umm. is this real life?!

so, after all, perhaps i should have stayed at my peaceful hut.
let me set the scene for you:

 

the theme of the night at this gross party hostel is "bikinis and boardshorts."  right up my alley, right?!

so, there are lots of drunk people walking around in little clothing.  also, there is a pool outside, which means that there are drunk people swimming, which i hate.  they are all wearing glow bracelets and glow in the dark face paint, and there is terrible cheesy music playing.  it is about 85 degrees and humid outside, and since i spent the day walking around some pretty gross parts of this city, i feel like i am covered in a later of sweat and a layer of bugs.  it is just past 11 at night, so now people are drunk enough that the girls are becoming annoying and dramatic and crying and shit.  The bathrooms at this place smell like shit and I may get more dirty than clean when I decide to use the shower.  My room is directly next to the bar....which is oh-so-quiet.  And, the keys on the computer have leopard print stickers on them, which makes it really hard to type since I can't see the letters!

 

early in the night, i was sitting outside reading my book and drinking a beer.  this annoying british guy started talking to me.  he came down to this town a few months ago, and has pretty much been bumming around since.  so clearly, we already have nothing in common, and i am just trying not to be totally rude.  he was pretty convinced that he was going to get me to go out later in the night...obviously he doesn't know how stubborn i can be.  he and his cousin were discussing their night, and it seemed to consist of drinking, cocaine, and acid.  maybe some pot stuck in there.  oh, and lots of cigarettes.  awesome.  just what i was hoping to do tonight.  well, either that or to sit around in my sweatpants with some friends and probably go to sleep before midnight.

 

i was happy to have a few drinks and hang out with some friendly people.  unfortunately, i chose the wrong place for that!

so, i decided that i would just be a total lame ass and sit around and read my book.  i have been sitting here for about two hours, reading "Three Cups of Tea."  Many people come up and ask why I am reading..."It is New Years Eve!!!"  Yes, I know.  Just another night of the year as far as I am concerned =)  I can't tell you how many times people have walked by and said, "A book...?" or "Reading?!"  I am sitting there reading, and behind me is a fog machine with people dancing on the bar and screaming.  Don't worry, I did take a small break from reading...that's when I went into the kitchen to make myself a snack of cheese and tomato.  The only other person in there was washing out shot glasses.

 

Surprisingly, I have not met any other Americans on my trip.  Until tonight...

there are a few here.

Three of them are peace corps volunteers, so I had some small hope that they may be friendly enough to invite me out with them, or to engage in a conversation.  Not so! 

 

I am now at the point where it is actually comical.  I am not really uncomfortable anymore...just looking forward to tomorrow.

So, i decided to use the computer to write this update.  but, when i signed on to my email, I saw an email from Chase card services stating that there was a charge that they want to verify.  It was for $160.93.  I was sure that I never bought anything at this cost.  Shit.  So, I push the button to say that this was not made the attempt at a purchase, and a notice came up saying that they would be calling me shortly.  Knowing that I wont be answering my phone, I called them.  I used almost all of the minutes on my phone to make this call, only to realize that it was in fact me!  It was not actually charged.  It was an attempted charge that was declined!  Yesterday, I tried to take out cash at an ATM.  After two tries, I realized that I was accidently using my credit card instead of my ATM card.  OOPS!  So, that was the attempted charge.  Nobody stole my credit card.  I was just dumb yesterday...and again tonight. OY!

 

Well, there you have my New Years update.

I hope that you all have a great night that in no way resembles mine!

 

Love,

Cori

 

 

center of it all

I have moved!  I am now staying at a hostel in the middle of it all.  Evidently the big parties tonight are on Florida Street, which is right where I am.  Should be interesting, since you all know how much I love new years!

I walked all around Durban yesterday.  One thing that I had not known is how big the Indian culture is here.  In some areas, I no longer felt like I was in South Africa!
Some random things that I thought were funny/interesting/noteworthy:
-Sign advertising an attorney.  His last name was Ramdass.  Sign read:  Ramdass Attorney.
-Sign advertising a plumber.  Sign read:  Rock Hard Plumber
-Kids in park playing soccer with an empty liter coke bottle.  Not even phased by the fact that it wasn't a ball.
-I went to go meet some of the other counselors from the camp.  They told me to meet them at "The Workshop," which I looked up (thank goodness for iTouch!) and realized was a mall.  I wandered for a bit and then found a cab.  He didn't know where the place was, so I gave him the address and we found it.  Later, I realized that I think that I told him that it was called "The Warehouse," which is why he had no idea what I was talking about.  Oops.  This reminded me of when I was a kid and I told people that I got my ears pierced in The Cottage (I meant, The Village in NYC!).  I made it there safely, and I was definitely the only white person in a many mile radius.  It was good to see some familar faces, and I think that I am going to meet up with them again today.
-Walked down to the beaches. It was super windy and gray outside.  The kind of day where in SD nobody would be at the beach.  It was SOO crowded.  Couldn't even see the sand sort of crowded.  There were places to go to find missing children, sort of crowded.

I bought a long sleeve shirt yesterday, cause i have nothing warm with me.  They forgot to take off the security tag, so i am going to walk back down there now to get it taken off...

Happy New Year!!!

To the other extreme

I just took a cab into the city and noticed that I was right near
the place where I am being picked up on Saturday morning. I have to
be ready at 6:30am. So, I decided to stop in and see if they have a
bed available, since it makes more sense to stay there rather than cab
there at the crack of dawn. They were able to get me a bed in a 10
person dorm for two nights. The place is the typical party hostel,
with bar and loud music at all hours. Not especially clean either,
but definitely more social and more central and with internet! So, it
should be an interesting (perhaps annoying) and memorable new years
after all!

Maybe not the best choice....

Oops. Maybe I should have stayed in the city. I reserved a bed at
this surfers place away from the city, thinking that mellow and safe
was the way to go. The problem is that I am now staying in this hut
near the beach, but the weather sucks and I am far from everything and
the only way to get anywhere is with a taxi. I have a feeling that I
am going to have the quietest, earliest to bed new years eve...ever!
At least I have a bunch of lizards,frogs,and mosquitos to keep me
company! (don't worry, I am in a malaria free area)

Maybe not the best choice....

Oops. Maybe I should have stayed in the city. I reserved a bed at
this surfers place away from the city, thinking that mellow and safe
was the way to go. The problem is that I am now staying in this hut
near the beach, but the weather sucks and I am far from everything and
the only way to get anywhere is with a taxi. I have a feeling that I
am going to have the quietest, earliest to bed new years eve...ever!
At least I have a bunch of lizards,frogs,and mosquitos to keep me
company! (don't worry, I am in a malaria free area)

Landing: take two

The past few days have been truly invredible. Hard to put into
words. I have a hundred or so photos, but they don't do justice. I
feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to join Jodi on this
safari.

We arrived at the airport on Saturday morning and realized that we
were in for quite a luxurious trip. Far from the hostels and camp,
that's for sure. We were the only two people on our flight!! A 12
passenger plane...just the two pilots and the two of us! It was a
beautiful (and slightly nauseating) one hour flight to the Madikwe
Game Reserve area. It was a bit nerve wracking when we hit turbulence
and i watched the pilot tighten his seat belt! He then looked back at
me with a smile and a thumbs up. Excellent. Much better. As we were
landing I tapped Jodi on the shoulder, as I was sure that we were
about to die. We were definitely overshooting the runway. As we got
close to the ground, we suddenly shot up again! The pilot looked back
and let us know that there were zebras on the runway. Hah! This was a
great introduction to the trip. Zebras on the runway. REALLY?! (a
definite "is this real life" moment)

We were picked up by a great guy named Stuart who would be our guide
for our time there. To get to the lodge, we drove back down the
runway (read: dirt strip) where we did in fact see the zebras that had
been in the way, as well as a few giraffes. Amazing. The lodge was
incredible, aside from the millions of ants that found there way into
all of my stuff.

We woke at 5am each day and went on a drive for a few hours and then
went on another in the evenings. Elephants, giraffes, wildebests,
impalas, wild dogs, lions, rhinos, hippos, buffalos, kudu, so many
beautiful birds...

Though it was SO beautiful and such a unique and amazing experience, I
am ready to go back to hostels and traveling the coast for my last two
weeks here. Off to Durban in a few hours! Jodi heads back to the
states this evening, so it is just me again. But, I may meet up with
some of the counselors from camp later this week, and many people have
given me advice of places to go/things to see on my trip down the coast.

I should have internet access almost every day for the rest of my
trip, so feel free to email and I will do my best to respond.

Love!!

Back in jo'burg...until the morning!

Just a quick update....
Flew back from Bloemfontein this afternoon...had a nice, relaxing,
mellow few days on the farm. If I don't run around soon I might go
crazy, but otherwise, all is well! It was great to see an old camp
friend again (Laurens) and meet his family. They were extremely
welcoming and kind. They weren't sure what to do with a vegetarian,
but somehow still managed to feed me more than enough, including lots
of puss(otherwise known as custard). I went to my first braai (BBQ),
where we were high on a hill when the wind picked up and we thought
that we were going to start a forest fire. It was one of the many
"only in Africa" moments. The farm was beautiful and HUGE...had some
interesting conversations about the country and it's history and the
range of problems that exist here today. I really enjoy hearing the
viewpoints of so many different people, an these were the first
Afrikaners that I had spoken with since arriving.

At the airport, I met up with my friend Jodi who I met at the camp.
We checked into a hotel (yup! No hostel for me tonight!) and then
another friend from camp came and picked us up. We went and hung at
her friends house for a bit, though there was a small exodus upon our
arrival. Just another awkward moment to add to the list! It turned
out that they had been hanging out since this morning and it was
getting late.

Jodi and I leave for safari tomorrow morning. I have no idea whether
or not I will have internet there, but I will be back in the airport
for a few hours on Tuesday, so I will update again then.

I hope that you all had a nice Xmas...or, for my non Xmas celebrating
family, I hope that you all had some nice family time this week.
Hopefully I will be there the next time you are all together.

Have a great weekend!!
Love, cori

Welcomed luxury

Well, most of you would not call this luxury. But, it is clean...I
have my own room....and bathroom...no frogs or Mosquitos....no singing
and dancing of Zulu songs....no power outages....I am not being
electrocuted every time that I shower...and I have access to foods
that are not all white on color and made from some sort of corn product.

I am in a part of Johannesburg called Melville. I arrived here
yesterday with two of the girls who were also volunteers...jodi and
aly. Both of them are camp directors so you can imagine that we got
along pretty well.

Aly left for England today and jodi left for cape town. So, this is
actually my first night alone since arriving! Tomorrow I am going to
Bloemfontein to visit an old camp friend and then I changed my plans
so that I fly back here on Friday and meet up with jodi. We are going
on safari together. Super excited to have somebody to go with!!

I am typing on an itouch so it would take me hours to write all about
the camp experience. I will have to do that in person... Which will
also make it much more entertaining. Suffice it to say that I have no
regrets at all. But, I was definitely ready to be done and I don't
know what I would have done if there had not been other international
volunteers there with me. There were some seriously strange
moments....interesting ones....frustrating ones...
There was constant singing and dancing. There were many times of
cluelessness as I was surrounded by people speaking Zulu. But, these
kids were incredible and camp definitely provided a life changing
experience for them. It was unbelievable to be a part of it.

I hope that you are all having a healthy holiday season!!

All is well in SA...except for Internet access

The Internet is on and off here, so I am going to try to write this update, and see what happens....

 

For the first time since arriving here, I am on my own.  Big time sucky! 

Well, technically, not alone.  I came to a hostel and met up with a girl who will be volunteering as well.  She is from Canada...seems real nice.  We head out early tomorrow morning for Magaliasburg, which is where we will be until the 20th.

 

So, this past week...

 

I arrived on Friday night, and was incredibly thankful to have a friend to pick me up at the airport in Cape Town.  He quickly took care to be sure that I was safe, teaching me about hiding things behind seats in the truck, locking doors, panic buttons, etc.  We arrived at the hostel and couldn't get in.  OF COURSE!  I mean, I always have trouble traveling and all had gone smoothly until that point!  It turned out to be pretty funny.  He had a code to get in, and the code didn't work.  It was like 11 at night, so nobody was at the desk...luckily, after a few minutes a guy came in and opened the gate.  Turned out that we had the wrong code...maybe from the last hostel that he was at?!  who knows... so, it was nice to go inside and relax a bit, talk a bit, and get to bed.  The other option would have been to sit in a bar until the sun came up and somebody let us into the hostel!  hah.

 

Saturday, I was pretty tired from traveling.  We walked around Cape Town and had a pretty mellow day. 

 

Sunday, we went to Muizenburg (a beach area).  I went for a quick swim in the ocean, which felt amazing.  Evidently, I brought the bad surf curse with me because the surf was great until I arrived, and continued to be crap the entire time that I was there.  Nonetheless, it was awesome to just sit on the beach for a bit and watch some kids run around in the water and dance.  Song and dance is everywhere here.  It seems that everybody just has this inate ability to sing.  It is amazing.

 

Monday we hiked Table Mountain...aweseome views of Cape Town!  It was FREEZING on top.  Not like cori-cold.  Actually cold.  It was super windy, so we spent about 20 minutes on the top of the mountain and then couldn't feel our hands...

 

Tuesday we did a wine tour in Stellenbosch.  We met two cool girls from Canada, and then there were three older people on the tour.  It was neat to drive through some towns and to see the wine country.  All beautiful.  Learned a bit about wine...tasted some good wines.  Overall, great day.  On the way back, we realized that one of the women on the tour was the owner of the hostel next to ours.  She invited us over for drinks.  Just what you want after a day of drinking wine, right?!  We went...

 

Wednesday we wandered around Cape Town...saw a little soccer match...the Botanical gardens...the Waterfront.  We weren't exactly moving quickly (see Tuesdays events).  That night, we tried to do a full moon hike that I had read about.  It is at an area called Lionshead.  The idea is that you hike up on the full moon night so that you watch the sun set and the moon rise.  Well, we drove up there and felt like we were driving to a concert.  There were thousands of people there!  So, we decided not to do.  Neither of us are huge fans of crowds.  We ended up driving up to Table Mountain, where we had hiked a few days before.  It was a great place to watch a beautiful sunset over a beautiful city.  Another great day....

 

Thursday...went for another swim at Muizenburg...tried Lionshead hike again..AWESOME!  This time, we went much earlier...it was a beautiful day...a beautiful sunset.  We hiked down before the sun was setting, and saw crowds of people coming up.  It turned out to be perfect since we got to watch the sun set as we hiked down...and we avoided the crowds!  This was probably one of the best moments since being here.

 

So, on Friday, we took of for Johannesburg.  (Note: I am safe, so don't flip out when I told you that we drove!).  We drove.  This is a long story to try to explain while typing, but the short version is that there is a school outside of Johannesburg that is run by a woman who is a family friend of my friend.  Last April, their computer lab was broken into and all of the computers were stolen.  Another school down in Cape Town had 30 computers to donate, but they had been sitting there because they had no way to transport them.  So, we took them.  The problem is that with a truck full of computers, it isn't safe to stop anywhere.  So, we drove straight...18 hours. WAHOO!  The idea of that many hours in a car sounded horrible to me, but it didn't turn out to be nearly as bad as I thought.  Actually, I kind of enjoyed it!  We literally drove across the country.  Some interesting moments along the way....stopped by customs...lots of road construction...sometimes you just get out of the car and sit for a while...Also, since there was so much weight in the back of the truck, the lights on the front looked like brights.  Driving through the night, you can only imagine how many people flashed their brights at us, thinking that our brights were on.  It became like a game of light flashing...

 

We arrived safely on Saturday morning....slept for a few hours and then walked around and got some lunch...

We were staying with an extremely kind and welcoming family.  She is the one who runs the school.

Yesterday, we walked around...I got to see where my friend grew up...saw the botanical gardens...heard some great live music...saw a wedding in the park...went to an African flea market. 

 

This morning, we went to the school to drop off the computers.  When we arrived, two girls were there to give us a tour.  It was really funny, and slightly uncomfortable, as they definitely thought that we were important people of some sort.  The tour was literally a tour of everything, including every classroom, teacher and bathroom in the school.  At the moment, it is for 10th and 11th graders, so there were about 80 students.  After the tour, they had the entire school waiting outside to welcome us.  Imagine the look on my face. And my love for being the center of attention.  Clearly, something was lost in translation, as the students definitely thought that we had something to do with the donation of the computers.  They didn't realize that we simply drove them up there for them.  So, after a welcome...they sang a welcome song, and some of them were dancing.  They all had these amazing smiles on their faces.  Then, we got a thank you song.  We were extremely awkward, not knowing how to respond.  Just imagine, the two white people standing up in front of the entire school.  OY! 

It was a pretty incredbile experience though.  And yes, I obviously now want to go back and teach at the school.  It is a maths and sciences school.  (Don't worry, I am still coming home!)

 

That is the short version of my week.  Lacking many of the funny moments, but I am typing about 200 words a minute and my hands hurt and I am just trying to get in as much as possible, while saving every few sentences as the Internet continues to cut out.

 

I will be in touch again in a few weeks.

I feel so luck to be here...this has been a truly incredible week.

 

Love,

Cori

 

 

Safe in Jo'Burg!

Hello everybody (including Kya and Sarah!  Woop Woop!),

 

So, I made it to Johannesburg in one piece.  I am luckily enough to have a friend and a nice house to stay in for today and tomorrow, and then I head to the hostel to meet up with the other volunteers.  We leave for camp in Tuesday morning.

 

I had a fantastic week in Cape Town.  On the last night there, we did an amazing sunset hike....a great way to end a great week in a beautiful place.

Now, on to new adventures.  I will try to sit down before leaving to volunteer and write a full re-cap on the past week.

There were only a few neither safe nor fun events =)

Actually, that is not true.  They were all fun!  And, I am in one piece and healthy.  Just covered in bites.

 

I hope that you  are all doing well....

super quick update

i promise a real update this weekend, but for now..

 

all is well here. have been in cape town since arriving, and will be here until friday or saturday.

have done some great hikes, seen a beautiful beach, a fun wine tour yesterday, and met some great people from around the world.

i am heading up to johannesburg this weekend and will hopefully have a day to prepare for volunteering.  i will write a real update then. promise!