Firsts

Wow the last 3 weekends has been pretty crazy! I have gotten to do a lot of firsts in the last few weeks. A couple weeks ago, it was Emily Woo’s 30th birthday and we drove down to Bettys Bay and Hermanus for the weekend. The ocean scenes were absolutely stunning! During that weekend, my firsts included staying at my first hostel, saw the Milky Way stars, saw a red grasshopper, first official hike in Cape Town, tasted my first braai (BBQ,) watched people make Poijke (kinda like a stew cooked on the grill,) and swam in both the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. My favorite parts of the trip included Grotto Beach and clam digging with Emily and the locals. I also had my had my first stick shift driving lesson! I found that shifting gears wasn't too difficult, but the slopes are what got me. I either kept stalling or rolling back, YIKES! I asked the teacher if I could just put a sticker in the back that says Car will roll bc American is driving and then we would be good. She laughed. Last weekend I went to the World Soccer Cup Stadium and got to watch a game which was another first here. The stadium is beautiful and I can't imagine what it would have been like during the World Cup! Last week was also when I got sick for the first time here in Cape Town and got to discover the amazing delight that I had bed bugs in my flat…REALLY?! So this week was by far the longest week of my life so far in Cape Town. I called in sick from work on Monday yet couldn’t rest as I was getting bitten and was extremely uncomfortable. Wednesday, the exterminators came late which also meant I now had to work late and I missed part of my meeting at work. When I got home at 10:30pm, the flat still smelled of pesticides so I had to go out for dinner to try to let it air out. I was so sick, tired, and looked absolutely awful but probably looked good for the bar scene, haha. Thursday night I spent 3 ½ hours bleaching my whole apartment as the exterminators left footprints all over the place and the thought of all the dead bugs on the floor was disgusting. I scrubbed everything including all the baseboards. Hope this was the first and last time I ever have to deal with bedbugs. I am believing that they are gone forever in Jesus name! This weekend, I got to buy my first car in Cape Town and my first stick/manual drive. I bought a 2007 Opel Corsa and will be able to pick it up by the end of the week. I will post pictures once I get it and have a name for it. It is no Jasmine, but I believe this boy will be fantastic for my time here!

More pics on FB

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150583172304183.404792.719764182&type=3&l=9c13f7488c

Robben Island

A trainer from Seattle who is in town this week told me that she was going to Robben Island on Saturday by herself and I told her that I would join her. I have been wanting to go, but wanted to go with someone. I haven’t done a lot of tourist things partly because I rather share the memories with someone and partly because I know that people will be visiting me in the next two years and I don’t want to see all the tourist sites as then it would be repetitive. Maybe that is a lame excuse, but it is what it is. So this morning I got up and headed to the waterfront. I got off the bus further than I thought and a nice gentleman from one of the helicopter booths offered to give me a ride on his go cart which was wonderful. I got there and met up with Claudia and off we went. The boat ride was about 30 minutes as it was an overcast day so the waves were choppier and felt like an amusement ride…which I didn’t mind, makes the adventure more fun! The scenery all around was absolutely beautiful in getting to see the whole cape coast and then driving into Robben Island. We even saw a sea lion claiming a spot between all the seagulls. Claudia was saying that she thought it looked very nice and could live there.


Once we got off the boat, there was an awful stench! We concluded it was all the bird crap on the ramp that was causing it…it was bad! I asked her…if she still wanted to live there, and we laughed. From the boat, we got onto a tour bus and they drove around the island giving the history behind the buildings and areas. One thing that we didn’t realize was that we came on the island today, which is February 11th, and Nelson Mandela was released from prison on February 11, 1990…how CRAZY IS THAT!!! Very interesting is all I can say. Another thing is that this island was used in WW II as a training and defense station and there are many artifacts, cannons, and buildings reflecting this. So our tour guides were Tabo and Surge who were from Khayelitsha and Guguletu townships. Tabo was incredible in describing everything and also making random funny remarks. For example, we passed a church which they have now opened up for people to have their weddings at on Valentine’s Day. He says, “Here on this island, we take weddings seriously and they are a life sentence..As you can look around you and understand why.” Hahahaha. We drove past an area where they housed all the German shepherds who the prisoners believed were trained to be racist as they knew who to attack and who not to. We drove past a cemetery which buried all the lepers who were sent to the island to die. We got to see the limestone quarry where hard labor was given but also the base of where all political discussions occurred. They would hide notes and letters under rocks and every chance they got would stop and talk about politics. In 1995, a year after all the prisoners were released and apartheid ended, all the ex-prisoners were invited back to the island and they laid a mountain of rocks at this place which is a powerful representation of their suffering, that they won’t be forgotten, and a monument for their children, grandchildren, and many more down the line. We got to stop at a beautiful spot on the edge and take pics…Table Mt. was covered in clouds, but still spectacular view. The tour also included many different animals from penguins crossing the road, turtles crossing the road, and a springbok in the field (which apparently is rare.)


The last stop was at the maximum prison where all the prisoners were held including Mandela. It was interesting to see the cells with stories of different prisoners, the different building that they split people in, how they were given 4 thin blankets and a rug basically to sleep on, and so much more. We walked past the kitchen in which as the tour guide said was where all the action happened. Since he worked in the kitchen he was able to give us rare information about how they put notes, newspapers, and anything else they could in the sandwiches and food to the prisoners to try to keep them informed and continuing talks on freedom. How nuts is that! He also talked about food portions and how 1 ounce was given to the Indians and colored, and ½ ounce to the blacks. Something that was such an honor is that our tour guide was an ex-prisoner. All tour guides in the cells are ex-prisoners, but there will be a day where that part of the tour won’t happen anymore…thought it is so cool that I get to experience this now. The tour guide showed us where Mandela hid his first set of transcripts for his book Road to Freedom which the guards found and took away…and no one has seen it since. How they would play soccer and purposely kick the ball over the wall to another building which wasn’t guarded as heavily and the balls contained notes inside them from the prisoners. The last place we saw on our tour was the cell of Mandela of course. The whole experience was amazing and at the same time so sad. How people could be treated that way, how people think they are superior to another, and also just how this history spot is also such a tourist spot where they are trying to make money off of. The guide told us about all these different areas that are being renovated for use. How someone’s pain and suffering is the gain of the country who threw them in that in the first place. Such a mix of emotions and things to process. Claudia and I ended with lunch and ice cream at the waterfront before she had to catch her flight back. I joined Emily later in the afternoon to go to the District Six Museum which is the history about the part of Cape Town that was claimed as “white only” and kicked 60,000+ poor people into other areas which are now the townships you see all around the outsides of the tourist spots. I think the trip to Robben gave me a lot to process and so this was an overload and I couldn’t soak up this museum, will go back again at a later time!

Games

Game Night - When I was packing up my stuff in Seattle for my move, I insisted that I got to bring most my games with me, even though Tracy rolled her eyes. I thought that it would be great way to invite people over and play board games and hang out. So when I invited some co-workers out, they were quite impressed that I had actually packed it in the suitcase. We started to play Jenga which was a wonderful game and played like 4 rounds, and then moved to Uno. Nadja and Rosemary were great company and said I had a nice place even though it feels kind of empty…maybe I need more pics. We all had a blast with great conversations and laughter-I definitely think it has to be a once a month thing.

Saturday I had a full agenda of wanting to get coffee, car shop, and then go to a rugby tournament. On the way to the bus stop, I thought I would get my ticker to the tournament and be on my way. Once I got the ticket, I kind of got sucked into the field, and basically spent the next 7 hours tanning, watching, admiring and eating. It is a wonderful game of violence and strategy and it for sure doesn’t hurt the eyes with all the HOT shirtless men…I had a blast on the stands! I did have a Mayism moment though when I went to grab lunch. It was quite hot on Saturday and while I was standing at the bus stop I was talking to a guy about the weather. After several minutes, his friend comes up and is sweating a storm. I look at him and continue my conversation by saying “see he is hot…I mean he is hot, but he is sweating, which shows how hot the weather is.” I was probably already pink from being hot…but my face was probably a whole new shade of pink…so funny!!

Sunday, I ended up staying at the mall a little too long after church and learned a valuable lesson. I got to the mini bus station at 8pm and it was basically a ghost town. I asked a couple people that were waiting how long they had been there and they said 30 minutes. I went to the gate keeper and he said the next one wouldn’t be for 75 minutes…which would mean that it would after 9pm before I even got downtown and still would have to catch another bus to get home. Knowing that the main station is pretty dodgy I had to find another solution. I am not kin on taking regular taxis as they are expensive (relatively, as I typically think about how much sushi or chocolate I can get) but knowing the risk I would be putting myself in wouldn’t be worth it. So I forked over R100 and got a taxi at a hotel. The attendant at the hotel, named Damian was extremely sweet and bargained with the cab driver so keep it at R100 and take me completely home and not just downtown. The cab driver was named Eshad and was from Congo. A lot of taxi drivers and car watchers are from that area. We had a fantastic talk about “Living” and defining when you should say I am living in a city and call it home. He said, “if you are in a place for more than 2 days, then it is home. You need to make it home, take it as your own, it is home, so you are in Cape Town, so this is your home.” He was a sweet man, and I am grateful that I got home safely. Lesson learned…May it might be time to get a car!

*Things I could use prayer for- I really do want to get a car and need to decide if I should want until my co-workers have time to take me or to just go to a car lot by myself. I have been waiting for a month, but our schedules keep interfering and we have had to cancel multiple times. I would like to travel a little further than what the buses and my feet can take me. Also, I seem to be having trouble getting my police clearance from the US. They refuse to email it to me, and have sent it to my US address which it never got forwarded and now they have sent it to Cape Town…and who knows how long that can take. I have until the end of March to get it and if I don’t, I might get shipped back to the US…

Pigalle

Saturday night I was invited to an Amazon post holiday party. Our building has two different divisions and this division that was hosting the party isn’t the one I work in, but have had the opportunity to help with over the past year both in Seattle and in Cape Town, so they invited me. They told me that I could invite someone and without hesitation it was Emily Woo of course! We got all dressed up, and we looked hot! When we got to the restaurant, the front doors were closed. For an instance I was thinking “Oh crap! I have the wrong place,” but then some waiters from the balcony was yelling at us and told us to walk around the corner. It was a nice chuckle. When we got inside, it was beautiful. The place was very elegant and then there were these pics of Elvis Presley holding a gun…it seem out of place for me, but randomly fun. I enjoyed having Emily meet some of my co-workers and we devoured our shrimp cocktail, Steak and salmon, and our chocolate fondant with unlimited wine. Emily and I headed onto the dance floor at the end of the night, and danced to some of the songs. When Shakira’s song “This Time For Africa” came on, we just looked at each other like “YES,” and then danced some more. Here is the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFdZ10rtv2Q&feature=related
Pigalle, thank you for the wonderful evening!

Simple Things in Life are Sometimes Always the Best

This was the title of the sermon last week that Pastor Lucinda Dooley spoke on at Hillsong church. The message wasn’t that profound but I have found that it has resonated in my week. Over the last couple of months as I have ridden the MyCiti bus, it always drives by an area in which I can see a sign that says Seattle Coffee Company. I tried visiting the place a couple weeks ago on a Saturday and it was closed. On Wednesday I got up early enough t drop my laundry off (as most places don’t have washer and dryers, you have to take it in to a laundry mate and they do it for you…kind of a perk and kind of not) and still make it downtown for coffee. I walked into the place and the smell…the smell of coffee was refreshing. When they handed me my grande vanilla latte and I took a sip, it felt like home! You know when it is snowing outside and a cup of tea or hot cocoa soothes the soul…it was like that! Absolutely amazing! Although my day at work was the same as any other days…this day, on this Wednesday, nothing could have dampened my day all thanks to a cup of coffee…it’s is the simple things. This week I had to have all my performance reviews done for work and it was stressful to get them all done but was also a good time on reflecting this past year and all that that happened at work. It was an exhausting and emotional week for a variety of reasons and on Friday I came home to an orange envelope in my mailbox. When I grabbed it and looked who it was from on the top left, my emotions kicked in and there I was standing in the foyer at 9pm at night crying….a simple letter without even opening it yet, but reminds me that I am loved, not forgotten, what I have left behind, and yet knowing that this year is going to be better than the last, and God has so much in store for me. This letter was sent over 2 weeks ago and God delivered it sooner, as most letters I have gotten has taken a month! Work was extremely challenging this week and there have been thoughts of “What am I doing here!” PJ will probably have no clue, but that letter breathed life back into me, in that moment, it was just a reminder that God sure does have me in the palm of His hand. Ek is lief vir jou, vriend! On Saturday, I went grocery shopping and it was the first time since I have been here that I picked up flowers for my place. I have been staring at these flowers the last few days and what a difference it makes in my flat and in me…I love looking at them, smelling them, it has brought joy to me this weekend…It really is the simple things in life that are sometimes the best!
Since this week seemed to be a reflection on week, I thought I would finally get to thinking about what lies ahead this year. Last year I created a prayer wall at my Seattle home, and when I left, I took a picture of it and was amazed to see all the things that God said and answered for me and the people I felt called to pray for. I bought the materials at the beginning of the year, but just finally got around to doing it today. It was a good time of prayer in seeing things that I get to intercede for and the promises that He has in store…It is going to a great year!

More Pictures

More pictures can be found on FB. Hope you enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150371274234183.374953.719764182&type=1&l=76349c77e7