Sunday afternoon

I’m still having an amazing time in South Africa. I went cage diving with great white sharks yesterday! It was incredible. I went with three other students—Sarah, Joey, and Amy. The dive company picked us up in the Bo Kaap and we drove two hours to Gansbai, which is along the coast, southeast of Cape Town. They fed us some breakfast (I was a little miffed about the lack of a vegetarian option) and then we drove down to the dock to board the boat. We anchored about 3 miles away and waited for the sharks to arrive. It didn’t take very long before a female shark approached our boat, attracted by the chum that the crew dumped into the water. Our guide talked about how cautious these sharks really are; all of the ones we saw that day approached the boat pretty slowly, zig zagging toward us. We saw four or five sharks in total; I think the longest one was just over 3 meters (about 10 feet), which is actually relatively petit for a great white shark—they can reach over 6 meters! I spent about half an hour in the cage itself. We were wearing wetsuits, but it was still really cold. Like, really freaking cold. But it was worth it. It was like real life shark week! And we all know how much I love shark week. After we finished our cage diving expedition, we were driven back to the dive center for lunch and drinks (this time they had a vegetarian meal for me). On the way back to Cape Town, we stopped and went whale watching. So cool! We saw several pairs of mommy and baby right whales, all very close to shore. Fun fact: Male whales mate with the females from underneath, so when the female whales aren’t down for any hanky panky, they stay in shallow water. Huh. I have tons of pictures of sharks and whales (and tons of pictures of blank water…there were lots of misses), which I will upload and post here sometime… eventually.

One big critique I have of the dive company that I went with: They call themselves an “ecoventure” because they don’t actually feed the sharks, although they do chum the water. Some companies actually tie dead fish to the cage, but our crew suspended a fish head from a line and just kind of dragged it around in front of the sharks (although a couple of sharks got lucky and managed to swallow the fish head). Other than this, I couldn’t figure out a single aspect of the trip that was supposedly eco-friendly. The food they fed us at the dive center was all wrapped in plastic wrap; we were served individual bags of crisps and small plastic bottles of water while we were on the boat; I even watched an empty crisp bag blow off the boat and into the water, which elicited no reaction from the captain or crew. I think that if a company is going to promote its programs as “ecoventures,” it should make a much bigger effort to at least appear environmentally conscious! Small details like not serving wrapped food on Styrofoam trays can make a big difference, especially when hundreds of tourists are participating in these programs every week.

I really like Cape Town; I think this would be a great spot for a family vacation. There’s a great city with lots of restaurants, shops, and museums; a beautiful promenade along the coast; plenty of wildlife nearby, both land and aquatic; and gorgeous beaches! I suppose that safety is an issue, but I really haven’t felt unsafe here at all; the important thing is to just use common sense and not walk around alone at night. I went out on Long Street (the main drag) last night and had so much fun. A bunch of IHPers went out, but we ended up splitting up and I spent the best parts of the night with Joey, Max, Kate, Amy, and Laura, dancing to some great (and not so great, but still fun) music in a bar. That’s one thing I definitely don’t miss about Bangalore- not being able to dance! It’s crazy that I was in India three weeks ago…it feels like it was a year ago!

I’ve been on the program for exactly two months now, August 19th to October 19th. Wow. I can’t say that I’ve been officially homesick, but I miss the comfort of having one single location—my house—to refer to as home and one single group of people—the Hoots!—to refer to as family. (Although even when I am in the states my double life between Annapolis and New York blurs my sense of “home,” but it doesn’t blur it quite to this extent!) IHP has been both enjoyable and challenging so far, both of which I can really appreciate, but I will admit that the constant traveling and changing of homes and families is pretty tiring. I’m really excited for our upcoming vacation (just two weeks away), which will hopefully provide time for much needed rest and relaxation. IHP gives us a lot of work, but I’ve been doing really well with it and I’m trying to cure my terrible procrastination habit so I can have a fresh start when I return to Barnard. There’s tons of reading and I’ll admit that I haven’t been doing all of it, but I’ve been staying on track with my assignments. I have one big one due tomorrow, so I need to finish that (and start it…) ASAP. I really meant to get it done before today, but it just didn’t happen. Oh well. What to do. If I start it before midnight tonight, then I’m still improving on my typical New York study habits. We have three more projects due the following week—ugh—which is our last week of class before vacation. Our time in Cape Town is flying by…

Speaking of changing homes, I’ve left Langa and I’m living in the Bo Kaap now, a Muslim neighborhood in the hills of Cape Town, famous for its food and brightly painted houses. My host family seems really nice: I’m living with Gamidah (pronounced “Hamidah”) and Nadeem Jacobs (I’d guess that they’re in their mid-thirties), their three daughters (ages 3, 8, and 12), and two other students that they’re hosting—an eighteen year old French girl and a nineteen year old Swiss girl, both of whom are staying in South Africa for three months to improve their English. I had a really nice talk with Nadeem the other night about the upcoming US election, the soccer stadium that they’re building in Cape Town for the 2010 World Cup (very controversial), and South African politics. He seems really smart and well-informed. Gamidah is lots of fun; on our first night here she took us to the grocery store and as soon as we got in the car she played a CD of American rap and R&B music. When I asked her if there were any specific rules that Laura and I needed to follow while staying with her, she said, “Go wild!” I think we’re going to get along smashingly  It’s so nice to be so close to all the action; we’re only four blocks from Long Street. We were really isolated in Langa and it was hard to go anywhere outside the township past 8pm (although my experience is Langa was definitely worthwhile).

Laura is my new roommate; she’s great. She’s from Colorado but she goes to school at Colby College in Maine. She’s on the ski team and she’s really athletic; we’ve been running together on these crazy Bo Kaap hills so hopefully I’ll leave South Africa in better shape than I arrived. I ran a few times with Anjali while I was living with her in Langa, but the pollution in Bangalore was so bad that it was literally impossible to exercise outside; I could feel my lungs turning black. And I really didn’t want to risk it, especially since I still have this horrible lingering cough from August. (What is the deal with that?! So annoying) Cape Town is so much nicer—the air is crisp and seemingly clean (a little chilly; nice sweater weather), the water is bright blue (although extremely chilly), and the mountains are ridiculously picturesque. Of course, it’s important to note that Cape Town sits on the coast, while Bangalore is situated inland, so all of the pollution from this city is blown out to sea. Just because the air seems clean, it doesn’t mean that Cape Town doesn’t have a problem with emissions.

On Thursday, we had our Cape Town “Neighborhood Day.” In every country, we have one day where we break up into groups and explore different neighborhoods in whatever city we’re in. The next day we regroup and present on what we observed/experienced/etc. (So my group gave a 20-minute presentation on Friday, which I think went pretty well. It was short though, nothing major.) My group went to the Gardens neighborhood, which isn’t far from the Bo Kaap. It’s mixed residential and commercial, with a small campus of the University of Cape Town, lots of mosques, temples, and churches, and a growing number of trendy cafes and upscale clothing stores. We also visited the house of the Premier (the Mayor) of Cape Town, located at the top of the neighborhood. It’s called the Gardens because the “Company Gardens” are located there; when the Premier’s house was first built, his company grew food in the gardens.

Based on the conversations that my group members and I had with local residents (we talked to lots of people—on the street, in stores, and on the college campus), I think the theme we were supposed to notice was the changing dynamic of the neighborhood—moving from purely residential to mixed use over the last twenty-five years or so. The three other groups visited an Eco-Village (although they reported that there wasn’t much “eco” about it), the Woodstock neighborhood, and the Central Business District downtown near the train station. Everyone gave decent presentations—although we got stuck sitting in a sweltering classroom for 8 hours—and it was cool to hear about everyone’s unique experiences and funny anecdotes.

This group from the Neighborhood Day project—there are five of us—is the same group that I’ll be working with next week on my case study project. We have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of Thursday to meet with various people around the city and visit various sites in order to learn as much about our topic as we can, before we present on Friday. (This is a one-hour presentation, so it’s much more detailed.) Our topic is housing, but we decided to focus on slums; our specific research question is: “Why do people live in slums?” I think we’re going to double check with Chris (the country coordinator) tomorrow and make sure that he likes our topic idea—I don’t want a repeat of my case study evaluation experience in Bangalore (which was miserable fyi, in case I haven’t mentioned it). It’s actually a really interesting issue, so I’m excited for the case study. And I’m researching housing in all three countries for a cumulative semester-long project, so this should be a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. (Note: No birds were killed during the writing of this blog.)

I also really like my project group, which makes a big difference. We get to spend a whole lot of time together. When I chose which topic to work on, I definitely took the group members into consideration. There are a couple of kids on this program who I just can’t work with; even though I like them as people, I’ve learned that it’s best not to work with them in groups. There are some…unique personalities on this trip. So far, case study days were my favorite days in both New York and Bangalore (it was just the evaluation in B’lore that was awful) because we get to travel around the city, meet interesting people, and kind of act like adults doing legitimate research—it’s fun. And it’s much more stimulating than sitting in a classroom from 9am to 6pm. I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll reiterate that my major critique of this program is that we spend way too much time in class and not nearly enough time wandering around the city, having real hands-on experiences. I understand that there’s a trade-off, because we need to learn facts and history in the classroom, but I don’t think IHP has found a perfect balance quite yet.

I still can’t believe that this is my second week in Cape Town—only two more weeks to go! Then one week of vacation, five weeks in Argentina, one week in Peru, and I’ll be back in Annapolis! It seems like a long time when I type it out, but I’m over halfway done with my semester abroad. Students at Columbia are taking midterms right now (one thing that I definitely don’t miss at all- IHP doesn’t have any exams). This has certainly been a once in a lifetime experience and I’m so glad that I chose to do it. I didn’t really come into it with any specific expectations, because I had no idea what to expect, but I’ve been impressed and satisfied on most counts. Hopefully things will continue to progress swimmingly. And before I go home, one of my major goals is to choose a topic for my senior thesis. Please, please, please let me find some inspiration!
I’ve got almost all of the logistics figured out for my vacation, although I haven’t booked anything yet (that’s next on my to-do list). Zoe, Anjali, and I are going to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe for the week; we’re going to do a one-day safari in Botswana while we’re there as well. Two other girls—Xuzin and Ying—want to come as well, but they’re Chinese citizens so they have to figure out if there are any complications regarding their visas. Hopefully they will confirm soon, so I can start booking everything—plane tickets, hostel, and safari plans. I’m so excited! Although I really like Cape Town, I just don’t feel like I’m in Africa. This really feels like a European city. Of course, Vic Falls is super touristy so I’m not expecting any sort of cliché “authentic” experience (if such a thing even exists), but I’d like to see part of another country. So I only have one more weekend left in C-Town; I think I want to visit Cape Point (the national park on the tip of the Cape of Good Hope). Laura and Kate biked there and back yesterday…but they literally biked 100 miles. They’re crazy. I’m not that crazy. At least not in that respect. Plus, I barely managed to keep my bike upright during the 15 mile Bikes N Wines vineyard tour that we did last weekend. I think that was the first time I’d ridden a bike in ten years, so I think I did pretty well, considering the circumstances. But not well enough that I have any desire to bike 100 miles. No thanks.

I am going to start my project right now. Literally, right now. Seriously. And it’s only 4pm the day before it’s due- look at how well I’m doing!