Okay I think I've finally got some interesting stories/observations for you. One of my favorite new facts i've learned about our area here is about the minibuses, the volkswagen vans that serve as public transportation. Apparently they are all run by organized crime, in fact when the University of Capetown decided to get their own shuttle service (after 5 minibus drivers were shot execution style, and they decided it might be a liability to have school kids riding the minis) they had to have a sit down with the minibus people and agree not to use the main road through town, because it would cut down on the revenue of the VW's. perfect right?? that is until one of the campus shuttles had to take a detour on the main road and one of the minibus drivers got on the bus and threatened the driver with a gun. so that's interesting. Another thing that might be reminiscent of my russia emails for you is... MORE GODDAMNED MAYO. I hate mayonaise (i can't even spell it) and it is on everything, chicken sandwich??? nope think more 2 parts mayo i part shredded chicken. But on the bright side, the school campus (apart from being covered in ivy, and therefore my first Ivy league school) is like street food heaven, everyday i have either Indian, Felafel, chinese, Mayo sandwich, fastfood or African. oh and everyone is barefoot all the time here, grocery store, classroom, restaurant, where ever whenever.
But on to my week, well it was as usual here pretty school based, lots of class, occasional moments of goofing off. It wasn't until friday that i got any real cultural experiences, when we were invited by our landlord to her house in Nyanga, the biggest township in Cape Town for a braai, it was once again just perfect, every trip out to the townships is a real eyeopener. It's not so much the poverty and the dirtyness, it is the happiness and friendliness of the people, everyone is genuine and ready to smile (as opposed to myself who as a waiter is fake and always ready to smile) We had an amazing time, my favorite occurence which keeps happening to me is that people ask me why I'm not doing shawco (a volunteer program to teach little kids) I always answer that a0 i'm doing habitat for humanity b) I'm not very good with kids and c) who would possibly want me being a role model to small children. And always without fail about 20 minutes after saying this I am in the middle of a group of kids with several of them hanging off me, or starting games of chicken with all the kids. This was no exception, and of course as the chairman of the South Africa for Barack Obama i got every kid (most of whom don't speak english) chanting "Yes we can". obviously, but to explain my blatant obnoxious american traits, I had been discussing this with some of the parents and they at least understood it and supported it, and the kids loved it- hey i figure for your first english phrase "yes we can" is pretty good.
Saturday was our big day though, we had been planning this 21st birthday party for 2 weeks, I even made another of my patented shaped cakes, actually this one might have been the best one yet, a huge cat, big enough to serve 35 people with some to spare. we rented out the corner bar (from Gary the South African Republican, who voted for the nationalists) had a huge braai (with 4 different kinds of salads all featuring my favorite condiment...MAYO) Lamb Chicken Sausage all of 3 dollars a head. it was amazing. we invited a whole bunch of kids from the orientation so it wasn't just americans, we had Tanzanians, Ugandans, South Africans, Norweigans, Germans, Denmark-ians and even a Frenchie. It was a really good mix, which is good because who wants to go 10,000 miles away and spend all their time with people from an hour down the road. Also I can now actually not walk across campus (barefoot) without wondering into about 10 people i know, who would have thought, I was popular all this time , I was just on the wrong continent. e
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