I Think It's Been Awhile.....

So I was chatting with the 'rents last night when I was informed that people have been asking about me here in Africa due to my lack of blogging. I apologize to any person who has been diligently checking this blog only to find that I have not posted in a good 2 weeks. I'm sorry if any one of you has suffered from any sort of anxiety, stress, or loss of appetite as a result of lack of communication on my part. Rest assured, I still have NOT gotten mugged, stolen, kidnapped, or hurt in the past two weeks. My lack of blogging is strictly due to the amount of work and fun which have been occurring here in this lovely city. My deepest apologies.....

Now to inform you on the past two weeks:

1. On October 10th, I participated in a "march" (I will explain the quotes in a minute, just be patient) for an organization called Equal Education. It is an activist organization which is dedicated to improving the area schools in Khayelitsha. This particular "march" which received ample tv coverage, was to demand that the Board of Education fix the windows in Luhlaza Highschool in Khayelitsha. I went there about 2 weeks prior to the march and counted over 500 broken windows to the outside. They have promised to fix these windows by 2010 (a lot of things have been promised by 2010 because of the World Cup), but that means that the students must sit through 2 more winters with broken windows. The teachers said that it is hard to teach because of the rain and wind and cold and the students find it extremely hard to learn in those conditions. Anyways, 200 kids from school all over Khayelitsha showed up and sang songs they had written, performed a dance that they had choreographed themselves, and read poetry about their experiences at school. We had a bit of trouble with the police allowing us to march so it actually ended up being a peaceful gathering rather than a march. But, the president of the Board of Education was there and so were some other Cape Town hotshots so it ended up having a great turn out. The students' work was incredibly inspiring and hopefully it struck a chord with the Board.

2. Final Dinner- On Friday, my service-learning program had its final dinner with everyone. It's kind of strange that it is so early because we all are still doing service and have a big presentation at the end of the semester, but it was on the calendar and no one was about to argue for a free meal! Anyways, we drove out to Stellenbosch (the wine country) to a place called Moyo's which is an incredible African restaraunt. The entire restaraunt in outside underneath huge tents with big fireplaces and trees all around. It was kind of like a big bedouin campsite. Now, remember how I said there were trees all around??? Well, it ended up that our table was actually in the tree!!! Yeah, we had dinner in a tree....no big deal :) The food was buffet style and you had every kind of meat to choose from---I had ox tail, ostrich, springbok, calamari, buttered line fish......It was incredible! The food was soooo good and soooo rich! And yes, they had 3 tables for dessert! It was pretty much fantastic! During the dinner, they had traditional tribal dancers and musicians walking around this place for entertainment. They also had people painting tribal designs on faces as well. This place really had it's whole experience figured out because as soon as the sun set, it got pretty cold there so on the back of every chair, there was a huge blanket to wrap up in. How cool is that?? Since we were out in the wine country, the sky was crystal clear and if you looked up you could see a million stars. It was a fantastic way to end the week and we all really enjoyed each other's company.

3. Bruce Turns 50!- Ubs (short for Uncle Bruce) had his 50th birthday party on Saturday which was a huge success. About 60 friends came through the newly renovated house which had an incredible awning over the back patio. It was a no talent contest party so people brought instruments and had a blast playing them, whether they were good or not..... There is a crazy (more traditional) African way to wish someone happy birthday and all the people in my Bible Study wanted to wish Ubs a happy birthday in this way. Somehow, I got roped into this tribal dance/song and had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it was a lot of fun. Several of us stayed around after everyone had left and we sat drinking wine by the pool and reminicing about the day......

So, that's what I've been up to recently. Besides all of that great stuff, I've been going to plays in Afrikaans (not a good idea), leaving the house at 3am to go watch presidential debates at the 24hr diner, and attempting to finish my research for the entire semester. My last day of actual classes was a week ago today so I'm pretty much done with school now. I have 2 exams and this paper and then I'm finished. Yay! Well, I'm not too excited about being finished....I really don't want to go home (sorry mom and dad, you can come here for christmas!!! :) ). I'll post some pictures later today from the past few weeks. Hope all is well with you guys back in the states (or wherever you are reading this from). I haven't forgotten about you! Much love!