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!!!!

=)