This is Africa

 I wrote this Monday Jan 24, 2012 but haven’t had solid internet so am just posting now. Will update again soon!

I’m here!!!! After a long trip, filled with turbulence and delays, a 2 hour layover that turned into being a little less than a sprint, and feeling very ill for the second 12 hour flight, not to mention the whole first day, I am finally settling in.

I am still very jet-lagged. We didn’t get in until about 12:30 am on Sunday night/Monday morning, which was tough, especially because it was so exciting to check out our amazing new house and get all settled in. Most of us ended up staying up and unpacking so we could be set to go in the morning, which turned into staying up until 4am and being up early because we still haven’t adjusted to the time change! As I write this it is actually 3am now, and though I was incredibly exhausted all day, I was awoken by some strange noise outside that will not stop and now I’m wide awake! Awful! So I thought I’d take the time to write this.

Today, like I said, we were up pretty early. Melikaya, our program director over here in SA came over this morning and set us up with cell phones (yay!), although the wifi internet in the house and home phone are still being worked out. Fortunately we managed to figure out a way to pay for a certain amount of credits with our credit cards and we can get on. It seemed like a bargain at first but it gets used up pretty quickly!

Anyway, back to today. The group (only 13 while we wait for others to arrive) went out in Cape Town today with our drivers Pearnel and Anele. The original plan was to go to the District 6 Museum, but it just so happened to close at 2pm on Mondays and we walked up at about 2:10. So instead we went to the Slave Lodge, which is a museum about the history or slavery in Africa and Asia.  After that we went to the Waterfront, which was one of my favorite places last time we were in Cape Town. We were even right next to the hotel we stayed in on our last visit! I think that’s when it finally hit me, “I’m back!!” I’ve waited two years for this, and so far SA hasn’t disappointed at all!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous. The first day it was so sunny and hot but it would randomly rain really really hard, sun still shining and all. Since then however, it has been clear skies. Very hot but I’m not complaining! The one thing is that there is no air conditioning anywhere, not in the house or in stores or in the university. Its just something else we have to adjust to, and honestly after sun down it cools off enough not to be an issue at night.

So that was not a complete description of the first day, nor the past few! However, in light of a little sleeping problem (I can’t sleep, I have now been awake for over 48 hours and still can’t fall asleep) I am going to focus on getting to bed tonight and write over the next few days.

Other than that major jet-lag and minor set back, I have so many wonderful things to share. I plan to upload some photos of my house soon so stay tuned!