One Weekend, Two Mountains

I can't believe I've already been in Cape Town a month. Everyone told me that this trip would fly by, and they were SO right. The past four weeks have been some of the best of my life, and I already feel so fulfilled by what I have seen and learned during my time here. This past weekend was incredible. On Friday evening we climbed Lion's Head, one of the smaller mountain peaks in Cape Town (about a 45 minute hike) for the full moon festival. The view from the top was phenomenal, and watching the sun set on one side and the full moon rise on the other made it even more spectacular. I could have sat and watched that view for hours, but our lack of flashlights forced us to climb down early before it was completely dark.

The Beach Side of Lion's Head

Lion's Head at Sunset

Saturday we took a day off from hiking and spent some time doing my favorite activity: beach bumming. We decided to be adventurous and took a Kombi to Camps Bay. A Kombi, for those of you who don't know, is a large, often old and somewhat broken down van that shuttles people to and from different locations. This is not your ordinary taxi. There are usually two people running any given Kombi: the driver and the money collector, whose job it is to "recruit" people (as I like to call it) to take their Kombi and then collect their money. As a White (and obviously American) girl, I am the Kombi recruiter's favorite target. If a Kombi passes me when I am walking down the street, they will yell out "white girl, white girl, where are you going?!?" and often stop, open the door, and offer you a seat even after you repeatedly tell them that you don't need a ride anywhere. Usually this is just a normal (if somewhat annoying) part of my day, but on Saturday it was extremely useful, as we didn't have to wait more than three minutes before a Kombi came along that was headed to Camps Bay. We hopped on, paid 11 Rand (less than $2 USD), and thirty minutes later we were at the beach! Not too shabby for my first Kombi experience.

Sunday we dragged our relaxed, sun-tanned selves out of bed early and took on the hike up Table Mountain, aka the big one. Being a Pacific Northwesterner and the daughter of two very outdoorsy parents, I've hiked a few trails in my day, but this hike puts all other hikes I've done to shame. It took us about 3.5 hours to get to the top, the last hour of which was basically straight up. The best thing about it was how varied the trails were--one minute you were doing switchbacks and crossing bridges, the next minute you were climbing rocks and ladders straight up the face of a peak. We crossed dams, navigated through some heavy brush, and took a lot of much needed water/breath-catching breaks. It was easily the most difficult hike I've ever done, but also the most rewarding. The view from the top was breathtaking, and the pictures don't even begin to capture how high up we were!

The Coolest Place I've Ever Eaten Lunch

View From our Lunch Spot on Table Mtn.

Will you be my Valentine?

This past week the routine of school and service finally kicked in, and I am feeling great about all aspects of my life here. My first day at Gender DynamiX started out slow, as they didn't know I was coming so early, but once someone arrived who was able to direct me I was off and running on several different projects. The bulk of my work with Gender DynamiX will be helping them with various writing tasks, such as news and legislative briefs, reports on the conferences they are involved with and in attendance of, and possibly some short articles for their monthly newsletter. I felt so welcomed by the GDX staff, and I feel empowered by the sentiment that drives their work. At the core of their mission statement is the intention of advocating for human rights, and in doing so representing the rights of gender non-conforming individuals. One Tuesday evening I will be attending South Africa's first ever all Muslim gay and lesbian conference, where I will take notes and later write a report for the GDX newsletter. I am extremely proud to be part of an organization dedicated to such an important cause.

I am an English major, and my love for reading has increased here especially since there is virtually nothing else to do since we don't have cable and the internet is very limited, not to mention expensive. Here's the thing. Those who know me well (especially my roomates in Spokane) know that I often choose books that I want to read over ones that I should be reading, such as textbooks and articles for class. So, instead of reading the three articles that I was assigned for today's class, I spent the weekend reading Malcom Gladwell's book Blink, which I found highly interesting and frustrating at the same time. For those who haven't read it, it's a book about, as Gladwell puts it, "rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye." This is the kind of thinking that me and a few of my housemates were forced to use this Saturday, when we attempted to take the train from Obz where we live, to our school located near a town called Bellville. In retrospect we didn't do nearly enough planning or research into the appropriate stops, transfers, or routes to take to find UWC, but then this story wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. To get to UWC, you have to take a train that goes slightly east and then transfer to a train going west. We did that. The problem came when we asked a couple people what the stop for UWC was and we got some varied answers, neither of which we could fully understand because of the hard time we have hearing their accent. So, feeling adventurous and overly confident, we picked a stop that we "thought looked right" and got off. This was NOT the right stop. We were in a town called Parow, and getting off the train was like Dorothy landing in Oz, except without the cute little dog and with much, much more poverty. Oh, if only Glenda the Good Witch had shown up at that moment. We decided that we should probably just admit defeat and head home, so we asked the train attendent which platform to wait on for a train to Cape Town. We waited for about twenty minutes when the same attendent came and told us that the train to Cape Town had been cancelled. Cancelled. Not delayed, not moved to a different platform, this train just wasn't coming. Luckily I had the number for a taxi service in my purse, but the wait for that cab felt like an eternity. When it finally arrived, we found out that it was a four person cab, not a seven person like I had requested, so it was an even longer ride home with two other people on my lap in the back seat. So, on Saturday we spent 250R to go...nowhere. Ahh, the joys of travelling. Now, you are probably wondering how I am going to make Blink fit into all this. Looking back I probably made a hundred snap decisions on that trip. I decided just by looking at someone who I was going to ask for directions It was somewhat frightening, but in the end we all had a good laugh and it is definitley a day I will never forget.

It is 12:17am in the states right now, and most of you have not woken up (though some of you might not even be in bed yet) to February 14th, one of my favorite days of the year. I am sending so much love your way today and hope that you all have a beautiful day, wherever you are. My theologoy professor challenged us to do something on Friday that I am now going to challenge you all to do. He asked us to surrender. Surrender to whatever you are feeling, thinking, wishing, wanting, loving, hating, missing. Surrender to that little voice inside your head that is constantly giving you feedback, and just be. Just for today, be in love with something or someone and let everything else go. One of the key note speakers at the 2010 Trans Health and Research Conference said something that I think is relevant to this day. He said, "we need more people who can say, irrespective of who you are, I am with you." I am with you all and am wishing you a happy, happy Valentine's Day!

A Week of Firsts

This week I had my first class at UWC, first African rain storm, first Braai first weekend trip outside of Cape Town, and first wine tour! My first class Monday afternoon was a women's and gender studies class called gender and development. I am taking the class with quite a few other international students, a few of whom are girls in my program. We got dropped off at 1, and had just found the building and lecture room when class started an hour later. The campus is quite large--probably comparable to the University of Washington--and being from a relatively small school I found it extremely difficult to navigate, plus we had no map. Even without a map we found the room, but nothing could have prepared me for that hour of my life. The class was uncommonly rowdy and the students did not stop talking the entire time. They were not discouraged in the slightest by the professor, who spoke so quietly that we could barely hear her. Adding insult to injury was the male student who sat behind us and muttered homophobic comments under his breath during our conversation about alternative sexualities. From what I can tell our experience with that class was not typical of most UWC classes--it is possible that everyone was just excited to be back to school after break and couldn't contain their excitement. Though we didn't get too in depth into the course description, the course outline seems very interesting so I know I will gain something from the class academically. As for my fellow students, it has been a struggle to be acknowledged as anything more than a white American international student, but I am still optimistic that I'll be able to make friends here despite my experience at school this first week. Also, you have to bring your own toilet paper because they don't have any in the bathrooms...I learned that the hard way the first day so I'll be packing a roll in my backpack from now on.

On Friday we went to both of our required classes that we all take as a group. One is through the UWC master’s program, the Institute of Social Development. I am actually taking two classes through that program, one on Theories of Social Transformation and one on Leaders in Grassroots Organizations. Our second Friday class is Theology of Forgiveness, which I think will provide us with a platform for reflection on this whole experience, and some of the things our professor Chris touched on made me think a lot about my life and how me and many people I know tend to get so caught up in business. He stressed the importance of being, not just doing, because as he said we are after all human beings, not human doings. The pressure to be busy and productive can be overwhelming, and I think often turns into a sort of prideful competition in America. That concept is one I will be thinking more about in these upcoming weeks, and I hope to focus on fully being here and enjoying this experience to its full potential. Friday evening our house hosted a Braai (aka BBQ) as a sort of neighborhood block party. We invited some of our neighbors, our landlord, our program director and driver, and some of the friends we have made since we've been here. We cooked tons of different food, ranging from Kraft macaroni and cheese to a traditional South African meat called Boererwors, which wasn't nearly as traumatizing as the tripe. We had a blast eating and talking with the few people who actually showed up, and it felt very similar to a traditional American BBQ.

On Saturday a few other girls and I packed a backpack and took the 40 minute train ride to Stellenbosch, South Africa’s wine country. We booked a wine tour that started at 10:30am, took us to four different vineyards and one restaurant for lunch, and dropped us off at our hostel around 5pm. It was a lot of wine and a lot of fun. We started with Simonsig, the first SA vineyard to make champagne and to establish Stellenbosch as a tourist destination for wine routes. Then we headed to Fairview, where we also were able to do a short cheese tasting—YUM! After lunch, the last two vineyards were Dieu Donne and Boschendal. Each winery was great in its own right, but my favorite was Dieu Donne because it was located at the top of a hill and offered the most amazing view of the countryside. We were absolutely stunned by how beautiful the area was, since it was much more rural than Cape Town. I had no idea that such a different landscape existed such a short distance away from the house in Obz. Sunday we saw a little bit of the town of Stellenbosch, including a public botanical garden which was very relaxing after drinking pretty much all day on Saturday. Overall, the weekend was amazing. It was good to get out of Cape Town and explore a different part of South Africa, not to mention all the fun we had wining and dining (literally) our way through Stellenbosch.



The view outside of my favorite vineyard, Dieu Donne



My favorite wine at Fairview, called "Chakalaka"