Back in Seattle

Partly sunny, with showers. I see the sun above me, but the air is still chilly. What is with the fact that I have to wear socks and shoes again?!

It's around 6:30am, and I've been up for about an hour, wide awake on this Seattle morning. It's my second morning back home.

Home. I felt like I left a little piece of home back in Cape Town too. I'll go back someday.

Anyway, since Cape Town Carolyn is now Seattle Carolyn, this shall be my last post on this blog.

Fare thee well South Africa, you are a beautiful country with beautiful people with so much potential to prosper. Thanks to my classmates for making it so much fun, and for agonizing over academic duties with me. Thanks to all the Isilimela high school students for teaching me things I can't even put words into, but they are things that make me feel good inside and I will carry forever with me. Thanks to Mimi, or Xoliswa, for teaching me the proper way to click my tongue and speak Xhosa, and for such insight into the Xhosa traditions as a progressive woman in post-Apartheid society. Thanks to Nestus at City Rock for teaching me how to rock climb and being a cool person all around. And everyone else I have connected with in South Africa, I can understand the meaning of ubuntu because of you!

Not only has my study abroad to Cape Town been one of the best, enriching experiences ever, but it also ties the end to my college career. Sweet!

*kicking my heels up* :)

Welcome Seattleites and another transition

Tina and Cristina are finally here from Seattle to hang out with me! Welcome girls, you need to catch up on your tanning!

My friends I have made during the Cape Town program are starting to leave, whether it be more traveling or back home to Seattle. On Friday, we had our last meeting with the students and teachers we've been working with at Isilimela, and it was really weird to realize that we're done. Kate and I might've shed a tear or two. So yes, I am a bit sentimental these days to know that my purpose here is now laying to rest.

Time to re-explore for one more week in South Africa.

I finally posted new pictures! www.curiouscat.smugmug.com

Retreat!

I'm gonna miss these Cape Town mornings. There's a sweet old man who we call the Muffin Man up the street, and he sells these amazing full-sized muffins baked by his wife a neighborhood away. He led a harsh life, and now all is peaceful. I'm eating a blueberry muffin, some yogurt from the QuickSpar grocery store, and some coffee I made at the house here.

No more school! Our group came back from our 3-day, 2-night final retreat at this place called The Baths, about 3 hours north from Cape Town. It was SO much fun. This was our schedule for the three days:

- Eat a good food for every meal (spit-fire braai, lamb, chicken, really good ostrich steak and custard over apple pie)
- Swim in the cool pool
- Sunbathe
- Swim in the hot pool under the stars. Float on your back and see the Milky Way.
- Drink at the bar
- Get up, swim, sunbathe
- Repeat

Oh yeah, let's not forget 14 of us girls from the program, in the middle of the night, skinny dipping in both the hot and cool pools! Ahh, the beauty of shared nakedness to bond with one another, swimming in our laughter. Everyone else, including the three guys on our program, had already passed out in their beds. Otherwise, everyone else hanging out by the pools stripped to our natural glory under the moon.

Way to feel so liberated and free!

By the way, I'm back in Seattle on the 20th.

The Happiest Girl Alive

I finally took a shower in two days!

Okay, not only that, but I just finished writing my last paper in college. WOOHOO!!

Community Engagement Celebration @ Isilimela and Quotes

It was beautiful. 48 students from three worlds (Roosevelt HS from Seattle, Isilimela HS from Langa township, and Bellville HS from an Afrikaner neighborhood) in one gymnasium, sharing their poetry, drama, and photos with each other and their audience. It was a powerful performance. The students had two weeks to get to know one another in a global cultural exchange through friendships, and today was also their goodbyes to each other as Roosevelt flies back to Seattle tomorrow. They had tears of joy and sadness. We had tears of relief and realizing how much hard work we've put into this global exchange project. Seeing all the photos the students took really tugged at my heart today, knowing it's finally done and realizing the depth that high schoolers have. No more working towards the means anymore. Life moves on.

Life moves on to two papers I need to finish by the weekend. It will be the end of my academic journey as an undergraduate. Woohoo! Then our class will be going on a retreat to a remote area called The Baths three hours away from here. We'll have open mic and play charades. I think that's the majority of our agenda for the three days and two nights out there. Oh, and dip into some hot springs and take some hikes. Maybe I can even climb some rocks. Gawd, I'm looking forward to being done with "school" out here. The last couple of weeks are intense dude.

Another touching moment at Isilimela today was when one of my students, Joe, in the Grade 12 Arts and Culture class recognized me after school. He goes "who's going to teach us now?" since Mimi, their regular art teacher, basically let Jen and I take over the art history course while we've been here. There are only six students in this class, so we've really bonded with all of them. I'm not sure if they've learned more from us, or if we've learned more from them. The coolest thing was when Joe pointed out a painting he hunge up on the gymnasium wall, and after seeing it, it literally took my breath away. It was amazing! I now have a picture of it, with Joe and I standing underneath it. I'll post it online. Someday soon! It's too bad Isilimela doesn't get enough funds to frame their student artwork like Bellville hs does. (Bellville hs looks like a private college in my book). There's so much hidden talent at that school. We may only see our class one more time formally before we're finished, so Jen and I plan to have a party and bring some treats for the class. It'd be nice to keep in touch and see where they will be going a few years down the road.

***

Some random quotes from the people I've met here:

• "What do people think about South Africans from where you're from?...I've never even seen an African animal before!" - A somewhat ditzy, but really sweet 15 year-old Afrikaner girl
• "I've never used a disposable camera before" - From over half (8+) of the Isilimela (Langa Black township) Hands for a Bridge after school group
• "Do you do yoga? Because you're sitting cross-legged, and I saw a Chinese person who did yoga on TV" - From an 18 year-old, very bright Xhosa boy with perfect English who says Oprah inspires him everyday. Funny thing is that my white roommate was sitting in the same manner as me, but he didn't notice her.
• "Is it true that Chinese people marry their brothers and sisters? And that's why you all look alike? I saw it on TV." - From one of the Isilimela after school students, sincerely asking me. It was one of those moments where I could've totally made something up and they would've believed me that yes, THAT is why we all look alike!
• "Boerewors curtain is kind of a joke. It means you need a passport to enter our side of the world"- From Nestus, Jen and I's 21 year-old Afrikaner rock climbing instructor, talking about Afrikaner neighborhoods still being a different world from the mixed neighborhoods like ours. But, he says, an Afrikaner like himself would never need a passport to come to the English-speaking, Coloured, or Black sides of the world. The boerewors is a sausage used for braais (bbq), and symbolically using the other side of the curtain, kinda like how we use "the other side of the railroad tracks". Ask me to pronounce boerewors with an Afrikaans accent when you see me. It's fun.
• "I've never been to this side of the world before" - Some old Afrikaner dude with his friend visiting Obz, our neighborhood. He truly looked astonished in his foreign surroundings when he could've lived less than 20 minutes away. I should've asked how it was for him, just to see his reaction to a Chinese-lookin' girl speaking American to him!
• "What kind of sauce would you like?" - A Chip 'n Dip worker at a casino/entertainment world mall Jen and I visited to go ice skating. This place had fries in a cone, covered in any sauce you want, from honey mustard to chocolate sauce. I had sour cream and onion. Wasn't bad.
• "Can we keep you?" - Mimi, the Isilimela Arts and Culture teacher I've bonded with.
• "I will miss you." - Various students I've bonded with too.

Last week of classes

My community engagement projects and class wrap-up.

Hello everyone. Whoa. It is currently week 9 out of 10 in this Cape Town program, and it has been amazing. It's been raining all day, can you believe it? It's the second time I've seen rain during the day in Cape Town, along with rare power outages within the last week.

Over the weekend, 48 high school students from Roosevelt (Seattle high school), Bellville (an Afrikaaner school in Cape Town, middle to upper class I'd say) and Isilimela (a black township high school) linked in their trio groups (16 groups of 3 from all 3 schools) for a retreat at the 12 Apostles camp site. This has been one of the events I have been preparing for with a few other classmates as part of my community engagement project. Us UW kids helped with the picture project, in which every student from these interglobal cities took pictures of their families, self portraits, favorite food, things they want to change, etc. in a cultural exchange using photos. Today the students made collages in their trio groups to present as a photo gallery. On Thursday, there will be a community celebration at Isilimela high school for the photo gallery, and a movement piece that will involve each student hanging up their photo of something they want to change on a clothes line while reciting some poetry perhaps, then turning the clothesline into a gallery in itself afterwards for the audience to move around and look at. Hopefully that made sense to you. So this project, called Hands for a Bridge which started at Roosevelt high school, takes a lot of my time and energy these days. But these young people are amazing, warm hearted, and wide-eyed in their discovery of each other. It's so worth it.

My other project for my community engagement work is working with Jen at Isilimela high school in the mornings with our grade 12 students in art/art history. We work closely with six boys in the classroom, teaching them about Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism, and we'll be encouraging them to paint their own pieces from the things they have learned and hopefully are inspired by. Their teacher let us take this class over, and we make handouts and do research online to create materials for them since they don't have textbooks or materials to use on their own. We will even go to the internet cafe to print out examples of Picasso's or Braque's work, and the teacher was so happy to have these colored copies and created a folder of the materials we have put together for future use. It makes us feel good that we're making a difference, even if it is small. Jen and I really like these students, and one of them asked if they can call us when we go home because they will be sad too when we're gone. It was one of those moments when we were like, wow, only two more weeks and this will all be over.

So here I am procrastining on the papers due by this weekend before our final retreat with the classmates, professor, and TA. We'll be going somewhere remote, be one with nature, and dip into hot springs. I think we're having an open mic with wine too. It'll be cool. I've yet to finalize exactly when I'm coming home, but it will be mid March sometime. Which is soon enough!

Cheers. Totsie. Sobanana.

Random thoughts

Wow. So much to do, so little time, so much fun. And some physical and emotional breakthroughs.

Already feeling nostalgic about being here. I'll be sad to leave but happy to go home to Seattle, but then I'll miss being here and be sad about keeping this experience as a mere memory that I shared with 19 other people that were once strangers to me.

***

Paul, thank you for calling me on Valentine's Day, even though you didn't realize it was on that day, haha. You are SO sweet with all the quirky letters and camera clips you've sent me. You are so aware of all the little things that I sometimes forget about. I love you!

And thanks to those that have sent me messages, cards and packages for my 23rd birthday out here in Africa. I love you too! Nothing beats being around loved ones for a birthday, but it's pretty cool being in a land far far away in a different kind of spirit too.

Besides, it's only downhill from now right? I'm gonna go home and be all growns up in a growns up kind of schedule to my life. All I need to do before spring quarter is sign the paperwork to graduate the UW. I'm gonna go home and lose a somewhat personal agenda in the Real World and start working in April. For the rest of my life. My gawd! Okay, at least I GOT a job that actually involves real work. But I'll miss the fluidity and vitality of what I'm experiencing now. I couldn't do it forever though, and sometimes things happen so you can appreciate the other sides of life too.

I just got a mosquite bite on my back. Time for bed!