SOUTH AFRICA = MY NEW HOME!

Hey everyone! Sorry it took me so long to post this, but I have been so busy, and I am also incredibly fed up with technology. Something is wrong with my computer battery, and it only lasts for like 10 minutes if it isn’t plugged in. Also, my camera is broken—my memory cards are fine, but I can’t take pictures or anything so I am going to look for a new one in Mauritius. I’m sorry I haven’t responded to anyone’s emails either. We get to Mauritius in less than 2 days and the whole island is wireless, so I am trying to conserve some of my Internet minutes. Ok so here are my experiences in South Africa:
First and foremost- you all knew it was going to happen, and it did- I got attacked by monkeys. Let me explain- I was at Kruger National Park for my safari and our campsite was like fenced off from the animals, but there were still monkeys everywhere. So there were these Vervet monkeys in our campsite just hanging out, and I wanted to get a picture of them. So I started walking towards them, but then they started walking towards me too, which I did not want. So I turned around, and started walking away from them, but I guess that wasn’t good enough because 2 of the monkeys ran at me and jumped on to the back of my leg. I wasn’t sure if they bit me or anything, but they did something because it hurt. So after I finally shook them off and then was terrified, I checked my leg. It didn’t break skin thankfully, but it did give me a nice scratch. Right now, about a week later, I have a HUGE bruise- I guess it punched me or something haha I have no idea. But I went to Dr. Matt and since it didn’t break skin I don’t have rabies, and they were supposed to check for some weird Vervet monkey disease and call me if there was anything, but they haven’t called so I am taking that to mean that there are none so that is good. Also, I don’t know if any of you who read this read other SAS’ers blogs as well. There is a kid who wrote about a girl getting attacked by monkeys and how she deserved it. Yeah, that is talking about me, and no I didn’t deserve that. God forbid anything happened to him during this trip and anyone said he deserved it- that was just a jerk thing to say, and I am really mad about it. But anyway, back to AMAZING South Africa.. I woke up at 5:30 am to watch the sunrise over Africa the day we pulled into port. We were still a few miles away, but the sun rising over the mountains was beautiful!!
On March 2nd, which was our first day in Cape Town Jaime and I walked around the V & A Waterfront which has a huge mall and tons of restaurants and stuff like that, but it is really expensive. We came upon Nobel Square I think it’s called which has about 8 foot tall statues of the 4 South African Nobel Peace Laureates. I spotted Tutu’s statue from like a mile away haha.. We walked around there for like 2 hours and then had to meet back on the ship for our Khayelitsha Township tour. For our tour we walked around the township for a while and played with the kids, went into a craft market, and also visited Philani, which is a nutrition center for mothers and children. It was an amazing experience to be able to go into this township, but it was also really hard to see that people lived like this. I see know why a lot of people who do Semester At Sea join Peace Corps or just have this desire to help people in the world.
After we got back from the township, Jaime, Jordi, Dannie, Eric, Terron, Darren, and I got ready and went out to Long Street to a couple of bars. It was fun, but we had to wake up early for our safari the next day so we didn’t stay out too late.
We were supposed to meet up at 430 am in Purser’s Square for our safari. Jaime had to come and wake me up at 445 because my alarm didn’t go off (:-o), so I just grabbed whatever I had packed the night before which definitely wasn’t everything I needed. So we got to Purser’s, and we were still waiting for Alex. We called her tons of times and knocked on her door, but no response so by 515 am we decided to leave, and hope that she would find her way to the airport. Which she did! Yay! So we took our 2-hour flight to Jo’burg, and were greeted at the airport by a sign that said “O’Neill Group” hehe. I am going to cut out details that aren’t very important. We took a 5-hour bus ride to Kruger National Park, got all set up in our tents, and went out on our first game drive. Throughout the 3 days we went on 6 game drives. Each one lasted about 3 hours so it was perfect. Altogether, we saw tons of elephants and rhinos, giraffes, zebras, lions, kudu, a warthog, a buffalo, and I think that’s it. By our 3rd game drive we had seem almost everything except lions so we would be driving past rhinos and we were like, “It is just a rhino, keep driving” haha. Our safari guide’s name was Edwin. He is 23 years old and lives in a small village outside of the park. On our last day we decided to put in 100 Rand ($ 15 USD) each for his tip so with 10 of us that came out to 1000 Rand. I put it slickly in his hand, and a couple minutes later we saw him count it and then run over to the other guides with this HUGE smile on his face. We found out later that the guides make 1300 Rand each month, so we almost doubled that with just a tip, and it was so worth it, I would have even given him more because he was the best guide ever. I miss him L. Ok so then we took the 5-hour bus ride back to the Jo’burg airport and then caught our flight back to Cape Town. We got back pretty late, and I think the majority of us decided to stay in and sleep. March 6th and 7th were spent shopping for the most part. There was this really cute market called Green Market Square so I bought a bunch of stuff from there. On the last day in Cape Town I had an FDP to the Desmond Tutu HIV Center. It was interesting to see their facilities, but my favorite part of the day was that we got to take a tour of another township, Masiphumele. This one was a lot “nicer” than Khayelitsha- each home had electricity and running water. I would bet that barely 10% of the Khayelitsha homes had that.
When we got back to the ship I couldn’t find any of my friends so I walked to the mall to get some last minute shopping done. I ran into Jaime and Hilary, so I had lunch with them and then we went back to the ship. We still had a few hours before on-ship time so Jaime came with me to get a phone card and I called my parents and sister. Then I lost Jaime, which is nothing new, but I ran into Terron, Darren, and Eric and decided to go to dinner with them. On-ship time was 830 pm, we didn’t get out of the restaurant until 805 pm, but we made it to the ship, and didn’t get dock time- yay us!
So now we are on our way to Mauritius. The past 2 days have been absolutely horrible. Everyone is getting seasick and you can barely walk it is so rough. The Voice just told us that because of the rough seas we wont be getting to Mauritius until 1600 tomorrow, instead of 0800 which sucks. I was supposed to have an orphanage visit at 1500 hours so I wonder if that will be rescheduled. They are going to tell us about the repercussions at Pre-port tonight. FREE WIRELESS IN MAURITIUS!!! YAYYY! Everyone should be expecting emails from me, hopefully! Sea Olympics are scheduled for the day after Mauritius, but we will see what happens with scheduling and stuff now. That is it for now, maybe I will be able to post pictures on here finally. I love everyone and miss everyone. Hope everyone is having a good spring break! Stay safe!