TIA...where are the monkeys?!

Hello hello!

It's been far too long since I last updated this thing. I've been quite busy as usual, but I have lots to talk about now! First off, classes are still going well, I'm in a routine now which is really nice to finally be settled. My service learning site is a Jessie Keet Creche, which is a preschool and daycare center for children from 8 months to 6 years. Me and another student in the class are working there together so we go to the school on Mondays and Thursdays from 1-4. So far we have been getting acquainted with the staff and the children, but soon we will start working more directly with the children and coming up with activities and programs for them to do. I went to my first Kayamandi afterschool session last Wednesday and that was pretty cool. We work with 7th grade students doing homework help and fun activities. After homework time we have snack and then play outside for a while before heading back to campus. The language barrier makes things pretty difficult, but they are so much fun to work with, and they are teaching us as much as we are teaching them.

Last weekend was great! On Saturday we went to the Stellenbosch Wine Festival. Stellenbosh is situated right in the middle of wine country and there are hundreds of vineyards in the area. There were three tents of wine vendors as well as free food samples, so needless to say we were quite content. There was also a fashion show sponsored by a local supermarket called Checkers, so we went to that as well. On Sunday I went shark cage diving! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done, despite getting epically sea sick. It was a bit of a struggle to put on the 7mm wetsuits on a rocking boat, but it was also hilarious to watch. There were about 25 of us total on the boat including the crew. Me and three other friends went together and the rest of the people we met at the place, which was about a two hour drive from school. Lucky us got to leave campus at 5 am, but we saw a beautiful sunrise over the water. The way shark diving works is pretty cool. There is a giant cage on the boat that they drop over and attach to the side of the boat. Five people go into the cage at a time in full wetsuit/booties/goggles gear. Once everyone is in the cage, they teach you how to sit so that your head stays above water, and then when they tell you to "GO DOWN" you take a deep breath and go down into the cage. There is a bar at the bottom to hook your feet under and you wear weights to help keep you underwater long enough to see the sharks swim by. They are SO CLOSE! It's really amazing to see them. We saw a total of 10 great white sharks while we were out, and there were two circling us as we had our time in cage. They are huge! There was one shark that was 14 feet long. If you watched anything on shark week during this past week you might have heard about Dyer Island or Shark Alley...which is exactly where I was! It is the great white shark capital of the world. On the way back we saw tons of seals as well.

This weekend was quite an adventure as well. Friday night the Dutch house threw a "Neon" themed party which was tons of fun. There were lots of people there but it was a nice change from going out on the weekends. Yesterday my roommate and I took the train from Stellenbosch to Cape Town to meet some friends who had spent the night there. It was about an hour train ride, but it was only 12 rand one way so it was definitely worth it. Once we got to Cape Town we met with our friends who had rented a car for the day and we had lunch down on the waterfront. There were ten of us total, and we had two cars. Lucky for us, one of the guys with us is a local and he had his own car, so we only had to rent one. Another perk is that he knew exactly how to get to the places we wanted to go, and he made an awesome tour guide and put up with our obsessive picture taking. When we finished lunch we decided to head to the Cape of Good Hope which was about a 2 hour drive away. Madi was our driver and she was awesome, especially since all cars here are manuals and they drive on the other side of the road. It felt very strange to be on the opposite side of the road and it was really disorienting at first, but after a while we just grew used to it. We took the most beautiful way to the Cape, with mountains on one side of us and the ocean on the other. The Cape of Good Hope is the southern most part of the Western Cape, but not all of South Africa. Still it literally felt like we were on the end of the world and we pretended as such. There were amazing views from the cliffs and the lighthouse observatory. We even saw seals swimming in the turquoise water below, it was beyond words. I took so many pictures but I don't think any of them can do the view justice. On our way out of the national park, we saw BABOONS! There were tons of signs warning against them but we did not see any on the drive in so we were a little disappointed. However on the way out we saw around 20 of them just hanging out on the side of the road. It was so cool and they got so close to us! Once we got through the monkeys we drove to a nearby beach that is famous for having PENGUINS. We saw probably about 10 or 15 of them, but we tried getting close to them and scared them into the water. They are so cute and funny to watch. We declared it a successful adventure day and headed back to Cape Town. From there me and three other girls got a ride back to Stellenbosch where I promptly fell asleep.

I cannot believe I have been here for just shy of a month, it's absolutely mind-blowing. It seems like each weekend from now until spring break (in September!) is booked with fun activities, and the weeks are just flying by. For now we are all just enjoying the ride and not wanting it to end any time soon. I think that is it for now! Keep reading and I'll update again (sooner rather than later hopefully!)

Totsiens,
Megan