Happy Sunday!

Ohhhh it’s a chilly, cloudy, misty morning here in Cape Town! Quick updates:

Thursday: I finally made it to Molo Songololo and it is wonderful! It is in a great part of town called Observatory, which I kind of equate to the Carrboro of Cape Town; a nice college area with organic food shops. Within 10 minutes of being at the Molo office, we were thrown in a van and went to a high school in a township and gave a survey about HIV/AIDS to students (or as they say ‘learners’) and teachers. The questions were very thorough and interesting, dealing with general knowledge of what the virus is and also many about stigma of infection. It was crazy being back in a classroom of 40 teenagers and being the only white person; I couldn’t help but think of Second Chance in Tanzania. Anyway, we were there about an hour and on the way back I read some of the surveys. The most disheartening thing I read: 

Q: What is HIV?

 A: It is something that cannot be helped

 I saw this response a lot.

Back at the Molo office, we learned that we will be there from about 8:30-4 Monday-Thursday, some days in the office and some days out in schools. While working at a primary school and doing theater therapy was TERRIBLY enticing, in the end I’m glad I’ll be with a legit NGO that has been around for 30 years and am super excited about being an intern because I have never done anything like this before. Molo gets stuff DONE, yall. Check them out: www.molosongololo.com

Friday: Class day. I am actually really interested in the subject material. Can you believe it? Kaitlin interested in trade relations between China and Sudan? That evening I went “out” for the first time and remembered immediately exactly why I had not done so yet. CIGARETTE SMOKE. Yuck yuck yuck. Sorry Cape Town, but London gains yet another point against you for this fact alone. In London you can only smoke outside. Here? Just blow it in my face, why don’t ya. So, I danced a little and celebrated Eboni’s birthday at midnight, only to celebrate it so much more on…

Saturday!! Woke up PUMPED to climb Table Mountain. Eboni was having second thoughts, but I had to convince her there was no better way to celebrate her birthday! So her, Sarah and I headed up the Platteklip Gorge. It took about an hour and a half and it was pretty challenging. STEEP stairs the whole time. I had to sing “One Step at a Time” by Jordin Sparks to keep the morale up. Due to this I think Eboni and Sarah wanted to punch me at times, but WOOOOO WEEEEEE THE VIEW AT THE TOP WAS WORTH IT!!!!

Me, Eboni and Sarah

I had to do a handstand, DUH.

Feeling so accomplished we went home and showered up to go celebrate even further at Professor Lee’s apartment. Present were the 3 C’s, chips, cake and charades, thus a successful night. Group shot!

 This week is bound to be very busy, the first full week of being an intern, a 6 page paper due Friday on China’s trade relations with Sudan and DRC, as well as a group presentation on part of the South African constitution se in place in 1994.

Hope you all are doing well, soak up that autumn air for me and send some this way.

Love to everyone!!!   ~ Kaitlin