Oceanview (not the one on the Jersey shore) and more

Wow. This past weekend was so incredible, such an experience. I probably won’t do it justice but I’ll do my best to recall everything. The week was fun but busy too so I only finally finished writing up everything. It’s safe to assume that this will be a typically long post. Sorryyyyy.

So we left for Oceanview, the colored township where we stayed for the weekend, on Friday afternoon. It’s not too far from here, only about 45 minutes on the other side of the mountain. And you really can see the ocean from parts of the township which we found out Saturday morning just walking down the road but I’ll get there in a bit. Our first stop was the high school where we met our host families and had dinner with entertainment provided by students there, many of whom have represented Oceanview and/or South Africa in singing and dancing events around the world. Most of us were split into pairs for the homestays and we sat together with our host families. I was with Shamir which was nice because I had met her before but we got to really know each other this weekend. Dinner was good, they had a separate meal for vegetarians which I got to have also. They were so accommodating which was so nice considering that food culture here is basically meat with a side of meat. Veggies and such are not very common but they made it just for us.

After dinner and the last of the dancers, we walked to our house which was (I thought) surprisingly far from the high school. I didn’t have a concept of just how big the community was when we first got there. We passed by the flats and then got to the houses but there were tons of streets leading off to different areas in Oceanview. It was late when we got there so their kids were asleep but we stayed up to talk to our host parents for a while.

Our host mom’s name was Esrobyda but she goes by Byda and our host dad’s name was Justin. Their kids are named – and they totally had too much fun with this – Cleon (5 years old), Chloe (3 years old), and Cleo (1 year and 2 months). Byda recently opened her own daycare in January but she has also taught art and Afrikaans at the local school and Justin is a musician. Byda is originally from Worchester (pronounced the Mass-hole way) which is about 2 hours away from Oceanview. She met Justin through youth church events held with her home church and the church his family went to. They were married in Worchester but ended up deciding to live in Oceanview where a lot of his family also lives.

They also asked Shamir and I about our lives back in the states so we had a lot of sharing of stories going on. One thing that was really interesting was how cars kept driving and people kept walking past the house but on the other side of the street. I was surprised to see so much activity on what seemed like it would be a quiet block, at least at that hour of the evening. They responded casually that a drug dealer operates out of the house across the street so there’s always traffic going up and down the street. I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear about the drugs, CIEE insisted that we would be offered dagga (pot) while we were there (I wasn’t) but that aside I know there are many drug issues in the townships. Still, I guess I just wasn’t encouraged when they were so nonchalant about it, I want to think that people are fighting it.

We woke up pretty early on Saturday to the kids playing in the living room which was only a few feet from the door to their room (where we were staying) next to their parents’ room (where they were for the weekend). They were watching cartoons and eating breakfast but got really quiet when I first walked into the living room. Byda made us breakfast – and refused my help which would be a pretty standard theme all weekend – and served us – also a standard all weekend – even though we told her we didn’t want to just be guests. As we were in the living room with the kids Byda warned us that the Chloe is really shy around people but the other two kids would be really friendly once they warmed up to us.

We first went to the mall to get some stuff and I got to see the kids way more active than they had been when they were simply observing us on the couch in the morning from the floor where they were playing. This encouraged me since I really wanted to get through to Chloe, she seemed like such an energetic and fun little girl, just shy around new people. Luckily, we stopped by a movie store where there were tons of posters for HSM3 which she got really excited about. I think that’s the moment I knew I’d be able to help her out of her shell. Once we returned to the house I was very persistent in trying to talk to her and finally once I got my camera out and asked if I could take a picture of her, she started getting friendlier and was playing with me, Shamir, and her brother.

Now that all the kids were having fun playing with us, we were able to go with almost the entire family to the basketball and soccer games going on. The basketball game was in the multi-purpose room we’d been to during UCT orientation and the soccer game was at, what they call, central park. It’s a dusty field with a small net ball court and one tree in the middle. Still, just saying that I went to central park was funny. I was playing with Cleon with a frisbee I brought from berg except it was really windy and the rest of the time I was playing around with Chloe who was starting to get very very talkative.

We went back to the house for a braai and a lot of their friends came over, some had young kids around the same age as our “siblings” and Shamir and I essentially became their play toys for the night. By the end, I was so tired I didn’t think I could even stand up or I’d just collapse back onto the chair. But when Byda told me that she didn’t even recognize Chloe because she was being so friendly and playing with us, it was totally worth my exhaustion. After they finally went to bed, the adults were hanging around talking, mostly in Afrikaans. Byda had told us that she and Justin only speak English to the kids since they have to learn Afrikaans in school anyway but they only speak Afrikaans to each other. So I couldn’t follow a lot of the conversation but every once in a while they would ask us questions about ourselves. I was perfectly happy just listening to them speak Afrikaans though, I was getting tired anyway.

The next morning Byda had asked us if we wanted to go to church with them so that’s what we did first thing in the morning. Byda was singing for the service too so Shamir and I got to listen to her and helped watch the kids. After church we took the long route back to the house and rather than rush to get to the cycle tour, we just hung around the house with the kids more and talked with Byda. Justin was working at the cycle tour so it was just Byda and the kids who came to see us off when it was time to go. Byda had made us some cake to bring back with us which was so sweet and we exchanged information so Shamir and I can work out a day or weekend to go back and visit again.

Since the weekend there’s been so many random things going on and school work is starting to pick up so I didn’t get to write about the weekend right after like I’d meant to. But I definitely won’t forget the experience, it was such a fun weekend and I can’t wait to go back and visit. I woke up on Monday morning for class and got a text from Byda saying thanks for a great weekend and to have a great day. That was such a nice little gesture to wake up to. I took so many pictures and will have to print some out before Shamir and I go back to visit.

The highlight of Monday wasn’t until after class when I went to Brooklyn Chest, a tuberculosis clinic about 20 minutes away, for 2 hours to volunteer. We got to sit outside and play with the kids and feed them before we left. They were so cute and really sweet, they just enjoyed having someone there to play with them and give them love and attention. Leaving was the only sad part because they got upset and some even cried when we made our way out the door. It was heart breaking hearing their cries but I’m just glad I’ll be going back every week while we’re here.

Tuesday is my busiest day for classes but after that the rest of the week is downhill so when my house decided to go out to dinner and a movie that night I caved and went with. Before that though, I found out that the Jewish cafeteria (which I hadn’t been to yet since no one I talked to knew where it was) was giving out free hamantashen so I was adamant about finding it. The hamantashen wasn’t quite the same as in the states, much less cookie-like and with a sweet chunked apple and raisin filling but it still made me really happy. Then instead of taking my lunch break to sit around, I went to a talk about Obama. There were two speakers, one man was from a township and a big activist with some local organizations and the other was a Ph.D. student who is also a lecturer on campus for political analysis. It was so interesting hearing their perspective and even though politically the latter man said that Obama probably isn't gonna be any better for Africa than Bush, all the audience members were like, whatever I love Obama.

On Wednesday I was supposed to start my other 2 hours of weekly volunteering at Think Twice, an organization that teaching about HIV/AIDS. I got to the office we were going to leave from 5 minutes before we're supposed to be there but no one else was there. I hung around for a while and only one other girl showed up. We went outside to wait since our driver had forgot and was gonna be late. But by the time he picked us up and got us there we would've had to leave about 15 minutes later so we agreed to cancel and just wait until next week. Another guy showed up just after we called to cancel but still it was only 3 of us and we wouldn't have had a lot of time there. So next week I’ll finally get to start that. Wednesday night I had African choir before some fun house bonding involving a gold shoe and peanut butter but we won’t even go there.

I finally had lunch (chicken salad) at the Jewish cafeteria yesterday, Thursday, which was great since I haven’t had meat in over 6 weeks. After I got back from I was doing homework in my room when Muriel came over to me saying that the cops were here and wanted to talk to whoever was in the house. They came because they got a noise complaint from our neighbor about us playing loud music last night. Which we were but not past 10pm. The thing is, our neighbor is crazy. He hates all Americans and acts like he's been having issues with us for years but doesn't consider that the turn over of students is every few months. Our residential director said they have issues with him every year. Well the cops where here for a half hour and I think they like us. Hopefully that'll work in our favor because if they have to give us even a warning it's like R20,000 or something which is a lot of money.

So last night our house went out to the Fat Cactus for Alison’s birthday. A couple people went first to order everything and I hung back with others on the pretense of being busy but we instead decorated the house. We came back to the house after to have cake and have some drinks including some of the sangria I helped make which didn’t come out too bad considering that we just threw things into it hoping it would taste good. Now, I’m friends with a guy who's in charge of the list at Hemisphere, a really nice club in Cape Town that we went to the first week we were here. I called him so he put us on the list and once we got there and I told him it was Alison's 21st he made sure we got into the VIP section. Who knew I would have connections.

Today I had class and then went to watch an indoor soccer game that some CIEE and SOLmates were in. It was a lot of fun and they won the game, yay! After that I went with Mel to STA travel for advise on our plans for mid-semester break. The woman we talked to was amazingly helpful and we might have figured out what we're generally doing for break. I'm going to do serious planning this weekend so hopefully we'll finalize that soon, I’m very excited. Now I finally finished writing this and I’m going to get going because I think we're going to hike up lion's head to watch the sunset. It's only about an hour hike to the top and we’re going to bring some food and wine. I’ve wanted to do this for a while so I’m really excited.

For now, that’s it. But first (don’t judge me Liz), since Revelation was last night I have to give a shout out to my APO fam! Love you all.

Since no one else writes such obnoxious blog posts it's obviously me,
Sarah