A great start to the week! On Monday, I got to spend a lot of time with the little ladies of Ocean View. Unfortunately, since Treswill was sick, we were unable to go to the primary school to do soccer stuff, so I went to Casey and Sarah’s to do some other work. A few of the middle school aged girls came by and we all hung out for awhile. My mom had put a shoe box full of goodies into Austin’s carry-on bag, thanks Mom! It was filled with a bunch of stuff for the kids that I was unable to fit into my bag like the tooth paste and tooth brushes. I can’t wait to give them out! Tooth care is such a low priority here (Tomica didn’t even know what flossing was)! Speaking of teeth, the lady I went around with this morning had gold stars glued to her front 2 teeth, baller! Back to the shoe box: my mom also put in a whole bunch of all jewelry that she had been collecting. I recognized a lot of jewelry we wore years ago, as well as some jewelry from Grandma Higgs. It was cool to see memories of Grandma Higgs as well as my mom and sisters here in South Africa. The saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” went with this jewelry. It was so nice to see how excited they got over it. They kept asking me, “Are you sure we can have all of this?” They even said that they were going to give some of the stuff to their moms as presents. It’s so cool to see those who have so little, give so much.

A few of the younger girls wrote notes to me. They were so sweet, I got a little teary! It is going to be so hard to say goodbye in a few weeks!

I also had Bible study with the older girls on Monday. They were pretty well behaved, which was a plus, and contributed to the conversation. It may have been because I gave out candy, but I like to think it is because they are becoming more comfortable with talking about real stuff. They had some homework from last week. They were supposed to go out of their way to be nice to someone who they wouldn’t normally do that for. One of the girls named Jocelyn said that she tried to be nice to her cousin even though the cousin would totally ignore her. (Apparently when the cousin’s dad died she stopped talking to Jocelyn for some odd reason, doesn’t make since I know.) I told her that she should write her a note to tell her cousin that she will always be there for her no matter what. Normally the girls have such a tough guard up, so it was cool that Jocelyn was willing to be so caring even when her cousin was being so rude.  I asked the girls, if they could be anyone else who would they be? One girl said Nelson Mandela and another girl said Shayvon (a therapist on tv that gives advice to people who have problems). I thought those answers were pretty cool and it points out that these girls aren’t looking for an easy life, they are looking for a life that has meaning. Another girl said that she wouldn’t want to be anyone else, that she liked herself, which was really cool as well, because this particular girl has a lot of problems fitting in with her family, and she is always treated as inferior to the rest of her siblings.

                On Tuesday I got to tour the great city of Cape Town. We had our very own tour guide who happened to be my neighbor, so it was cool to get the perspective of everything from a local. We rode in a taxi then a train all the way down to downtown. It took a good 45-50 minutes. I couldn’t imagine having to take that commute everyday! The first stop was to the Castle of Good Hope. It wasn’t really what I was expecting for a castle. I felt pretty dumb when I asked if kings and queens lived in it! Lol, it was the castle that the Dutch built when they settled in South Africa to say “hey we are here!” Then we went to the museum that exhibited the slaves of Cape Town. It definitely explained a lot about why the coloured people all look so different. Their ancestors came from all sorts of places, like northern Africa, Asia, India. Coloured people are the mixed race. When the Europeans came down they would make babies with the slaves and that is how this race started. Many coloured people don’t like to talk about their heritage because they either don’t know where they are from or they don’t want to recognize their history as being a slave. Another place we went was the District 6 Museum. It is crazy how all of the races  lived in harmony together, and then the slim minority (the Dutch) took over the government and put up all these stipulations – from always carrying around their identification card, not being able to be out past 8pm, and having to relocate. Can you image getting a pink slip on your door saying you had to move out of your house in 2 hours? You would have no time to pack or say goodbye. The cruel history is so sad. It really put into perspective why things are the way they are now though. Many people have forgiven history and moved on, but many still remember white people being such jerks to them and their families, that is why me, Austin, and the Princes still get looks for walking around – even though we had nothing to do with it. Male authority problems still exist because of the past as well. When the families got kicked out of their homes, the father’s mainly, got the most frustrated because they couldn’t protect their families, and in turn, they started beating their wives and abusing their kids because of their pain and that was the only thing they still had control over. It is so easy for evil to have a dominos effect unfortunately. For lunch, we went to this Indian place (kind of scary because I am not the biggest Indian food fan) but it was basically this long hallway with all these food joints. I played it safe and got the pizza. We met a Turkish guy, who goes to college in Germany, and now is taking classes in Cape Town. It is cool meeting some randos!

Overall a great and informative day! Glad I got the experience to learn so much about Cape Town’s history, and now I know why things are the way they are here!

Sarah put up a blog that I wrote on her website. I think all of you guys would find it informative on everyday life through a child here in Ocean View, so check it out! http://looklistenlove.org/2011/09/233/

Also, Austin Dietz (a Raleigh boy) has a blog and has a really nice camera so check out all his stuff!

austininsouthafrica.com