Highstead and Settling In

The house that I moved into after spending 5 days in the UCT dorms is called Highstead because that is the street it is on. The house holds 30 people but it is split into two that are not connected from the inside. The first house, A house, is very homey and is where I live.  B and C houses are connected, but B is the downstairs and C is the upstairs. Every home (A, B and C) has its own kitchen and bathrooms. We also all have our own bedrooms. I like living in the A house because my room is pretty big. Tall/ large wooden gates that have electric wires on top of them surround our house. To open the door in the fence you have to put up a little circular thing to a detector and it will beep with a green light to let the door unlock. This is kind of frustrating though because A has a different gate than B and C so I cannot get into the other houses without them opening it for me. There is also a doorbell that attaches to a phone inside of our house so we can talk to people outside and let them in. To get out of the house we have to press a button which unlocks the door. We also have a small house for our security guard, Alison. He works five days a week from 6pm-6am. I have had a chance to talk to Alison a bit and he is very nice. I didn’t understand how he kept remembering my name since there are 30 of us, but I walked into his little house/ sitting area where I saw our passport photos that we had to send in with our names below them (haha mine is such a bad picture). On his nights off there is another security guard who comes, but we have not met yet. If we are at a CIEE house that is close by to another and choose to walk to the other one, the guards will communicate so they walk outside and wait for us to come. If it is too far for us to walk, CIEE provides us with a “guardian angel” which drives us for free from house to house. Overall, I have felt very safe at my new home.

On Monday, everyone in my house went to the beach. We all took the minibus which is very cheap –  12 rand (less than 2 dollars) for a half hour ride. Riding the minibuses is quite an experience. The drivers go very fast and weave around traffic. Then there is another person who yells out the window saying our destination, trying to recruit people to ride in the bus off of the street. In Cape Town, all of the busses end up at a bus stop. This was the first time in my entire life where I have felt what it is like to be a minority. It wasn’t a bad feeling it was just very interesting. We definitely stood out as not White South Africans, because they seem to stay away from this area. We were literally the only white people out of mostly Black people and a few Colored people. Racial distinctions are also different here than they are in the US. So they define Colored people as those who are mixed race, or have lighter skin. Anyway, this bus stop was really busy and full with people trying to go places and people selling things. From here we got on another bus to take us to the beach. We went to Clifton #4 and it was so nice to lay out and swim in the ocean, but the water is really cold! So it was nice to just jump in and cool off. Then we all went and got lunch in Camps Bay which has a bunch of restaurants by the waterfront, and then headed back home.

This is when we were leaving the beach. That's Taylor, haha. I love the palm trees and mountains.

Yesterday, February 1^st, two other girls and I took the minibus into Cape Town to walk around the city. We ended up walking to the V&A Waterfront, which was so gorgeous. It was very interesting walking from an all Black area at the minibus station to the Waterfront which was occupied by mostly, if not completely, by Whites.  However, a lot of the employees at the Waterfront were Black or Colored. Anyway here are some pictures from the Waterfront, it was cool overall. You also take a boat from there to go to Robben Island, I think we are going on Friday!

I was pleasantly surprised to see the nice parts of Cape Town are very green! The UCT campus is also pretty green. They recycle a lot and charge for plastic bags! (On the downside, there is a lot of littering here especially in the not so nice areas.)

The clouds literally look like they are floating off of the mountains. It is SO cool! This picture doesn't give it justice. 

This picture is of the four Nobel Peace Prize winners from South Africa. They are (from Left to Right) Albert Lithuli, Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk, and Nelson Mandela. Then Taylor, Katie and I are in the middle :)