the last week of october

this past week was a pretty boring one, i was unfortunately sick with bronchitis and so i couldnt go to work or do much. The ladies i work with were so funny. they wouldnt let me come to work. they were being like quasi moms. just what i needed while i was sick. im still not better after what feels like being sick for weeks but hopefully my antibiotics will knock it out, and soon.

this weekend i got to go skydiving!! that was the coolest thing i think i have ever done. i recommend it to everyone!!! i didnt do it by myself of course. i did a tandem jump (meaning i was attached to the front of a professional) his name was Julian and he had dreads and was so tall and skinny and he went to CU! he was so funny, i had the best time with him. surprisingly i wasnt nervous, just excited beyond belief! i couldnt stop smiling the whole time which made my mouth really dry because the wind is pretty strong when your free falling at 9,000 feet. the free fall is 30 seconds and you are horizontal or upside down and he was spinning me all around! but then they pull the shoot and you get to float down and see the view which was amazing! you could see the whole coast line. the airplane was so small, i had never been in one that small, it was 6 people plus the pilot all squashed in there. my friend ryan went first and seeing him fall out of that plane and was gone so quickly was so cool to see!!! it was freaky but that was the only part that made me nervous. but as soon as i was out of the plane i LOVED it!! it was the best feeling, such an adrenaline rush!! i got a video and pictures so i'll post some of the pix!!!!!

other than that not much is new. Im sad i missed Halloween. they dont celebrate it here. some people were dressed up saturday but not many at all. i wish we would have gotten to wear costumes. i bet everyone had wonderful costumes! On saturday night 8 of my roommates and i decided to stay in a hostel for the experience and to get away from this extremely crowded house for a night. I've never stayed somewhere thats less than $10 a night. it was.... an experience. the shower was freezing cold and my feet got so dirty just walking around the room. we had to bring our own everything; toilet paper, towels utensils. but it was a good time and it wasnt completely terrible.

but here are some pictures of my skydiving adventure!!! and some dinner nights out with all my friends here whom i LOVE. we have all formed the best friendships and some are leaving sooner than later so we've been trying to do as many fun things together before our time is out! i'll miss them when we all have to eventually go our separate ways.



enjoy! i miss colorado, the snow, my people! cant wait to see you all! Happy November! xoxoxx mad

ps sorry the pictures are out of order.. i still am not pro at the blog thing. i wanted the skydiving pictures to be in the opposite order so you could go from the beginning to end.

RUGBY WEEKEND!

this past weekend was a fun one! it was our friend kelly's birthday, so we went to a rugby game and it was rowdy! those fans were insane! pushing all over the place. and i had no idea, still don't, on how the game of rugby actually works so i would just cheer when everyone else did. except once i cheered and the guy next to me told me that i wasn't supposed to cheer then, oops! but a fun experience. 

the weather is starting to get really nice so we have been to the beach the past few days! its so beautiful. on side is the beach and the other side is mountains. it's all right there and it's wild to see. we swam out to some rocks and laid out there for a while. some days its so nice and you want to do nothing but be outside, today it was really windy though, sand get everywhere and pelts you when its too windy.. but it's only going to get nicer from here on out! 

 a week or so ago, we went to the District 6 museum which is the museum of the "city" i guess where  "colored" people lived (neither black nor white) during Apartheid until they were removed and all the houses they lived in were destroyed. i may or may not have all my facts straight, but for the most part i think i'm correct... anywho, the government declared that place an "white-only" area, thus forcing those people to leave because of the prime location of District Six. After Apartheid ended in 1994(?) the some residents were given their land back and they are rebuilding some of the land. a short (and hopefully correct) history lesson for everyone! but it was a cool museum! 

after the museum there is this bakery called Charly's Bakery that had the best little goodies to eat and the building was so cool! the treats reminded me of something Brenda would make:) all so cute. 

as for my work at the pool, it's all going really well! the kids love it. i was sick on friday (i blame the (FREEZING) water of the pool, but when i couldn't come in friday, all my little kids apparently cried! i can never miss a day again! that just shows how much of a treat it is for them to be able to get in a pool. they absolutely love it! whenever i walk down the halls they always yell to me "Teacher, Teacher, will we swim this week?!" every time i see on of them. and i was only doing up to grade 3 but i had some older kids ask their teachers if they could swim too. so doing something so little as swimming with them 35 minutes, once a week is something they really get to enjoy and i love that i can be the one to do that for them. 

i found out that the school cant afford to heat the pool so i will tough it out! it the kids can do it so can i. They are so amazed at how well i can swim. they are always asking me to do laps for them to watch. when i told them i was a lifeguard they asked for my autograph as if i was some famous person, maybe at HF2 pool i am haha but they're just silly and so sincere! and i got a waterproof watch and they are always so concerned that i wear it in the water and warn me to take it off.  

another thing i find so funny is that they call swim suites "bathers" or "costumes" and when boys wear speedos they call them "bather panties" haha. but in the house that i live in we get to take a language lesson once a week so i'm learning some swim terms in Afrikaans! like "kick", "blow bubbles", "big arms", "put your face in" it's fun! this week i'm going to try to take some pictures of the pool and my kiddies so i can show you all where i work. 

this week i also started doing a placement in the afternoons at Etafini where i was doing work the first week. It was so much fun to go back today after 3 weeks and all the kids remember my name and get to play with them again! 

whoa, sorry for the long post. i had a lot to tell you! hope you're enjoying the blog! i miss home and all my friends, family and supporters! it means so much to me to have your thoughts and concerns with me!  sending my love to you all the way from Cape Town!!!  <3>

also sorry these pix are all out of order and stuff, im not that computer savy. enjoy until next time!:)

the rocks we climbed!

the wonderful beach!

Charly's Bakery! so fun!

Charly's Bakery with the cute pedafores(sp?)

my friend Zach. mom he's the one from cherry creek! small world!

the game!

FINALLY!

i swam for the second time today! wooo it was so exciting! the water was absolutely freezing and the children, along with myself were shivering the whole time, but they enjoyed it none the less. they are all seriously so excited to be in and around a pool that the whole listening and me teaching them thing is kinda hard. so for now we're just kinda playing around and having fun! 

there is a all of windows to the outside and while im giving swim lessons all these teenage boys come up to the window and the little guys im working with tell me they're "looking at teachers bum" haha maybe i can find some swim shorts or somethin. so first day of swimming finally came and it was great besides the fact that it was frigid and the pool is dirty and in desperate need of a vacuum. 

i have classes of sometimes 3 but today i had one of 9 and at times it stresses me out because, as mentioned before, 50% of the students have varying levels of cerebral palsy and having three kids that cannot be self supported leaves me to have to attend to them and hard to give all the other students my full attention. but they some dont have a comcept of the steps and just walk right off so i've had to make a few mini saves.. i try to teach them some games but the language barrier makes it kind of a funny traslation. but we communicate very well in general. i learned a few Afrikaans sayings, like "put your face in", "big arms", "blow bubbles"  and basic things like that for my little guys.

today we went to a preformance studio, i guess you call it, and these kids(my age-ish) gave us this dancing and singing performance, its hard to describe but it was SO neat! they all wore beaded costumes that made sounds when they moved and they all have such amazing voices! one of the coolest things of the trip thus far!

 also, here are pix of the room that i painted! my friend Jenna painted the base and the lovely words and i did the vines and flowers! it looks wonderful! thanks jenna for letting me help out! i love to do stuff like that. and me painting evryones faces at african cafe! woo:)

i miss everyone and home, but you're gonna have to drag me outta here;)

lindy! the cutest little thing:)

paitning!

october 10, 2009

i've been at my pool placement at Eros for a week now. it is a school where 50% of the students have varying degrees of cerebral palsy and another small portion are special needs children, while the rest are neither physically or mentally challenged students. , are my job there is going to be to teach swim lessons to grades pre R to grade 3. so i'll have 4 to like 10 year old i think. i have 95 kids. not all at once of course, my days are split so that i have at most 7 at once. when first seeing the pool last monday i realized there was no way i was getting in that pool, let alone 95 little kiddies. so they are having it cleaned and hopefully heated. so as of yet i havent taught any swim lessons. i'm anxious to start at have my fingers crossed for monday.  since i cant get  into the pool i've been going around to the classrooms and meeting all of my little learners. they are so excited to learn how to swim and out of the 95 kids it seems about less than 10 of them know how to swim so it will be a task, but they have a lot of drownings here so hopefully i'll be able to teach them the important life skill of swimming. 

also this week, i went to my friend Jenna's placement and helped her paint her classroom because it was dark and grey but know its happy and yellow! i'll post pix when i can get them from her, but i painted a boarder of vines and flowers and it looks so wonderful! the teachers and learners loved it!!:) 

most of my house left this weekend for the Garden Route, which is the adventure thing where you can do lots of things like bungee jump, ostrich race, sight see, ride an elephant but i didnt go because im gonna go when my mom comes out on the 21 of december !! wooo hooo!! 

heres some more pix. the fabulously colored houses are Bo-kaap which is a place where the "coloreds" (not blacks, not whites) were forced to move. not a bad place if you ask me! very cute! we took a tour of that the other day and had an authentic african meal which was SOOOOOO good at this place called african cafe, i cant wait to take my mom there! we got our faces painted and everything! except we went for our friend Palmer's bday so we had a big group and the workers there didn't have time to paint us all so i became the face painting lady and painted everyone else's face. so much fun! cant wait to go back, but anyways heres so random pix that i like.. enjoy!:)  

Bo-kaap (means "above city, because it sits above cape town and  you can look out at the city and coast line

up close and personal

climbing the best tree  at the botanical gardens!

my boyfriend, Pumabi, givin me the wiink. he's the same boy in the main picture up top

the coast, whale watching

sassy little thing at the townships

the whales!

AHHHHH! 

the cage!

SiSipho... she has a litle piece of my heart.. so precious

one week down...

ive officially been here one week! and a wonderful week it's been. below there is a picture of some of the kids i worked with at the after school holiday program. if you want to see the picture in better quality/larger you can just click on it. they were all so sweet. it was sad to leave them after only a week to go to my permanent placement but after my first couple weeks here i think i'll have the option to go back a few days a week in the afternoon which i would love to do! they are so welcoming with hugs and kisses and love! its wonderful..

we have been all over town, seeing beautiful sights and going on adventures. so far ive been to the botanical gardens, signal hill, to the water front... all over the city! its wonderful, i love it here! 

my biggest adventure so far has been shark cage diving where we got to see great white sharks up close and personal! it was much less scary than i thought it would be, i felt completely safe but it was an incredible experience!!!! i have good pix to show you guys.. i dont have an underwater camera but i got some really good surface shots! we also were able to see a mom whale and her baby! it was unreal to see a creature that huge in the wild! 

i love it here! how could i not?

my kids @ Etafani!

the beginning

my trip to Cape Town, South Africa. im traveling with the group Cross Cultural Solutions for 12 weeks where i will be doing volunteer work during those weeks. my placement will be at a home for HIV and AIDS whose lives are effected by the disease. Im working with a group of about 30 kids at an after school program, but only for the first week. in the weeks following i will be working at a school for mentally and physically handicapped children. i'll be working with a physical therapist and with the children in the pool at the school... utilizing my skills!! we also are given a fair amount of free time so all my friends here at the house and i have plans to go on plenty of adventures! i'll keep you guessing what they will be... but im using this to keep you all updated on all those adventures. more to come!! :)