South Africa Day 1

This entry I wrote some before Ghana and finished the rest now.

 

Tonight we had our pre-port meeting. Then star gazing! It was a perfect night for it, once the lights were turned off it turned into a planetarium. You could see stars almost over the horizon. Now I am going to attempting to write about 1-2 days about Africa and watch a movie before bed. (which never happened lol)

 

March 25^th

My  day started by being one of the first off of the ship because I had a field lab. Immediately when I get off of the ship we were cheered on by parents of students who were getting off of the ship. SAS does a parent vacation plan for parents to meet students in SA for a package deal. So a large crowd awaited students getting off of the ship. it was really exciting to see all of the parents anxiously awaiting their children. My friend who was on my field lab with me had her parents in SA so it was so sweet to see her family who was so excited to see her. But their reunion was not long because we were already late for our lab. (she would meet back up later).

The start of our field lab was to visit the commissioner of Gender Equality in SA. He spoke to us for about 45 minutes about laws and changes to their constitution that are being implemented for not only women but there are general equality right laws being brought into action. It was good in a lot of ways that we were able to hear from him because without that talk I would have wondered what is being done to help those being treated unequally in SA. Especially because once we actually went out and into the township, inequality became very obvious. These people were removed from their homes in Cape Town during the Apartied and even though it has ended cannot afford land so they continue to live here. We were welcomed into their homes of which 5-6 people lived in a room smaller then a dorm and we played with the children who’s playground was their neighborhood yard with a cardboard box. A family let us come into their home and try some traditional beer which they brewed for us. it was passed around in a large bucket and we all shared it. It was a very low alcohol content, and was very thick. We visited their museum they made for themselves to remember their struggles and then headed back to the ship.

My friends all went out together for the day so I ate dinner and reaxed until they came back and we got ready to go out on the town. We found a nice Irish bar which had a really cute guy singing lots of great covers. So we enjoyed drinks, danced and had a blast before heading back to the ship. our taxi driver tried to rip us off and almost drove away with us, but we quickly got out and left him a fair amount of money for the distance he drove us. I packed and got ready for bed because the next day we had our Safari!