This is Africa.

It's been a little over a week since myself and 52 others left APU. We had a 5-hour flight from Los Angeles to Washington DC, which wasn't too bad; that was just the beginning. We then flew from DC to Johannesburg, South Africa with a stopover in Senegal (a country in West Africa). The total travel time was about 26 hours and we were all pretty exhausted by the end of it. On the flight from DC to Johannesburg I was given a seat at the front of the plane with no APU students nearby; I changed seats in Senegal (to sit with my fellow APUers) as I decided to sleep the whole way there from DC. I took a nap on the latter half of the flight too. Although the flight was somewhere around 17 hours it was not as bad as I'd thought it would be. We had plenty of movies to keep us entertained.

We spent the first night at a local hotel. We had dinner at a roadhouse across the street where the food was pretty good. The next day (Friday) we spent a good majority of the day touring Soweto, a local township where many of the blacks were forced to live during the apartheid era. It was interesting to see how both the rich and the poor live in such close proximity to each other. I must say though that South Africa as a whole is beautiful. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

That evening we had our final flight (only one hour this time) from Johannesburg to Durban. Upon our arrival at the Johannesburg airport there was a large crowd of people blowing horns and dressed in attire in the colors of the South African flag. It turned out that the soccer teams were flying in for the Orange Cup, which is being hosted in South Africa this year. I felt like I was in a movie; the scene was unreal.

The flight to Durban had quite a bit of turbulence but was not too bad. Durban was warm and very humid when we got there. We had to drive somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes to get to African Enterprises, a conference center that would become our home for the next 11 weeks. I cannot express how great it felt to finally get there. We'd spent several days traveling and we were finally home!

The campus is beautiful. There's a waterfall only a couple hundred meters from most of our chalets. There is plenty of wildlife to go around; the campus is also near a game reserve which is home to zebras (pronounced zeh-bruhs in South Africa), rhinoceroses, monkeys, and a myriad of other creatures.

Over the weekend we had the remainder of our Orientation (the first half was held back in the States), which went well. We received a lot of information and it was quite overwhelming. We made a trip to the mall as well, which was huge! The mall is viewed as more of a luxury here, whereas in America it's more of just another place to go shopping. Converting money from dollars to Rands isn't too bad; one American dollar equals almost nine Rands.

On Sunday I hiked to the second of supposedly four waterfalls, which was quite the adventure. I as well as many others got cut up, bitten, muddy, soaked, and nearly everything else you could think of that happens outdoors. We had a blast though and it's a day I certainly won't be forgetting any time soon.

Classes started on Monday and today is now Thursday, so the first of six weeks of intensive classes is almost over. Life as a college student in South Africa is a tricky one; it's tempting to go out all the time and not do your school work as there is so much to do! Hiking, swimming, mall runs, dance classes, going to the movies, working out, and much more quickly fill up your free time. I went to a "hip-hop" (it was really much more than that) dance class on Monday night and had so much fun! South Africans can certainly dance!

The people here are extremely friendly, for the most part. They have a joy and a freedom that is seldom seen in America. It's tough to understand (thus difficult for me to explain) without having interacted with them. A man I spoke with this morning thought it was crazy that Americans are so protective over their children and buy guns like there's no tomorrow. I explained to him why this was so and he seemed to understand. Here in South Africa children roam around all the time; granted many of them probably do so because they are orphans and lost their parents to AIDS. I found it interesting the way the man I spoke with viewed gun control, the Church, and possessions. It was an eye-opening conversation.

And then there are all the little things that make this country what it is. Chicken is an extremely popular food; there are chicken-serving restaurants like KFC and Chickin Lickin everywhere. They drive on the left side of the road (still can't get over it). Toilets flush counterclockwise. Racism is not an issue here (a dark-skinned woman is a "black woman"; a light-skinned man is a "white man"). I found this a relief as  America's obsession with being politically correct gets extremely tiresome.

That, in a short summary, is South Africa. I already feel pretty close with everyone here; how can you not when you're living so close to one another?

As we like to say all the time, when things go right, when things go wrong, and just because we can...

This is Africa.

Hanging out with pre-schoolers at a non-profit

An all-natural water slide!

Enjoying Tea Time--a genius idea!