The Past Week: Jeffrey's Bay, School, and A Look Ahead

With school and excursions starting to roll I haven't had much time to blog. However, I found sometime now as I sit in Madibaz Cafe waiting for some lunch and seminar to start.

The past week has been great. On Saturday, a group of us rented two cars and drove to Jeffrey's Bay for our first excursion/get away. Jeffrey's Bay is a hotspot for surfers. It is one of the best places to surf on Earth, so I've heard. There were some surfers out there but, unfortunately for us, the surf board rental shop was closed. No worries, though, there are plans to surf it up near our beach soon. Rather than surf, the group drove a few miles down the road to a adventure park where we could zipline and cliff jump. So 10 out of the 13 of us signed up for the zipline. There were 4 stages to the zipline and took about 30 minutes to complete. It was a ton of fun and very cool to glide a few hundred feet over the canyon floor. After, we all walked down to the watering hole to go cliff jumping. There were multiple cliffs to jump from and all were very fun. The highest was a 50 foot jump. Of course, I had to test it out for myself. It was a fall but a fun one. 

The following days after Jeffrey's Bay were filled with service and school. On Sunday, I escaped the group for a bit and went to campus to study, Skype, and to take a look around. 

Monday and Tuesday were spent at Pendla helping teach. It gets more fun every time we go and the kids are starting to learn our names. They even have helped teach me some Xhosa. Lots of clicks and clacks. 

Monday's class, South African Music, was spent singing and dancing. We learned the South African national anthem which involves 4 different languages. 

Tuesday's class, South African Politics went well and we learned about foreign influences on South Africa and it's development.

Wednesday was a pretty calm day. Worked out and then had Peace Studies in the morning which led into a heated discussion about human, animal, and environment rights. So, this class will be fun. 

Today, I was able to hit the gym in the morning. While writing this post NMMU had a mass dance out in front  of the library so, obviously, I had to take part in that. Check YouTube, folks. Ha! Now that leaves me with Seminar and a nice relaxing rest of my day. Weekend starts in about 4 hours! 

With the few rain showers we have had the humidity has calmed down. Tomorrow, the entire group will be heading to Addo Elephant Park for a safari. You can say that I'm pretty excited! I've always wanted to go on an African Safari so tomorrow will be quite an adventure! There is an involvement fair on Saturday for students to join clubs, sports, and societies. I'm sure I'll find a number of things to get myself involved in! 

Me with some of my fourth graders at Pendla!