it is like the last thing to stand on before you hit antarctica. we had to take a hike through some trails to get to cape point. it was a tough for someone who is very out of shape (me). but it was worth it!

halfway to cape point, there was a beach.. with white sand and no footprints.. we frolicked on the beach and waded into the indian ocean. it was gorgeous. i never imagined in my life that i would be in such a beautiful and surreal place. i am just so blessed to even get to be where i am right now. anyways.. we continued to hike the rest of the way through the peak... and pretty sure it started rain SIDEWAYS again during the second half of our hike. blessed twice in one day!

one thing i found interesting was something our tour guide had said on the bus. as we were passing the site were district six used to be, she mentioned a few facts about it. she said that the people were forcefully removed from district six due to the fact that they were slums. but at the district six museum.. they said that district six was in fact, not slums. it was just an excuse to remove colored people from there. so i thought it was interesting, that a white woman would say that about district six. not a judgment.. but interesting.

anyways.. i can officially say.. that i have been to the southern most part of africa. like if you are looking at a map of africa.. and you see the bottom tip.. i was there. mind blowing.

[travel & day 1].

this post is to organize some of my thoughts and events that have occurred since leaving minneapolis. it has been quite a long journey since i arrived at the airport at 5am on may 25th. currently.. it is 1:10am on may 27th here in cape town.

for most of you who have been in the car with me at some point.. you know that i get terrible carsickness. well.. i was happy to find out on this long trip that i might have plane-sickness? i felt terrible most of the plane rides. but i made it through! i haven't been on a plane in quite a while.. and it was an experience going on four different planes.

when we first arrived in cape town.. i don't know how to explain it.. but something just felt so different. if i had to pin point it to something.. i felt like the air was different. it smelt different than minnesota. not that it smelt worse or better.. but there was just a different scent to cape town. we arrived at night so we didn't get to see much of cape town that first night.. but we did notice that they drive on the left side of the road! i could never drive here. i would never make it out alive. i also noticed the cars are a lot smaller.. not like the huge suvs we have back home.

we arrived to our amazing homes. we are split up into two groups. the house i am staying in is a bed and breakfast originally.. so it is pretty much just gorgeous. i still need to go throughout the house and take pictures of everything. although, now that i think about it, i probably should have taken pictures of the house before we got all comfy and settled in. the rest of the group is in the house across the street.

but seriously.. i know that i have used the word 'amazing' many times in the last two blogs.. but honestly.. if i did not use that word.. i would be.. speechless. when we woke up this morning.. and walked out our front gate.. mountains! amazing, gorgeous mountains. ahh! something we need in minnesota for sure!

but as for day 1.. it was a pretty awesome day. . a typical tourist day? haha.. we started off with a tour of the university. it was huge.. and amazing.. and GORGEOUS! haha. i am sure that people think that of minnesota when they visit??? but i hope that the students at the university appreciate the beauty of their campus. it is right at the foot of table mountain.

afterwards.. we were shuttled to the va waterfront. it is the shore to the atlantic ocean. it was just amazing to see the ocean. another thing we need in minnesota! we had lunch at an amazing restaurant that overlooked the ocean. it was fun just getting to hang out as a group and getting to know the awesome interstudy faculty! seriously.. the most awesome company ever.

the restaurant was part of a giant mall that we got to walk around in after lunch. it was very ritzy and full of very high end stores. but since i have been in capetown, that is the feeling i get from the people i have seen so far. especially down by the waterfront, there were very many expensive cars and people in expensive clothes. i think that it is a case of the rich being very rich.. and the poor being very poor.

it was a fun day to be a tourist.. and to experience the "good life", but i am looking foward to the other aspect. we travel into the townships next week.. and that will be a complete 180 from what we experienced today. we are all hoping that things stay under control in cape town and that no more violence breaks out.. because that hurt our chance to do the homestays with our host families.

a lighter note.. i have to mention our people sightings. at the minneapolis airport.. we saw rev run. LIKE FROM RUN'S HOUSE. i love run's house. so it was pretty cool! we were all giggling and chatting like little school girls... pretty sure he heard everything we were saying. sarah even got a picture with him! and when were at the waterfront.. we saw lisa and bianca from america's next top model. AND.. cole and nate got their numbers. we will not hear the end of this for the next three weeks.. guaranteed. haha.. oh what an adventure.

missing everyone! and love you guys very much!

[the long haul].

our house! 7 wegelegen.

finally here! after a long series of flights.. all of us made it safely and promptly to cape town, south africa!

3 hour flight to new york...
6 hour layover at jfk...
8 hour flight to dakar...
1 hour layover in dakar...
8 hour flight to johannesburg...
2 hour flight to capetown...

it was a long trip over here.. but it was completely worth everything! it is such an amazing feeling to finally be in cape town. it is more amazing than i expected. the weather is similar to the weather in minnesota, but just a bit windier. the people are amazing!

devil's peak.. view from the front of our house.

i just cannot complain at the moment! the whole day... i could not stop smiling! i do not want to list all the things i did today.. but i will give you some highlights of the trip so far.

- we saw rev run at the minneapolis airport. haha.
- got a tour of university of cape town.
- went down to the va waterfront. <- BEAUTIFUL! this blog may be really choppy because i have a million things i want to say.. but do not have the attention span to write it all down organized. the weird thing that we are getting used to in cape town is literally locking ourselves in our houses. there is a high crime rate.. so we have to make sure our house is locked up securely. but so far, i have felt safe. the interstudy staff are amazing and did an awesome job of making sure we are taken care of.

table mountain.. and the university of cape town.

i have fallen in love with south africa. the va front was pretty much the highlight of my day. it was just gorgeous. i wish i could put all my pictures up right now.

view from the restaurant we ate at.

the harbor at the va waterfront.

i apologize for the random/short blog. i feel like i am still trying to collect my thoughts.. and still in the process of realizing that i am actually here. i just wanted to let everyone know that i got here safely.. and i am having the time of my life!

[twenty hours].

um... about twenty hours or so to go! about this time tomorrow, i will be at the jfk airport in new york. i can hardly believe that it's already time to go. i can tell it's almost time to go since my nerves/excitement is growing by the minute.

i don't know if a lot of people know about the recent events that have occurred in south africa.. but you can read an article in the following link.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24731834/
so naturally my mom is freak out mode. also, a travel alert has been issued for south africa.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_3250.html
but we are told not to worry.. and i'm trying not to! hopefully this will be a safe and wonderful trip.

but i wanted to thank everyone who helped fill my suitcase! it is full now and ready to travel with me to south africa.


my suitcase is filled with medical supplies, school supplies, toys, and a pair of soccer cleats. totally awesome! thank you once again!

also.. i am still not packed. well.. i'm halfway packed but like everything else in my life, i am procrastinating. but this is what my room looked like two days ago. i ripped my room apart to prep for the upcoming three weeks.



haha.. this added to my mom's anxiety. :D

well i suppose i should finish packing.

[just the beginning].

so in a little over a month.. i will be in capetown! completely exciting! this trip has been on my mind for over a year now. i honestly cannot believe that i will be going on this adventure.

last friday, we had our first pre-departure meeting. it was just an awesome chance to get to know all the people going on this trip. not only that, but we got a rough outline of what those three weeks are going to hold for us.

i can hardly wait until may 25th. i feel like this is just the beginning of something.

<3