Cape Town Love!

The first picture is from the safari in Kruger National Park. Momma giraffe and baby gifaffe are just crossing the road! I cannot wait to show everyone the hundreds of photos I have!

CAPETOWN UPDATE:: This city is beautiful! The picture to the left was one of the most breath taking views I have ever seen at Blyde Canyon. We stopped here last week on our way from Kruger park to the airport in Jo-burg. I LOVE CAPETOWN! The more we see of it, the more I love it! Weather has been so nice and sunny, we have been lucky considering it is winter here and that normally means lots of rain and wind off the ocean, but today was our first taste of that! It was NOTHING to us, used to good ole' central IL weather. We have been doing lots of class in the mornings. We have finally got through Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom. Tomorrow we have our first discussion over the next book we read The Madonna of Excelsior. I have to start/finish our next book by Monday because somehow it is hard to find time to read in a city this beautiful! We have three more reads in the next two weeks!

Yesterday we started our volunteer service at the Olive Leaf Foundation http://www.olf.org.za/ . Yesterday we got a brief orientation to the program. They do a lot to serve the community of Khayelitsha (ky-leetcha). We assisted in an after school program for kids who normally go home to no parents because they are at work. The township of Khaylelitsha is formed of hundreds of little shacks, but is rich in people! Everyone we have encountered has been so friendly. The children at the school spoke Xhosa, a native language that uses clicks, so we did have a language barrier but the kids were amazing! After some big group games outside we split up into groups. I was with some of the younger kids and we did finger painting and potato stamping! It was a great big mess but the kids had a lot of fun. They were so excited to have something to do after school. We then did a lot of jump roping and then our time quickly ran out! the day was a great success for all!

Today was our second day with OLF and we had a completely different experience. We were given pamphlets and magazines with information about HIV and AIDS and mass boxes of condoms. We split up with our guides and went into the shopping centres of the community and handed out information and supplies to people. It was an extremely eye opening experience just to be on the front line of trying to spread education about health and safety. The responses that we got from people ranged from laughs, "what are these for" to some very grateful people! Overall though, today was another great success! It is so incredible to be here learning the history of the country and actually have the opportunity to be out giving something back.

I am sooo excited for tomorrow!! We are doing a mural painting at one of the resource centers. They gave me a sketch of what they were thinking and I am getting ready to work on the design a bit tonight! I will definitely post some pictures when I get time!

This weekend we are doing a tour of the Cape of Good Hope and visiting penguin island because it had gotten rescheduled. More updates are soon to come!!!

emails always welcome @ klwaters@eiu.edu

love you all!!!!

=)

safari-sogoody!

We have just gotten into Cape Town yesterday and it is AMAZING! We are surrounded on a peninsula by the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean and beautiful Table Mountain(which we will be climbing here soon!) is in the view of our hotel! Everything has gone perfectly so far! We we in Jo-burg for the first few nights. We visited townships and met incredible people. Then we traveled on to Dennilton, a couple hours away to get to our first volunteer location. We were to help out at an orphanage called Youth with A Vision.
My words and pictures cannot do this place justice!! I have never been more happy to be anywhere in my life as that place. The children were absolutely great. They were all so happy. The first day we were there they showed us around and we got to join in on their Sunday worship service. Those kids had the best voices I have ever heard! The next day we went back we helped out by cutting grass, with a single tool (much more difficult than a riding lawn mower). The orhapange had 25 kids who were the sweetest kids ever! After doing some work there we had a big Soccer match! It was so much fun to be running around with them! Some of them could surely play in the world cup!! (which by the way will be in south africa next and i can see the stadium being building from my hotel!) it was such an incredible two days there!

We got to venture onward to Kruger National park where we went on a 2 day safari (some of us who were sick only went out one of the days) but we saw tons of animals! Giraffes, elephants, lions & cubs, babboons, monkeys, wildabeast, pumba, impalas, and many more! I have really good picutres!!

Now that we are in Cape Town we have just been touring it a bit today and I am excited to get out and do more service work in this beautiful community!!! Mountains, Ocean, EVERYTHING all right here! :) its amazing!! Tomorrow we are seeing tons more and going to the penguin island!! I am excited to finally be settled in one place for the next 3 weeks instead of packing and traveling every two days! But its been great so far! Hopefully everyone on our trip can get and stay healthy for the rest of it! We have much to do!

I hope to update more often here! And post some pictures as soon as I can! There is much to tell and show you all!!! I love emails and chats on skype if you have it! Just let me know:) Our time is 7 hours ahead!


ALL OF MY AFRICAN LOVE!!

The day is finally here!! It's a rainy day in Chicago, so I suppose we will just hop on a plane and get to London! We will be touring the city all day tomorrow (probably on 0 sleep) and then tomorrow at 7pm (London time) we will start on our flight to South Africa for about 11 hours and arrive in SA the following morning!

I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)

everyone should get skype so I can talk to you while I am gone! Send emails klwaters@eiu.edu. I would love to hear from you!

London Love!!!