Safari, Church at JL Zwane, and Camp's Bay Beach

On Saturday, we went to Inverdoorn Game Reserve Park where we went on a Safari. We had to get up real early for about a two hour bus ride to the park. It was well worth it. We arrived at the park and it was freezing. The sun had not yet burned off the fog and therefore was not able to warm the air. I was sure that the African sun would come through and burn off the fog. Sure enough, it did.

So we set off in our open safari truck. We saw cheetahs and lions first. Both very amazing animals. Later we saw springbok, giraffe, ostrich, zebra, rhinoceros, kudos, etc. I think I liked the cheetahs the best. On our way back in, we saw two young giraffe bulls sparring. It was kind of like a friendly fight. What they do is they stand hip to hip and push on each other. About every thrity seconds they swing their heads down and try to hit each other either in the head or the neck. It was very interesting to see as I have never seen anyting like it. We then had a nice lunch by a fire and we were back on our way to Cape Town.

Sunday morning, we went to the church service at JL Zwane Community Center and Church. Before the service started, we met our host families. TJ and I will be living with Thembie and Bomvu, two sisters who live in Gugulethu. Since Thembie, our host mom is a teacher, it so happened that she will be traveling both Tuesday and Thursday night, so Bomvu will be staying with us. They are both very nice and I am excited to get to know them better.

The church service was very interesting. Reverend Xapile alternated between English and Xhosa. It was amazing to hear everybody get so involved in the singing. I did not try to sing in Xhosa because I could barely read the words let alone sing them. Either way, I could feel the passion coming from the congregation. It was very different and similar to my experiences at chuch in the states.

After church, we had the rest of the day to ourselves. A lot of people went shopping and to see a movie, but I wanted to make the most of the day and go to the beach. Elisa and I were the only ones that wanted to go to the beach. It was by far the nicest day it has been since we got here. There were barely any clouds and the African sun was beaming down magnificently. Seriously, the odds were slim that on the day we had to ourselves it was nice enough to go to the beach. so we took advantage of it.

Since I got here, I had been wanting to go to the beach to be able to swim off the coast and lay under the African sun. Camp's Bay beach is very nice; the sand is very soothing and the mountains gleam over the whole bay. Since we have constantly going the whole time, it was nice to be able to just relax on the beach. The sunset was right in front of us over the water. It was probably the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Sunday was a great day. I was very glad I got a chance to spend time at the beach and just relax.

Today (Monday) we had lectures from Reverend Xapile and Kenneth Lukuko. Kenneth works for the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. He had a lot to say about conflict mediation in South Africa and the recent Xenophobic attacks. Both very interesting lectures but something that Rev. Xapile said really caight me by surprise. He was talking about the current status that black people must live under and said something to the effect of, "Black people have no place in this world, no matter the geographic location. Black people must always first prove themselves." I was really caught off guard by this and am still not sure how to feel about it. At first, I felt offended in the sense that I kind of interpreted his statement as saying the most people don't hold a place in their hearts for black people until they have "proven" themselves. I am still processing this lecture and hope to reflect on it later.

This afternoon, we went on a township tour and saw much of Gugs. I am still processing that as well. However, first thought of the conditions in which people live there: all I felt was that people should not have to live like this. But again, I need to take this in and gain more information about the whole situation. We saw a soccer game going on while on the tour. This made me very happy; to see people playing sport is a confirmation to me that people really do need sport and that it is a worlwide aspect of culture that allows to get away from the daily grind. In all seriousness, seeing the organized soccer game made me really happy. Later in the afternoon we went to the Rainbow after school program to help tutor some of the children. I sat with Lucky and Yongama and helped them wit their Mathematics homework. They were very nice kids and I enjoyed helping them.

So this is the last post until Friday as we will be in Gugulethu and most likey without access to the internet. I am excited for this week, as it will open our eyes to many new things.

Thanks for reading. Much love. Peace.

JB