happy november!!!!

oh man i havent written in quite a bit. things have been wayway busy. cliffnotes version:
2 weeks ago i was at m internship all week, figuring out what my research topic will be and going on home visits. sometimes there isnt much to do in the office, so my fellow interns and i do things like quiz ourselves on middle-eastern countries by labeling blank maps of the area and learning random facts about uzbekistan.  i was going to research why the education system in SA has pretty much failed, but since i will be working with HIV/AIDS issues over the course of the next year in Malawi my professor thinks that digging into why South Africa has such a huge problem with HIV would be more fitting. Such a huge topic for 20 pages, but she says  I can make it manageable....
So on the 24th we left for Johannesburg for our "excursion." I was looking forward to seeing new things, getting a break from cape town, etc. ummmmm not what happened. theres not much to do in joburg except eat in malls (we did this i think 4 times, it was the safest place to eat probably), go to really depressing apartheid museums (i broke down in one of them.... more on that later), and be bored as hell. POSITIVE side- we did go to 2 braais (like south african BBQs) and to Kruger National Park where we saw a bunch of animals. did yall know that the average elephant penis weights 160 pounds?!?!? fun fact i learned while sitting in the safari vehicle. it was quite rainy and cold during the drive and visibility was low, but hey, i got to see some zebras so its all good. made it back last night for halloween!! saw some trick-or-treaters, made me happy. all in all, the week draaaaaagged mainly because i have been anticipating the arrival of my SPECIAL FRIEND!!!!!!!!! in about 3 hours from the time i am writing this i am going to pick my dear up from the airport.... the time has come. for sure.  ive been waiting on november 1 and here it is... !!!!

more later..... i must go bask in the glorious sunny cape townian morning.
LOVE!

Things I feel bad about but "shouldn't"

*Being driven to my internship. I HATE telling people that I get driven. I SEE all of the judgments forming in their eyes. What sucks is that for the most part they are right. “Wow, she has money. Wow, she is spoiled.” Yes, and yes, but AHHHHHHH. However, the ride is free (well, included in program costs). If I were to take public transport, it would literally take hours, be really crowded and full of blaring techno music, and probably $5 a day. Anyways, our personal driver for the program, Parks, is AWESOME. One of the most positive people I’ve ever met. Always calling us “MY BUDDY!!!!” However, seeing him at our front gate at 8 am every morning, knowing he woke up REALLY early to drive here from his home, only to drive my spoiled self to my INTERNSHIP that I am PAYING to do….. wow, it just hits me in the face everyday how backwards this all is. On that note….

*Wanting to stay later at my internship

We only get to stay at our internship 4 hours a day because it is so far away, and Parks has to beat the traffic to go home to his wife. A part of me says, “Hey, everyone else get so stay at their internships until 4 pm (it is supposed to be this way for everyone) but we get gypped because we have to be picked up at 2”. But we don’t get home until 3:30 and Parks has to drive back pretty much to where he picked us up; he probably doesn’t get home till at least 5 because of traffic. We never encounter traffic because we are the few crazy people who are leaving the city bowl in the morning to go into the townships- everyone else is coming from the townships to work for the rich white people who live in the city bowl, like myself….

*Living in Tamboerskloof. “Oh, well isn’t she privileged.” Well, yes, I am. But it’s safe here. “Oh, she’s just a scared white girl” Well, maybe I am. But safety is a big concern. Besides, my program set up my housing for me… “You paid by yourself?? You MUST be a rich American” …..AHHHHH.

* Having my bed made and my room cleaned everyday. We have a wonderful lady Kamyi (I think this is how you spell it…) who is like the Hillcrest Manor maid. She is black, from the township Langa, and incredibly nice. On the one hand I feel AWFUL when I come into my room, and whatever I had on my bed in the morning is nicely folded on my pillow, my sheets all nice and my blanket perfectly tucked in. I try my best before I leave to make it look like it does in the afternoons, but can always tell that she does it again herself. On the other hand, I imagine she needs to job to support her kids. If we did all of the cleaning ourselves (like you would have to do anywhere else…. like I’m used to (Mariah may not agree with this BUT GIRL IVE CHANGED, remember?)) Kamyi would be out of a job. So I have to put my privileged guilt aside and just appreciate the hell out of my clean sheets.

*Preferring not to take public transport, the mini-buses, and having the option not to. Taxi cabs are nicer and safer. 

*Going for a run. The blacks who work in Tamboerskloof (for the rich whiteys that live here) look at me like a fool. Same thing happened in Tanzania. “Shouldn’t you spend all that energy just…. surviving?” What an odd luxury….. choosing to make yourself exhausted because you can afford to. 

*Not really loving it here Don’t get me wrong, I like it a lot here, but I am very cautious with the word love. My heart still belongs to London, but that’s worthy of a WHOLE other entry….

Ok, so when I say that I miss fall in North Carolina, or pretty much just the Northern Hemisphere, I can’t quite explain this miss. I’ve written about it a lot in this blog, but I still feel the need to explain, even if only for myself….

I am completely thrown off. I guess 21 years of being on the same cycle does something to your body/everything. It’s like I’ve been dancing to the same beautiful drumbeat my whole life and now it’s opposite. I am trying with all of my might to hold on to any notion of autumn. It’s amazing how you can trick yourself. Last night we went to an Indian restaurant at dusk for a big dinner. The whole place was lined with windows. I totally fooled myself for a good 10 minutes, looking out the window at the evening thinking “Ooooo, its chilly outside…. Its October…. The leaves will be falling…..” Is that torturing myself?! But I found so much comfort in it! Wow. Also, the other night I tried the opposite. It was a warm evening and I made myself think “Ok, it’s early March… it’s one of those sexy spring evenings….” And I convinced myself for about 30 seconds. But I shouldn’t have to do any convincing on that end because it IS SPRING! I knew I was attached to months and seasons and dates and all things dealing with calendars (is there an adjective for that?) but DAMN I didn’t know it was this bad. It is really hard to let go of. I imagine its good for me in the long run. 

Amy Biehl

Last night I saw my first theater production in Cape Town at the Baxter Theater at UCT. The play was Mother to Mother, a 1-woman show about the true story of Amy Biehl. For those who don’t know, Amy Biehl was a Fulbright scholar here in Cape Town in 1993 that was brutally killed as an act of racial violence. She was stabbed in the Guguletu township, somewhere it was illegal for her to be because she was white. She was supposed to go home to America the next day. On our brief tour of Guguletu at the beginning of this semester we saw the exact spot on the sidewalk where she was stabbed.

The play is from the perspective of the mother of one of Amy’s killers and is in the form of a letter to Amy’s mother in the states. It was riveting. During the scene in which she vividly describes the actual act of Amy’s murder, I started crying. A lot of you know that I very rarely cry at theater or movies. But just thinking about this girl who must have been so excited to go home and see her family the next day and never quite got there, about the rocks that were thrown at her car, about how many times she was stabbed on that sidewalk, about how scared she must have been, about that phone call her mother received….. the weight of all of that hit me and I just broke. However, the show brought up some really great points, considered many perspectives, and made me evaluate why I felt so strongly about it.  First of all, had Amy Biehl been black, this would not even be a play.  The reason it made headlines is because she was a young white American woman. Had she been a black American woman it would not have been such a big deal. But does that take away from the same terror a black woman would have felt? What if Amy Biehl had been a black South African? Black South African women face situations like this every day. They get beaten every day. They get raped everyday. They feel the same terror Amy must have felt. The reason I personally felt such a connection to the story because I am a young white American woman as well. I can relate. Would this story have hit me as hard if it were about a North Korean woman?

So many perspectives were taken into account. The play briefly questions what the hell Amy was thinking that day; being in a township she knew it was illegal to be in. This is in NO way meant to justify what happened to her, but just to consider that if she had “even 1 ounce of fear” that she may have survived. This is hard to agree with but necessary to understand- we are not invincible. She may have thought she was. Again, this does not make anything her fault, but just considers another side.

I think this a very important work. I wish last night had not been the last night of the production so that everyone else in the program could see it.

The rest of the Amy Biehl story is really fascinating.  It is a very very powerful story of forgiveness. Here is a link to the Amy Biehl Foundation:

http://www.amybiehl.org/

recap of last week

Haven’t written in a while! This past week has been a number of things: Frustrating, encouraging, boring, busy…… sound like a bunch of contradictions? Well, that’s exactly what is has felt like. 

Monday and Tuesday I was at Molo. The most I did was organize tax invoices for about a half an hour. Boring, you say? UMM YES. NOT KAITLIN’S STYLE. Part of me was infuriated. “I am paying to be here to do an internship that I want to do- not organize tax invoices and sit on my ass in front of a computer!!!” Oh, my mind was not a pretty sight.

Side note:

You may be asking yourself, “Well, Kaitlin, can’t you just make up something to do?” I will now pull a quote from an email I wrote my special friend last week to hopefully clarify this:

" it is SO MUCH EASIER SAID THAN DONE to just "come up with a project". initiative is a different beast here. things are slow. anne marie and i are bored out of our minds and so is everyone else, it appears. from an outside perspective it might be easy to say ,"well, just go to ao school and teach sex ed! just show up!" or, "just research something!" but both of these have serious obstacles. i cant just get up and go to a school because #1) there is no transportation #2) i cant do anything in Molo's name without therir approval, and the people who would approve it are either never around or dont really care #3) i dont speak Xhosa #4) i cant just show up at a school, they do have classes and teachers. (though it is usually kind of unorganized). the list goes on and on. im not giving up though, no no no, im just really heart-set on switching. i have more to give than sitting ony my ass writing everyone in the world emails"

Anyway, I had asked our study abroad internship coordinator/advisor, Vernon, LAST Friday to see what I could do and if I could possibly switch. He said he would look into it over the weekend and get back to me. Well, Tuesday morning rolled around with no word so I took it upon myself to go to other people’s internships.

Wednesday:  I went to Christel House with my roommate Diana to teach gymnastics to second graders and sixth graders. OH. MY. LORD. 2^nd graders= little demons. I have NEVER worked with children that misbehaved. It was absolutely impossible. I can’t even describe how bad it was. They did not listen. AT. ALL. Wow wow wow. Terrible. On the other hand, the 6^th graders= little angels. They were so attentive and good gymnasts! This one little boy could do a back-tuck! Amazing. Frustrating and encouraging. All at once.

Thursday:  I went to Olive Leaf Foundation in Khayelitsha with my friend Sarah, still frustrated that Vernon had not gotten back to me. The whole day was a community meeting almost entirely in Xhosa about establishing some sort of Community Child Care System. We all sat in a big circle and all of the Mamas (about 30 of them) spoke in extremely fast Xhosa. Do yall know how crazy this language sounds?! All the clicks! My Lord. My special friend seemed surprised when I told him the other day that I hadn't really picked up any Xhosa yet. "Kaitlin, immersion is the best way!" I love his optimism, but DAMN BOY, YOU EVER HEARD XHOSA?!?!! Anyway, back to the point- It is amazing how much you can pick up from body language. I enjoyed watching their eyes speak. One woman talked in Xhosa for a half an hour straight and it was pretty fascinating. One of the facilitators translated the gist of what she said during the lunch break. Turns out when she was 20 she had a baby that was very sick and the doctors didn’t know what to do with it. They treated her and her baby very poorly because they were black. After a few frustrating days, the doctors gave the baby back to her. When the woman got on the bus to go home with the child, people kept looking at her strange and looking at the baby strange but she had no idea why. Someone told her the baby should go back to the hospital. She immediately turned around but when she got to the hospital no one would touch the baby. She kept trying to give it to a nurse but the nurses would look at it and run away. Turns out when the doctors had given her baby back it was already dead, but she didn’t know because she had never seen anything dead before. She said that the baby’s eyes were open and it was smiling. She was so unfamiliar with death. This woman is now probably in her 50s and says since then she has been very passionate about the rights of children.

At the lunch break I was explaining to Sarah how I would love to intern here and how if Vernon didn’t get back to me I would just come anyway. Then a man came up to me and already knew my name and said that he had been talking to Vernon all week and that I start Monday. WHAT?!?!?! I had been worrying myself for nothing? Vernon still hasn’t contacted me directly, but apparently this staff member said that he cleared it all up. I was shocked but am happy that it worked out. So I start Monday! I'll let yall know how it goes.....

The Worlds Highest Bungy Jump and Tstikamma National Park

So a few posts ago I posed the question of whether I should

a)     go to other people’s internships

b)    b) go bungy jumping

c)     both

 during my week off. I wound up picking B and am so glad that I did. I would have loved to pick C but there just wasn’t enough time. Here’s what went down:

Last Tuesday the 29^th Anne Marie, Diana and I woke up at 5 am to catch a 6 am bus to Storms River, a small town east from here along the coast. Our mission was simple- to do the highest bungy jump in the world. Let’s do the math:

3 whole days away and 18 hours roundtrip time on bus for a 5 second free fall.

Worth it?

YES.

When we arrived the first day we just chilled at our AWESOME hostel. Google “Tube ‘N Axe Hostel”. It was so nice to get away from the city! Met some great people from Australia and England and spent a while chatting around a bonfire. Went to bed early to get ready for…..

September 30^th. The Best Day of the Semester (so far)

Ok. So the bungy jump is 216 meters. That’s about 700 feet. It is from the Bloukrans Bridge that overlooks pristine mountains and the Indian Ocean. 

We were in the first group of people for the day that included about 13 British dudes on a surfing trip. We all bonded quickly and were thrilled to say the least! One guy actually threw up! Poor thing. I was surprisingly not nervous at all though, just excited. I kept marveling at how my hand was completely steady. Face Adrenalin, the company that does it, is super professional and they have a 100% safety record. The staff was so cool and the environment was so fun- THEY HAVE A LIVE DJ ON THE BRIDGE!! So we danced, cheered each other on, watched live-stream videos of people’s jumps when we could no longer see them…. So fun. Us 3 girls were last after waiting about 40 minutes and watching everyone else go but 3 of those British guys stuck around- saying “WE ARE A TEAM!! WE CAN’T LEAVE NOW!!” Peter, Chris, and Stephen. Here we are:

So it was my turn to go and it just went by in a flash. It was such a rush. I was not scared at all.

After the initial jump and rebound I just dangled there, admiring the scenery and screaming “HALLELUJAH PRAISE THE LORD YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!” and hearing my voice echo throughout the valley. Then before I knew it I was back on the bridge, so euphoric:

 The came the task of encouraging my roomie Diana to go. She had major doubts but peer pressure turned out to be too much. The British guys were NOT going to let her off that bridge unless she did it. (To be read in a British accent) “YOU WILL REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IF YOU DON’T DO IT” And she did! Awesome. Great great great experience.

After a pit-stop for lunch at the hostel we headed to Tstikamma National Park, not knowing a thing about it. SO GLAD WE DID. It is right along the coastline of the Indian Ocean! We frolicked a lot. We went on a beautiful hike. We took a ton of pictures. Here's a taste:

I did cartwheels and handstands EVERYWHERE. Duh.

Then it was back to the hostel for a much needed shower and great meal, then bed time!

The next morning was not so great- rainy and our bus was 2 hours late. Oh well. The ride back was much nicer than the ride down and the scenery was GORGEOUS. I listened to music nearly the whole 9 hours, letting my mind go wherever it wanted. 


On Saturday I went to a crumping battle which was pretty cool. There were B boys, crumpers, this AWESOME beat-boxer, and MCs battling in Afrikaans. pretty cool! it was like "Step Up 2 The Streets- CAPE TOWN" The event was actually sponsored by Sprite and was called "Da Cape VS Da Rest". No joke.

now its back to the grind. i might be switching internships as there is not enough for 2 people to do at Molo.

Hope everyone is well, miss and love you allll!!

The Plight of a Pianist

In this world, if you don’t own a piano, I have found that you must be proactive in finding one to play. How I envy thee, guitar and fiddle players, who can so easily transport your instruments wherever you please. Play it on a mountaintop? Sure! Bust it out for a jam session in the woods? Sure! For us pianists, it is not so easy. One must search, be persistent, and occasionally sneak. I have done all of the above since my arrival in Cape Town and have seen some success. On Wednesdays, I go to a German church up the street and play from 5-6 pm. Arranging this took 3 weeks, many visits and strange looks from the Pastor and his family. Now they know me and expect me and it has worked well. I sit alone in a sanctuary and play as loud as I want….. PRAISE.

My next piano-searching adventure happened at the Mount Nelson Hotel in downtown Cape Town. First I must engage in a little side photo-story and tell you why I was there in the first place….

High Tea!

 What happens when 14 young American women get all dolled up, go to a ritzy hotel, drink tea, eat crumpets and things of the like?

We pose.

This was a really fun afternoon. The food = delicious. But by far the best part of this experience was meeting Maggie, the pianist for High Tea. Maggie is probably in her 80’s. She does not read music. She plays everything by ear and from memory. She can barely see. She is phenomenal. I talked to her for a while and was so thrilled at the prospect of learning some of her tricks. I told her I would come back soon and listen to her again. I then asked some of the staff if it would be alright if I came in during times when they weren’t busy and played. They seemed delighted at the prospect and told me to talk to their boss who happened to not be in that day. I told them I would be by the next day.

So, the next day I got all gussied up again and was so excited to talk with Maggie and the boss man. However, on my way into the tea area, I passed by the ballroom. Unlocked. I thought BINGO, they must have a piano in here. Low and behold, they did! It was perfect; a dimly lit room with crimson carpet, chandeliers, and completely empty except an unlocked grand piano. I almost peed my pants. But I had to stay focused; I had to go see Maggie! Thus I told the piano I would be right back. I hurried over to see Maggie and told her how excited I was at the prospect of playing at some point. I thought she would be really supportive of this, but I was pretty surprised when she SHOT ME DOWN and was like, “Oh no no no, they wont let you do that. We have foreigners come in and they ruin the pianos, they just can’t play.” Wow, way to give a girl a chance, Maggles. I then said that maybe I could just play the one in the ballroom if no one was in there and she said that “Oh no no no, the staff would be VERY upset if they saw you doing that, VERY upset.” BUZZKILL. DAMN MAGGIE, CAN I LIVE???

Thus, I told her with a smile that I was disappointed but that I would continue to look elsewhere, hoped to still see her and learn from her sometime, thanked her, and left. I could have just walked home from there, disheartened. I almost did. But listen, when you love something as much as I love the piano, sometimes you may act irrationally. Or perhaps just rationally enough. I started to walk home and passed by the ballroom and thought, (excuse my language) but F*CK IT, Maggie doesn’t OWN the piano, she simply suggested that I not do it, she didn’t explicitly tell me not to. So I went upstairs, sat down and played cautiously for about 30 minutes. During this time 2 employees, one white one black, smiled at me and told me to keep playing. One of them even turned on the lights for me! Even if I wasn’t “supposed” to play the piano, the worst thing they would have done would be to tell me to leave, which I graciously would have done and apologized and sweetly smiled. You gotta play the game.

Thus, the conclusions of this social/musical experiment:

If you look like you know what you’re doing, most people wont ask what you’re doing.

If you look nice and dress the part, people won’t ask what you’re doing.

If you’re in South Africa and white, black workers wont ask what you’re doing.

 Racist, you say? No, just true.

That’s why I love piano- you have the white keys, you have the black keys, and in combining them you can make the most beautiful sound. Unless you’re in the Key of C, in which case you’re just a white supremacist.

JUS KEEEEDING. 


So yes, finding a piano is difficult. However, absence does make the heart grow fonder. My 1 hour at the German church on Wednesdays is one the sweetest of the entire week. I cherish this time, I think of nothing else while I play. Working to find a piano makes it all the more fun too, depending on how you look at it. It's a thrill to stroll over to the Mount Nelson Hotel Ballroom, hoping it will be unlocked. You fiddle players out there (one special one in particular....) may see this solely as an inconvenience but oooohh, the risk can be so sweet, so rewarding. So sure, I may be out of practice. Sure, I'm not writing as much I would maybe like. But taking time off from the things (and people) you love the most often makes the time spent with them all the better.