Orientation

So I’ll probably be writing a lot in the beginning while everything is still really new to me. We had our first day of orientation today! A lot of it was them talking to us, but it was good information. They gave us tips on the culture and how to get around and how to stay safe. A police officer was also there to talk to us about safety. We also found out that we get our apartment professionally cleaned twice a week, which is an incredible luxury, but they made it seem standard. We also set up our bank accounts (or atleast most of us) which was a much longer process than necessary but I suppose that’s what comes with living in a third world country.
    Some of the orientation is split up into small groups, and our mentor took my group on a tour of University of Cape Town. The campus was absolutely stunning. The building were gorgeous, mostly stone with ivy growing around it, and surrounded by palm trees and beautiful flora. The campus was much bigger than UVM, and the school has about twice the amount of students. I was told that a lot of the UCT students are snobby and wear semi-formal clothing to class, like dress pants and jackets, but there are also a lot of laid back South Africans and students from all over the world. The city is incredibly diverse in race, religion, culture, socioeconomic status, and language. I’m looking forward to starting school so I can get to know more South Africans. I love all the mentors/leaders so far, they are really helpful and friendly and enjoy showing us the city. There are two of them that are living in the neighborhood and will take us out and watch over us throughout the semester. The accents here are really interesting. It’s almost a mix between Australian and French, and a little bit of everything else.
    My luggage still hasn’t come yet. They can’t seem to locate it, and they failed to give me a luggage tag which is making it even harder to track. Emily, who flew from Boston with me, also lost her luggage and it turns out it never left Boston. Ouma, who runs the program, is trying to locate it for me. It’s kind of a pain not having all my clothes, shoes, and toiletries, but I packed enough in my carry on to live for a few days.
    My internet is broken until tomorrow so this is actually written on the 23rd, just so you know. I’ll probably write again tomorrow.