Full Week

Wow! This week has been absolutely crazy! I've had orientation meetings every single day of the week and finished yesterday with registering for classes which was an adventure in and of itself. The way they do things here in Africa is a bit different than the "click and drag your classes" method we have at Mizzou. We started off on upper campus in a long que to get a form, then we had to stand in another que to hand in the form once we'd filled it out (the form was our class list). Then we had to walk to middle campus to get our computer passwords and back up to upper campus to register the password. Then to the student center to register for the gym and clubs I joined. Keep in mind, most of this is standing in long lines. The last line was for our student ID which took at good 45 minutes. Whew! Lots and lots of lines!

But, good news! I'm now registered for Social Research Methods (in Cape Town context) and Xhosa (yes, I am taking the clicky language). I also have another seminar that will happen once a week called Understanding Cape Town. I also registered for 3 clubs--Mountain and Ski Club, East African Society, and Wine Culture. I know I won't have time to be super involved in all of them, but at least I can go to a couple of the meetings and maybe a few events--especially with the Mountain and Ski Club.

We also visited a couple of the townships that I can potentially work in, and now I just have to choose which one. It was incredible to see the conditions that these people live in. There is one township called Khayalitsha which is home to over 1 million people and they all literally live in tin and cardboard houses. We stopped on this one bridge and literally, for as far as you could see, there were these tiny little shacks crammed into the tiny lot of land the governement gave them. We are going on another tour of the township tour tomorrow so I will write more about it then, but for now I am off to cook some dinner!