Robben Island/Old Biscuit Mill/Goldfish/Sir Lowry's Pass

So we've had a busy weekend and I'm just now getting around to catching up on some of the highlights of the past few days. Friday was a day that I had been looking forward to since I've been here. It was our day to visit Robben Island. This is the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years along with many other political activists that were among the movement against apartheid and oppression in South Africa. We were guided around by a former prisoner, whose name is Thulian, that served unjust time along with Mandela. His stories were very powerful and moving. The conditions for black prisoners on the island were  awful. We were able to witness their living quarters as they were stuffed into rooms too small like sardines in a can. He then took us to the actual cell that Nelson Mandela served his time in. It was tiny. White walls. Isolation. Everything that should eliminate any sense of hope. Instead, he proved to be a inspirational leader from inside these cell walls and to be released after negotiations in 1991 and go on to become a Nobel Prize winner in 1993 and the President of South Africa in 1994 implementing a path for a new future to a country that had been oppressed for so many years.

 Nelson Mandela's cell

Sunset Friday night 

Saturday morning we woke up and went back to the Old Biscuit Mill. This is the fresh open food market with live music and exceptional food. I was brave an tried an ostrich burger this time around. It was actually delicious. I was able to take some pictures this time to give an idea of the unique environment it is so hopefully my internet will allow me to post some here.

Some of the Global Lead staff told us about a local South African music group called "Goldfish" when we got here two weeks ago and told us there would be an opportunity to go to a concert while we were here. We started listening to them after they suggested it and really liked them a lot enough to all buy the concert tickets for Saturday night. My roommates and I decided it would be funny if we tried to dress South African for the occasion. This type of South African look I speak of is essentially the same as the young hip european look with v necks/crazy graphic shirts and gelled up hair looking all sorts of weird. Not guido exactly. But similar. That turned out interesting to say the least. Hopefully I can get a picture of that up here as well. The concert itself was awesome, we all got rowdy and had a great time. It was a good majority of the students that went too which made it even more fun having everyone there.

Sunday was a relax day. Also a day for everyone to write our first paper that was due this morning. Our room didn't exactly use our time wisely. Instead we just pushed the paper off watching the random movies that come on the channels here such as Pocahontas, Dukes of Hazard, Happy Gilmore. We would finish our papers after dinner/this morning. Study abroad isn't supposed to be about studying...duh...just kidding mom.

Today was the start of our service week. The premise of this is week is going into the chosen township of Sir Lowry's Pass and do more than just do something material for them like build or paint houses. BUt instead just instill a sense of love and hope in the kids and adults. This will be the third year that Global Lead has been in this particular township. The connection is through the "Soup Moms". They have about 8 moms that will provide soup for the children of the small, extreme poverty stricken town every other day. Our group of 50 that is then split up into about 5 or 6 of us students per mom and family. This is our "family" for the week. As we arrived today the weather was pouring down rain but still when our bus showed up, the kids just came from every direction and were following the bus with the biggest smiles from ear to ear on their face. We were told this is most of the kids favorite time of year the past two years. A simple two week visit from a bunch of kids that genuinely show them love and compassion. From the moment we got off the bus kids would run up to us and grab our hand and guide us along as we walked to the center building where we first gathered. The head soup mom "Mrs. Cheryll" guided us and the kids in some fun songs and dance to welcome us. After a general welcome and introduction, we were allowed to just have some play time with the kids before we ate dinner with our respective families. The kids were climbing up my back non stop. I would be spinning one kid around and a few more would line up in front of me wanting the same attention. I loved every minute of it. This is the type of thing I have enjoyed on mission trips that I've experienced in the past. But after this play time with the kids, each group went and introduced themselves to their mom for the week and got to know our families. I've seen this type of poverty before from the outside looking in during transactional exchanges of things like shoes and school supplies in Peru and Nicaragua. But I've never experienced the actual living experience the way we were able to tonight. We were invited into their homes to have dinner. (This home consisted of a 10x10 room with one stove and water dripping through the tin roof as it was pouring rain outside, and one smaller backroom where everyone slept) We walked in and our mom "Mrs. Emily" said "Well, there's the pots and pans". (we were told the moms would be cooking for us) We were happy to make the spaghetti that Lead provided for the families. As we were cooking the food, I was able to get to know the family a little more. Mrs. Emily is single with no kids but her sister and brother lives with her as well in this tiny house along with her sister's husband and kids. I was going to be bummed if we didn't have kids in our family so I was happy to meet the rest of the family. They still had a TV and dvd player in this tiny little shack. They put in a dvd of some African Gospel and dance because apparently each of the adults there are all in a choir together that sings similar music. I asked them to give me a little taste of their skills, but they were too shy on the first day. I hope to get it out of them at some point this week. They loved the spaghetti and we made enough to last them for a couple days which I think they appreciated as well. Today was more of just an introduction to the families because we left shortly after dinner. We aren't allowed to stay overnight with our families because of the unsure safety at night and the added stress it would put on the mothers. The kids were already sad to see us leaving but we assured we would be back tomorrow and the rest of the week. I am already excited for tomorrow because we get to spend more time there with the kids and can really start to make some connections. This is the week I was looking forward to the most for a reason and the first day has proved that even further for me.

Just the tip...of Africa

Today was awesome! I feel like I can say that everyday but today was really something else. On the agenda was seeing the penguins at Boulder Beach, Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Point. I feel like I've been fortunate to see some pretty cool places in my life, but I've never been so blown away by the natural beauty of a landscape like I did today. I've learned on this trip that South Africa has most diverse fauna(animal species) and flora(plant species) in the world and even further that the Cape of Good Hope national park is the more diverse than all of Great Britain and this contributed to what I was able to see today. Our first stop was to play with the penguins, not really play, because they apparently vicious little creatures and have an intense bite. But that first penguin you see is great. Its like, "they're real life". Although they didn't exactly dance like I was expecting them to like in the movie "Happy Feet", we did get to see a baby penguin being born which was pretty cool. After watching the penguins for a while and snapping some photos, we got back on the bus and headed to the Cape of Good Hope. On the way in we were greeted by a lot of baboons which are little monkey creatures that have bare flash for their booty. Apparently they are dangerous and are not shy or afraid to attack you for any scent of food so we were sternly instructed to leave all food on the bus! Stepping out of the bus was just like stepping into paradise. The huge waves crashing up against the cape and the water crystal clear. Me and the guys instantly ran up to the top of the cape. I'm not even going to try and describe it, I'll attempt to let the pictures do it. We weren't satisfied with just the tourist view, we saw the waves crashing down at the bottom shoreline and wanted to be down there. We went outside of the path and went down the side of the mountain. As we were going down, the rocks starting sliding under my feet, this was just a small scare. It was well worth the hike down once we got to the bottom. I got some great videos and pictures. Our last stop of the day was Cape Point. This was thought to be the most southern point in Africa for many years but its actually just east of the point at Agula's National park. But I'm pretty sure Cape Point still wins for me. We went all the way up to the lighthouse and looked over the whole area which included Cape of Good Hope where we had just been playing on the rocks. The lighthouse wasn't all the way at the very tip so we kept going past the "No entry" sign and went further down the rocks, which got a little dangerous at times, have some cuts and bruises, but it was well worth it and I'm still alive. Snapped our last pics of the day and headed back. I am now exhausted and Brooks is cooking for us again, chicken on a bed of steamed rice with some vegetables. Robben Island tomorrow to see where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years.

Gentle Giant

Today was our visit to the vineyards in Franschhoek, South Africa, which was about a 45 minute ride from where we're staying. The countryside and the landscape were beautiful. The forecast was iffy but it ended up being great weather while we were there. This particular vineyard actually receives the most precipitation per inch than any other vineyard in South Africa as it rests between two mountains. To switch things up a little bit from last year, they organized an unorthodox way of wine tasting. They split us into teams of about 8-10 people and we had different stations where we had about five bottles of their different wines and the competition was to create the best blend and bottle/name it and the winners got a free case(12) of their great tasting wine. We started passing around the glasses and tasting the different types of wines from the merlot, cab, shiraz, petit, and a desert white wine. As a group we decided their petit and merlot were the best tasting so we used a majority of that in our blend. My roommate Brooks took it very serious marking down the stats of how we individually ranked each wine and then wrote down the ratios of how much we would use of each. While creating our masterpiece they brought around their signature wine Gentle Giant and each table received a bottle. We were presented with an opportunity to purchase a package of three bottles of their best stuff for 200 rand which is around 40 USD and it was discounted about 30 percent for us from retail price. I bought this package to bring back to the states to share this great South African wine. After some deliberating and much thought, they were ready to announce the winners. They counted down from 6th place and we made it to the top two and they still hadn't said our name. They announced 2nd place. It wasn't us. So our group went crazy as they announced "Elephant Walk" wine as the winner. We then took our group photo and went into the little town and ate pizza. Just woke up from my nap and I think we are going to have a laid back movie night.

Finishing blog catchup of first week

So the sunset cruise was awesome and I managed to still finish my assigned blog for the day so Wednesday was an overall success. After the cruise, a lot of our group went down to the restaurant/bar called Quay Four right on the water that had some good live music and just a great atmosphere. We got all got rowdy and had a good time dancing and what not, needless to say, we stood out as Americans haha but I loved it. We didn’t stay out too late though which was good because we had a great speaker the next morning.

Kevin Chaplain, a very successful businessman and chairman of the Amy Biehl foundation, which we became very informed about, was our guest speaker Thursday morning. This foundation provides a source of education and builds schools and facilitates them for the kids in the poor townships. He was brilliant and spoke with such meaning and enthusiasm giving us advice on the social responsibility aspect of business and recognizing that you always owe something to the community and those who are socially responsible are rewarded. I encourage you to read up on the Amy Biehl story further because it is a powerful moment in the history of South Africa. But long story short, Amy Biehl was an American girl that spent time in Cape Town peacefully fighting for the oppressed people in apartheids and wanted freedom for them. The people for whose freedom she was fighting for ironically murdered her in a riot. It was an anti-white riot and her car was stopped by mobs of people and she was stoned to death. The powerful part of the story is her parents starting this foundation in Amy’s name because they knew she would want something positive to come out of her untimely death. And positive is an understatement, this organization was started in 1998 and has made great strides in improving the quality education of these poor kids. Amy’s parents came out and were able to publically forgive the 4 killers who murdered their daughter and furthermore defend them in their sentencing trial. Amy’s mother saw such a bigger picture, she said it wasn’t those people who killed her daughter but rather the horrible system of the apartheids and the conditions those kids were in. Seeing her strength was incredible along with the dad. The parents have come face to face with the killers and accepted apologies and even work with two of them frequently as one of them has a position high up in the Amy Biehl organization. This was a very moving story to hear before our first township visit which we went on later that day. We went by the exact place Amy Biehl was murdered. We then continued to the schools and saw the great programs being implemented to root a legitimate core education in these kids and also offer the arts like dance and drama. This visit got me pumped for the our full week of service as this was only a taste. The last stop of the day was a little dance show they put on for us which was unbelievably good. The kids were breaking out moves like Michael Jackson x5. Apparently we are going to have to make up our own dance like that during service week which should get interesting…

            Friday was Table Mountain Hike day. Favorite experience so far this trip. Its just indescribable and the pictures really can’t do it enough justice. There’s a phrase in our Global Lead book that says “it’s not about the destination, its about the journey”. This really applied well to this hike because all I thought about the whole time was reaching the top and how great it was going to be when I finally reached the summit, but just the experience of the climb up and making it through the pain with everyone was very unique and so rewarding. I can still feel the burn in my legs…literally, and today is Tuesday. The view over the city was breathtaking, I’ve never seen something like it, and it felt like I earned it from hiking up, which made it better hah. There was a huge restaurant/shop at the top that we ate at and then took a group picture. By this time my legs my whole body was starting to cramp in places I didn’t even know I could cramp but I had already committed to hike back down the mountain with the group with some people. The original plan that the majority of the group did was ride the cable car back down the mountain but we didn’t want to cut short the experience so we asked if we could hike down. This was even more fun than hike up, but a lot more dangerous. When you get you’re momentum going fast its hard to stop yourself, so my new kicks saved me quite a few times. Thanks mom. Needless to say, this day was one of the coolest days in my life.

            Weekends are our free days and we woke up Saturday morning and went to this really unique place called the Old Biscuit Mill. It was this open-air food market that is only open on Saturdays from 11-2. Its basically setup as a square that small individual local venders setup and have samples of their food and they either sell food/beer to eat there or take home. Its all so fresh like we got some homemade pita bread and hummus. Hopefully we will be going back this Saturday and I’ll take some pictures and post them. After we ate and looked around for a while, we went further into town to the Green Market Square. This is a “Chinatown” type of place where you nickel and dime and try to bargain down for better prices. We didn’t stay too long but I got a couple of good jerseys, but we will be back because it’s a great place for souvenirs. Sunday morning we went to Hillsong church, which is a family church of the Hillsong’s around the world that began in Australia. This particular church in Cape Town was unique because it was located in a building that used to be the biggest night club in the city at one point and was shut down because the owners were involved in dealing drugs. So it has since then transformed into a huge church. It really reminded me of Passion City church in Atlanta that Louis Giglio pastors that was located in the Tabernacle. The band was awesome and the pastor was even better. It was nice to experience church in such a different culture, but the message stays the same. Right around the corner(literally) from Hillsong was Canal Walk which is the largest mall in the southern hemisphere. This is where we spent a good majority of our afternoon exploring and we still didn’t even come close to going end to end. The food court was probably the coolest part, it lit up like Vegas.

 Yesterday morning we had our morning lecture over Leadership Theories. We basically discussed how different people and different situations require different strategies. We talked about many different aspects of situational and developmental leadership and connecting individual and group values, but one thing that sticks out is how controversy and conflict can be a good thing. We discussed how with conflict there can be no new stimulation of thought and then there would be no new ideas initiated. After the morning lecture we had the option of doing an extra activity of a museum tour and initially me and my roommates were definitely going to go but we had heard that you want to have more time at one of the ones they were touring was closing soon so we decided that we would wait and go in a smaller group on a different day. But we weren’t going to just lay around all day, we asked Ish to take us on an “adventure”. He had Corbis(Ish’s employee) take us out to Camp’s Bay where the nice beaches are located with the nice cafes/shops lining the waterfront overlooking big rocks on the beach. We were mad because we all forgot out cameras and we were out on these big rocks on a sunny day. So we just got a disposable camera, which may or may not have been a mistake since we can’t “delete” any photos. (that would come into play later). After playing like children on the rocks for a while we went to Café Caprice, which is where celebs such as Leonardo de Caprio, Gerard Butler, and Kelly Slater names were on the wall saying they had been there. So this was a hot spot to be and we got here around 3ish and this would turn into a longggg, but fun, day. Funny story while we were sitting outside. These sketchy people would keep walking up and try to sell us anything and everything from sunglasses to “handcarved” African things. We had already turned many away when one of them came up with a table that actually got my friend’s Brooks attention. It was actually pretty cool, it at least looked all hand carved and had three legs that folded out and you put the handcarved looking circular table in the grooves. Maybe there’s one of it on that disposable. But basically after sending the guy away plenty of times and being the natural heckler that he is, Brooks had him down from 450 rand to 120 rand for a legitimately nice wooden table that he wanted for their families new lake house. He was so excited and proud about his little purchase because it took so much effort to get it to such a good price.  So we had gotten a little rowdy at this point and had fun on the way back to the hotel with Corbis in the taxi taking stupid pictures on the disposable and stopped at Mickey D’s for dinner, which was delicious. But anyways, funny part of the story. We all sit down to eat the rest of our Mcdonalds, and the couch and extra chair was taken so Tim decides to get out Brooks brand new table and try to sit on it and it instantly snapped. We all started dying laughing! Hahah at that point Brooks couldn’t do anything but just laugh cause he knew Tim felt so bad. We got back in time for Trivia Night too! This was organized by Global and was optional but it was in the Lagoon View room where we typically have our class and it was Byob/Byowine, ha as they said it. This was a lot of fun, and our team won, which made it better. Our prize was a free cab ride and back to the Waterfront, which will be convenient some day.

Today the Dooleys spoke! They were incredible. Vince and Barbara both were hilarious and a lot of fun while also giving some great insight and advice. Me and roommates sat front row today because it was necessary since there was a legend in the room. Not just any legend, but the one who turned around Georgia football forever. Him and his wife were so intelligent and have such an interest in this Global Lead program and it speaks volumes that they took time out of their schedule to come meet us and talk to us about life. Oh and my group didn’t win that competition to have lunch with them today unfortunately..but I still was able to meet them which was more than enough for me. Later this afternoon we got out first rugby game going on the beach since we bought a ball at the mall Sunday. This was everyone’s first time playing except my roommate Tim who played when he lived over in Australia and England. We actually picked it up pretty fast and it was really fun, that might become a daily routine. So now we are just hanging out and I believe Brooks is cooking for us tonight since we bought a lot of groceries today to cut back on some the spending we’ve been doing at restaurants so far. Anyways, I’m new to blogging so I know this long, but its hard to brief my experiences here and still vividly describe the extraordinary experience that it is.

First Week

“It takes a certain type of person to come on this trip” my roommate Tim has said this when speaking about the people and relationships we’ve been able to develop in such a short time period that we’ve been here, and as each day goes on I couldn’t agree more. And it does. This program attracts a certain type of person that has the desire to get outside of his or her comfort zone and discover new things first hand. I believe this is the reason that everyone on this trip loves meeting new people and are able to mold together so well. It’s only the fourth full day and I haven’t been able to interact with everyone yet, but I have set a goal for myself to be able to learn everyone’s full name by the end of this trip and to not just interact at the surface level encounters but rather get to know everyone on a level one step deeper than that. I have met a lot of really interesting and appealing people so far. Jack Konas, for instance, is a guy that I probably would not have meet if I did not attend this trip, but getting to know him and his unique/absolutely hilarious personality has been such a fun experience and I think I can literally speak for everyone on this trip when I talk about him, and despite my passionate hate for Auburn recently and their scams and invalid championship, he’s just one guy you can’t help but love. Cam Newton is still theWORST, by the way.

Go Dawgs 

Another early morning followed by another late night. From eating the local Mcdonald’s Big Macs late night in our room with Ish (our decorated Taxi driver who already has, and willbecome much more than simply a taxi driver), to waking up to a great breakfast cooked for me hours later by my small group leader, has become quite the experience/routine. I hate it when that dreadful alarm clock goes off in the morning. I am not very perky in the morning typically but once I actually got involved in the activities, I realized how lucky I am to be here in Cape Town, South Africa and don't want to waste a minute. The days are packed from sunrise to sundown and nothing gets boring for me here. I feel that I am constantly engaged in the speakers and the discussion in our small groups. When I woke up this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that our community leaders would be cooking breakfast for us and I was not disappointed. Paige- the eggs were exceptional. Today was the real introduction into the leadership curriculum that we will be studying while we are here. One of my initial interests, besides the awesome adventure opportunities presented to us in this program, was the service aspect. This comes natural, as I have been fortunate to go on mission trips to Peru and Nicaragua and have always had a genuine interest to go out and connect with those that are in need and less fortunate than myself. But I didn’t think much about the leadership aspect of our studies, thinking that these were going to be the typical lectures I’ve heard at leadership seminars in the past. Mallory (one of our Teaching Assistants) headed the meeting this morning and her passionate attitude about the material was very obvious and sincere, just like all of the staff with us. I am able to easily notice that they love what they do- and they do it well. We looked deep into our strengths and Mallory emphasized how we do not need to dwell on our weaknesses and worry about “fixing” them, but rather develop our strengths, and use them in the most efficient way. We used a test called StrengthsFinder to view our top 5 strengths. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion we had regarding each of our strengths. It enabled me to understand what I need to work on and what I need to utilize as we continue our service during our trip to South Africa.

This was one of my first opportunities to truly connect with my community group and get to know everyone on a more fundamental level. We were able to expand upon our strengths and we discussed the strategies that we would hopefully implement in our optimistic goals that we set for ourselves. I loved the strategies that the staff put into practice to further our development, for example: they were constantly encouraging different people to join different small groups within the activities that we completed. This is one attribute they intend to include that supports me in my goal to get to know everyone’s name on a more personal level rather than just a casual “Hey, how are you doing?”. We split up into even smaller groups of three to discuss these strengths additionally. This is actually one of my strengths that I learned about myself through the test we participated in that I wanted to intensify and develop in the category of “Woo” which me, Jack, and Erin basically described as a genuine interest in striking up conversation and having that desire to love people for their positive attributes and also aspiring for the people we interact with to love us back. After the meeting we had an excellent activity to advance our relationships within our community/small groups even more by having a fun, detailed scavenger hunt that was easy to get interested and connected in by taking goofy/funny pictures of our whole group around the local landmarks and local people of this community. This was a great time while simultaneously allowing me to observe the different personalities within my group and gain a greater appreciation for everyone in meeting them past the “classroom”. The prize was a private lunch with Barbara and Vince Dooley so me and the only other UGA student in my group, Carrie, were the only ones who could have the legitimate appreciation for this great grand prize. Despite the others distance from our school’s great history of a legend coach, the other team members put forth great effort and I believe we have a valid chance of victory but we will find out the winners tomorrow. I have rambled on long enough on this blog considering I finished the second half after our amazing sunset champagne cruise that has been my favorite night thus far most likely. I can’t wait to continue this journey of new discoveries and adventures! I LOVE THIS PLACE.

Finally...

So I've been a little late to get this blog up and going because I've been caught up in actually soaking in the experience of this great place for the first week. I can't guarantee daily updates because the days are packed so full, but in a good way. So I'll copy and paste a few of the things I had earlier on in the week and then try to update as much as possible.

After day 1

Today was our first full day and it was nothing but great. I woke up for our first breakfast and stepped outside hoping for sunrise as the forecast was optimistic but unfortunately the air was filled with fog (supposedly we are to never trust the forecast as sure things here because the unpredictable nature of the town). But…I would soon learn that fog could never fully cover the true beauty of this incredible city. Today was the overall city tour and naturally I was excited but at the same time still a little bummed about the foggy weather when we began but this feeling wouldn’t last very long. Our first stop was “Waterfront” which is apparently our “go to” spot for everything. During the orientation we learned about a taxi driver whose name is Ish. We were then told that he was much more of a taxi driver, he has become really close with Global Lead for the previous two years driving all the students and staff around day and night. Apparently Ish gets super pumped for this time of year nowadays and even took off five weeks of work to be of full service to us, so basically he lives, eats, breathes Global Lead now. So it was fitting that Ish would be our tour guide as we went on the city tour today and he is quite the character indeed. Waterfront was a fun place but we didn’t spend much time there because we were just eating lunch there since we would be there frequently during the trip. After leaving Waterfront we rode along the coast and saw Cape Town stadium up close which Ish describes the bird’s eye view of the stadium as a “toilet seat”. (we later on saw this view and I can’t argue, it’s a valid description). We drove up the coast further and this side of the coast had sea cliffs that reminded me of riding up the California coast in the Pacific. This is when I discovered that not even the thickest fog could cover up God’s beautiful creation of this place. We stopped along the way and got out for our Kodak moments and the waves were crashing up against the huge rocks and the view of the coast was simply indescribable. After snapping a few pics from the safe point near the viewing area, me and some of the guys got a little curious and began do scale down the steep coastline. The “A”(Adventure) of the Global acronym L.E.A.D. was already beginning to come out in some of us guys that couldn’t just get the view from the top but instead had to be on top of the rocks. We didn’t think twice, (even though it may have been a good idea to) the rocks were tall, steep, sharp and not all connected so we were jumping from rock to rock which in some cases had gaps with a decent 30-40 ft drop into an abyss below. But the feeling once we reached the top was priceless and very rewarding. And that’s when we decided our Kodak moment was good enough to snap some pictures. Whenever climbing up things such as rocks or trees, most people aren’t thinking about how difficult it may to get down…but fortunately we maneuvered our way back to safety haha. Signal hill overlooking table mountain and devil’s peak was next stop on our agenda. These two landmarks are normally visible from all parts of Cape Town and we had still yet to see them because of the thick fog. Riding up this mountain I was nervous that we weren’t going to be able to see them once again from the best view in town. As we were nearing the top of the hill and the viewing area, the sun slowly peaked out and then all of a sudden they just appeared. It was the perfect grand revealing after we turned the corner and the sun shined bright on these great mountains of Cape Town. already got some great pics, it was really foggy this morning but the sun came out with perfect timing as we got to the top of their signal mountain overlooking table mountain and devil's peak which I'll try and post pics of below, me and my fraternity brother really like our roommates and all the guys on the trip really, everyone is just down to earth and fun, and this is just half the group, the other half doesn't get in till tonight