As my time here is winding down, I've been thinking about how beautiful it is that most of my favorite times here were spent doing totally ordinary things with people I adore. As much as I loved Botswana, as enlightening as Reforest Fest was, as unique as Afrikaburn was, as beautiful as the mountain views are, I think I'm going to look back most nostalgically at the times I had a blast doing the most mundane, nerdy, fundamentally "normal" activities with the great friends I've made. Not to say that I could've made these same memories anywhere in the world; only the perfect combination of factors here could've added up to make these memories happen. Sometimes life just comes together in an authentic and special way that words can't do justice. Life is about finding the beauty in ordinary things, and that has been the essence of my time here, especially this week.
Oy, I'm gonna have a hard time not being gushy and gross for my next couple of blogs. My friends and I have been really into reminiscing and reminding each other that we only have a little time left and making each other sad daily so that's where my head is at right now :/ Sorry to be all "abroad changed me I'm enlightened now". But no worries, I still have plenty of weird and random tidbits to go around.
As I kind of alluded to, this week was one of my favorite weeks in Cape Town, just because of small things that ended up being memorable.
Oh wait before I start I wanna give a Netflix recommendation for Ali Wong's standup specials because they're awesome.
Ok anyway on Monday after I posted my blog, we had a movie night in Rachel and Rebecca's room and watched Ratatouille which I FINALLY saw for the first time (I KNOW I'M THE WORST!) It didn't disappoint. Not my favorite Pixar movie but definitely great.
On Wednesday, Jen, Rachel, Nicole and I went to see The Sound of Music Live at a theater here. Our tickets were literally $12 which is honestly kind of offensive to this amazing cast and orchestra but I cannnn't complain! We were in the actual last row in the entire theater lol but again can't complain bc $12 tickets. Omg though it was INCREDIBLE. It's funny cuz I'm literally a meme like " *sees first hour of sound of music once* *immediately buys tickets for off broadway showing* " but wow I am so glad I did because it was genuinely such a well done production. The orchestra was on point and all their voices were amazing and the woman playing Maria looked soooo much like Julie Andrews (#JulieAndrewsWasSnubbed) and the kids were so cute and all the songs made me smile from ear to ear. Something I love doing is pretending I'm Maria and singing the songs in her theatrical voice. I especially love to sing the yodeling song and get it in all my friends' heads for the rest of the day. Haha also I'm obsessed with this tweet that's a parody of Doe and Deer and it goes "dough, a bread, and uncooked bread. Ray, of sun that cooks the bread...me, a gal, who eats the bread, faaaaather also eats the breaaaddd" and it's SO FUNNY and we couldn't stop singing it.
Thursday was my last day of volunteering at Baphumelele which was bittersweet, and I definitely have many thoughts about it. First of all, let's just establish how bad my last day was. I basically went in there and disturbed the peace bc all the 5 year old boys started fighting over my attention and when I say fighting I mean fighting. Like punching and pushing and slapping each other. It's a regular thing. So my final thoughts are coming from that bad final day, but I definitely had good days along the way. But yeah basically I'm just feeling really discouraged about the experience overall because I saw a lot of really concerning behavior including physical violence and bullying, and now I'm just leaving knowing that that will continue every day. Not that I was making any real difference by being there for 2 hours a week, but if I did see anything I was able to stop it in that moment. There's so little supervision there and these kids basically have to fend for themselves and are dealing with things nobody should deal with at that age. The 15 year olds bully the 5 year olds, the kids throw bricks at each other, they don't care at all when their friend is crying. And as cute and sweet as it was to get to know the kids individually and have them jump into my arms when I walk in, it doesn't erase or make better the fact that these are not conditions children should grow up in, and I can't do anything about it. I learned earlier this year in my service learning that it's important to be responsible about saying goodbye to the kids when you leave and to not just be another person who abandons them. But I had literally no way to explain to these 5 year olds who don't speak English that I'd never see them again. The saddest thing, though, is realizing that I'm probably only one of hundreds of volunteers to come for awhile and then leave them.
So yeah you can see I'm pretty down on that experience, but that doesn't mean I didn't value it in some ways. Something really meaningful that I took out of it is learning that you can develop deep connections with someone without being able to speak their language. By the end, I had developed individualized relationships with the kids through various physical interactions that we had together. I taught one boy named Anda the handclap "slide", so every time I came, he immediately wanted to do it with me. One boy named Lita experiences a lot of bullying and is very guarded, but after a few times of me taking him out of bullying situations, he opened up to me and smiled for the first time I had ever seen. Another girl, Olwethu, taught me songs and dances that she then performed for me every time I came. We call language differences a "language barrier" for a reason, as it is a huge barrier to communication. But it also challenges both parties to communicate meaningfully in other ways, which can ultimately be incredibly rewarding.
All in all, I'm glad I had this experience, but wrapping my head around community engagement/service is HARD! To me it feels irresponsible to come to Cape Town and only engage in the more wealthy, privileged experiences/parts of the city. But at the same time, inserting myself into this township community for only 2 hours a week to play with kids often feels shallow, superficial, and white-saviorish. As I said, I often just disturbed the peace by making the kids fight over my attention, and I barely learned anything about the experience of people in the township. I don't necessarily think there's a "right answer" for what I can do or should've done in this situation, because both options definitely have their problems. Yeah I don't really have any resolution for this part lol it's just complicated. Ok that's enough of that! Onto more lighthearted things...
Thursday night, same group plus Amanda went to Harry Potter Trivia at Beerhouse and wow I have a lot to say. Ok oh yeah we got poke beforehand and we had a lifechanging Uber drive on the way there. Wow I love my Uber drives here. The driver had a kickass playlist for night driving and we blasted Fast Car soo loud and sang it looking out the window and it was a MOMENT. Anyway tho so we go into Beerhouse and there are SO MANY people there like over 30 teams. And we got little sheets to write our answers on for each of the 8 categories and we were feelin pretty confident. But LET ME TELL YOU, we should NOT have felt confident. Those questions were near impossible like honestly I would've been worried if I DID know the majority of the answers. Here's a few examples:
"What is Hogwarts' motto?" (answer: never wake a sleeping dragon (????))
"What does the spell 'relaccio' do?" (literally can't even find the answer online because it's so obscure)
"What color was the ink on Harry's Hogwarts acceptance letter?" (answer: green)
"What was the name of the store that Fred and George opened?" (answer: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes)
So anyway what I'm trying to say is we came in 29th place in the first round and don't know what we got any of the other rounds because they only announced the top teams. It was discouraging as frick and my know it all sister Eva (just kidding shes literally the least know it all person ever except when it comes to HP) was like I COULD'VE BROUGHT YOU TO VICTORY and I was like oH YEAH EVA? WHAT'S HOGWARTS MOTTO and she sure did not know the answer. Sidenote one of the questions was what Hogwarts house was Hagrid in and I guessed Hufflepuff because that makes sense obviously but it's total BS that the answer is Gryffindor. I don't believe for a second that Hagrid really could've made it in Gryffindor.
But we drew scars on our foreheads and ordered food and messed around and had fun anyway. Another sad thing tho was that they were giving out free nachos that night so obviously we ordered them, and im not kidding you there was SPRAY CHEESE on them. Like an actual disgrace. I never knew nachos could be actively bad until that night.
So I had a wonderful Wednesday night and a wonderful Thursday night but would you believe me if I told you that Friday night was even BETTER??? You better believe!! This year, Shavuot came right after Shabbat, so essentially Rachel and Rebecca were looking at 3 full days of yom tov (no driving, electronics, work, etc). In order to not have to sit in the apartment for 3 days, they rented out an Airbnb in Seapoint for the weekend. They invited us over to do Shabbat dinner, so we made a few dishes and brought them over. We had mushroom pasta OBVIOUSLY, shakshuka, a green bean dish, chickpea salad, brownies, ice cream, challah, lots of dip, veggies, YUMMM. But it was no doubt the company that made this night one of my most meaningful ones in Cape Town. Rebecca and Rachel set the table so nicely and their Airbnb was gorgeous. We sat down and just reminisced for a couple hours straight, talking about what we've learned from each other over these past few months, what we appreciate about each other, and remembering what seemed like years ago when we arrived and first met each other.
We went to the couch and played charades which was a TRIP. I had to act out the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and I did a pretty kickass job if I do say so myself even though my team was NOT getting it. I was doing first syllable of python (pie) and was pretending to eat a pie by emphasizing the shape of the circular pie and the triangular slice and then eating it, and my team kept shouting out things like "OOH OOH EATING A SHAPE!!" Like yes good job ladies the first syllable of the second word is "eating a shape".
We all left the dinner in agreement that that was one of our favorite nights in Cape Town and feeling emotional as heck. I know the meaningfulness of it probably doesn't come across in this blog but it's ok cuz it's in my heart!!
On Saturday, Alicia and Jen and I went to Old Biscuit Mill in the morning and I got a delish sushi burrito and a smoothie and shared fries with Jen and shared churros with Alicia and that's like a typical sized meal at OBM lol it's obscene. I got really cute shoes! And they're close toed so I can wear them at camp woohoo! Then Nicole joined us to go to Kirstenbosch where I pretended I was gonna read It (spoiler alert the only use we got out of it was Alicia using it as a pillow) but really we just sat on my CIEE blanket and shared baby pictures for some reason and napped for a little. Just quality time man!!
That night, we went to the Labia because apparently all we do on Saturday nights now is see movies (not mad about it at all tho). Alicia and Jen saw A Quiet Place and didn't like it because they're STUPID, and Nicole and I saw The Greatest Showman and I didn't like it because I'm SMART no jk we're all entitled to our opinions but really I did not like it. Haha but WAIT there's MORE! It was no normal viewing of The Greatest Showman, it was a SINGALONG version. Like literally the lyrics to the songs were on the bottom of the screen and a small top hat was moving along the words as they were sung. So I just made the best of the situation and pretended to sing songs I didn't even know and messed around the whole time. I did like the music ok I'll give it that! And I liked High School Musical era Zac Efron dancing around. But yeah the theater was such a joke, by the end people were just straight up talking through the movie and yelling at the screen. When Zendaya walked away from Zac without kissing him, a man in the back screamed GIRL ARE YOU CRAZY?? Biiig mood. At the end of the movie, after everyone left the theater, Nicole and I stayed back and ran up and down the aisles singing the songs that were playing in the credits. Sometimes you just gotta not give a hoot and fork around and make memories!!
Haha this part of the night was so absurd, so I ubered back and legit the SECOND I got out of my Uber I saw that Jen and Alicia and Jham were getting into another Uber and they were like HANNAH WANNA COME TO UNFRAMED and you know the minute I hear the word Unframed my body just magnetically gets in an Uber so I hopped into an Uber going to the same place I had JUST Ubered back from. This was a lavish day I admit it sorry I'm not usually this galavanty. Unfortunately Unframed didn't have any flavors that popped out at me, so I exercised immense self control and didn't get any ice cream. But then we got pizza hahahhaha. I got a slice at NY slice and it was pretty mediocre but pizza is pizza uk? We got back to the apartment at midnight having had a wholeee night without even going out out so that was a huge win for me.
Maddie and her parents took me to morning tea the next morning which HALLELUJAH Maddie and Randi and Neal AND tea??? Another huge win for me! It was so nice, I really appreciate just being with familiar people and feeling totally comfortable being myself. And Randi was a much needed presence of Jewish Baltimore mom! She gave me a package from my mom with Trader Joes seasoning salt and everything but the bagel shakers in it and that is why she is the best mom ever!! We kept laughing because the dude serving us our tea introduced himself as the "tea ambassador" so every time we wanted him we were like hey where's the AMBASSADOR?? We explored the V&A waterfront for a bit after. We saw seals and Maddie and I played a large version of Jenga and I got hazed by Maddie for not knowing enough about Jenga. It's always a good time! No jk it really was a great time I love the Bramans with all my heart.
On Monday morning, Jen and Amanda and I went to visit Rachel and Rebecca and brought them bagels. They were very disappointing so we mostly just became human trashcans and ate random leftovers out of their fridge. And then we just drank tea and sat on their couch and chatted like the classy adults that we definitely aren't but pretend to be and it was lovely!
I did my favorite activity of laying for a majority of the rest of the day, but then at night I went rock climbing with Alicia and Jen. Alicia loves rock climbing and has been asking me if I wanted to go with her for awhile but I've always been like nah but this time I was like meh why not and guess what?? I enjoyed it SO MUCH! I did have to stay mostly on the kids walls and my arms very quickly turned to jello and my hands got super sore so I could barely climb anything. BUT I had a nice finish on a wall where my moms Jen and Alicia were cheering me on so supportively and I did reach the top. I felt so supported by them emotionally AND physically because they also belayed me! They're so cool and competent and I trust them so much! Rock climbing is a really cool mode of physically activity because you're working toward a really clear goal (getting to the top) but also working toward a more overarching goal of doing higher level routes. So even though it was super tiring, I wasn't thinking about how much it hurt, I was just thinking about how I could get to the top. It was awesome!
I've been thinking a lot about the idea of "pushing yourself" while you're abroad, and how before coming abroad I kept telling myself that I needed to do things I'm doubtful about or wouldn't usually do. But I feel like I was thinking about it very much in terms of things like going out, like I don't love going out but need to push myself to be "fun" abroad and seize the moment. But now I'm understanding that "pushing yourself" isn't doing something that isn't your scene or that you don't usually enjoy, but rather taking a chance on new activities that you've been writing off for one dumb reason or another. Like I was saying no to rock climbing because I had never gone to a rock climbing gym or I was afraid I'd look stupid or it was just easier to stay in my bed. But once I decided to take that chance and just say yes, I got so much out of it. I also think that a lot of people think pushing themselves means doing huge things like bungee jumping or sky diving, but in reality it can be something as small as this that makes a huge difference in your day.
We finished climbing exactly at the time the gym closed (they played the song Closing Time to kick us out haha) and then went to this hole in the wall place to get pizza at 10:30pm #healthyhabits and it was guuuuud. I left 2 slices of my pizza and was like lol I always do this like leave a couple slices to feel better about myself but then I eat it as soon as I get home and that is SURE what I did! Sometimes I'm so darn predictable!
Oh yeah I forgot to say that when we were leaving the climbing gym, our Uber driver couldn't find us and then Alicia's phone died and we were kinda forked but then the nice guy who worked at the gym and his dad were pulling out and offered to drive us and don't worry @adults reading this I felt out the situation and we knew it wasn't sketchy, so they drove us and it was so nice! Hip hip hooray for strangers being kind and not having to pay for Ubers!
On Tuesday night, I went to Mzanzis with Maddie and her parents. Mzanzis is a restaurant in a township called Langa and wow I have a lot of background to give but don't really feel like writing a lot so I'll be quick. The townships are the areas in Cape Town where black people were forced to move during apartheid. They were taken from their homes and moved into tiny houses in towns outside of the city, and the conditions were and still are less than great. People are usually advised not to go into the townships for safety reasons.
But this amazing women whose name I forget but she goes by Mama, she turned her house into a restaurant 10 years ago and has been running the business ever since. Mama likes for the restaurant to feel more like a home than a restaurant, so she only takes bookings and puts out a buffet of food, we sit at a table with the other guests for the night, and she talks to us personally. Maddie loves this place and it was really nice but I have to admit, at the beginning I was wary because it seemed very stereotypical and touristy. Like African decorations all over and a band playing African instruments and African food, which sometimes feels gimmicky. But when Mama sat down with us and explained her story and the story of Mzanzis, my whole perspective changed.
Mama started the business with her husband and her mother when they were struggling economically. They got the idea because tourists were coming in to take "tours" of Langa, but in reality they were just taking pictures and leaving. Supposedly Mama's mother said, "if they're gonna come to Langa, then let's show them what Langa really is." So they created this business where they would have tourists come and experience an authentic African dinner experience. They used almost all of their money to expand their 2-room house, but they didn't profit at all for 7 years. They were on he verge of shutting down the restaurant, but then a group of abroad students came and committed to helping her make it popular on Trip Advisor. It grew and grew and now it's #1 and she has dinners almost every day. I don't do her story justice even a little, but it was really inspiring to hear her honest authentic story of grit and persistence of vision.
Wednesday night we had our CIEE dinner lol and I don't wanna talk about it much. We dressed up nice and went to a hotel on the beach and hooted around for a little but then it got kinda annoying and the food was kinda bad. They almost exclusively played songs from 2010-2014. We Ubered home early. Thanks tho CIEE! I wish instead of giving us these ridiculously fancy dinners they just paid the housekeeping staff more :/ #popularopinion
And THENNNN on Thursday we departed for our final trip! It was "reading week" which is the period when you're supposed to study before finals but instead of studying we went on a safari ha ha. We (me, Jen, Rachel, Alicia and Liv) spent a day in Joburg together before parting ways for our own trips. We went to the apartheid museum which was obviously a super enlightening and meaningful experience, but I just kinda did it wrong. I didn't realize how big the museum was so I spent a reaaaally long time reading everything at the Nelson Mandela exhibit in the beginning and then got really mentally exhausted so I got really lost reading the rest of the stuff. It's also just a very overwhelming topic, so I think it'd always be overwhelming for me anyway. But yeah just very striking how recently it happened and how apathetic the rest of the world seemed. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know anything about the apartheid before I came here, but it's such important world knowledge and I really encourage everyone to at least have some basic knowledge about it.
And now I'm gonna insert a tiny little political observation that I don't wanna go into much BUT something that was really interesting and thought-provoking for me was learning about the black community's reaction to apartheid and how it got to a point where the only thing that was seemingly left to do was to react semi-violently. I sat in a small theater in the museum and watched footage of people in the townships burning tires and you feel a lot of empathy for them because obviously it came to that for a reason, resultant from years of oppression and pent up anger. And then I was thinking about the protests in Gaza, and how a lot of people have been completely dismissing the Gazans' experience because they were violent and burnt tires, but how I think a lot of those people would have been sympathetic to the township community's experience, and I was realizing the hypocrisy that often happens in the conflict and in our community. And I'm not comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa at all or saying that the situations are the same at all, but I think it's important to examine our own biases when we react to similar actions in such different ways (completely dismissing Gazan protests as violent and therefore not caring about their cause or anything they have to say, vs. sympathizing with the black community during their violent protests). In conclusion I think we need to go beyond the surface in these issues and examine the root rather than passing such quick judgments ok thanks for coming to my TedTalk!
We were all pretty cranky this day also FYI cuz Alicia and Liv were having issues planning their trip and we all woke up at 3:45am for an early flight so yeah I don't have so many funny stories about this day. But we went to this Argentinian place for dinner and the funniest thing that happened all day is I got a dessert with ice cream and Alicia tasted it and said it "tastes like box" as in like cardboard but she's Alicia so she says weird shit like that and I was like ALICIA YOU GET MAD AT ME FOR YUCKING YOUR YUM DON'T SAY STUFF LIKE THAT OK but then I tasted it again and it soooooo tasted like box. And Jen and Liv agreed. So I can officially say I had box flavored ice cream ALSO the dessert was supposed to have brandy soaked pears and there were none so thanks for NOTHING Argentinian restaurant!!
We stayed in an Airbnb in Joburg which was really funny. At first glance it looks like this cool hip open Brooklyn esque apartment but upon further inspection it was like soooo nonfunctional and stupid like all the furniture was so uncomfortable and the toilet seat was broken and the sinks were plugged and there were light fixtures hanging so that I bumped my head on them and Alicia and I were up for half the night listening to our neighbors blast No Air by Jordan Sparks but hey it's all about the experience.
Oh yeah bonus it was Eva's prom night that night and she's gonna be so embarrassed but I'm gonna post and sweet pic of her and Daniel here because she looked SO BEAUTIFUL but she looked even more beautiful because she is a beautiful person on the inside too and I adore her!!
Ok ANYWAY jeez this is a long blog sorry ok so early in the morning we split up. Alicia and Liv went to Swaziland and Rachel, Jen and I went to Kruger National Park. We got picked up in a van super early and drove 5 hours to Kruger. We were squished in the back with a man who I'll talk about more later and Rachel was squished in the middle with a SUHHWEEET young couple who we loved. Martin (marTEEN) was Colombian and Liza (LEEza) was Belgian and they live in Sweden together now and they are so cool and tender and lovely! We had a cool little safari clique forming with them in the beginning but then they found friends their own age which u know what I'm happy for them about.
This safari was all inclusive so we were fed by them and had housing provided (our housing was a canvas tent with a desk and 2 small beds but hey we're not fancy ppl that's all we needed) and the guides were super sweet and wanted us to feel like a group so we ate together and drank wine and made friends and yeah!
I don't know how to write about this I'm sorry I'm feeling discombobulated but about the actual safari ok so you do 3 hour game drives, we had one on Friday night and 2 on Saturday and one on Sunday morning which was the perf amount. I keep saying safaris are a lazy person's dream cuz all you do is sit in a car. We saw a lot of cool stuff!! A lot of it wasn't super up close but we saw a diverse amount in general which was great. The first night we saw baby hyenas playing which was seauuxxx cute and then we saw a leopard up close stalking and chasing a rabbit which was SICKKKKK!! The second day we saw lots of elephants and zebras and giraffes and hippos and we saw cheetahs which was a nice surprise and then the last day we finally saw a lion but he was soo far and I'm kinda a safari snob now so I was like meh but it was really cool I'm just a brat. But no really like safaris are about the animals but they're also not totally about the animals like looking for them is so exciting and the high of feeling the car stop and knowing there's something there is like WOO and Jen and Rachel and I got a lot of quality time talking and I also talked to this nice woman named Natalie and the sunrises and sunsets are AMAAAAZE. Oh yeah that's why I named this blog sunrise sunset, because we saw a lot of sunrises and sunsets and because this hilarious Latina grandma sitting behind us on the last day started singing the song from Fiddler on the Roof during sunrise. She also showed us her cover photo of a sunrise from her last safari. Also the days just keep going really fast like sunrise sunset bam it's over and also the sun is setting on my time here which is really sad ok boo I'm so angsty about leaving but we're not gonna talk about it here ok
So NOW I get to tell you about funny tidbits from the weekend. The dude sitting next to Jen in the van we named Ned and he's just a really funny dude who said some really weird things but like you kinda had to be there and then we named another dude Jacque because he was soooo foreign like wore jeans and a thin scarf and knit sweater on the game drive and had a goatee. We also talked to these cute old lady friends who we didn't have to name because they told us their names (Sandra and Carol how perfect) and they were just cute sassy grandmas having fun and we loved them. We had a guide named Benjy who seemed really sweet and cute at first but then got kinda weird and told us like every single thing about his life when I asked where he was from but no he was sweet I'm being mean.
Some more fun things! 1. Jen was peak overeager Jen and when they told us we could get in the Jeep she didn't realize they had doors so she in front of everyone just climbed over the whole heckin thing and Benjy was like what the hoot jen and he remembered her name cuz she's so heckin overeager 2. Outlook Safaris gave us these super fashionable beige poncho things to wear (see pics above) and we looked like thumbs 3. Meals were buffet style (ok the food was soooo good s/o to the chef Rufus) and I swear I only encounter buffets at Jewish events and I think Jews are always so in a rush to get food that I'm only used to that now, so when they served the meals we were like oK GAME TIME and practically ran to the food and everyone else was so chill like we're BAD. Jen coined the term "buffet anxiety" which we both have. Definition: anxiety that the buffet will run out of food and you will not get any. I think it developed from chapter dinners in SDT when the senior PC takes all the mac n cheese and you only get lettuce but ha ha right of passage that's me next year!!
Omg ONE MORE THING over the course of the trip I downloaded from Netflix and watched the Evil Genius series which is a 4 part crime documentary and it is SO. CRAZY. AND SO. GOOD. Highly recommend.
Wow this was an overwhelming blog to write and I definitely forgot to talk about lots of stuff but I'll spare both me and you the time and effort of writing/reading more.
Now I'm stuck stressing about studying for finals and packing while simultaneously being melancholy af about leaving but also being excited to see my family and go to camp so basically my emotions are a friggin mess rn like the little Inside Out people in my brain are running around screaming. This is my least favorite time of every semester. Too much feeling!!! I'm bracing myself for Alicia saying every day from now on "we're going home in (x) days can you believe it!!" cuz apparently she's the annoying friend who always says that at the end of experiences. But the answer is no, I can't believe it. Swiftly flow the days, man.
Oy, I'm gonna have a hard time not being gushy and gross for my next couple of blogs. My friends and I have been really into reminiscing and reminding each other that we only have a little time left and making each other sad daily so that's where my head is at right now :/ Sorry to be all "abroad changed me I'm enlightened now". But no worries, I still have plenty of weird and random tidbits to go around.
As I kind of alluded to, this week was one of my favorite weeks in Cape Town, just because of small things that ended up being memorable.
Oh wait before I start I wanna give a Netflix recommendation for Ali Wong's standup specials because they're awesome.
Ok anyway on Monday after I posted my blog, we had a movie night in Rachel and Rebecca's room and watched Ratatouille which I FINALLY saw for the first time (I KNOW I'M THE WORST!) It didn't disappoint. Not my favorite Pixar movie but definitely great.
On Wednesday, Jen, Rachel, Nicole and I went to see The Sound of Music Live at a theater here. Our tickets were literally $12 which is honestly kind of offensive to this amazing cast and orchestra but I cannnn't complain! We were in the actual last row in the entire theater lol but again can't complain bc $12 tickets. Omg though it was INCREDIBLE. It's funny cuz I'm literally a meme like " *sees first hour of sound of music once* *immediately buys tickets for off broadway showing* " but wow I am so glad I did because it was genuinely such a well done production. The orchestra was on point and all their voices were amazing and the woman playing Maria looked soooo much like Julie Andrews (#JulieAndrewsWasSnubbed) and the kids were so cute and all the songs made me smile from ear to ear. Something I love doing is pretending I'm Maria and singing the songs in her theatrical voice. I especially love to sing the yodeling song and get it in all my friends' heads for the rest of the day. Haha also I'm obsessed with this tweet that's a parody of Doe and Deer and it goes "dough, a bread, and uncooked bread. Ray, of sun that cooks the bread...me, a gal, who eats the bread, faaaaather also eats the breaaaddd" and it's SO FUNNY and we couldn't stop singing it.
Thursday was my last day of volunteering at Baphumelele which was bittersweet, and I definitely have many thoughts about it. First of all, let's just establish how bad my last day was. I basically went in there and disturbed the peace bc all the 5 year old boys started fighting over my attention and when I say fighting I mean fighting. Like punching and pushing and slapping each other. It's a regular thing. So my final thoughts are coming from that bad final day, but I definitely had good days along the way. But yeah basically I'm just feeling really discouraged about the experience overall because I saw a lot of really concerning behavior including physical violence and bullying, and now I'm just leaving knowing that that will continue every day. Not that I was making any real difference by being there for 2 hours a week, but if I did see anything I was able to stop it in that moment. There's so little supervision there and these kids basically have to fend for themselves and are dealing with things nobody should deal with at that age. The 15 year olds bully the 5 year olds, the kids throw bricks at each other, they don't care at all when their friend is crying. And as cute and sweet as it was to get to know the kids individually and have them jump into my arms when I walk in, it doesn't erase or make better the fact that these are not conditions children should grow up in, and I can't do anything about it. I learned earlier this year in my service learning that it's important to be responsible about saying goodbye to the kids when you leave and to not just be another person who abandons them. But I had literally no way to explain to these 5 year olds who don't speak English that I'd never see them again. The saddest thing, though, is realizing that I'm probably only one of hundreds of volunteers to come for awhile and then leave them.
So yeah you can see I'm pretty down on that experience, but that doesn't mean I didn't value it in some ways. Something really meaningful that I took out of it is learning that you can develop deep connections with someone without being able to speak their language. By the end, I had developed individualized relationships with the kids through various physical interactions that we had together. I taught one boy named Anda the handclap "slide", so every time I came, he immediately wanted to do it with me. One boy named Lita experiences a lot of bullying and is very guarded, but after a few times of me taking him out of bullying situations, he opened up to me and smiled for the first time I had ever seen. Another girl, Olwethu, taught me songs and dances that she then performed for me every time I came. We call language differences a "language barrier" for a reason, as it is a huge barrier to communication. But it also challenges both parties to communicate meaningfully in other ways, which can ultimately be incredibly rewarding.
All in all, I'm glad I had this experience, but wrapping my head around community engagement/service is HARD! To me it feels irresponsible to come to Cape Town and only engage in the more wealthy, privileged experiences/parts of the city. But at the same time, inserting myself into this township community for only 2 hours a week to play with kids often feels shallow, superficial, and white-saviorish. As I said, I often just disturbed the peace by making the kids fight over my attention, and I barely learned anything about the experience of people in the township. I don't necessarily think there's a "right answer" for what I can do or should've done in this situation, because both options definitely have their problems. Yeah I don't really have any resolution for this part lol it's just complicated. Ok that's enough of that! Onto more lighthearted things...
Thursday night, same group plus Amanda went to Harry Potter Trivia at Beerhouse and wow I have a lot to say. Ok oh yeah we got poke beforehand and we had a lifechanging Uber drive on the way there. Wow I love my Uber drives here. The driver had a kickass playlist for night driving and we blasted Fast Car soo loud and sang it looking out the window and it was a MOMENT. Anyway tho so we go into Beerhouse and there are SO MANY people there like over 30 teams. And we got little sheets to write our answers on for each of the 8 categories and we were feelin pretty confident. But LET ME TELL YOU, we should NOT have felt confident. Those questions were near impossible like honestly I would've been worried if I DID know the majority of the answers. Here's a few examples:
"What is Hogwarts' motto?" (answer: never wake a sleeping dragon (????))
"What does the spell 'relaccio' do?" (literally can't even find the answer online because it's so obscure)
"What color was the ink on Harry's Hogwarts acceptance letter?" (answer: green)
"What was the name of the store that Fred and George opened?" (answer: Weasley's Wizard Wheezes)
So anyway what I'm trying to say is we came in 29th place in the first round and don't know what we got any of the other rounds because they only announced the top teams. It was discouraging as frick and my know it all sister Eva (just kidding shes literally the least know it all person ever except when it comes to HP) was like I COULD'VE BROUGHT YOU TO VICTORY and I was like oH YEAH EVA? WHAT'S HOGWARTS MOTTO and she sure did not know the answer. Sidenote one of the questions was what Hogwarts house was Hagrid in and I guessed Hufflepuff because that makes sense obviously but it's total BS that the answer is Gryffindor. I don't believe for a second that Hagrid really could've made it in Gryffindor.
But we drew scars on our foreheads and ordered food and messed around and had fun anyway. Another sad thing tho was that they were giving out free nachos that night so obviously we ordered them, and im not kidding you there was SPRAY CHEESE on them. Like an actual disgrace. I never knew nachos could be actively bad until that night.
So I had a wonderful Wednesday night and a wonderful Thursday night but would you believe me if I told you that Friday night was even BETTER??? You better believe!! This year, Shavuot came right after Shabbat, so essentially Rachel and Rebecca were looking at 3 full days of yom tov (no driving, electronics, work, etc). In order to not have to sit in the apartment for 3 days, they rented out an Airbnb in Seapoint for the weekend. They invited us over to do Shabbat dinner, so we made a few dishes and brought them over. We had mushroom pasta OBVIOUSLY, shakshuka, a green bean dish, chickpea salad, brownies, ice cream, challah, lots of dip, veggies, YUMMM. But it was no doubt the company that made this night one of my most meaningful ones in Cape Town. Rebecca and Rachel set the table so nicely and their Airbnb was gorgeous. We sat down and just reminisced for a couple hours straight, talking about what we've learned from each other over these past few months, what we appreciate about each other, and remembering what seemed like years ago when we arrived and first met each other.
We went to the couch and played charades which was a TRIP. I had to act out the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and I did a pretty kickass job if I do say so myself even though my team was NOT getting it. I was doing first syllable of python (pie) and was pretending to eat a pie by emphasizing the shape of the circular pie and the triangular slice and then eating it, and my team kept shouting out things like "OOH OOH EATING A SHAPE!!" Like yes good job ladies the first syllable of the second word is "eating a shape".
We all left the dinner in agreement that that was one of our favorite nights in Cape Town and feeling emotional as heck. I know the meaningfulness of it probably doesn't come across in this blog but it's ok cuz it's in my heart!!
On Saturday, Alicia and Jen and I went to Old Biscuit Mill in the morning and I got a delish sushi burrito and a smoothie and shared fries with Jen and shared churros with Alicia and that's like a typical sized meal at OBM lol it's obscene. I got really cute shoes! And they're close toed so I can wear them at camp woohoo! Then Nicole joined us to go to Kirstenbosch where I pretended I was gonna read It (spoiler alert the only use we got out of it was Alicia using it as a pillow) but really we just sat on my CIEE blanket and shared baby pictures for some reason and napped for a little. Just quality time man!!
That night, we went to the Labia because apparently all we do on Saturday nights now is see movies (not mad about it at all tho). Alicia and Jen saw A Quiet Place and didn't like it because they're STUPID, and Nicole and I saw The Greatest Showman and I didn't like it because I'm SMART no jk we're all entitled to our opinions but really I did not like it. Haha but WAIT there's MORE! It was no normal viewing of The Greatest Showman, it was a SINGALONG version. Like literally the lyrics to the songs were on the bottom of the screen and a small top hat was moving along the words as they were sung. So I just made the best of the situation and pretended to sing songs I didn't even know and messed around the whole time. I did like the music ok I'll give it that! And I liked High School Musical era Zac Efron dancing around. But yeah the theater was such a joke, by the end people were just straight up talking through the movie and yelling at the screen. When Zendaya walked away from Zac without kissing him, a man in the back screamed GIRL ARE YOU CRAZY?? Biiig mood. At the end of the movie, after everyone left the theater, Nicole and I stayed back and ran up and down the aisles singing the songs that were playing in the credits. Sometimes you just gotta not give a hoot and fork around and make memories!!
Haha this part of the night was so absurd, so I ubered back and legit the SECOND I got out of my Uber I saw that Jen and Alicia and Jham were getting into another Uber and they were like HANNAH WANNA COME TO UNFRAMED and you know the minute I hear the word Unframed my body just magnetically gets in an Uber so I hopped into an Uber going to the same place I had JUST Ubered back from. This was a lavish day I admit it sorry I'm not usually this galavanty. Unfortunately Unframed didn't have any flavors that popped out at me, so I exercised immense self control and didn't get any ice cream. But then we got pizza hahahhaha. I got a slice at NY slice and it was pretty mediocre but pizza is pizza uk? We got back to the apartment at midnight having had a wholeee night without even going out out so that was a huge win for me.
Maddie and her parents took me to morning tea the next morning which HALLELUJAH Maddie and Randi and Neal AND tea??? Another huge win for me! It was so nice, I really appreciate just being with familiar people and feeling totally comfortable being myself. And Randi was a much needed presence of Jewish Baltimore mom! She gave me a package from my mom with Trader Joes seasoning salt and everything but the bagel shakers in it and that is why she is the best mom ever!! We kept laughing because the dude serving us our tea introduced himself as the "tea ambassador" so every time we wanted him we were like hey where's the AMBASSADOR?? We explored the V&A waterfront for a bit after. We saw seals and Maddie and I played a large version of Jenga and I got hazed by Maddie for not knowing enough about Jenga. It's always a good time! No jk it really was a great time I love the Bramans with all my heart.
On Monday morning, Jen and Amanda and I went to visit Rachel and Rebecca and brought them bagels. They were very disappointing so we mostly just became human trashcans and ate random leftovers out of their fridge. And then we just drank tea and sat on their couch and chatted like the classy adults that we definitely aren't but pretend to be and it was lovely!
I did my favorite activity of laying for a majority of the rest of the day, but then at night I went rock climbing with Alicia and Jen. Alicia loves rock climbing and has been asking me if I wanted to go with her for awhile but I've always been like nah but this time I was like meh why not and guess what?? I enjoyed it SO MUCH! I did have to stay mostly on the kids walls and my arms very quickly turned to jello and my hands got super sore so I could barely climb anything. BUT I had a nice finish on a wall where my moms Jen and Alicia were cheering me on so supportively and I did reach the top. I felt so supported by them emotionally AND physically because they also belayed me! They're so cool and competent and I trust them so much! Rock climbing is a really cool mode of physically activity because you're working toward a really clear goal (getting to the top) but also working toward a more overarching goal of doing higher level routes. So even though it was super tiring, I wasn't thinking about how much it hurt, I was just thinking about how I could get to the top. It was awesome!
I've been thinking a lot about the idea of "pushing yourself" while you're abroad, and how before coming abroad I kept telling myself that I needed to do things I'm doubtful about or wouldn't usually do. But I feel like I was thinking about it very much in terms of things like going out, like I don't love going out but need to push myself to be "fun" abroad and seize the moment. But now I'm understanding that "pushing yourself" isn't doing something that isn't your scene or that you don't usually enjoy, but rather taking a chance on new activities that you've been writing off for one dumb reason or another. Like I was saying no to rock climbing because I had never gone to a rock climbing gym or I was afraid I'd look stupid or it was just easier to stay in my bed. But once I decided to take that chance and just say yes, I got so much out of it. I also think that a lot of people think pushing themselves means doing huge things like bungee jumping or sky diving, but in reality it can be something as small as this that makes a huge difference in your day.
We finished climbing exactly at the time the gym closed (they played the song Closing Time to kick us out haha) and then went to this hole in the wall place to get pizza at 10:30pm #healthyhabits and it was guuuuud. I left 2 slices of my pizza and was like lol I always do this like leave a couple slices to feel better about myself but then I eat it as soon as I get home and that is SURE what I did! Sometimes I'm so darn predictable!
Oh yeah I forgot to say that when we were leaving the climbing gym, our Uber driver couldn't find us and then Alicia's phone died and we were kinda forked but then the nice guy who worked at the gym and his dad were pulling out and offered to drive us and don't worry @adults reading this I felt out the situation and we knew it wasn't sketchy, so they drove us and it was so nice! Hip hip hooray for strangers being kind and not having to pay for Ubers!
On Tuesday night, I went to Mzanzis with Maddie and her parents. Mzanzis is a restaurant in a township called Langa and wow I have a lot of background to give but don't really feel like writing a lot so I'll be quick. The townships are the areas in Cape Town where black people were forced to move during apartheid. They were taken from their homes and moved into tiny houses in towns outside of the city, and the conditions were and still are less than great. People are usually advised not to go into the townships for safety reasons.
But this amazing women whose name I forget but she goes by Mama, she turned her house into a restaurant 10 years ago and has been running the business ever since. Mama likes for the restaurant to feel more like a home than a restaurant, so she only takes bookings and puts out a buffet of food, we sit at a table with the other guests for the night, and she talks to us personally. Maddie loves this place and it was really nice but I have to admit, at the beginning I was wary because it seemed very stereotypical and touristy. Like African decorations all over and a band playing African instruments and African food, which sometimes feels gimmicky. But when Mama sat down with us and explained her story and the story of Mzanzis, my whole perspective changed.
Mama started the business with her husband and her mother when they were struggling economically. They got the idea because tourists were coming in to take "tours" of Langa, but in reality they were just taking pictures and leaving. Supposedly Mama's mother said, "if they're gonna come to Langa, then let's show them what Langa really is." So they created this business where they would have tourists come and experience an authentic African dinner experience. They used almost all of their money to expand their 2-room house, but they didn't profit at all for 7 years. They were on he verge of shutting down the restaurant, but then a group of abroad students came and committed to helping her make it popular on Trip Advisor. It grew and grew and now it's #1 and she has dinners almost every day. I don't do her story justice even a little, but it was really inspiring to hear her honest authentic story of grit and persistence of vision.
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| Artwork sold in Mzanzis, completely made out of sand |
Wednesday night we had our CIEE dinner lol and I don't wanna talk about it much. We dressed up nice and went to a hotel on the beach and hooted around for a little but then it got kinda annoying and the food was kinda bad. They almost exclusively played songs from 2010-2014. We Ubered home early. Thanks tho CIEE! I wish instead of giving us these ridiculously fancy dinners they just paid the housekeeping staff more :/ #popularopinion
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| This cheesecake was the only redeeming part of the food that night |
And THENNNN on Thursday we departed for our final trip! It was "reading week" which is the period when you're supposed to study before finals but instead of studying we went on a safari ha ha. We (me, Jen, Rachel, Alicia and Liv) spent a day in Joburg together before parting ways for our own trips. We went to the apartheid museum which was obviously a super enlightening and meaningful experience, but I just kinda did it wrong. I didn't realize how big the museum was so I spent a reaaaally long time reading everything at the Nelson Mandela exhibit in the beginning and then got really mentally exhausted so I got really lost reading the rest of the stuff. It's also just a very overwhelming topic, so I think it'd always be overwhelming for me anyway. But yeah just very striking how recently it happened and how apathetic the rest of the world seemed. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't know anything about the apartheid before I came here, but it's such important world knowledge and I really encourage everyone to at least have some basic knowledge about it.
And now I'm gonna insert a tiny little political observation that I don't wanna go into much BUT something that was really interesting and thought-provoking for me was learning about the black community's reaction to apartheid and how it got to a point where the only thing that was seemingly left to do was to react semi-violently. I sat in a small theater in the museum and watched footage of people in the townships burning tires and you feel a lot of empathy for them because obviously it came to that for a reason, resultant from years of oppression and pent up anger. And then I was thinking about the protests in Gaza, and how a lot of people have been completely dismissing the Gazans' experience because they were violent and burnt tires, but how I think a lot of those people would have been sympathetic to the township community's experience, and I was realizing the hypocrisy that often happens in the conflict and in our community. And I'm not comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa at all or saying that the situations are the same at all, but I think it's important to examine our own biases when we react to similar actions in such different ways (completely dismissing Gazan protests as violent and therefore not caring about their cause or anything they have to say, vs. sympathizing with the black community during their violent protests). In conclusion I think we need to go beyond the surface in these issues and examine the root rather than passing such quick judgments ok thanks for coming to my TedTalk!
We were all pretty cranky this day also FYI cuz Alicia and Liv were having issues planning their trip and we all woke up at 3:45am for an early flight so yeah I don't have so many funny stories about this day. But we went to this Argentinian place for dinner and the funniest thing that happened all day is I got a dessert with ice cream and Alicia tasted it and said it "tastes like box" as in like cardboard but she's Alicia so she says weird shit like that and I was like ALICIA YOU GET MAD AT ME FOR YUCKING YOUR YUM DON'T SAY STUFF LIKE THAT OK but then I tasted it again and it soooooo tasted like box. And Jen and Liv agreed. So I can officially say I had box flavored ice cream ALSO the dessert was supposed to have brandy soaked pears and there were none so thanks for NOTHING Argentinian restaurant!!
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| my box flavored ice cream and lack of pears |
We stayed in an Airbnb in Joburg which was really funny. At first glance it looks like this cool hip open Brooklyn esque apartment but upon further inspection it was like soooo nonfunctional and stupid like all the furniture was so uncomfortable and the toilet seat was broken and the sinks were plugged and there were light fixtures hanging so that I bumped my head on them and Alicia and I were up for half the night listening to our neighbors blast No Air by Jordan Sparks but hey it's all about the experience.
Oh yeah bonus it was Eva's prom night that night and she's gonna be so embarrassed but I'm gonna post and sweet pic of her and Daniel here because she looked SO BEAUTIFUL but she looked even more beautiful because she is a beautiful person on the inside too and I adore her!!
Ok ANYWAY jeez this is a long blog sorry ok so early in the morning we split up. Alicia and Liv went to Swaziland and Rachel, Jen and I went to Kruger National Park. We got picked up in a van super early and drove 5 hours to Kruger. We were squished in the back with a man who I'll talk about more later and Rachel was squished in the middle with a SUHHWEEET young couple who we loved. Martin (marTEEN) was Colombian and Liza (LEEza) was Belgian and they live in Sweden together now and they are so cool and tender and lovely! We had a cool little safari clique forming with them in the beginning but then they found friends their own age which u know what I'm happy for them about.
This safari was all inclusive so we were fed by them and had housing provided (our housing was a canvas tent with a desk and 2 small beds but hey we're not fancy ppl that's all we needed) and the guides were super sweet and wanted us to feel like a group so we ate together and drank wine and made friends and yeah!
I don't know how to write about this I'm sorry I'm feeling discombobulated but about the actual safari ok so you do 3 hour game drives, we had one on Friday night and 2 on Saturday and one on Sunday morning which was the perf amount. I keep saying safaris are a lazy person's dream cuz all you do is sit in a car. We saw a lot of cool stuff!! A lot of it wasn't super up close but we saw a diverse amount in general which was great. The first night we saw baby hyenas playing which was seauuxxx cute and then we saw a leopard up close stalking and chasing a rabbit which was SICKKKKK!! The second day we saw lots of elephants and zebras and giraffes and hippos and we saw cheetahs which was a nice surprise and then the last day we finally saw a lion but he was soo far and I'm kinda a safari snob now so I was like meh but it was really cool I'm just a brat. But no really like safaris are about the animals but they're also not totally about the animals like looking for them is so exciting and the high of feeling the car stop and knowing there's something there is like WOO and Jen and Rachel and I got a lot of quality time talking and I also talked to this nice woman named Natalie and the sunrises and sunsets are AMAAAAZE. Oh yeah that's why I named this blog sunrise sunset, because we saw a lot of sunrises and sunsets and because this hilarious Latina grandma sitting behind us on the last day started singing the song from Fiddler on the Roof during sunrise. She also showed us her cover photo of a sunrise from her last safari. Also the days just keep going really fast like sunrise sunset bam it's over and also the sun is setting on my time here which is really sad ok boo I'm so angsty about leaving but we're not gonna talk about it here ok
So NOW I get to tell you about funny tidbits from the weekend. The dude sitting next to Jen in the van we named Ned and he's just a really funny dude who said some really weird things but like you kinda had to be there and then we named another dude Jacque because he was soooo foreign like wore jeans and a thin scarf and knit sweater on the game drive and had a goatee. We also talked to these cute old lady friends who we didn't have to name because they told us their names (Sandra and Carol how perfect) and they were just cute sassy grandmas having fun and we loved them. We had a guide named Benjy who seemed really sweet and cute at first but then got kinda weird and told us like every single thing about his life when I asked where he was from but no he was sweet I'm being mean.
Some more fun things! 1. Jen was peak overeager Jen and when they told us we could get in the Jeep she didn't realize they had doors so she in front of everyone just climbed over the whole heckin thing and Benjy was like what the hoot jen and he remembered her name cuz she's so heckin overeager 2. Outlook Safaris gave us these super fashionable beige poncho things to wear (see pics above) and we looked like thumbs 3. Meals were buffet style (ok the food was soooo good s/o to the chef Rufus) and I swear I only encounter buffets at Jewish events and I think Jews are always so in a rush to get food that I'm only used to that now, so when they served the meals we were like oK GAME TIME and practically ran to the food and everyone else was so chill like we're BAD. Jen coined the term "buffet anxiety" which we both have. Definition: anxiety that the buffet will run out of food and you will not get any. I think it developed from chapter dinners in SDT when the senior PC takes all the mac n cheese and you only get lettuce but ha ha right of passage that's me next year!!
Omg ONE MORE THING over the course of the trip I downloaded from Netflix and watched the Evil Genius series which is a 4 part crime documentary and it is SO. CRAZY. AND SO. GOOD. Highly recommend.
Wow this was an overwhelming blog to write and I definitely forgot to talk about lots of stuff but I'll spare both me and you the time and effort of writing/reading more.
Now I'm stuck stressing about studying for finals and packing while simultaneously being melancholy af about leaving but also being excited to see my family and go to camp so basically my emotions are a friggin mess rn like the little Inside Out people in my brain are running around screaming. This is my least favorite time of every semester. Too much feeling!!! I'm bracing myself for Alicia saying every day from now on "we're going home in (x) days can you believe it!!" cuz apparently she's the annoying friend who always says that at the end of experiences. But the answer is no, I can't believe it. Swiftly flow the days, man.
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