CATCHING UP

I’ve been pretty sick these past 2 days so I haven’t been able to write. It was a little hard being sick and away from home— actually all I really wanted was cabbage soup… it might sound kinda third world, or like something Oliver Twist didn’t want any mo’ of, but it’s what my mom made for me when I got sick when I was little. She’s not much of a cook but she probably single handedly funded the cabbage industry between the years of 1992-4. Ellen has been taking care of me, and I don’t know what I would do without her. My fever finally broke this morning, and I’m feeling better now. I’ll try and pick up where I left off on Tuesday….

On Wednesday night we went out to Long Street, which Ellen observed is pretty aptly named because it is both long and a street. None of this Rhode Island naming riff raff. Long Street has dozens of different bars, clubs and pool halls to choose from. We started off at Chrome because one rand shot night was too intriguing to pass up and then moved onto The Dubliner and Zula. Both Chrome and Zula had awesome DJs and played house music. The Dubliner featured a band doing covers of American songs. I feel like no matter what country you are in, if there is a bar called “The Dubliner,” it inadvertently becomes an American hang out spot. I can’t think of an explanation for this phenomenon—unless Dublin, Iowa is an actual American city. Regardless, the band was fun and Connor, another SC friend, rocked the air drums and I accompanied on the air guitar through some Blink and Jimmy Eat World.

Thursday I was basically bedridden but today we got to tour some of the sites where we can volunteer. We visited four programs and they were all incredible, but I especially loved one in a township where we would get to work with HIV positive kids. We would be spending time with them twice a week, working on their English skills and playing. We’ll even get to take them on some fun trips kayaking around Cape Town. There was also a school called LEAP (I forget what it stands for) but it is an awesome program where they enroll South African kids from townships into a school centered around not just math and science, but also social responsibility and personal change. The director of the program is a man named Bones and apparently he came to talk the day before when I was sick. As he walked up, Ellen said, “watch Danny, he has the biggest man crush on this guy.” Bones looked at our group and said, “Let’s all get in a circle so we can see each other.” I glanced over at Danny and he was nodding vigorously like, “Yeah! I LOVE circles!!” Turns out that Danny had pretty well founded reasons for his love because the students we talked to at Leap had nothing but amazing things to say about the ways LEAP has been a part of their lives.

Driving around to the volunteer sites, we saw a different South Africa than we have seen up until this point. The townships of Cape Town are a reminder that South Africa is a third world country. We saw miles and miles of small homes made from wood or just sheets of tin with rooftops held down by cinderblocks, tires, and whatever else they could find. It brought back memories of a lot of the places I visited in Haiti. South Africa is often described as being both first world and third world—within Cape Town there is the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, where you can find an Aston Martin dealership, and a 20 minute car ride away people are living without running water in their homes. It’s hard to justify or even understand sometimes.

After touring the volunteer sites we had dinner at Marco’s African Place with dishes like oxtail and more pap. Towards the end of the dinner, the band started to break it down and we all got up and started dancing. Once the dancers that were performing with the band started doing their thang, it was pretty much game over. South Africa was asking “So You Think You Can Dance?” and for any Americans was a definite no.

-Becca