Buildin!

I'm here in Stellenbosch, South Africa right now on a miserably rainy afternoon. Seriously, the weather has been awful here.

Stellenbosch is kind of a strange place. The evidence of colonization is unbelievable. Everything is white washed and dutch looking. It's very eerie and I don't particularly like it. The university we're staying at actually still makes their students learn and speak Afrikaaners which as a white Afrikaaner put it last night is connontated with heavy oppression. I enjoyed Cape Town much more for its seeming diversity and integration, but that's just a first impression I guess. The students from here are really amazing and don't fit the stereotype at all, so maybe they just need to change up the colors of the buildings and I'd like it better. It IS known throughout the world for it's amazing wines...some of the oldest vineyards in the WORLD, so I'm hoping to go wine tasting on Sunday.

We started building our habitat houses yesterday!!!!! It's nothing like the houses I've built before...they're entirely cement and cinder blocks. That means most of the job is mixing "dagga" which is cement....a back breaking job and moving cinder blocks. There are community builders that actually do the work of laying down the bricks and everything so we pretty much do the things to assist them with their job. My whole body aches! It's REALLY fun though. Unfortunatley because of the bad weather the days have been cut in half...it's pretty annoying. Many of you know what it feels like to be discouraged about not doing as much as was expected and I'm worried that's where we'll end up.

My team is great. We've got a mix of South African University students, Irish and Americans and we all get along well which I just am thankful for. Our leader, John, is great...he is good about delegating and making sure everyone is working on something so that's nice. He's also just a lot of fun.

Our homeowner is Williem who is 22. I was SHOCKED to discover this. That is not that much older than me! He has at least 2 children and no wife and he works as a policeman in the township. We've talked to him about his job and he says he doesn't like the violence of it. He was talking about how pulling the trigger of a gun is the worst thing anyone can do because when you shoot you shoot to kill. I don't know if he's had any personal experience with this, but I'm sure he comes in close contact with a lot of violence. His ideal job would be a business man. Something that didn't have anything to do with violence he said. His best friend is his television...?! which is silly. He's really a great guy though and I'm so excited to be giving him a house that he can live in for the rest of his long life!

Mfeleni is the township we're in and habitat had done a LOT of work in it. THere are paved roads and a good amount of habitat houses. It's fun because they're really brightly colored and festive and seem to liven up the community. I feel safe there...whcich I don't know about. I don't know if that's false security or what. Anyway, I'm REALLY enjoying the time there!

This week has been particularly fun because habitat organizes groups of international students and a big group of them are Irish. They are a blast. It was funny because they were actually at the hostle we were in, but we were all so busy with homework that we were REALLY anti-social. Now we're shown them that we're fun loving Americans :-D I'm learning some Irish slang....which is fun. Also! a group of them have lived in Portland, OR before going on an exchange program! so they are really great to talk to and get to know. A lot of them have expressed wanting to live there again someday, so that'd be awesome. Grant and I actually may end up hanging out with a few of them in our extended stay, maybe road tripping up the coast. True to form their speech patterns and accent are rubbing off on me alittle bit. I'll be curious to see if it's noticable when I come home...

Anyway, I'm just having a blast here this week. Not really sleeping enough (at all), but really soaking up the experience.

I love you all!