Saw the waves but not the tide/ I couldn't stay, I don't know why

I have decided that all my weekends need themes, just to keep them straight and maintain some OCD in my life. If I had to choose I would refer to this past weekend as the weekend of the waves. Starting with Friday I was part of a crowd wave IN A REAL LIFE WORLD CUP STADIUM! Not going to lie, I was a little homesick for the Big House, I kept waiting for the speed up/ slow it down/ split the wave signals. Sigh. It was pretty great though, the stadium was amazing and we had tickets for the 3^rd row! Some things to note about S. African football (soccer) 1. Stadium food here is ridiculously cheap. We should look into this. 2. Vuvuzelas are just as annoying in person as they are via television. I don’t think they stopped blowing those things once. 3. Cheerleaders here… have capes?

The following morning some friends and I took the train to Muizenberg (suburb of Cape Town, about a 45min ride via the lovely public transit) for some more waves, this time the ocean kind. Or the really cold/ salty kind. Same thing. A girl we know lives there and teaches surf lessons to the local kids, so we were able to use wetsuits and boards for free. They don’t call it the surfing capital of Africa for nothing, there were seriously a LOT of waves. I just tried not to think about sharks. I did manage after a few tries to get into a lunge on my board while catching a wave. I say mission accomplished.

After we had our fill of being wrecked by waves and salt, we had a little picnic on the beach with our new friends. Good thing our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, we had meant to buy enough food for us plus our surf friends, but once we got back 4 local kids that often take surf lessons showed up too. Thankfully R230 ($32) was able to satisfy 10 hungry bellies. The kids here are so great, it breaks my heart to think that if we hadn’t given them food they might not have eaten until dinner, if then. After lounging on the beach a little while longer, the sun went away and the wind picked up (per usual) and we decided to warm up at a place called the Coffee Sha-Bean where we got the thickest hot chocolate I have ever witnessed. My little plastic spoon stood straight up in the mug! I will attempt to recreate this at home, but something tells me this is just the magic of Africa.

Saturdays in Paradise

So this Saturday I have decided was the official day of delicious food and everything else wonderful (besides the game of course, we aren't going to discuss that). One of the highlights of living in Cape Town is a gem of a place called the Old Biscuit Mill. Its open only on Saturdays and by 11am its absolutely packed. Its pretty hard to describe this establishment, like a farmers market but with pretty much everything from fresh produce, juices, smoothies, organic coffee to prepared crepes, pizzas, gyros and the most amazing pastries you have ever seen. All the vendors are set up and you can browse and take samples at most stations. My menu consisted of

1. organic coffee (naturally)

2. the freshest pizza I have ever tasted (picture exceptionally thin crust, just a bit of sauce for flavoring, fresh greens, artichokes, roma tomatoes, parmesan shavings and topped off with some balsamic vinegar)

3. fresh orange mango smoothie

4. flan flavored pastry (it was like you get 2 in 1; pastry crust, flan filling, topped with fresh whip cream and crumbles)

As food coma started to set in, we decided to go to the roof to get some sun. After chillin and eating all day, we decided to finish off the evening with a nice braai (bbq). C and I decided to go veggie style with some meatless, braai flavored sausages and roasted corn on the cob. As a shout out to my sister, I prepared them in chilean/ completos style (which pretty much means adding a gigantic amount of mayo, ketchup and guac to your sausage). All of this was almost a disaster when we forgot to get coals and then once we did procure them, we couldn't get them to light. Thankfully some others on the roof were using the braai as well and took pity on us and said we could use their fire starters/ tools/ hot coals. Thank goodness!

Learning a lil' acceptance

This weekend for me was all about learning how possible it is for acceptance, even though nowadays it seems like such a foreign word. On Saturday I visited the District Six museum just down the street from where I live. For those unfamiliar with the history of Apartheid in S.Africa I would recommend you find yourself a computer and wikipedia it immediately. What I found the most inspirational was the museum guide himself, and his personal history associated with District Six. It was here that Cape Town really embraced all the different cultural backgrounds of the people living in this unique community. Our guide talked about how no matter what your religion, when a holiday came around everyone celebrated. Jews celebrated the Chinese New Year and Muslims celebrated Christmas, everyone celebrated together all the special occasions. How cool would that be, to have like 5 times the number of fun celebrations?!

Also, on Sunday some friends and I decided to go to an ISKCOM temple for a guest speaker, traditional worship, and then a delicious Indian feast. It was so wonderful to be invited into a new community so warmly. The cutest old woman decided to take us under her wing (us, stick out at Hindu temple? lol) and explain some of their practices and she even got us to the food line first (can anyone say AMAZING)! While eating we talked a little about how nice it is for my friends and I to be able to freely choose where and how we decide to worship because our parents had allowed us to think openly about religion and spirituality, something that was very uncommon in their generation. Thank goodness for hippie parents :)

Township Experience: Guguletu

Picture from last Sunday, a day spent eating braai (bbq) with some friends at the township called Guguletu

Promotion!

Having experienced internships before coming to S. Africa I thought I had a fairly good understanding of what would be expected of me work wise, and the kinds of tasks I would be doing. Starting out I really liked how organized my small little NGO was, and I fell very easily into my role as intern for the HIV & Me project.

However, about a week after starting the guy that runs the whole NGO (Regency Networx) announced that his secretary would be filling a different role in the company so he was wondering if I would like to step up for a few weeks and fill the void until a replacement could be hired. This was an interesting change, but of course I accepted. Any type of experience here is one that I want to embrace and besides I was interested in learning more about the type of environmental work his side of the business deals with. So for the last two weeks I have been working alongside my boss scheduling meetings and sending intro letters to companies that might be interested in our sustainable business programs. We work alongside the United Nations to help business achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and the companies I email are based all over the world! It is sooo mind boggling to try and schedule phone meetings with people in so many different time zones. Googling "what time is it in ____ right now" has become my best friend.

Well today I go to work and was confronted with yet another curve ball. The coworker that has been helping me learn the job I have been doing for the past 2 weeks is leaving our NGO in a month, and my boss offered me his research position! Like, this is a legit official position at the NGO that normal people have to apply for. I don't know of another opportunity were I would be able to say that in one internship I actually was able to experience 3 separate jobs, working in my career field of interest. From what I understand, I will start job shadowing him next week and as I do I will be training my replacement.

So even if right now I'm not where I expected to be, I have learned that the unexpected can be as good or better than what I had planned on. The main point is that I am still working with this NGO to help accomplish the MDGs, something that I am very passionate about, regardless of if it is HIV/ AIDS or sustainable businesses. Did I mention that my boss has brought 4 chocolate cakes in the office since I started here? I think I could get used to this.

Not your average yoga

Is it bad that I am more sore from yoga than running up all these steep streets? My new exercise buddy told me she found a great place to practice yoga right down the road from my apartment and it has proved to be a great alternative to running when the weather is just down right crappy (I mean it is winter here after all).

I have considered trying out yoga in the States, but usually a packed schedule prevented me from starting. I am glad my first experience with it has been in a different country, there is something so pure about closing your eyes and finding your balance and then opening your eyes to see an African landscape bathed in the evening light. So beautiful. It’s has also been such a reflective time for me, calming after busy days. Most of the time I feel I have just been running around with my eyes opened so wide, trying to take everything in. Peaceful evenings stretching and breathing really allow me to appreciate what I’m doing, what I’m here for, and all the things I am learning.

Not going to lie, I thought that yoga was going to be something I would pick up pretty easily. NOT TRUE. The thing about yoga is that there is always a more difficult pose, a way to twist your body to make the stretch deeper or the balance harder to control. I love it though, what a great thing to be able to start from the beginning and see your progress.

Mmm delicious deals

Ok so when you are in a foreign country it is easy to think that you are playing with monopoly money when you shell out weird bills to pay for food and entertainment, so I have been pretty careful about what I have been spending. In one of the connect newsletters we found probably the best deal I have ever found for food, and being a poor intern working for nothing and trying not to spend my monopoly money too quickly I jumped at it. Three of the interns that arrived at the same time as I did in Cape Town and I jumped a cab down to the VA Waterfront to take advantage of a special at a place called Ferrymans. Get ready for it, pints for R5.50 and fish and chips for R9.50. For those of us that are not used to conversion, that’s about 70 cents for a beer (real beer, nothing like natty light so don’t try and explain away the great deal) and about $1.30 for food! Apparently the restaurant decided to do throwback prices for their 21^st anniversary so from the 1^st to the 21^st of September us poor interns can feed ourselves for about $2 from the hours of 3 to 7pm. Definitely worth the chilly temps for some deliciously cheap food! Posting this makes me realize I have been getting pretty excited over food lately… or maybe it was always like this but it was never documented… hmm.