**DISCLAIMER** This post will be ridiculously long, as I let a very filled week go by before having time to update it. Feel free to skim, not read, or leave open for a few days. I'll try to do better on more frequent and thus shorter posts. For those who don't want to read it all, I'm alive and well, so you are good to go :)
************************************************************************************
Sorry for the lack of blogging! You'll understand why after this post. Let me catch y'all up to speed on my first week here:
-Saying goodbye was incredibly hard. It took alot of courage and God giving me strength to say goodbye to everything that I knew and loved. I was excited, but also really sad. It was great to be at Mobilise that last weekend and be close to everyone. I had about 16 letters from friends to read on the plane; I felt incredibly loved and supported.
-Tuesday morning we went to UWC. We, including the UM professor who went with us and had been there before, were all under the impression that we would be able to live on campus for a week or two while they helped us find somewhere off campus to live. None of us wanted to live on campus, because it's away from everything. Obs is an area where loads of students live, and coincidentally, where Jubilee is located. We all wanted to live there. We found out upon arrival, that we could live on campus for a week, but would be charged for the whole semester, and that they didn't have any housing leads for us. We, with all our luggage, were then place in a random room with a really slow internet connection to find for ourselves. Finding homes in a foreign country is just a little difficult, fyi. The director showed us a website with a hostel in Obs we could stay in on Wednesday-Sunday, but it had no openings for that night. We then used that website to find a hostel for that night in Obs. We found one for really cheap, reserved it, printed it off the website, showed it to the lady. At 6 our driver came to pick us up. We showed him the reservation and he said," I...can't take you here." Thinking it was really unsafe or something, we asked why. He said "Because its in China man!". China. CHINA. We booked a hostel in CHINA,and the lady didn't even point it out! At that point we all started laughing because it ws ridiculous. He took us to this other hostel that we roughed it out for a night. Unbelievable first night, and there were guys and girls in our room in this hostel, so I didn't sleep very well.
-Wednesday was orientation, but none of us could pay any attention because we were all preoccupied with trying to find a house! The one useful part was the tour of campus, which we had to miss to go view a house, which turned out to not work out.
-Thursday was registration, which we were warned would be a nightmare. Student formed a queu (which is a line here, we had to ask) that went out the main doors down the streets! We got to bypass it, and we were all still in line from 10-5. At one point they gave me another girls student number, then said my account didn't show I had paid, so I had to wait for the same lady to clear my account; it was nervewracking. They then registered me for a whole year! I didn't bother to correct them; on Monday I'll go find the place to drop classes. We went back to our hostel, exhausted. We went to a Braii ( a South African BBQ; very popular here) with students from Norway and the Netherlands and other countries that night. By Thursday, I was so weary and overwhelmed and nervous about the house thing that I wasn't enjoying myself at all.
-Friday morning I woke up and explored Obs a bit. I found Jubilee, and went in and met a few people! I got to see Lex briefly, which was really neat. He said "Oh you're so pale, we must get you in the sun--she's coming from winter in the states!" We then went to a house showing. Not ideal, but in Obs and we could move in the following week,so we took it. It's by the train, so it will be loud, but its alright. It was weird that the first lease I've ever signed was in South Africa! I was incredibly relieved and thankful to God for providing, even with no help from the university here. Later on Jo Loizedes picked me up and we went to their place. Lex taught me to play cricket with him and his son, John. They were very easy on me, and I managed to win the second game, which Lex was nonplussed about..but then again, they held back alot :) Had dinner, then Lex and Jo showed me all around Cape. It was BREATHTAKING. Nothing I can say can describe it; I fell in love with it all immediately. After dark we went to Mount Nelson, a very fancy English hotel, and chatted over wine for a long time. It was the best thing since arriving!
-Saturday morning I went with Jess Loizedes to Kids Club. It's a ministry of Jubilee for kids from very poor areas. We played with and loved on about 65 African kids. Complete chaos, but so fun. We fed them waffles on ice cream (don't ask me, it was good though). That afternoon Jo and their kids and I went to Simon's Town, on the inside of the Cape, where I saw the Indian Ocean for the first time! Again, gorgeous. I spent the evening with them again as well; I am so thankful for them!
Today I went to Jubilee--it was SO SO neat to go to a church on the otherside of the world and feel like family!! We sang songs that had Xhosa, French, and English all in them. Tonight they meet again, and lots of students go to that meeting, so I'm going to go as well. Classes start tomorrow, which I'm sure will be disorganized and crazy again. :)
That's a summary of my first week. It started off pretty bad, and at some points I was terrified, but this weekend has been awesome. I'm so excited that I live so close to Jubilee, and for making some friends and getting involved. Again, sorry for such a long post; I'll keep them shorter next time! If you want to see pictures and videos, I have some on Facebook.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment