11:30am-2:30pm: Early afternoon, we walked to Beth Uriel (BU), a Christian home for guys from the streets. The weather was perfect for the walk. Two of my friends, Ken and Alexei, have been doing service-learning at BU this entire quarter and organized a Braai for the official release of their Makasi clothes brand. The food was really good (especially the sausage and chicken), and the guys taught me some of their dance moves afterward. A lot of fun.
4:30pm-6:30pm: Later that afternoon, Khai and I went to Grand Parade Sqaure for the "Cape Town Welcomes World Cup" Party. It was insane. We couldn't get inside the fan park because they had already reached maximum capacity (10,000, I think), so we walked around and still had an awesome time. Took pictures with decked out South African Bafana Bafana fans (and also the security!), danced and cheered with hundreds of other people gathered in the streets, and blew my vuvuzela (or at least tried to, it's hard!) :). I'm becoming obsessed with blowing that horn; it's so addicting.
Random, but at one point, the MC was calling out different South African suburbs and then started calling country names. When USA was finally said, Khai and I were the only ones cheering in the huge crowd, and everyone looked at us, and of course, I couldn't blow my horn that well and kept laughing. The atmosphere was crazy fun and energetic. I love just being there, among thousands of people all over the world, excited for an event as big as this. You know I took a lot of pictures!
Also, how random is it that standing next to the mayor of Cape Town, R-Kelly was there?! Apparently he's a really big deal in South Africa. He was going to perform later that night, but Khai and I had to rush to the Farewell dinner a couple blocks down. On the way to restaurant (the wrong way, by the way), we saw our bus with everyone from the program, and we just hopped/ran on.
6:30pm-10pm: Farewell dinner at an amazing Ethiopian Restaurant on Long Street. The entire dinner was great--the food, the company, the service, the laughs, the champagne, the place, etc. In the beginning part of the dinner, Claire shared with us a video slideshow she had made from some of our pictures. All the pictures just brought so many indescribably great moments from the very beginning to the end...I can't say enough how fast this quarter has gone. A lot of the pictures shown were taken in the beginning of the quarter during our different tours; I can't believe that was around nine weeks ago.
After the slideshow, Tim (the Program DIrector) talked and thanked us for coming to Cape Town. He re-capped on our quarter and said how much he values us. He's so awesome, and I feel so blessed that I got to work closely with him and get to know him these last few weeks. After his short speech, several gave appreciation speeches to our program staff members--Tim, Janice (service-learning coordinator), Brent (faculty in residence), Carol (admin), Jenny (andmin), and Sipho (driver). I gave a speech about Tim, who other than being the overall Program Director, was also my professor for Preparation to Community-Based Research, one of my favorite classes this quarter. Overall though, we honestly have the best staff that any person could ask for. They were extremely dedicated, kind, selfless, hard-working, etc., and they were huge parts of our entire experience in Cape Town. I'm so thankful for them and will miss them a ton.
The food was delicious, and we all ate with our hands. I liked how there weren't real tables because it definitely encouraged milling around and just chatting and hanging out. We spent a long time there, but I didn't really notice the time pass by. We have an awesome group of people, and though I didn't get close with every single person in the program; as a house, we became close. We're so comfortable with each other, have great chemistry, cooperative, responsible, and drama-free for the most part. They say that half the abroad experience depends on the people, and the people definitely made my quarter abroad as special as it was, and as sad as it is saying goodbye to my housemates. I'll miss living in this house, with these people a lot.
10pm-12am: A couple of us--Ken, Khai, Tim, Viria, Bridget, Craig, and I stayed in the city and joined in the World Cup festivities, this time to watch the concert. SO MUCH FUN, I can't even get over it. By the end of the night, my voice was nearly gone for all the vuvuzela-blowing, cheering, and screaming. Also, so much dancing, just what I love! We danced in the streets, and we, along with some girls we met, started a big dance party in our section of the crowd. We became a large, and everyone was dancing, welcoming others ("make the circle bigger!" reference to a pop song about Africa welcoming the world and opening the dance circle), taking turns on the inside, grabbing partners, dragging people in, welcoming others, teaching new dance moves to each other, laughing, cheering for everyone who would dance in the middle, and of course, blowing vuvuzelas and waving flags. It was such an awesome feeling dancing, doing yo' thang, moving to the beat, feeling liberated and just not caring because everyone looks and is kinda acting ridiculous, and just being pumped for the World Cup -- and it's in this last thing that allows people from all over the world to get together in the middle of the street and just groove.
Cape Town, the mother city, welcomes the World Cup 2010.
Anyone here can definitely feel it (and hear it).
Hello World Cup 2010, and hello summer in Cape Town... :)
i love your pictures sis!
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