A week full of intersting food

Well this week.... nothing to exciting. I didn’t leave Stellenbosch, and there aren't many pictures so this one is going to be mostly text. I apologize. So since last time I wrote...nothing special happened on Monday or Tuesday just classes as normal. On Wednesday evening I went to Kayamandi, the "informal settlement" and had dinner there. It was all traditional food. It was so neat and interesting and after we talked to some of the local shop owners there. This was all safe let me just say. It was organized through the international office here at the University. Okay so the food. Well first we had steamed bread, which is bread dough that is then put into a plastic bag and put over a pot of boiling water. It is then cooked like that for about 2 hours! It was soooo good and moist. We had butter with it but there was no salt in the butter so it tasted kind of funny and I ended up putting salt on my bread. We also had orange juice or this other juice mixture, which was like apple and pear and I forget the other fruit. There was also house wine but you had to pay for that so I didn’t have any. Next we had chicken liver in this sauce and some sort of sticky rice (these all have African names but I forget them). I was pretty nervous about trying this chicken liver because I think eating liver is weird. I was also concerned about the texture but it turned out to be wicked good. I thought it was great and would have liver again anytime. It was somewhat spicy but didn’t burn your mouth or have that spicy after taste. Next they brought us out each a plate, oh let me interrupt here. The plates were gorgeous they were hand painted and ceramic. There was this zebraish print but classy not tacky and this yellow plate with black shadows of people painted on it. The colors here are gorgeous. It is amazing. Okay back to the food. They brought us a big plate like the size of a small pizza full of a bunch of samples of different foods. So first there was this spinach and cheese thing it was okay but my least favorite. Next there was this yellow and red pickled peppers and bean mixture. This was okay but nothing to amazing for me. They had chicken on the bone with seasoning that was yellowish. I think that there was a little curry on it but I am not sure. Next there was beef or lamb (I am not good with my meat) in a sauce. Then there was this orange squash/sweet potato tasting thing. It wasn’t either but it was very good. Then there was this white corn shaped thing but it was harder than corn. It was my favorite with it looked like purple pieces of corn in it. Around the edges were potato wedges (French fries which were very good I think that I was craving them). At this point I felt like I was going to explode! I was so full and it was all so good. I cleaned my plate haha I am a pig. Next the dessert came and there is always room for dessert in my stomach. It was a fruit salad with guava, apples, bananas (gross, I only had one in my salad and gave it away), oranges and strawberries. On top was a ball of ice cream which was a mixture of chocolate, vanilla and then this really pink one I don’t think that it was strawberry. Also there was a thin piece of apple pie/ apple crisp tasting stuff. That was my favorite part of the dessert. I also got an extra ball of ice cream because someone said that they couldn’t finish it and I was like well if I have to I will eat it for you..haha. I felt so full and sick afterwards so we just sat and let everything digest. Once my pants fit over my belly again I got up and went outside where they had a fire going and mingled with some of the people from Kayamandi and went to some of there shops that were in the same area. They had some beautiful jewelry and pottery but I only brought 50 Rand (that is there currency), which wasn’t enough to buy most things. It was very neat and it was a clear and night where you could be out in just your sweatshirt and be comfortable. The stars were gorgeous but I have yet to locate the Southern Cross. So that was my Kayamandi dinner experience.

On Friday I volunteered at Kayamandi. I don’t remember if I mentioned this before but I am helping to teach kids basketball. There was nothing officially set up there. The teacher had forgotten to remind the kids about basketball but just showing up with the balls and walking down to the basketball court (it is an outside one not at the school) there was about 8 to 10 kids that wanted to play. We only had 2 balls, one was a real basketball and the other was a giant tennis ball, and their ability levels differed so much. So the older kids and me played a game of basketball. I would say the oldest one there was about 12. The younger kids worked with Trish where they passed the ball around. They didn’t speak English or if they did they spoke very little so it was difficult to communicate. Later 2 older kids in high school asked to join so they joined. It was a success but next week we need to start drills so we will see how that goes with the language barrier.

After volunteering I had training. I applied to be in a peer education on HIV/AIDS group and was accepted so that was exciting. So right after volunteering I went straight there. It has been all weekend each day and then not next weekend, I am going white water rafting next weekend, but the weekend after that there is another training weekend. I have met a bunch of South Africans through it and it has been very informative. I have learned how HIV works and the difference between HIV and AIDs as well as different treatments and stigmas attached to the disease. I have also learned about different statistics, facts, sexuality and different gender roles. It is fascinating to me especially since there are so many different cultures just in South Africa and their stances on homosexuality and roles of women. Oh man it is amazing. Today we were asked to write down 2 names of someone who we cared for deeply over the age of 16 so I wrote Billy, my boyfriend, and Amy, sister. The first was how would you feel if that person, Billy, told you that he/she had HIV or AIDS. This made me stop and think. I was expecting it to but when we were told to do this it made me stop and think. How different life could be and how hard it must be to deal with the fact. It really hit me. The next person was what would you want the reaction of Amy to be if you confided in her that you had HIV/AIDS. And it was crazy what I would want, being supported, comforted and held and what my initial reaction would be. It is something that I need to work on. I need to put my self in other people’s shoes. I discovered one of the facilitators that has been there helping us all weekend was HIV + we got to ask him and question that we wanted to. It was great and he was very honest with us. It is just strange because people have the idea that people with this virus are sickly but you would have never guessed about this man. He is a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS by a blood from the doctor. It was very very interesting and this program I feel has a lot of potential of influencing my life. I am going to go and get and HIV+ and AIDS test at some point while I am here, don’t worry I am almost positive I don’t have it, you can never know for sure, but I want to do it just for the experience. We are going to be doing different outreach programs and work in an outreach clinic and mentor others. I am not exactly sure what to expect but am looking forward to it. However this training was very draining and I am exited to go to bed tonight.

At this training I met Gatien a man from Gabon. It just so happened that Eric, he is in the same program with me and is from New Hampshire, and I sat with him at lunch one day and it was there Independence Day on Friday night but the celebration was on Saturday. It is there 47th year of being free. So he invited us to the celebration/reception that the Gabonese student organization was having for free! So we went and ate some Gabonese food. It was strange there is this root and tree that they eat that Gatien raved about, cassava, it was good but I wouldn't call it delicious. You can use the root and the bark for food and the leaves for roofs. Here is a picture of it from the internet as well as the red is where Gabon is on the map:


It was very neat to eat this food and there we met other people. We also got to see a slide show of different places there and it is a place that I would love to go. It looks gorgeous and it is a safe country. The national anthem was gorgeous as well, it was in French. After the dinner and different groups performed we danced. I learned some African dancing. You pretend that you are doing like pushups with your arms. Apparently I am improving, haha which is another way of telling me that you look awful but we like to laugh at you as you try. I also learned how to slow dance with them, but there is no way that I could repeat that. The man was leading and I give him all the credit. It was very neat there dancing is classier than the American kind and some of those women can really move. Also men and women both love to dance and they have there own version, very similar to, the electric slide. The music as great I would love to find a CD with this kind of stuff on it. It was also neat to see how proud the Gabonese were of their country and willing to talk to you about it. It was great!

I just got pictures from the evening. Here they are:

Me and Gatien

Eric and Gatien


Ben, Me, Gatien, Eric

This one makes me laugh a lot I was talking.
It is me and then a singer from a group who is from Kayamandi that perforemd they were really good.

Oh I love when it is cloudy here. I think that the mountains look so cool with the clouds covering the tops of the mountains. Here are the only pictures that I took this week Sorry,






so that was basically me week. I hope you guys are all enjoying your last few weeks of summer while it is beginning to become more and more summer like here! Stay well, Cheers!