Hey guys,
Sorry it’s taken a while to update but we have been busy! We just left South Africa, which was amazing. Day 1: The day we arrived, we went to two townships. In the first township, we walked around and stopped at a “sheeben” which is an illegal pub, which is run out of someone’s house. We drank their homemade beer, which tasted a lot like sour milk. It was put in a large pale and the pale was passed around for everyone there to try. We posted pictures from the sheeben. After that, we were shown the difference from the shantytowns and the government housing. The only main difference was that the government housing was permanent stone buildings. That night we went into town and checked out the nightlife. We ended up hanging out a at a place called the Dubliner where we made friends with two guys who were in the British services. One was named patty that was from Ireland and the other was named Owen who was from England. They were great!
Day 2: the second day in port we just hung around the port area/waterfront, got some coffee and walked around the mall a little. We also tried to get Internet in the front grass area of the hotel that was right across the street from the ship but were yelled at by a security guard. The security guard told us that we needed to buy something from the café in order to use the Internet for free. So we did but later that night, almost everyone from the ship was in the hotel café trying to use the Internet and by the end of the night, students were asked to leave because they were not guests of the hotel.
Day 3: we did habitat for humanity! It was nice to get some physical labor in. we worked from about 9 until 4 in the afternoon building the walls of a house. The foundation on the house was already built. Our tasks were to make cement, clean the work site and move bricks from pile to pile so that the actual bricklayers could work efficiently. There were also kids the hung around the site all day and they were muffins! We would take breaks and play with them. We posted a picture of the children we loved! We worked along side the family who we were building the house for as well. We were able to get just about all-4 walls of he house up! But dear lord were we sore the next day!
Day 4: we hung around the port area again and got coffee and hung out with doctor Dave! Doctor Dave is the doctor on the ship and is such a sweet man. We also found an Internet café and hung out there for the majority of the night and went to bed fairly early because we had our safari the next day!
Day 5: SAFARI! We had to get up at 6:30 am and drive about 2 and a half hours to the inverdorn game reserve. When we got there we were greeted with coffee, tea and cookies. After coffee we set out onto the reserve to see some animals! It was really cold and windy but we saw cheetahs, rhinos, giraffes, lions, springbok, wildebeests and zebras! It was way too cool. When we got back to the lodge, they greeted us with hot towels and an awesome, fresh produce lunch. After that we headed back to the ship. That night we went to a place called Mitchell’s and hung out there for the night with people.
Day 6: we got up early to head into Cape Town to go to a market to get some shopping done. The market was great and it was a beautiful day. After that, we walked along long st., which is one of the main streets in town. After that, we hopped in cab and went back to the ship. That night we set sail for Mauritius and will arrive there on Thursday.
Love and miss you all!
Rachael and Kiah