Minibuses

So this is something I don’t think I’ve really discussed yet, but definitely something worth sharing. I’m about to share with you all the wonders of transportation in Cape Town.
There are multiple forms of transportation: car, bus, taxi, moped, train, and minibus.

There are not many big cars here, for the most part they are all sedans, wagons, and bugs, with the occasional jeep or terrain vehicle. There are lots of mopeds and motorcycles, and I have seen 3 motorcycle crashes to date. One was pretty bad, one the guy got up and yelled at the car, and I couldn’t really see what was going on with the other. We take cabs or taxis when we go someplace far or specific. There are two types of taxi’s, the ones that are licensed and legit and run meters, and the ones that are not. If there is a lot of us we will call a legitimate taxi to come get us, otherwise we will walk to the 7-11(which is not related to the 7-11’s in the U.S.) at the top of our street where there is a taxi stand. These are basically cars with a taxi sign on top, sometimes the taxi sign falls off. We tell them where we want to go and what we want to pay and if they try to charge more we walk away and find someone who will charge that price. It’s usually 20-50 rand depending on how far we go, which is about 3-7 dollars. Sometimes the cars are a bit dodgy, but we go in groups and its okay. 

I haven’t taken the train very much, occasionally to the beach. Its cheap, 15 rand(2$), and definitely and experience. We buy first class tickets, since its safer, and we live right by the tracks so its only a short walk. The downside to the train is that it is unsafe to take after dark. I don’t know what happens but I know not to take it. One time when we were on our way back from the beach a homeless man, or atleast I presume he was homeless, saw that we were American and put on a show for us. He was wearing short jean shorts and a tiny t-shirt and a baseball cap that said Jagger on it. He sang and danced and swung from the bars of the train trying to impress us, and this lasted for about 20 minutes. It caused quite a scene actually, he really liked America and American music and it was very apparent.

My favorite type of transportation is the minibuses, and they are the main point of this post. Minibuses are a whole new breed of transportation, I have never seen anything quite like them. As soon as you get to Cape Town you notice it. Everywhere you go on the Main Road you hear men yelling “Wynberg!! Wynberg!!” or “Cape Town! Mowbray! Cape Town!” over and over and over. All day and all night. There are sticking their heads out of the windows of minibuses or the bus is pulled over and they are on the sidewalk trying to recruit riders. It doesn’t matter if you are walking the opposite direction, they will ask you atleast twice if you want to go to Wynberg(or Cape Town, depending on the direction they are driving. ). Even if you say no its likely they will ask again, just in case. The buses are slightly larger than minivans, and probably legally sit 11 or 12 people besides the driver. I have been in some that have sat over 20 people and the caller is still yelling to get people. You can tell when its full when the caller is sitting out of the window. There is usually just a driver and a caller and the passengers, and the caller sits in back and opens the door, collects money, and does all the yelling. When you do want to take a minibus they are very convenient and easy to find. You just stand on the side of the road and there will be one within two minutes. You take it in the general direction of where you want to go, give them 6 Rand, and tell them when you want to get out. Personally I think its really interesting that since there isn’t a subway that is sort of the legitimate form of local public transportation. Its efficient, inexpensive, and gets you where you need to go. Its known for being unsafe at night and I’ve heard horror stories of being robbed and held at gunpoint, so I wont test it. One dusk comes the whole world changes. As my dad always says, nothing good happens after 2 am. Its not exactly true, but you definitely don’t test it here. But anyways, there is always an interesting mix of people on the bus and you are practically sitting on top of each other. Sometimes they play inappropriate rap music regardless of the elderly women on the bus. These buses are definitely not legal, and I’m sure many of the drivers aren’t licensed to drive them. But its cool, This is Africa.

March 21st and All of its Glory

So today is a big day, and the reasons are fourfold. First off its human rights day in South Africa which is in honor of those who fought for a just and democratic society. It’s a bigger holiday than I expected, there is no class and all the public buildings and banks are closed. The second and third reasons are that it is my half birthday, and that today marks the two month anniversary of coming to Cape Town. Finally, this morning I woke up to an email from the U.S. Bureau of Education saying I was chosen to be a recipient  of the Gilman Scholarship. This scholarship is for study abroad students who demonstrate academic merit, financial need, and promise to do a project within their community relative to their experience abroad. I applied for the scholarship last fall and was put on the wait-list, and in january I was told that the wait period was over and I wouldn’t be receiving the award. I’m not quite sure what happened in between January and now, but I’m so grateful for whatever transpired.

    The idea for this blog actually began with the application for the scholarship. The project I had promised to do is to write about my experience, including the cultural differences and challenges I face along with my day to day activities. Also I will be writing an article summarizing my experience abroad and discussing the culture, politics, hardships, and lifestyle in South Africa, specifically Cape Town. This article will be featured in the Holliston Reporter (thanks Grandpa), and will be sent in to other local newspapers just for kicks. The goal of all of this is to increase international education and encourage students to study abroad, and also inform people of what it is like in South Africa. When I was choosing this program I got countless warnings about how dangerous, unwelcoming, and poverty-struck the country was along with a million other reasons not to study here. Although it's somewhat true, there is so much more to South Africa and I hope to open people's mind and broaden  their knowledge of the country and culture. This is most incredible place I have ever been and I am more amazed everyday. I wouldn't trade this experience for the world.

     I’m really surprised about this opportunity and my blog has varied quite a bit from the original intention, but I’ll get it back on track. If you would like to know more about the scholarship or my project the website for the scholarship is www.iie.org/gilman and I'd be happy to email a copy of the project plans I had sent in for the scholarship

Thanks everyone for reading, I’m excited that this blog is so popular and is now a huge part of my time abroad.

oh, and P.S.  I will be purchasing a camera shortly so I can start to post more pictures. I have so much to show you :)

Happy St. Patricks Day!

What a weekend, we had a blast celebrating the holiday. It’s not really a big deal here, and I even spoke to a few people who didn’t know about it. Luckily we know how to celebrate, as does the Irish bar downtown. It was a busy week last week so we deserved it. On Saturday we went to Old Biscuit Mill as usual and got amazing sangria, and then back at the flats we got a keg and played a bunch of drinking games, and taught some to our friends, and finished the night at Dubliners.
On Sunday we went to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and got a tour of the gardens. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t listen to much of what the tour guide said, but he was funny, and the flowers were beautiful. There were so many different trees, flowers, and plants, along with some enormous spiders. It was the perfect day for it too, sunny and beautiful, as usual. Afterwards there was the concert that I mentioned last week. It was better than expected. Freshly Ground is such a good band, the lead singer has a beautiful voice, and the band was very talented and different. It was a great show and I’d Like, which is the song I posted and is my favorite, was even more incredible live, it gave me goosebumps.

Alicia and I before Freshly Ground

This week will be long, its known as Crunch week at UCT and I’ll be spending most of the time in the library. As much as I’d like to play at the beach all week I have two tests next week, a term project due before break, and a few assignments to catch up on. Unfortunately school comes first.

Busy Week

    Hi everyone, glad you’re all enjoying my blog. I’m surprised how many views I’ve gotten. I’ll try to post regularly. Feel free to email or comment if you have any questions or specific things you want me to talk about.
     School has been really busy, I’m on campus from early morning until around 4 or 5 everyday and I usually have a few hours of homework. I have two exams this week and a project that I need to get done before Easter break so I pretty much studied all weekend. I’m also still working on getting an internship for the summer so that’s time consuming. I feel like I shouldn’t be doing so much work since I’m abroad and I should be seeing and doing things, but I do need to get good grades.
    I go out on weekend nights, and am making more African friends. A bunch of my American friends went to Simons Town for the weekend but Alicia (one of my roommates), Alyssa (a very good friend), and I were among the few that stayed behind and we had a nice weekend. Friday night was our friend Charles’ birthday and we saw him out at this bar called Dubliners so that was a fun night. It’s one of my favorite bars and has three bars within it, all with different vibes. Downstairs is a live band in the front and then a more relaxed quieter bar in the back, and upstairs has a dj and is more like a club. The music is great and they play a lot of classics and songs we know. We’re usually right up front by the band and sang into the mic this weekend. I’m a terrible singer so I don’t think everyone in the bar necessarily enjoyed it.
    Yesterday I got a lot of work done, I had about 150 pages to read for my sociology class (which I really don’t enjoy), and so afterwards Alicia, Alyssa, and I went to a mexican restaurant called Fat Cactus. The food was delicious and it had a great atmosphere. It had a bit of an American feel to it and is close to one of the UCT residence halls so it’s very popular with students. Afterwards we went to our friend Athi’s apartment and then went to a local pub where we met up with some of our friends who work at the Cafe I frequent. It was kind of an early night and today I’m back to doing homework. I think a big difference between studying abroad here as opposed to Europe is the amount of school work. It’s actually very real and kind of difficult, we don’t just automatically pass, we have to try and keep up with all the work.

View from campus during the day

View from campus at night

    I do enjoy school though, I’m making lots of South African and Zimbabwean friends. I’m also getting very tan in between classes. Thursdays on campus are a lot of fun, there is a party type thing on the jammie steps and a bar, club, or company sets up a dj stand and plays music and has dancing competitions for bar tabs and other things. It’s pretty popular, the steps get packed with students and it gets us ready for the weekend.
    Everyone keeps saying its going to get cold soon, I’m not sure I believe them. It’s still going to be in the 80’s and 90’s all week. I plan on doing my work while at the pool.
    This friday my roommate Alix’s boyfriend is coming to visit for 10 days, which will be fun. And this weekend we might go a music festival saturday and we're taking a tour of Kirstenbosch botanical gardens on sunday and there is a concert there that night. The band Freshly Ground is playing and they’re really good. They play the song in the video I posted, which is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.
    I have to get back to homework, but feel free to let me know if there’s anything I’m forgetting to talk about. I’d love ideas of blogging topics.

Saturday, School, and Coffee

It’s been a while, sorry for the wait. We’re going into the fourth week of classes, I can’t believe how fast this semester is going.
    Things have been good. Actually let me rephrase that, things are incredible, I’m still loving it just as much as the first week here. School is a bit of a drag, I really wish I could just explore and sit on the beach all day. Who knew you’d actually have to study at study abroad?
Since school started its been pretty busy. It was really hard to schedule my classes and took me an extra week, so it’s been switched around a bit since I last wrote. The upper level math class is an ‘experimental course’ and was actually very much based on chemical engineering, which I have no experience in. I dropped it and added two classes, a mathematical computer programming course and a sociology course on crime and deviance. The programming class seems really easy and basic. I already have experience with Matlab so it’ll be a nice refresher. To be honest I’m totally uninterested in the crime and deviance course, but I pretend. I figured pretending might keep me more focused. One of my good friends Ally is in the class which motivates me to actually attend lectures and do the reading. I’ll get credit for it, and I hope the tests wont be too difficult but I’m just not a humanities person so the motivation and interest just isn’t there. Plus its my last class in the afternoon, so it seems very easy to just ditch and go downtown or to the beach. I know this makes it seem like I never go, but I really do, I just wish I didn’t have to.

    Last weekend was a lot of fun. On Saturday we went to Old Biscuit Mill, which I think I’ve mentioned before, but in case I haven’t, its amazing. It’s a market that’s only open on Saturday’s and has absolutely everything under the sun. They sell a lot of really cute clothes, and I’ve looked around a bit, but haven’t gotten anything yet. The best part about it, in my opinion, is the food, free samples, and almost real iced coffee. First, let me describe some of the food. If I had a camera I would take pictures of all of it. So the first time I got an omelet from the omelet guys, and it had feta, cheddar, mozzarella, smoked salmon, rocket(spinach), and tomatoes. It was absolutely amazing. That was when Chris was here and we also got some bomb organic Roibos tea,  with mint and lemon in it. It was so good we went back for seconds. Also, since Chris and I know how to work a room with free samples, we went house. Every stand has samples, from dried fruits, nuts, sausage, honey, olives and everything olive related, meats, cheeses, smoothies, lemonade, breads, humus, and last but certainly not least pesto. We pretty much put the pesto lady out of business. She had about 12 flavors of pesto, so we tried each one a few times. The second time I got a falafel, which was amazing, but I think Charlie, the falafel man at UVM, might be a little better. They put more in the falafel here, including eggplant, cabbage, and beets, but it was layered so it wasn’t all together. I know you were all dying to hear about my falafel experience.
Now onto the important stuff: Coffee. There is a serious problem here, worse than poverty, AIDS, and racial tension (Just kidding). They have no idea what coffee is. My morning coffee is instant, sad but true. I have a never-dying love for a good iced coffee, and when I first tried to order it I was asked what kind of ice cream I wanted in it. I went for the next best thing which was an Iced Americano, which is supposed to be expresso and water, but they’re silly and put milk in it. Then there’s a coffee crush, which is like a Coffee Coolata. All I want is cold coffee poured over ice. I even tried Mcdonalds and they were even further off, they put chocolate and whipped cream on it. The hot coffee is pretty much all instant unless its an Americano, which is NOT coffee. I like them, but I want a nice Ethopian Yirgecheffe, or perhaps a French Dark Roast, hot, black, and freshly brewed. I think that I should open up a cafe here, and introduce and mainstream brewed coffee. Anyways, at the Old Biscuit Mill there is a cafe called Espresso Lab, and the line is crazy long, but it was worth it. I got an Iced Americano, but it was the most delicious espresso I’ve ever had. They put the espresso in a shaker with ice and shook it for so long, so instead of the espresso being poured into water, the espresso melted the ice and I think it made a huge difference. It was divine.
    So to continue the story of my saturday we went to the Pride Festival & Parade in Cape Town. It was at a suburb called Green Point, and was a ton of fun. It was similar to the P-Town parade, but the parade was a lot smaller and there were less transvestites and I think less gays. It wasn’t as wild. I think it’s somewhat of a big deal to have a pride festival at all in South Africa. Although Cape Town and UCT is accepting, I’m pretty sure the rest of the country isn’t as keen on the idea. Afterwards we went to a Rugby game, which was so much fun. We had really good seats and I was suprised on how big the stadium was. I would say about the size of Fenway, maybe a tiny bit smaller. I’ve watched rugby before so I kind of knew what was going on, but I don’t know all the rules and I think it was the first time a lot of my friends had seen rugby. During half time I went to get a beer at the bar and learned that there is no drinking in the seats, only in the bar. So it’s basically a room full of people chugging beers, which must be much more unsafe and rowdier than drinking in the stands, so I don’t really understand why thats a rule. Afterwards I went out to the local bar and hung out with some of my friends from SA and Zim. It was a fun end to a great day.

    Sunday was relaxing, I spent most of the day doing work and internship applications. I’ve applied to so many, but the ones I really want are the most competitive. Ideally I would get a position on an REU (research experience for undergrads) team. Hundreds apply, and about 4-12 are chosen for each project. They are all over the country and I keep applying but I can’t guarantee I’ll get one. It’s also a very timely process so I’ve spent a lot of time in the cafe using their internet. The cafe I go to here is called Cocoa Wah Wah, and its about the same distance away as Zia or Henderson’s, which are my two favorite cafe’s in the States, but is a different feel. It’s bigger and less homey than Henderson’s, but there’s a couch that I usually get. I’m also a little biased since I worked at both Henderson’s and Zia and spend more time at Henderson’s than my apartment in Vermont.

We’re also currently planning spring break, which is actually Easter Holiday, since its fall here. I think two of my good friends, Alicia and Alyssa, are going to go backpacking up the wild coast, which is on the east coast of South Africa. We would go from Port Elizabeth to Durban, and there’s a lot of wildlife, culture, and beautiful beaches in between. Some people are going to Botwana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, or Namibia, but I don’t think I’m done exploring SA yet.

Anywho, I gotta get some homework done. I’ll write more often, promise. It’ll probably also help keep them shorter, maybe. Hope you enjoyed my coffee rant.

Cheers