Matric ball!

Yesterday we went to the matric ball (this is how they call the prom here) of the 12th grade. It took place in the Ritz Hotel in Cape Town. The event was supposed to start at 6. When we arrived, nobody was there yet. We waited almost 2 hours!

The girls were wearing amazing dresses! We took lots of pictures, but today the internet connection here is too slow to upload anything..
The evening was very nice -first there were speeches, after that, certificates were given to the best students. And then, dinner and dance!! The party lasted until 11.30 pm - it was over too soon!!

Tomorrow there is no school because of the sports day. In the evening we are invited to a teachers gathering.

There will be school holidays next week, so I won't be online then. I'll write again on the 3rd of October when I'm back!

lots of climbing and baboons! :o)

On Friday, Darek, a Polish guy doing another ASA project in Pretoria, came to visit us. His project is finished now and he wanted to spend a few days in Cape Town before flying back to Europe. He says that Cape Town & its surroundings are much more beautiful than Joburg & Pretoria. So, it seems that I won't miss much if I'm not going there. The weather was very nice throughout the weekend, so we spent lots of time outside. On Saturday we drove to the Cape of Good Hope. We've been there once, but since the nature there is magnificent, I'd go back there anytime. Besides, last time my camera was broken and now I wanted to take pictures with my new one. The weather was sunny, but not too hot, so I thought that sunblock would not be necessary. Well, I was wrong.. By the evening, my face was completely sunburnt! While at the Cape Point, I was really hoping to see baboons (a kind of ape). Unfortunately, we didn't see any.

On our way back we stopped at a beach. We were just walking around when we suddenly saw a baboon on a hilltop! It stayed there for a while and then disappeared behind the hill. We followed the baboon and suddenly saw that there were many of them!
At first I was a bit frightened, because the baboons are considered rather dangerous and agressive animals. But as we saw that they were not really interested in attacking us, we went closer and took some great pictures of them! My favourite picture is the one where a baboon is climbing on our Beetle!!!

On Sunday, the weather was sunny and quite hot (and this time I used sunblock!). We climbed the Lion's Head (again!) - I really enjoyed the climb, especially the part with the ladders and chains! :o) The view from the top was great! This time I made some panorama pictures and a 360 degree video! After climbing down we drove to Camps Bay to go swimming. The water was still quite freezing and this time, the waves were really huge!

pictures!

I haven't been able to upload pictures for several days now, because I've been really busy, but here are some new pictures finally. They are taken on the weekend in the West Coast National Park and on Monday at the Radio Zibonele in Khayelitsha. Also, a few pictures of one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen, taken at Camps Bay.

37 degrees!

... at least according to the weather forecast!! I don't know if it's really that hot but it seems pretty close! Today is the hottest day I've ever experienced in my life!
It really is hot!

***
After school we drove to Camps Bay and went swimming there! The water was still cold, although a bit warmer than the last time when we were there. It took me a while to get in the water, but once I did, I felt like staying there and not coming out at all! It was really refreshing!

***
I haven't written about this here yet, but we are planning to extend our project for one more month! I really hope it works out! My main concern is the reaction of my employers. I hope I won't get fired because of that... But I've continued work from here and really tried to do my best..
We spent 5 hours in the Department of Home Affairs yesterday, trying to extend our visas. And it worked! They gave us the extension! And we didn't have to pay as much as we expected!

***
I just got approval from my boss and I'm really happy about it!!

West Coast National Park

... a bit more about Saturday. The linux training at school was not that interesting for us. We expected a history of linux and some commands, but there was nothing like that. They just taught the linux equivalents of word, excel and powerpoint..
We stayed until the afternoon. Since the weather was very nice on Saturday, we felt like being outside. So, we drove the direction of Stellenbosch and went to the Spier winery again (it's just 20 minutes from Khayelitsha). This time we didn't drink any wine, we just laid down on the grass and enjoyed the weather. It's strange how quickly the weather changed here. On Thursday it was still cold, especially during the night, but on Friday it was suddenly warm and sunny! It's weird for me because in Europe it takes quite a while for spring to turn into summer, but here it just happened in one day! Today was supposed to be 31 degrees!

On Sunday we drove to the West Coast National Park with Lucka, Karen and her boyfriend. There were 5 of us in the Beetle. The West Coast National Park is about 120 km north of Cape Town. The road was not far from the sea and there was nice scenery. The land there is very wide and open, there are no trees, just low bushes (called 'fynbos'). The main reason why we drove to the park was to see the wild flowers there. The flower season is quite short, it's just in September. We didn't see many flowers when we entered the park, but as we drove on, we began to see more. Driving through the park was quite 'interesting' - there were mostly dirt roads there and at some point I started to regret that we had taken our Beetle there. Also, the people who passed us on their 4Wheel drives were quite amused when they drove past us. Mostly we just got smiles and a few weird looks, and on one occasion, a guy offered us a tow-rope! :o) But in the end we didn't need it, because our Beetle made it! I tried to be really careful when driving, because some animals, such as worms, mice and turtles, were crossing the roads. Luckily, I didn't run over any of them. I'd never before seen turtles in the wild and now we could take a close look at them!
I took lots of pictures of flowers in the park - it was amazing! Also, we stopped at some nice viewpoints. There was one place called the 'lagoon' - it really looked like one, and the water was especially blue there.
The sun was shining the whole day and it was really warm. In the end we were quite tired. Before going home we drove to a town called Langebaan and had dinner there. We drove home in the dark - the way back seemed really long.

it's saturday..

... and we are at school! It's linux training for teachers today and we came here too. The weather is very nice today and supposed to be like this on Sunday as well. So, tomorrow we are planning to drive north to the West Coast National Park - it's supposed to be very nice there with lots of wild flowers. Yesterday night we felt quite stressed and that's why just want to get out of Cape Town for a while.

Yesterday after school we went with a friend of ours, Sizwe, who is a student at Esangweni, to his place. He is a dancer and he also teachers dancing to children. So, yesterday they performed on the streets in Khayelitsha. It was great! Even the smallest children were dancing! We took lots of pictures and video. The pictures are here (last pages of the first gallery.) Later we took a walk in the neighbourhood and lots of people joined us. But then, Sizwe suddenly told us that we had to go - he said that there were 2 guys who wanted to rob us but he had just stopped them! After hearing this, we became quite scared and drove away fast. The crime rate in Khayelitsha is very high, especially at the weekends.

crash

Yesterday we saw a movie called "Crash" - it's very good (despite the fact that it's a hollywood movie).

HIV/AIDS day at school

Yesterday the whole school gathered for an HIV/AIDS day, dedicated to those who have died of HIV/AIDS. There was a performance (actually the same one we saw at the HIV/AIDS hospice) and the school choir was singing. The noise level was unbelievable! I took some videos with my digital camera.
Yesterday Andy, a computer expert who comes to Esangweni once in a while to fix the servers, was here. That guy is really smart and almost all what he did seemed like magic to me.. In the end, he solved some of our problems.

The evening was not that interesting (at least for me). We went to a German (Bavarian) restaurant at the Waterfront to watch the football match between Germany and South Africa. Unfortunately, South Africa lost.. The restaurant was packed with Germans.. There was even Bavarian music..

learning Xhosa!

Since a few days now we've really been tying to learn Xhosa. (Take a look at my favourite Xhosa poem on the picture!) Yesterday, we practiced the clicks the whole way back from school. My tongue was quite exhausted in the end! There are 3 different clicks in Xhosa, marked by the letters X, Q and C. The C is easy and by now, I manage to pronounce the X as well, but it's the Q that gives me the most trouble. Today we practiced reading Xhosa - we read Xhosa poems to some of the students and they corrected us. It was really amusing for them to listen to us! Today I borrowed 2 books in Xhosa - one book of poetry and the other of prose. In addition to that, I've borrowed an English-Xhosa-Afrikaans dictionary. Too bad I cannot take them home with me..
I've just spoke to one of the Xhosa teachers at school and asked her if we could visit one of her classes this week. So, we are going on Thursday!
I really hope to master the clicks by the time I come back!

weekend

Friday was a very exhausting day at school - somehow nothing was working at school and everyone was asking us for favours.. By the evening I felt quite tired but still went out with the others. We went out (10 Germans, 1 British guy and me!) to a pub at Clifton's Beach. Later on we went to a private party. It was quite ok - there was even a band!

On Saturday we went to Century City, a huge shopping mall about 20 minutes from our place. We spent more than 2 hours there and in the end I was really fed up. I don't think I want to go there again - it was too crowded and too commercial..

In the evening we went to Khayelitsha - we were invited to a gathering of school teachers. The party was really fun and we danced a lot! The party took place at the home of one of the teachers. This was one of the best parts of Khayelithsa, there were no shacks there, but large brick houses. It's home to the middle class and mostly government employees work there. At the party I talked to the Xhosa teacher and she promised to teach us some basic Xhosa! (On the weekend I practiced the click sounds, but I still cannot distinguish two sounds from each other). I also asked her about school fees - it's about 200 rand per year for one student. This is not expensive, but still, many parents cannot afford it. Only about 2 - 5 students from Esangweni are able to go to university each year - there are two options, either the parents pay the fees or you get a scholarship (which is very difficult to get because of high competition)..

Sunday was lazy day.. The weather was not too bad. At first we went to the Waterfront and then to Bloubergstrand - the beach with a nice view to the Table Mountain. I attempted to draw Table Mountain, but the result is not too good - it was really difficult to draw the shadows on the mountain..
In the end it was so cold that we had to watch the sunset from the car..

exploring Khayelitsha

Today we went to see the place where last year's ASA participants Juro and Augustas lived in Khayelitsha. When we arrived there, the house was full of people.
We didn't spend much time there. The guy who rented them the house last year, Xolani, was not there. But we are definitely going back there. The Khayelitsha crafts market is just across the street. We went there today, but we didn't have any money with us.
We also went to a nearby church where a Home Management Training Centre for women was established last year. Basically, unemployed women receive training there to become domestic workers. It's kind of sad.. they will be working for rich white people..
We were taken around the premises and saw the women having the training sessions (cooking, cleaning, sewing etc.). Next week they will cook dinner for potential employers - we were also invited.
Pictures here.