Cultural Experience: So I went to the Neelsie, the student center, the other day for lunch and noticed two things. One, never go to the Neelsie at 13:00... it is packed and ridiculous. Two, there is racial division in the student cafeteria. I could not find a place to sit in the main area, so I decided I would sit in the second seating area that is back by the door. Well I noticed something while there, everyone son black/ coloured. There are of course a few exc...

So, the other day I finally got to experience a bit of Africa outside of the confines of Stellenbosch. We went to a place called Kayamundi for about 1 ½ hours on a guided tour through the settlement. It's a colored township with about 33,000 people who all live in a space equal to and/or less than the size of my bathroom back home. Best case scenario is when a family has a shack of their own that I about 8 feet by 8 feet and one room. Otherwise they li...

Egypt Won the African Cup of Nations! So I have no idea how it happened but the week has flew by. I have meant to write about last weekend for a few days now, but here it's Thursday and I have yet to catch up my journal on the amazing weekend I just had. Saturday AIFS, the program I am studying here with, took all of us Americans to Cape Point/ Cape of Good Hope in the morning. It is basically a nature reserve on the western coast. It took just over an hour ...

Well, i am now into classes, and they seem like they will be amazing!! They are: Study of South African Wine Industy (it's only 1 credit, but it's something i'm taking for fun) Economic and Development of Africa and South Africa (the teacher is like 26, but it's a discussion based class with a bunch of different international backgrounds so it should be amazing) Afrikaans (the dutch like language that most people speak here. It will be nice to understand a b...

February 1, 2008 So, basically I am glad that I am not, nor will I ever be, a first year here. They are woken up every morning at 6am by people yelling outside, "1st years, wake up 1st years". The reason I know this is because I have been woken up by the same voices every morning for the last week and a half. Then they have to spend all day with their dorms learning skits and constructing things. I wasn't sure what all of this dancing was for until the...