We're down to our last few hours in Cape Town, and it's bittersweet.

This week was busy for us. Everyone has been trying to cram every scrap of adventure (and every last scrap of food) in to the time we've had free, trying to keep the reality of home at bay as long as possible. Here's a run down of my week, as much as I remember it:

Sunday: Can't remember what I did during the day (THIS is why I needed to blog, to be able to remember everything! I'm kicking myself for slacking), but that night, a small group of us (including our AMAZING program director, Joanna) went to Rick's Cafe Americain for dinner. It's based off of the cafe in Casablanca. I saw that movie for the first time over Christmas break, so it's pretty fresh in my mind. I loved seeing all the little reminders of the film (the piano, the clock, and so on). It was my favorite restaurant in Cape Town, for sure.

Monday-Tuesday: Can't remember what I did right now, either, but hopefully I can sort out my memories on the plane ride home tomorrow.

Wednesday: Abseiling off of Table Mountain in the morning and our final visit/celebration in Sir Laury's Pass that afternoon. Both were incredible.

Abseiling was scary for me, but it helped me to overcome my fear of heights a considerable amount. Sitting on the mountainside after finishing my descent (buddied with my friend Katie- I couldn't have done it without you!) was the most beautiful, humbling, and invigorating experience of my life. The half hour hike back up to the top was one of my favorite things I did on the entire trip. Caves and rocks to climb over and tiny water falls... We asked Yanga- the guy who catches and unhooks us from our harnesses at the bottom of the 112m descent- where the water on the mountain came from, and he said "From the clouds." I guess I should have known- the top of Table Mountain is above the clouds, most of the time, but is sometimes covered in a cloudy "table cloth"- but it was such a beautiful, simple statement at the time. We sat spread out on the rocks, looking over the harbor, thinking about it for a while.

In Sir Laury's, we had our final celebration in the courtyard of the primary school. People from both Global LEAD and the community performed- dancing, singing, rapping, and just talking. It was great! I danced with a group of a few Global LEADers, two 8 year old girls, and a couple of AWESOME teenage guys from Sir Laury's. I forgot most of the dance, though, so I was kind of just bopping around in the back. (Classic Madeline!) Saying goodbye to little Veronique, the tiny eight or nine year old girl I became close with over Service Week, was tough for me. What do you say to a child in those circumstances you may never see again? I decided to ask her, as I was carrying her towards the bus with me, what her favorite subject in school was. She told me it was English. I told her something like "You're very good with English. Keep it up, and do your best. Please, promise me you'll remember you are wonderful, and that you can do anything. Promise?" We hugged for a long time, and then I got immediately on the bus because I was about to lose my composure, and didn't want Veronique to get upset.

Thursday: Had class, then went sand boarding! I was supposed to go surfing (FINALLY!) but was feeling too sick to go. Unfortunately, I didn't get to make it up a different day. Lucky for me, though, my uncle is awesome and planned a trip to South Carolina for my cousin and I to learn to surf when I get back- so I'll still get to cross that off my summer bucket list, but I'm really, really bummed I didn't get to go while here. Anyway, sand boarding was a cool experience, but I was terrible at it. I figured I'd be decent because I can balance on a longboard, but I just couldn't get myself together. I never once made it all the way down the hill. I was really disappointed, but the view totally made up for my failure: one direction was sand dunes as far as you could see; the other was a very distant view of Table Mountain and the city of Cape Town. I'll never stop cease to be amazed at how diverse the scenery is within small regions in South Africa.

Friday: Final class, then dinner with a small group (including the ever-inspiring Carolyn, a Global LEAD staff member) at The African Cafe. We got to try 14 different dishes from all around Africa, which was a good book end to our African eating experience (as our first meal together was at a traditional South African restaurant).

Saturday: One last trip to the Old Biscuit Mill market in the morning and the final group dinner together. Everyone got dressed up (I wore my Tevas, hey-o!) and ate in one of the suites of the hotel attached to our apartment complex. There were a lot of laughs, a lot of tears, and a lot of hot chocolate pudding for dessert.

At the end of all of this, I feel like I should make some kind of grand, beautiful speech about how the people I've met, the sights I've seen, the adventures I've been on, and so on have had a profound impact on me that will guide much of the rest of my life. And that's all true. But I think the best way to end my time in Africa is this:

"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy, if I could say how much."

I was listening to Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing while working on some homework the other day and this line stuck out to me more than it ever had in the countless times I've watched that film before.

I think I've talked too much in all my life. It's safe to say most people are guilty of this. I think words can be so beautiful, but can also be, in excess or carelessness, ugly and muddling. ("Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic: capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it,"Albus Dumbledore/J.K. Rowling. I like to collect quotes, if you hadn't picked that up in my previous blogs.) I think this habit of mine has robbed a lot of moments of the silent joy and appreciation they deserved.

I don't want that to happen with this trip, this goodbye. It's too big. Too important. And I've come too far (halfway around the world, in fact) to ruin it now by trying to put "everything" into one blog post with even the most beautiful words I can manage to produce. To try to put the way I feel about this experience into words just won't do justice to the stories, the people, the places, the moments, and the love that have shaped this trip for me.

Thank you to everyone who read my blog even once. I received a lot of feedback from some very unexpected readers, and was really moved by what many of you had to say. I really hope that you, in reading however much of my blog you did, got some kind of something out of it- a laugh, a hope, an idea, or at least something to put you to sleep if you're up reading this as late as I am writing it.

If you need me, I'll be on a plane for the majority of the next 36 or so hours...
With love, Madeline

A view from the the hill at the vineyard in Franschoek yesterday

I wish the weather looked like that again today. It's another day of crazy Cape Town weather, and it happens to be our day off. It's raining sideways onto our covered patio. The wind is blowing so hard that the sliding glass doors shake from time to time.

On Monday of this week, we visited the prison/museum at Robben Island. We saw Nelson Mandela's cell, walked through several of the other cells (which had moving stories posted on the walls, written by their former inhabitants), and visited Robert Sobukwe's house. Lots of history and learning. Our guide through the prison was actually a former political prisoner on the island. I didn't catch his name, because it was a hard-to-pronounce African name. He shared some really moving insight with us about what it was like to actually be a prisoner there.

Tuesday, we had class, then some people went to tour the World Cup Stadium. I decided not to go- I think I was too tired to go that day, but I hope to before we leave in a week. Wednesday (yesterday) we went to Franschoek, made wine in a vineyard, and ate some incredible food in the town. (Half Indian chicken, half banana and bacon pizza, an incredible layered eggplant something, and white truffle with coffee gelato.)

Because of the weather, plans for the day have been cancelled in favor of staying in and writing the paper we have due this Sunday evening. I'm sitting at my kitchen table eating a folded-over peanut butter and banana sandwich for breakfast. My roommates are still asleep. All I can think about is that today is the last day before the countdown to home moves into the single digets.

Things I'll miss about Africa:
New friends. Having our incredibly smart teachers around. The interns. Mountains everywhere you look. The ocean outside my apartment. In fact, the scenery everywhere- Kirstenbosch, the Garden Route, Stellenbosch, Franschoek (where we visited the vineyard yesterday), and so on. The people I met in Sir Laury's. The food... all the food. Our cab drivers, Lantz, Bradley, and Corbis, and our goofy transportation coordinator/savior, Ish. Going to the Old Biscuit Mill market every Saturday for breakfast with friends. The South African accent. The kids at the Amy Biehl after school program in Gugulethu. Actually delicious instant coffee at the Lagoon House, where we have class. Rugby, and being applauded when I wear my Stormers jersey. Working out in the apartment with my roommates. Making dinner with my roommates. Pretty much everything about my roommates- who go to Auburn and Wake Forest, both at least 4 hours away from Athens.

Things I'm looking forward to in the States:
Old friends. My family. Going to my favorite band's show in Athens 3 days after I get back. Being in Athens again, in general- though I'm not living there this summer. Not paying for a cab every time I want to go somewhere. Being able to row and run again. Hot weather- I'd take southern humidity over Cape Town wind any day. Painting. Playing music. Living at home, and not in a city. (Mixed feelings about that.) Nutrition facts I can understand. Miles and pounds and dollars. Kevin and Patrice's cooking. (And I can help now that I've learned, while here, I'm not a hopeless cook after all!) Planning another trip back here...

I was just telling Sammy yesterday how I feel like this trip is my own personal Eat Pray Love. Exhibit A: that conversation took place on the way from the BEST pizza joint I've ever been to, going to a gelato shop, with the Bhagavid Gita, an ancient Hindu scripture, in my book bag.

Eat Pray Love wasn't my favorite book I've ever read. I didn't like a lot of it. It was a struggle to read, sometimes. I did like the way the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, phrased a lot of the more enlightening and cultural concepts. I learned a lot about different cultures- Italian, Indian, Balinese, even American- which I really like doing. And I learned a LOT about yogic spirituality.

Eat. Boy, do we eat here. The restaurants I want to visit outnumber anything (everything) else left on Cape Town To-Do List. Since I've been here, I've had food from South Africa, Italy, Greece, Thailand, and the Kurdish region, to name a few. Some of my favorite meals here have been a grilled mushroom kebab at the Old Biscuit Mill (and I usually don't even like mushrooms), eggs benedict with salmon at the OBM, naan-wrapped, yogurt-covered grilled chicken at Mesopotamia (the Kurdish restaurant), bacon and banana flapjacks in Stellenbosch, sushi and steamed dumplings at the Waterfront here, and Indian chicken flatbread pizza yesterday in Franschoek. There's also this chocolate pudding- basically molten chocolate pudding underneath a thin cakey crust, served with a solid chocolate or caramel spoon and a scoop of white chocolate ice cream- at our hotel restaurant/bar that I would be content with having as each of my remaining meals here. We're all making little jokes about "the Cape Town 15"... but it's becoming too real. We're all going to go back to the 100 degree southern summer weather, winter-weather-pale and with a whole lot "more of us to love".

Pray. I'm not a religious person, but I'm really interested in the study of religions- especially Eastern. While I've been here, I finished Eat Pray Love, read a book on Taoism (Tao Te Ching- the 82 verses of Taoism), and started the Bhagavid Gita. I read them just because I'm interested in learning about the religions- not because I'm looking for any sort of religious guidance from them.

Religion here- like, I guess, in every other place on Earth- has its diversity. There are some people, like the Soup Moms in Sir Laury's Pass, to whom their Christian faith is everything. There are many others, like some of the teenage boys we met in Sir Laury's, who don't believe in anything. This could be for any number of reasons, or for no particular reason at all, but a lot of the atheism we've encountered in the township has been reported to be because of the hard life that the people have lived so far. There's moderate religious conflict between Christians and Muslims- and probably among other religions/sects, but that was the only one I had direct experience with. Being here has given me a new perspective on religion in the "real" world. Religion is something I thought a lot about this past year, so I've been very aware and conscious with my experiences with it here. Just some things to think about...

Love. Everyone I've met in the past month. Figuring out more about what I value, how and why I think the way I do, what I want to "do with my life". A growing scope for and appreciation of humanity. It's almost too big and too conceptual of a topic to write about at all. I'll at least leave it for another day. It's almost 1pm here- I've been working on this blog for over two hours as it is.

In other news, for anyone who's interested, I think I found (again/for now/I think for real this time) "what I want to do with my life"! Or, at least, I finally found a name for everything I've ever been interested in: ethnomusicology, the study of music as an aspect of culture.

Best wishes and jealousy to all my friends going to the Bonnaroo music festival this weekend,
M

So my last post was a little angsty. I think everyone in my GL group (nicknamed the Stormers, after the rugby team) was feeling it this week. Service week was heavy. Our friends in the group who did their service week before us warned us that it was emotionally exhausting. It was one of those things you can't really imagine until you're engrossed in the situation yourself- because we had no idea what we were in for. It's still hard to process everything that's happened. I don't think the real gravity of it all will hit me for a while. I'm still in shock-mode.

I think I was a little bit in shock all this week. I didn't cry once, which is a pretty significant deal for me, as I cry pretty easily with really moving things. I have several friends who told me about how they were, on multiple occasions, completely reduced to tears, either while at the township or just in thinking about it. One girl in my host family group broke down because, while we were handing out donated chocolate bread and juice to kids at Ms. Fiela's, she realized that she was directly controlling how much those kids would have to eat that day.

Thursday, I did not want to go to the township. At all. I woke up with a pretty intense headache, and had zero desire to be around chaotic, screaming kids. When we got there, we went to the blacktop behind the primary school, rather than the small, concrete community center room we had been in on Tuesday. For the first few minutes, while we were setting the speakers up and waiting for school to let out, I was debating asking another service leader- maybe from arts and crafts- to switch with me, because I didn't think I had the energy to be dancing and jumping around with the kids. Before I could make up my mind, though, the kids started coming over. One of the other music/dance leaders, Kelsey- one of the friendliest, most energetic, most sincere people I've ever met- started a dancing name game, and soon we were all dancing together... me included. You guys, I did the wop. I wopped. Or whatever. Me! Imagine that. It was all because a little girl came up to me, while I was standing sort of outside the dancing circle, and grabbed my hand. She was quiet, very shy- and when I asked her "Don't you want to dance?", and she shook her head no, I realized how much my not dancing could be impacting her willingness to try it. So I sucked it up, wopped, and by the end of the day, a big group of us- ages 3 to 20- had made up a dance to do together when we go back in a week and a half for a final celebration day with the township. After that, my family group went to see Ms. Fiela at her house. We handed out yogurts to the kids, took a few pictures, and heard some beautiful stories from Ms. Fiela. 

Even after such a nice end to yesterday, today was the only day this week I felt genuinely saddened to leave Sir Laury's. It's not that I didn't care the other days, but the selfish desire to alleviate the shock and emotional weight I felt pressing on me was enough to offset what I was feeling about staying versus leaving. Today, after spending hours spinning kids around and letting them jump on me and having little girls braid my hair, none of that baggage mattered at all. Two spunky but sweet six year old girls really took a liking to me today, for some reason. I had to peel them off of me at the end, promising I'd see them again in a week and a half when we come back. I don't want to imagine how I'm going to feel when, in a week and a half, I can't make that same promise another time.

I don't think it was until today that what we were really doing in Sir Laury's clicked with me. We kept talking about how the intangible effects of what we were doing would be so much more beneficial and lasting than any tangible things we could provide the community with, and I thought "Yeah, yeah, I get it... making connections and all that." Sometimes things like that- big ideas, especially ones that are repeated over and over- have no substantial effect on you whatsoever... until suddenly, they do. They're just words you may think you understand, but really have no grasp on, until- due to some shift in the cosmos, or whatever it is- they actually sink in, and suddenly they seem so real and so significant that you want to kick yourself for ever thinking you knew anything about it before that moment, or for taking for granted what it really meant. Or maybe that's all just me, but anyway...

A happy end to a rough week. This weekend, I'm going to Stellanbosch with a big group. I think we're going to two wineries and one brandy place, and then staying the night in a hostel. Stellanbosch is supposed to be really quaint- and also a college town! Next week is "education week" for the Stormers- we'll be visiting Robben Island, a vineyard, going to the Cape Point (the southernmost point of Africa!), and we have a free day (along with a lot of free afternoons) for adventuring and chilling out.

My roommate just walked in and said "I had wild beast for dinner." (She meant wildebeest.) When in Africa...

-M

PS: A lot of the kids in the community wear Toms Shoes. I had never been convinced that the Toms organization really lived up to their mission statement before then. It was cool to see some of the Global LEADers walking around in their Toms holding the kids' hands who were wearing theirs.

Happy halfway point to all the Global LEADers! 18 days until we depart Cape Town. As much as I love being here, and as much as I do appreciate the once-in-a-lifetime-ness of this particular trip, I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to come home. This week- “service week”- has been very mentally and emotionally draining- playing with kids and writing journals for grades and reading and going to lecture while still trying to pack in fun/chill time and time to maintain some shred of contact with friends and family at home while trying to stay physically fit (yeah right)… it wears on you.

This week, we're spending time in the township in Sir Laury's Pass, a little more than 40 minutes outside the city of Cape Town. The area we're working in is called Sun City- mostly informal housing (meaning self-made structures) mixed in with government houses. 


It's chaotic. I like kids enough, but I just don’t do well with them when there’s over 100 crazy screaming running kids all in the one room at the community center where we’ve been playing with them. I’m not used to being around kids at all, let alone over 100 of them, so I don’t know what to do. I wind up just smiling a lot and holding a lot of hands. I signed up to be a Service Leader for music & dance because I thought it would be a good way I could actually do something for and with the kids, because I love music so much. (I envisioned us playing drums together, but we don’t have the resources for that.) But all it means is that I and two other girls lead endless games of “Little Sally Walker” and act as DJ for the kids, putting on whatever they want to hear from our iPods (but can’t really hear because the speakers don’t rise over the kids’ voices).

In addition to playing with kids, groups of us are paired up with families in the community. We spend time with them in their homes, talking and sometimes preparing or handing out food. My host mom is Ms. Fiela (Fee-lah), an older lady with the heart and energy of an 8 year old. She leads all the kids- especially at the local church- in song and sometimes dance to go along with the music. One of the first things we. Ms. Fiela’s shared some really amazing, very personal stories with us in her home. She speaks so lovingly about her faith- I’m not really a professed Christian, but the way talks about how it turned her life around is very moving for me.

It’s impossible to do anything more than scratch the surface of everything that’s going on here. But here’s an update on my somewhat failing bucket list…

Give tie dye bracelets to kids I work with during service week. 
The only kid I’m consistently working with is Ms. Fiela’s daughter, Samantha. (Side note: she’s technically Ms. Fiela’s great niece, but she was raised like her daughter due to personal circumstances. Samantha calls her mom and everything. Having grown up in anything but a nuclear family myself, I can relate, but I think- for people who don’t know any differently- this type of family is hard to understand. The concepts of family are really cool here. Many situations are born out of very sad circumstances, but the community that arises out of all that is really beautiful.) Samantha is one of the smartest 17 year olds I’ve ever met.  She wants to study business at university. She speaks Afrikaans and English fluently. She hates math (hey-o!) and loves to dance. She’s incredibly easy to talk to. She’s such an awesome role model for the township kids. We can tell how proud Ms. Fiela is of Samantha every time she talks about or to her. It’s very sweet.

Anyway, the bracelet thing isn’t going to happen. It’s a Global LEAD rule that we can’t give the kids anything. It isn’t why we’re there. We’re there to spend time with the families, create cross-cultural bonds, break down social barriers, and so on. It’s actually been really frustrating- trying to feel like we’re actually DOING SOMETHING for the community we’re visiting. Most of us feel like we aren’t. Sure, playing with kids for a few afternoons and talking with Ms. Fiela is great and might make them happy for a few hours, but is it really making a lasting difference? We’ve been discussing and debating it a lot in classes this week. My roommates and I have been talking about it a lot over meals, too. We know “doing something” isn’t always “giving something”- and then there’s different meanings to “giving something”: things, money, time, attention… There are no answers. But so many questions. And it’s so painful to feel like that when we feel so motivated to want to really DO something, to FIX something (especially something tangible). But then you have to ask, what needs fixing? Who says? Is it you, as an outsider, or is it what the community wants? Not everyone wants us in Sun City. It’s obvious to us by the looks we sometimes get from the people at the houses we aren’t visiting. Even some of the kids give us rude hand gestures as we get back on our bus to leave at the end of the days- kids who we had been playing with, who ran up to the bus to greet us a few hours before, who we thought liked us! And then there is so much more to Sir Laury’s pass than just Sun City, where the informal housing is- there are 5 very different (economically) sectors to it. Why aren’t we getting involved in other areas? It’s complicated… and I won’t do anybody any good by taking this rant any further right now.

Visit Stellanbasch, a nearby college town known for some great wine.
A bunch of us are going and staying this Saturday night in a hostel.

Befriend Stella, the sweet, shy dog at the beach house we have our classes in.
The dogs don’t come around anymore. I’m fine with this not happening. This only made the list because (well, first because I love dogs, but-) we made the bucket lists on day one or two and Nikita and I were just trying to think of random things to add to the list, because we didn’t know enough about what we really wanted to do at that point.

Hike Lion’s Head, a peak at Table Mountain, at sunrise
Doing this next Monday or Tuesday! There was a hike this morning, but with service week being so draining, I wasn’t up for it. I ran for a little while in the gym here instead. And I’m doing it again in the morning. There’s an erg (a rowing machine, for all you non-rowing savvy folks) in the gym, too, but the screen doesn’t work, and it slides a few inches forward every time I move, so it’s too much trouble to really get use out of. Bummer…

Surf
I think I’ll be doing this next week- “Education Week”. We’ve been going to class most every day of the whole trip, but next week we’ll be learning more about South African history (by visiting Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for many years, and so on) and local culture (visiting a vineyard, etc.). We have a ton of free time- most afternoons are free, and we even have at least one entire free day- so we’ll be called for our “adventure activities”, like surfing, pretty last minute on those days.

Yoga at sunrise on the beach outside our apartment

My friend Morgan and I are going to do this some time next week when we have a little more time.

Create a secret handshake with a local kid

Hasn’t happened yet, but maybe/hopefully tomorrow, when we go back into the township at Sir Laury’s.

Learn something from a local 

An ongoing process. I’ve learned lots of things from locals- about music from my friend Yongama, language from Thinkwell, stories from Ms. Fiela…

Learn some bits of local languages (Afrikaans, Xhosa)
I did try to learn Xhosa from our bus-truck driver, Thinkwell, one night at the hostel in the forest on the Garden Route. Xhosa is a Zulu-based language (I think, I could be getting things mixed up) that has clicking on letter like q’s and c’s. It's a really difficult language for an American-trained mouth to speak. My friend Michelle- a UGA student who’s my age- was actually born in South Africa and is fluent in Afrikaans. I tried to have her teach me a few words but I’m no good at the pronunciation.

My uncle also sent me a bucket list for me from him, and one of the bullets was that I don’t become a vegetarian- something that I have repeatedly talked with my roommates about wanting to try to start (for the 100th time) while I’m here. The things I do for you…

Most of the things on my Cape Town bucket list just seems so inconsequential, in retrospect. Many feel very selfish. (Maybe a lot of it is because of the book on Taoism I'm reading right now, but everything feels like a struggle between selfishness and selflessness.) Being here has made me hypersensitive about spending money. I’m at a weird emotional place with everything going on right now- all the thoughts and conversations and lectures we have, being privileged American college students… it’s a hard topic to discuss, but it forces you to view your actions and what’s going on around you from a very different perspective. I’m at a point in my life- being a student, and without a job- where money is just becoming “real” to me. The impact it has on EVERYTHING, whether you like it or not, is overwhelming. It’s a heavy, messy topic.

In the States you hear the "classic Africa story"- they don't have anything, they're starving, and so. Lots of "they"s and stereotyping and misinformation. Some of it is very much inaccurate; some of it is based in truth. Issues and needs are so completely varied across the board. In a place where there is so much poverty and hunger and so little government funding where it's needed, it's crazy for me to think that in the houses in the townships, people have electricity and TVs and cars and cell phones. They're not always the nicest or the newest, but they're there- in a soup kitchen for children who may not eat otherwise. Everything here is so squished together, living side by side- microcosms of cultures, races, varying levels of wealth, hunger, safety and health with danger and death. I've commented in previous posts about how mindblowing it is to me that the extremes of the financial world live LITERALLY across the street from each other, like in Sir Laury's Pass. I just can't make sense of it all in my mind.

Back to money becoming more “real” to me, so are things like actually planning out my future, which is another heavy, messy topic...

Last week, on the Garden Route, we talked about & jotted down some things on our life bucket lists. The things on mine were mostly about education, music, and adventure- three things I have a lot of passion for. Specific activities- running a marathon, seeing the Northern Lights, surfing in every ocean, writing music for a film- are mixed in with more conceptual goals like sharing music as much as possible and continuing to learn throughout life.

I’m not really sure where I was going with that thought-train except this: at the beginning of this trip, I was so sure I wanted to go into Public Relations and work with non-profits to promote music as an education source- which sounds great, right?- but now, I’m not sure that’s the best thing for me to do. And I’m fairly desperate for some guidance, if anyone is up to the task. All I know is that I keep going back to music and education, and I feel like there’s a reason for that. Maybe/definitely all this uncertainty about what I want to “do with my life” is being fueled by not knowing how or what to do to “make a difference” in the township this week… again, so many questions, and no answers.

This post is about as piecemeal as my brain feels right now. I apologize to anyone who was just looking for an “I rode a lion today!” post. This one may have been a bit of a bummer.

With love, M

We’re back from a week traveling the Garden Route- so named because it’s so beautiful and diverse, it’s like the Garden of Eden. It was a cool experience, and we saw a lot of beautiful places. I’m exhausted, but if I wait to do this, I’m afraid I’ll forget everything, so…

Week 2- adventure week!

Monday: Traveling all day on the world’s bumpiest, most motion sickness-inducing truck. Yes, truck- it was sort of like a combat vehicle. Saw the Indian Ocean for the first time. (It came over the horizon while I was listening to my favorite song by Explosions in the Sky, my favorite band.) Ate lunch in a town called “Wilderness”.  Finally finished reading Eat Pray Love. I have mixed feelings about it overall- a little too much dragging on of the personal information mixed in with the enlightenment for my tolerance- but I’m glad I read it. Stopped at the Knysna Waterfront and had gelato, then went to the first of two hostels we stayed at over the week. This one was up in the mountains, basically in the forest, and had a breathtaking- literally, every time- view of the stars. We sat around the campfire talking pretty late into the night. Our truck driver, whose name translates as Thinkwell, was so awesome the whole week- that night, he told us stories about some crazy experiences he’s had with rogue elephants while guiding people on safaris.

Tuesday: Safari at the Tsitsikamma Game Reserve in the morning (awesome) and bungy jumping off the highest commercial bungy jumping point in the world in the afternoon. My new friend Sarah Elizabeth and I didn’t jump, because we’re saving our money for other adventure activities, but we walked out to the jump point on the bridge with everyone to cheer them on. The walk across- over a flexible wire metal cage attached to the underside of the concrete bridge- was terrifying. I think it took that walk to make me realize just how scared of heights I am. (And I’m going abseiling off table mountain- the highest commercial point in the world, if I’m not mistaken- in a few weeks…) I got a paint chip splinter from holding on to the railing so tightly as we were walking across. We played soccer with young kids at the school down the road from our hostel in the afternoon. All the kids were SO sweet and so much fun to hang around with. They played with my hair for a long time- as if it wasn’t crazy enough on its own.

Wednesday: Morning hike at a national park- my favorite place we’ve been (nature-wise). Went to the wild cat sanctuary (no separation within the enclosures except for with the leopard. Got a picture about a foot away from a cheetah that was hanging out in the grass- I was ready to use Sammy as a human shield), elephant sanctuary (I rode one!, but I’m not sure how I felt about the whole experience there), and had lunch in a monkey sanctuary. Monkeys are mean. Drove to our new hostel in Sedgefield. It was right on a sandy beach and they played a lot of Jack Johnson and Bob Marley while we sat around the camp fire. We spent some time that evening at the Masithandane (“Let us love one another”) Community Center making & painting “huggables”- crazy looking little pillow creatures.

Thursday: Went to an Ostrich Farm in the morning. Some people rode them briefly (ridiculous looking), got "neck massages" (holding the food bucket in front of your face while the ostriches pecked around you), and so on. Later on, we went to the Cango Caves. I thought we were going caving- REAL caving, in the dark and mud and everything- but it wound up being a walking, lighted tour. I didn't get to use my new headlamp, which was a bummer (I'm unreasonably excited about it). The caves were incredible, though, and unfathomably old. I wouldn't shut up about ancient cave art to Sammy for the first two or three chambers. (Such a geek.) That night we made s’mores around the camp fire with some of the guys who worked there, who were all SO cool and easy going. Some people were playing guitar & a djembe while a few of us played a really good game of “Would you rather…?”. A few other people went for a walk/some stargazing on the beach- without my knowing, otherwise I would have been there in a second. I didn’t get to walk on that beach at all, which I regret.

Friday: Got up at 5am, drove 5 hours to the shark diving harbor. The sharks were spectacular and terrifying. The boat was nauseating and smelly. I’m glad I did it because I like sharks, but I do not plan to go out to the open ocean again any time soon. And I’m not sure how I feel about the sharks/tourism business… or any animals/tourism business in general. Drove another few hours back home (did I just call my apartment in Africa home?) and hung out with my roommates, two of whom I hadn’t seen in a week. Nicole made us pasta for dinner- such a sweetheart.

Tomorrow I’m going to sleep in then go to the Old Biscuit Mill market for breakfast with my roommate Nicole, and then probably come back and rest for most of the day. I’ve been really sick for the past few days, which has been a bummer. I think it’s making me homesick, too. Sitting on the bus feeling sorry for myself just made me want to be home in Georgia in my own bed and be able to eat American food.

I do still love it here, though. 2 weeks down, 3 to go. Next week is my service week in St. Lowry’s Pass. Not sure what to expect, but I’m looking forward to it. 

Goodnight, and good luck to the UGA rowers at ACRA tomorrow.

-M

Hey friends! So this week, my group is traveling inland on the Garden Route for adventure week. We’ll be diving with sharks, riding elephants, caving, bungee jumping (not me- no shame, no regrets), and so on. I signed up for surfing, sandboarding, and abseling (1000m up, off Table Mountain) today, but we won’t be doing those until after this week.

This weekend was great- really laid back. We went to the Stormers (South Africa) v. Warratahs (Australia) rugby game yesterday. Rugby is a BRUTAL sport. It was awesome. I’ve never been one for following sports, but I think I may have to start keeping up with the Stormers. I had no idea what was happening during the game, but it was a ton of fun to watch. Today, a few friends and I went to Kirstenbosch, the botanical gardens. It was unbelievably beautiful- like Jurassic Park meets the Safari section of the zoo… but real life. I really love painting flowers- “The smaller the subject, the louder its voice”, the motto of Sara Papp- and there were so many interesting plants and flowers and cacti, I couldn’t stop taking pictures for painting inspiration. We plan on going back there to spend the day hiking and relaxing in the trees.

On the Garden Route, I won't have internet access at all, so this will be my last post for at least a week. No phone, no computer. Being so unplugged will be a nice change. There will also be little to no music (not even a radio on the bus), which is a bummer for me. 

Speaking of which- on to "Part 2" of my thoughts on music from the other day. I’m enlisting the help of a lot of great voices through quotes for this post, because I think they say what I’d like to better than I maybe could right now. So bear with me on the overwhelming number of quotes!

Consider this song, if you would. Listen here.

"Helplessness Blues"
by Fleet Foxes

I was raised up believing
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station
Oh just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night
That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful
And say "Sure take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls
And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing
It's that every thing that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable
Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy
And I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues?
Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm raw
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables
And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight
My light in the dawn
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be
Like the man on the screen 

I’m fascinated by learning why people think what they do, especially in terms of music- their interpretations and what it means to them. I like to look up song lyrics on this website called SongMeanings.net to get a different perspective on songs I’m interested in. So, when I heard this song, I looked the lyrics up on that site and found a response I really liked:

“I think it seems likely that he grew up thinking he was unique because our society is very individualistic and also idealistic. But the rest of the world, and even many subcultures within America are family oriented still. I think Robin (the lead singer and song writer) has found a sense of wanting to belong to a cause which makes the world a better place. He no longer believes the individualistic farce that we can make the world a better place individualistically. He mentions not needing to be kind or to bow down and be grateful, which seem to indicate just lying down and letting evil happen. In other words, he wants to be proactive and prevent evil or at least work to oppose it. The end seems to shift into a separate, but related message. He wants something simple in life that he can work at. In an orchard, life is simple--you may work until you're sore, but you don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about difficult issues. You simply devote your time to what you do. And the "you" here could be a woman or a friend or whoever, but that person is working a simple, humble job as well. I'd say the whole point of the song is trying to bring simplicity back to life and ridding one's self of independent ideology and existential lines of work. Simply doing one's part in society and standing up for what one knows is right is enough for a deeply fulfilling life.”

I don't want to dissect every part of the song or of that interpretation, but I do think that interpretation really speaks to a lot of American societal issues. That being said, I interpreted this song the same messages and themes of the above interpretation, but with an eye towards our place in the global community. The aspect of the family vs. the individual that the interpretation above speaks of is dead on to what I thought- only that the “family” was not just blood-related, but our family as residents of the planet together- the global community. Which segues nicely into my next topic…

Ubuntu: an African philosophical concept that roughly translates as "I am what I am because of who we all are." A few quotes to help explain a little further-

“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.” –Desmond Tutu, 2008

“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” –Desmond Tutu, 1999

I was first introduced to the idea of Ubuntu the other day when guest speaker Kevin Chaplin came to speak to us at the Lagoon House, where we have class every day. Kevin Chaplin is now the head of the Amy Biehl Foundation, but was originally a banker. He always loved making a difference in the lives of his customers and employees, but wanted to seek a more meaningful course to his life. Before getting really involved with the Amy Biehl Foundation, he founded the South African Ubuntu Foundation. He wanted to bring back the Ubuntu way of life by fostering peace and unity in and amongst communities. The idea really moved me, and it was on my mind all week. That probably lead to my hearing the Fleet Foxes song the way I did the other day, and it really got my mind going with ideas about the global family/community, and so on.

I don't want to bore you guys with my rambling, so here is another quote to speed up what I would say-

“A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?” –Nelson Mandela

I know I still haven't talked about the diversity panel from last week like I said I would by Saturday, but Abu told us something I thought was really interesting and sad, and very along the lines of Ubuntu. He said that before the apartheid, District 6 (which I talked about in an earlier post- it was taken over and demolished by the white government in the middle of the apartheid era) was a safe place. Women never had to worry about walking around alone at night. Men on the street would walk women back to their houses just to make sure they got there safely. People didn't need to lock their doors. There were gangs, but their problems were with each other; they would literally stop their fighting if civilians came on the street, wait for them to pass, and then focus back on each other. When a kid would wander away from their parent, or someone from outside the district would come around, not having a place to stay, the community would take care of them. Everyone worked together and helped each other because of the Ubuntu philosophy. It was how they lived their lives- not perfectly, but in peace with one another. And I do mean WITH one another- not just "around" one another. It was a true community, a mutual relationship of trust and love. It wasn't until the apartheid and the forced removal that safety became an issue. Danger arose out of the gradually emptying houses. Violence grew out of the political climate. The drive to survive became fuel for disunity.

Bear with me for a minute on the creatively relevant rant/cliche tangent I'm about to embark upon: I think, in a sense, a similar type of loss of community spirit has occurred in Western life (specifically, American life) as the result of, rather than racial/political warring, industrialization. Industrialization, economic changes, informal societal classes based on wealth, increasing focus on material objects as status symbols, decreasing social/global awareness, decreasing emphasis on family... it's all, somewhat corruptly, connected. I'm no minimalist, but I do appreciate simplicity because it clears away all the clutter created by the things that we tend to hide ourselves behind. (People hiding behind cell phones rather than forming relationships with the people present with them... the older I get, the more it gets on my otherwise chilled out nerves.) The "social clutter" has gotten between us, forcing us into isolation without us even realizing it because we think we're so connected through text messages and twitter.

Going back to "Helplessness Blues", I think one distinct message of the song is about individualism vs. a sense of community. People nowadays have become so concerned with the individual. Thoughts central to the self-"What's in it for me?"- have become drivers of many of our every day actions. We even talked in class recently about how, in my generation, individualism- making independent choices and looking out for yourself- has become a highly regarded societal value. I'm all about individual initiative, developing yourself into the person you'd like to become, learning to see the world through your own eyes, all that- but I think, like the Ubuntu philosophy suggests, a human experience in isolation just isn't a human experience at all. Sharing experience with others is how we grow. And maybe it's because I'm a big fan of nature, but I just don't see the purpose in a stagnant life- one without growth into the world around you. ("The unexamined life is not worth living," anyone?) And I'm not saying that actively seeking ways to change the world on a global scale is the only way to achieve growth. Like the song says, focusing your efforts on what you feel in your heart is right for you will have a positive effect on the world and our shared community within it. (This could be your job, your faith, your education, your passions, your hobbies, etc.)

“The spirit of Ubuntu, that profound African sense that we are human only through the humanity of other human beings – is not a parochial phenomenon, but has added globally to our common search for a better world.” –Nelson Mandela

On a slightly different note, I took the line in the song that goes "What good is it to sing helplessness blues? Why should I wait for anyone else?" to mean, in this context... don't just sit around and wait for someone else to begin the change you feel is right- whether it's something you wish to change in your own life, or in seeing injustice around you. Don't "bow down to the men in dimly lit halls that create [your] future for [you]". And don't go it alone. Go out and seek others- foster a community, create an "Ubuntu environment"- to help you grow, and to work towards making the world a better place in whatever way you can.

This is probably just a bunch of cliche piecemeal nonsense to you guys, so high five to you if you've stuck it out through the whole post. I know my analysis of the song isn't flawless or profound, by any means. With how tired I am, I know I've left some holes in presenting my thoughts (which are really for myself more than for any of you- I won't be offended if you tell me you didn't make it past the part about rugby in this post). As always, I'd love any kind feedback, if you're interested in this sort of thing.

One more bit of "food for thought":

"Most people think of people as the other man, but I think of them as the brother man."
-My friend Connor, in a conversation one night during our first semester at school.

Adventure is out there!
-M

PS: Just in case I get eaten by a shark- Kevin, Toby does NOT get my room at home. Paws off my stuff.

Music is an integral part of my life. More than that, I think music is an integral part of each of us. Speaking as a potential art history minor, I believe “art”- not just something like painting, but all forms, like music, dance, film, visual (painting, sculpting, etc.), writing, speaking, and so on- is the ultimate expression of human culture. In particular, music is the ultimate expression of emotion. Music resonates somewhere in your chest where you feel things like love and compassion. I think everyone feels the power music can have in your life at some point, but I also think people often forget or don’t fully appreciate the gravity of what they’re experiencing when music touches them. Having taken my freshman year of college off from playing music (aside from the occasional evening sneaking into the school of music to play marimba or piano after everyone had left), even I was beginning to forget how much music really affects me. Being here in Africa and seeing so many incredible musicians- ages 5 to 50- reminded me of that.

As I mentioned in my last post, I met my new musician friend Yongama at the top of Table Mountain on Wednesday. Listening to the way he spoke of music- as a gift from God, given in place of the education he can’t afford- was incredibly inspiring to me. He also told me, when I told him I sometimes have a hard time improvising, that “You just have to let the music flow from you. Just let go, and let it come from inside you.”

Yesterday, I had a similarly inspiring moment with the kids in the Amy Biehl Foundation after school program at the Siyazingisa Primary School. The school in section 2 of the Gugulethu Township. The township is divided into four sections- at least two of which we cannot safely visit. Section 3 has a serious gang problem, resulting in daily killings. I learned today that the one of the other of the 3 Global LEAD subgroups’ bus guide through the township they toured told them about Section 4: “White people don’t go in there, because if they do, they don’t come out alive.” According to my group’s guide, Izzy, section 2 no longer has a problem with gangsters because the community rose up against it and cleaned it out. Even so, the threat of safety issues- drugs, violence, rape- is still very real and present in section 2. The Amy Biehl Foundation (please, check out the website- I don’t think I’ll ever have time to fully explain everything I’d like to about the organization, and why it was formed) started after school programs, running daily from around 2:30-5 at the kids’ schools, to keep the kids off the streets and away from the danger they would be susceptible to in the otherwise unsupervised hours before their parents get home from work. The ASPs provide classes and activities for the kids, ranging from learning about the environment to the “Girl Guide Class” (similar to Girl Scouts) to field hockey and “football” to music and dance. (Music! Aha! There is a relevant point to all this!) Visiting the different classes, we were greeted by such warmth and happiness from the kids- though often, at first, it was shy and tentative. The last two classes I visited were involved with music- one a music class with marimbas and drums, the other the Girl Guide class where they sang two songs for us.

Being a percussionist myself, I sat in the very front and center of the music room- a small brick building with tiny plastic chairs for the kids, a green chalkboard, three small marimbas (above two octaves in length each- one for bass, treble, and so on), a few hand drums, some shakers, a tambourine, and a cowbell. They began to play for us. About midway through the first of 5 or 6 songs, I was in tears. I somehow managed not to make a spectacle of myself, but I could barely keep the sobs in. It wasn’t because the kids were sad, or were playing particularly emotional music- to the contrary, they were all SO full of happiness and joy in playing that they were jumping and moving around as they felt the music together. It was thinking about the love I shared with them for music that moved me to tears- how we share something so deeply in common, and yet we come from such different lives, and how I wanted so desperately for them to have the education and safety and opportunity- not wealth or material things, but the fundamentals for survival- that I was privileged to be born into. I felt a drive to help these kids that was stronger than anything I’ve felt before in my life. By the end of their performance, I was laughing and smiling- because they were just so happy and into their music, I couldn’t help but be happy with them.

I had a similar experience in the Girl Guide class. The classroom was a small, square room with desks that had been pushed aside to create a dance floor and room for my small group of about 15 girls to pile in to. The group of about 15-20 young girls sang a song that mostly repeated the words “Oh Lord, I’m sorry”, adding in lines like “I was a cheater, I was a sinner” and so on. One girl played a djembe the whole time. She was incredible- a far better player than I am. (I gave her a high five at the end for being so awesome.) During this song, I, again, cried. Music often moves me to tears, but as with the percussionists in the music room, seeing the talent and love for music in these tiny girls had moved me more than just the music itself. It was what the music represented. They sang another, happier song, with a lot of dance and impressive djembe playing. At the end of this song, they suddenly broke from their dance choreography and grabbed a few of us to dance with them. To my complete surprise, as I was standing a little further back in the group, one of the tiniest girls there- who was also one of the best dancers!- ran up to me, grabbed my hands, and pulled me into the center with her. We all danced for a minute or two, and when the djembe player rounded off the song, the little girl- again, to my surprise- threw her arms around my waist and hugged me. We stood like that for another minute or two, then someone took our picture. We posed for another- then all of her friends ran over to get in the picture, too, crowding around the two of us! All the other girls from my group joined in, as well, and we got a big group picture. When the Global LEAD intern that was taking the picture said “Say cheese!”, one of the girls said, “Cheese? Like you eat?” and we all laughed.

Not all of the kids spoke to us, whether it was because they weren’t comfortable with English, or just weren’t comfortable with us, but everyone was smiling and laughing and having fun. It was an indescribably special experience, sharing the music and happiness with the kids.

I took several videos on my camera while we were there. I wish I could share them, but uploading them to the internet would use up a ton of the bandwidth for our apartment (which would slow everyone else down as well as use up my limited amount of internet bandwidth- and I’d have to pay for more). So that’ll be a nice thing to share on my return, which is less than a month away…

“Though we may come from different places and speak in different tongues, our hearts beat as one.” –Albus Dumbledore in The Goblet of Fire, the 4^th Harry Potter movie

Part two of this (more thoughts on music) coming soon.
Missing the Athens music scene more than usual today.
-M