Clubbing in Capetown? It's only the beginning :)

Well i realize that I didn't know what to say about my teacher Whitney last time, so I thought i'd write a little bit about her, she's leaving us today and Gen is coming in to teach for the rest of the semester.

Whitney- One of the most humble people ive ever met, we didn't even know she placed 5th at world, for kayaking not too long ago until two weeks in. She has a calm zen about her, and her experience in the field is greatly appreciated. It's sad to see her go, but our group was blessed to be touched by her awesome spirit.

ok anyways. cape town. wow we've done so much! ah!

Langa Township- we went to a township, and man. there aren't words. we got to go into a new house, still being built. but my favorite part by far was being in the church, we were part of a service and it was AMAZING. very welcoming and homey the voices of the choir filled the hall, soaring above the rafters in a chorus of harmony. little kids dozed on their parents shoulders, and woman swayed gently to the music. even being there just made me feel more spirtual then i could have ever felt at home. we walked around the township, smelling trash and seeing shacks that were people's homes. to see the stark contrast of the township against the cushy condos on the waterfront, crazy.

hip hop tour- we were part of a hip hop class which was part of Heal The Hood , a program which gets kids to participate in dance and get them off the streets and doing something constructive. we did some break dancing and then got a talk from the co-ordinator. he talked about being ourselves, and how important that is for people in "the hood", for kids who are in gangs and carry knives around concealed under their clothes at 8 years old. the hip hop tour was fun, but also gave us a little bit of a slap in the face at life "in the hood"

CASE- Community Action toward a Safer Enviroment. A program similar to Heal the Hood, but it has many outlets instead of just dance. We were led to a room, and given free reign to turn it into a place where the youth could spend their time and have clubs. Over the next couple of hours we cleaned the tables, threw away things, organzied the random piles of intems, painted quotes on the walls and re arranged the furniture. After a while, it was looking more like a room and less like a storage closet. We then had a short walk/ tour of Hanover Park, a sketchy neighborhood close to the CASE office. As we walked Joderich ( a CASE youth volunteer who lived in Hanover) pointed out some harmless graffitti on the wall. it was a crown with a B under it, and then informed us that it was a tag from one of the local gangs in the area called the Brits. " oh yeah" mike ( anopther youth volunteer) said "don't say your american, say your from america. american is one of the largest gangs in cape town" hmm..... as we walked you began to wonder what all the graffitti on building really meant. "what about the police?" we asked. he laughed and told us they were scared of the gangs, so they were no help. lovely. although we didn't venture far into hanover, we got a small taste of life there as we walked. the smells of trash wafted up to my nose, and men called suggestivly from behind corners, we ignored them heads low walking forward. joderich told us about how even he was afraid to walk around at night, and he lived there.

the next day we were organizing a program for 7th grade girls. at first it was hard, to get them to listen to us and for them to try the somewhat embarressing activities we asked them to do. after about 20 minutes it got better, we played games like little sally walker and Wa, which was fun but most were too shy to participate. we then had them write a dream or hope they had on a piece of paper and then we would chain them all together and hang them in the room we had cleaned the day before. along with the chain the girls also got to put their handprint beside the qoutes we painted the day before. about halfway through, we looked at the wall. handprints covered the wall in all different colors, some paint was splattered between them and on the floor. it looked spectacular.

right now i'm with my homestay family looking around cape town for the weekend, no big halloween plans sadly, but we are headed up the garden route next and after that we have a backpacking trip planned so i'll try and keep you updated :)

miss you!

allegra