A South African Mash Up

Addendum: here in South Africa everything seems to be a mash up. There's so much diversity. Also just in stores you can buy a phone and socks and food...just mash ups...So in that spirit here is my post :-D

Well, we finished our house!!!!!! My team was wonderful and much of the credit goes to Bon-Bon our builder. He was amazing! The house is beautiful and worth every ounce of effort we poured into it.

I can't remember what I wrote in the last post, but our group couldn't stay for the last day which was the dedication. I was really sad about that because that's when we give our home owner the keys and everything. Williem (our homeowner) also wanted me to print out pictures for him, but there was no place to do that so I had to send him a message instead of seeing him face to face. I felt like I was definitely letting him down...It's ok though because I think that I'll be able to visit him again in the month after the study abroad trip. John, my team leader, will be returning with another group of Irish students and he said that he'd pick me up in Cape Town and take me to see our house again. Hopefully we'll make that happen :-D

Leaving Stellenbosch was very strange. I think I was ready, but it just felt sad to leave all of our friends that we had made and who had been such a big part of our life for a week. It was also sad since the rest of the group had another day and night together. Ah well, I guess everything must come to an end.

We did get a GREAT sending away party though...Kareoke?!?!?! how much more up my ally can it get?!?!?! My team sang "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion, which was HILLARIOUS. My favorite performance was definitely Grant and Mark (an Irish boy) singing Whitney Houston together "I Wanna Dance"...It was wonderful and I have videos. Then we all hit our fave hang out the "Brazen Head" and I finished my challenge so my name will be on the wall!!!!! (Also something I'm excited to go back and see when I visit Stellenbosch again) Then we all went out to Mystic Boer this really strange "scene" bar and danced until 3am. It was really special that everyone stayed out with us since they all had to go back to the houses and do more work the next day. It definitely expressed the connection that we had with one another. Luckily for us the next day we had a 6 hour bus ride, so we all got plenty of nap time to catch up a little from an exhausting week.

Now we're in Plattenberg Bay which is a beautiful beach town. It really reminds me of Carmel or Monteray so that's fun. We'll only be here until tomorrow and then we're off to Grahmstown!!!!!!! I'm mostly really excited about this! It'll be interesting to see what theater and dance are like on the other side of the world. I've heard only good things from local South Africans. It's funny because so far everything that I've expected the elements of this trip to be like have been completely wrong, so who really knows what this next phase will look like.

Today I watched 13-ish of my teammates jump from the tallest bungy place in the WORLD! That was pretty cool. I didn't do it myself...I figured I wouldn't be regretful and I'm not so that's good.

What else...The homework is ramping up again which I'm not excited for...Kind of in a procrastinating place right now. I just feel mentally drained...so I'm not sure of the quality I'm going to produce. I did get back the papers I wrote in Cape Town and those went really well, so that's nice to know, relieves a little pressure.

Every once in a while I just get this overwhelming sense of happiness about being here. It feels so great to be fulfilling this desire to go out into the world and meet people and serve people and learn about people. I was talking to one girl and she said she loves travelling and meeting people from other cultures because she remembers and learns about how much we all have in common. It's a pretty phenomenal thing that I can come half way around the world and have some of the conversations and interactions with people that I have had. It renews a great sense of love for humanity and hope for the world. At the same time I am a little confused when I have these experiences because I think of how much injustice is undergone by people just because they're presumed to be different. It seems to me if someone took one hour to ask that person about their hopes and dreams and values that they would learn that they too want similar things...how does anyone overlook that? At times when I am feeling so much love it's hard to understand how so much hate and pain can exist. It seems far easier to extend love than hatred...