WILD ANIMALS FROM THE SAFARI

Saturday, May 18

Alright, the day was mostly uneventful, as most of us (but not me! for once) spent the day napping, but the night was a ton of fun.  Mostly it consisted of us going to this music festival at the local university (University of Limpopo at Turfloop) called the Bash.  If you say it in a funny accent, don’t worry, because I do too.  It was a ton of fun, especially since we got to hang out and meet with a lot of local, young people.  Despite my terrible dancing skills, I still managed to learn some dances from everyone there.  Don’t ask me to demonstrate though, because... well, I won’t.  :)  

I actually have zero pictures of the night though, since I wasn’t the one with the camera, but I’ll see if I ever can steal some from other people.

Sunday, May 19

Okay, this is clearly the reason why any of you are reading this.  AFRICAN ANIMALS!  Yes, I went on a safari and IT WAS AWESOME.  Move over Disney World, this is just your basic, local safari and it was SO much better.  (On a side note, I am even more excited to go to Kruger National Park now!)  

So not only were the animals in their natural habitats in extremely close proximity, there were LIONS.  Like up close and personal lions. 

And best of all, I GOT TO HOLD A BABY LION CUB.  (Yes, bold letters and capital letters are a requirement for that statement!  Also, ETHAN PACK YOUR BAGS WE’RE GOING TO SOUTH AFRICA TOGETHER AGAIN ONE DAY.)

I have like a hundred more pictures, but I guess no one but me is really interested in looking at all of those.  So hope you like these!  And yes, be jealous! :)

Sorry, I just wanted to put up one more baby lion picture.  :)

ARRIVAL IN LIMPOPO

Our bus to Limpopo was like five hours late, but that’s okay because that’s “Africa time.”  Which was cool, whatever.  So we just hung out with a dead rat we found on the street, which is also cool.  Oh, we met the guy who legalized heroin in Zimbabwe, Dr. Know All (it is NOT Know It All) of his own Luminati party.  (By the way, I’m typing this up beforehand so I can copy and paste and be more specific since I’m not afraid of the internet just being like “Um... no.”)

Anyway, once I got to the place we’re staying in Limpopo I pretty much realized I’m staying in an African extended-stay hotel.  And while I’m grateful that it’s really nice and whatnot, part of me is also like... I didn’t really want to come here just to be an American tourist.  I was kind of hoping for a little independence.  Last summer, the kids on the trip had their own house (which was really nice because we saw it today) where they got to cook and whatnot.  I was kind of looking forward to that, especially since it’s so much cheaper to cook.  Here, we have to pay for them to cook for us every day which is a lot of extra expense.  At least the food is good.  But the people here are really nice and we have a bonfire and food, so... yeah.  It’s nice.  Lol.

So on Thursday (May 16) we went to the Health Promotion Center and were given a breakfast consisting of old, limp (and cold) fishsticks, chicken nuggets, pastry stuff, etc.  So I just like held it in and ate it for the calories.  Pretty terrible.  Of course after this super nutritious and filling breakfast, it was appropriate to not eat again for like seven hours.  I was totally full until then.  When we finally did eat lunch, it was at like the King of Prussia mall with touch screen directories.  Plus the restaurant we ate at was decorated in the Native American style that served American food like burgers.  I’m not really sure when I left Africa and entered the United States but I’m kind of hoping to see the places South Africans like to go to rather than where they think I like to go.

Today, which is Friday, I think I’m finally getting internet access by going to the internet cafe.  Yay!  We toured around the Turfloop campus of the University of Limpopo which was cool but so tiring.  XP  I want to pass out now.  But that’s okay!  We got invited to this thing called the Bash, which is a music festival/huge party on the campus for their end of semester.  So that should be fun.  We also made some new friends!  So many of them wanted to take a picture with me, so I have a few with them as well.  

Unfortunately, I don’t have the cable to upload pictures now, but hopefully I’ll be able to soon! 

Apartheid/Nelson Mendela/Hector Pieterson Museums

I went to the Apartheid Museum, Nelson Mendela's house, and the Hector Pieterson Museuems today.  It was crazy to see what the country was like just a few decades ago.  It's both inspiring and sad to hear the history of South Africa, but I'm glad that we're able to learn about it.  Learning history hopefully means the same mistakes won't be made again.

We also went to Wandi's Restaurant today, which was delicious.  The best part was the singing trio who sang us traditional South African songs.  The one lady was an especially amazing singer.  I have a video, but it's kind of hard to upload it here.  Maybe later.  :)

From the Apartheid Museum:

From Nelson Mendela's House:

From Hector Pieterson Memorial:

First Day in Kliptown

I had a great first day in Kliptown after a very long flight over!  By far my favorite part was being able to interact with the children in the slums of Kliptown.  They were very friendly, coming over to hold our hands and give us hugs.  The Kliptown Youth Center was also a really cool program and was very inspiring.  Internet access here is iffy, but I know they were a CNN Heroes nominee, so it's definitely worth checking them out.

The Soweto Hotel where we are staying in Johannesburg:

From the Kliptown slums: