shana tovah!

Shana tovah, family and friends! I hope you are all having meaningful holidays and that this time allows you to reflect on the past year and consider your hopes and desires for the coming year. Tonight my friends and I made a huge Rosh Hashanah feast at our house. There were around 20 of us and it was a great time. We shared Jewish traditions with our non-Jewish friends who came to join us. My friend Loreal made AMAZING challah again. She is really talented. No joke, she makes the best challah I have ever had. She is a legend on our program. We also made my Nanni's chicken, potatoes, cous cous, salad, apple crisp, and had lots of apples and honey. Loreal made an extra challah and hid it so we can have challah French toast for dinner tomorrow night.

It is weird that it is already Wednesday night, that it is already Rosh Hashanah, and that October is a few days away. Time has flown by and it is hard to believe that I've been here for almost three months. Each day in Cape Town is better than the one before it, and in this period of reflection during the yamim noraim (the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) I am finding a lot to think about and meditate upon. It is nice having this time carved out to do it (although I have been doing a lot of it since being here).

Today in my discussion section for my class on social justice and inequality, my TA read us the following from a paper he wrote with some classmates for his masters:

It is important to note that we must craft solutions that are relevant to our

Southern African context, which has of course been shaped by the rest of the world.

Mbigi (2007) describes four world-view paradigms and their applicability to our work.

The European North, characterised by the scientific, rational “I am because I think

I am” Cartesian world view, which helps plan ahead and vision the future.

The Eastern Asian, characterised by the “I am because I improve” towards

spiritual perfection, which pushes every individual towards consistently innovating better

solutions.

The Western American, characterised by “I am because I, the individual hero,

dream and do”, which turns personal vision, dreams and courage into enterprise.

The African, characterised by ubuntu - “I am because we are; I can only be a

person through others”, which contributes a completely different way of doing business.

Ubuntu philosophy and practice is about listening to, empathising with and persuading

the other, all to serve the needs of the community. Individual goals become automatically

achieved. In an age of interconnectedness, in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu,

ubuntu will be “the gift that Africa is going to give the world” (Mbigi, 2007: 297).

I thought this was so beautiful that I asked him to send me the article after class. In thinking about it now, I realize that so much of my experience here has been about ubuntu. From making the meal tonight - each one of us putting forth our strengths in order to create a delicious event to share together - to getting ready to go out to helping each other through the homesickness...it is all about serving the needs of the community. My community here is such a special one, and sitting down to break bread tonight (Loreal's delicious challah - the best bread ever) only affirmed how Africa is giving us the gift of understanding the interconnectedness of us all.

To a sweet new year filled with lots of love, happiness, excitement, and growth...shana tovah!

Talia

looking inward

Once a week I volunteer at a private school about 15 minutes away from where I live in Cape Town. The school is entirely black, almost 70% of them only have one parent, and many of them are HIV positive. Each Tuesday morning, I go to the school with my friend Jenna and sit in on their "Life Orientation" class. Life orientation essentially is an open space where the students can talk about anything they want: problems with each other, problems with their teachers, and (what I found out this past week to be the most important of all) problems with themselves. There is always at least one teacher or faculty person in the room, and it is shocking to see how open the students are in front of their teachers. They will talk about anything from problems with classmates making fun of them to instances of being raped, held at knife-point, or their experiences with drugs.  For the past five weeks, I have sat in on two different classes once a week and observed, saying little but taking in a lot - shocked at how unbelievably candid the students are.

Then two weeks ago I became really uncomfortable. Two teachers who usually don't sit in on these L.O. (this is what they call the Life Orientation class) classes were there, and I felt that they were pushing the students too much, accusing them of things they weren't doing. Jenna and I sat there occasionally making eye contact exemplifying our severe discomfort in the situation, and I was counting down the seconds until the sessions were over. Later that night I emailed Nigel, the head of this program (he is American), expressing my concerns with the program and explaining that I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue to volunteer at the LEAP School. Nigel promptly responded suggesting that we meet on Tuesday morning at the usual time we come in. I was apprehensive, as I didn't foresee this being an easy conversation.

Jenna and I sat with Nigel for nearly an hour discussing the program. We told him our concerns, and after some disagreements he said to me, "Ok, Talia, now where are you at?" To this I responded by telling him how I felt about the program, to which he responded, "Ok...but where are you at?" This back and forth went on for a few more rounds until Nigel challenged me, just as he does with the kids, to look inward and try to express why I was having such a hard time dealing with all of this openness and confrontation. Nigel, in essence, could see right through me - something which, at this moment I realized, I have been trying to block people from doing for quite a while.

While I may not have shared with Nigel where I was at, he was definitely a big part of the reason I have been doing so much introspection this week. When he kept trying to get me to recognize where I was at, he explained to me that the L.O. circle is a place that brings out a lot of feelings, mainly having to do with ourselves. Nigel was definitely right, and induced in me a week of hardcore feelings and recognition of where I am at.

Those who know me are quite familiar with the fact that this past year and a half has not been an easy one for me. It was one of many transitions and change, and deciding to come to Cape Town this semester did not make things any easier on the settling-down-in-one-place-with-few-challenges front. But after my conversation with Nigel last week, my subsequent time sitting in on another L.O. session, and a lot of discussion with friends, I am finally feeling settled - even being thousands of miles from anything I really know. After understanding that the South African way is one of dealing with emotions, feelings, and opinions, I was able to appreciate the kids' participation and left LEAP that day wishing people in my life were more like that. If 9th graders who had a life tougher than anything I could ever imagine could be so unabashedly open, why couldn't I?

In our discussion, Nigel accused me of being dishonest, a comment to which I took huge offense and Jenna even agreed that I am one of the most honest people out there. But after reflecting on all of this (the conversation with Nigel, my experience at LEAP, my time in South Africa, the past year), I realized that I may be open with others but I haven't been so honest with me. This epiphany forced me to look inside myself and figure out why it was so hard for me to be honest with me? The block I had been putting up between me and others in order to protect myself was apparently manifesting in a break in the lines of communication with myself.

So that's what this week has been all about: communicating with me and being unapologetically real with me.  I am so lucky and blessed to have the strongest support network possible, as well as a serious desire to figure all o this out. No matter how much love I am showered with, none of this has been easy at all. Yet, I've recognized that Cape Town and all of the challenges that have come with it were exactly what I needed in order to start over this relationship with myself, and I couldn't be more grateful to be here, with all of the amazing people surrounding me, cheering me on, doing it.

the rest of the story

When I last left you, we were getting the hell out of Durban. Since we didn’t have a good map, we rolled down the window and asked a man how to get to the N2, the road Deano (the Avis manager) has told us to take all the way back to Cape Town. This man told us to follow him to the N2, and upon arrival at the tolls he told us to take this all the way to Cape Town….the entire way on this road. Since it is the largest road/highway in South Africa, I assumed it would be well paved the entire way. Boy, was I wrong.

Our hopes for the first night were to end up at Coffee Bay, a location that everyone says is the most magical place in South Africa. Seven hours later, Coffee Bay (a destination that we were told was five hours from Durban) was nowhere in sight. It was dark and the N2 highway had morphed into the N2 road with lots of potholes and occasional stretches of dirt road. I was still driving the car and was getting sort of nervous since it was past midnight and we were lost in Africa. The only directions we had were via email from my sister who had sent me Google-map directions to my Blackberry. As the battery in my blackberry depleted, so too did the visibility on the road. From about 12 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., we were driving through heavy, heavy fog. Liz described it perfectly as “marshmallow-fluff-thick,” and I wasn’t able to see more than four feet in front of the car. Only in the morning did we realize we weren’t driving through fog, rather we were driving through clouds. I tried to keep my cool, but on the inside my anxiety regarding my life (as well as my three passengers’) was mounting. As usual, I could hear my dad screaming in my ear…huffing and puffing that I was an idiot to get myself into such a situation. Then faux mom on my other shoulder was telling me to calm down, that it was an adventure…what’s the worst that could happen???

Well the worst appeared right before me when we were on a road off the N2 attempting to find Coffee Bay at 2 a.m…The road before us was blocked off and there were three African men lying down around a fire. As I saw my life flash before my eyes, my cat-like reflexes went into high gear and I turned the car around. While doing this, a man ran up to the car and told us that we were going to need to wait a few minutes as they were doing roadwork on one side of the road so cars could only flow in one direction at a time. My heart beat finally slowed down, but at this point I knew it was time to find someplace to stay for the night.

Dispatch lyrics stuck in my head
throughout the trip (Elias)

We kept driving down this road and finally happened upon a town called Port St. Johns. There were “resorts” all over the side of the road, but my passengers insisted we keep driving. A few minutes later, we happened upon a town I can only describe as looking like it had been bombed. There were men sleeping on both sides of the road, countless stray dogs, fires, and trash strewn all about. Liz suggested we keep driving, Arianna was sure we would find Coffee Bay, and I insisted we find somewhere to spend the night. We went back to the stretch of road with all the resorts, and luckily found The Spotted Grunter Resort, which opened its gate for us. When we entered the property, the security guard was holding a huge gun, which we only later found out was a paint ball gun. Finally, one of the women in charge of the lodge came out and gave us a room. It was now around 3 a.m., and we finally retired to our room.

Port St. John 

In the morning when we woke up, we realized that Port St. John was beautiful. The property and water on which is sat looked somewhat like Costa Rica. The woman at the desk asked us about our journey and explained where we were. They couldn’t believe it took us nine hours to get there from Durban, and explained to us that Coffee Bay was still four hours away. Even though it wouldn’t make sense to spend the next night there, we were determined to find it and check it out.

As Liz explained in her blog, “The Wild Coast is a chunk of South African coastline that you can trace, sort of, by car by driving along the "N2." However, the N2, in the Wild Coast region, is not actually that near to the shoreline. So, to find the remote coastal towns referenced in travel guides, one must venture off the N2 on long, winding, pot-holed roads. On Wednesday night, we had chosen the wrong long, winding, pot-holed road, and so we were over 2 hours away from the N2... and even farther removed from where we wanted to be.”

Arianna and I at Coffee Bay

We got back on the N2 and headed towards Coffee Bay. Five hours later we found it. There were no gas stations or civilization besides the turquoise huts that were scattered all along the side of the road. We finally got to Coffee Bay, which I can only describe as a hippie town randomly situated on a beautiful bay. Coffee Bay, to me, was not all it was cracked up to be, but I was glad we made it there. Some interesting anecdotes from Coffee Bay include being offered hashish from a random man who sits along the bay. I also ended up buying 200 rand worth of beads from these cute women who sit in the same spot and sell necklaces and bracelets off of trees.

me with hippie fence in Coffee Bay

We left Coffee Bay around 3:30 p.m. and began the trek to Chintsa. Our only stop on the way was at a gas station. I was pretty sure that in using the toilet there I contracted a lot of diseases, and I was happy to get out of the convenience store with all of my belongings. In our many stops at gas stations along the Wild Coast, we saw no other white people. It is strange being the minority and standing out, a situation that is so different from home.

After trekking down a long dirt road to get to the Buccaneers Backpacker Village in Chintsa, it became clear that the VW Polo was not suitable for off-roading. We checked in, went to the bar for some drinks, and spend the night in a two-bedroom bungalow adorned with drapes picturing Nelson Mandela. It was this night that I began to question my ability to sleep in moldy backpacker lodges, mainly because my allergies were getting increasingly more angry at me. Yet, when we woke up in the morning the night of sneezing and sniffling was worth it as Chintsa was the most beautiful place I had ever been.

me and one of the
Coffee Bay bead ladies

the lagoon in Chintsa

me on the beach in Chintsa

Liz and Arianna decided to kayak across the lagoon, and it was shallow enough for me to walk across. We got to the ocean and right behind us was an African drum circle. As I sat on the beach, taking in my surroundings and dipping my toes in the Indian Ocean for the first time, I realized that this was why I decided to come to South Africa in the first place: adventure. The sun beat on my face and Arianna and I danced to the drums while Liz went back to fetch Annie. I will never forget this morning in Chintsa, as it was probably one of the most pure, blissful moments of my life and I was lucky to share it with such a great friend.

on the porch of the bungalow

We left Chintsa that afternoon and arrived in Plettenburg, a seven hour drive away. When we got out of the car I was sore and ready to be done driving. Plettenburg is along the Garden Route, not the Wild Coast, and is the drive most people do from Cape Town. While it is no doubt beautiful, it was not comparable to the inexplicable beauty and calm that was the Wild Coast – all the roads were paved and there were gas stations, grocery stores, and shops everywhere. We had dinner at a nice restaurant, and I turned in super early that night.

arrived alive in Cape Town!

We woke up the next day, I did some serious damage at a jewelry store, and then got back in the car to make the final leg of the journey back to Cape Town. Annie drove, getting us back in five hours (it should have taken seven), and when we arrived at Avis, they couldn’t believe we had just made it back from Durban. In 70 hours, we spent 30 and a half driving. We ate our weight in Cadbury chocolate, apples, potato chips, and wine gums, and I can’t speak for the rest of the group but I know I learned an invaluable lesson: just get up and go and see where the adventure will take you. The three days spent traveling in a tiny car across South Africa made me feel alive in a way that I never had before, and as difficult, scary, and different as it may have been, it affirmed for me that I made the right choice in leaving home for the other side of the world this semester. 

the spring break saga

Writing about my experience over the past week is a daunting task because there is so much to say and I want to say it all just right. It was one of the most amazing weeks of my life, and I went on an adventure comparable to few things I have ever done before. It was a good thing my mom was in Israel and my dad isn’t very good at texting with me because I am not sure they would have let me do what I did if they had known. I hope this account of my trek across South Africa can give you an idea of what kind of a time I had.

the Ammazulu African Palace at night

We began the journey last on Friday, September 10. I left Cape Town via South African Airways with two of my closest friends on the program. We were headed towards Durban, a city that we were expecting to be beautiful, Indian-food filled, and a great new place to explore. We were planning on spending the first night at a hotel outside of Durban called the Ammazulu African Palace, a five-star guest house we found on Google by searching, “funny Durban hotels.” We arrived at the airport in Durban, found a taxi to take us to Kloof where the hotel was located. As we approached the Palace, we had to go up a huge, rocky hill of a driveway. The stick-shift taxi hardly made it up, and by the time we arrived on the scene, the four of us (including the cab driver) were hysterically laughing…little did we know this laughter would be nothing compared to the reaction we had upon entering the palace.

the Ammazulu African Palace during the day

The Ammazulu African Palace boasts that it is an experience unlike anything else in the world, and let me tell you, this marketing is completely correct. The property was bought by Peter Amm, a gay, South African millionaire who built the structure as a shrine to his art (not expensive or particularly special) that he had collected around the world. Additionally, it functioned as a location for (as the woman in charge of the guest house told us) “Peter’s gay parties.” There is no other way to describe the hotel than a cluster-fuck of African art meets Las Vegas. If the Vegas strip had an African themed hotel, this is what it would look like.

After a thorough explanation of Peter (who apparently doesn’t talk to anyone besides his partner), the art, and the location (we were staying atop a gorge), we retired to our room with a Jacuzzi, king-size bed, and large porch. Kara, my friend who may or may not have a serious case of narcolepsy, fell asleep and we (Arianna and I) proceeded to put all sorts of random stuff we found all over her and took pictures. Kara’s ability to fall and stay asleep anywhere provides endless entertainment for me, a condition Arianna has dubbed “spending too much time at summer camp.”

Kara rocking the peacock feathers while asleep

In the morning, the woman in charge of the Palace (I think her name was Alta) made us breakfast, and we thought we would go on a nice hike through the gorge (kloof, in Afrikaans). Kara, the responsible one among us, asked whether or not there are snakes in the nature reserve. Alta responded, seemingly too calmly, “Of course! There are black mambas.” Ever-responsible Kara immediately said we weren’t going, as black mambas are the most deadly snakes in the world…my epipen, I discerned, would not be helping us if attacked by a black mamba. Instead, Alta insisted that we rent a car in order to drive around our KwaZulu Natal a.k.a. Zulu Land, the province that Durban calls its home. An hour and a half later, a white minivan showed up with a huge crack across the windshield, I was asked to show my license, not a single paper was signed, and away we went with Kara in the passenger seat directing, Arianna in the back, and me driving for the first time on the opposite side of the road!

In order to remember how to navigate the other side of the road, Kara continually screamed out, “WIDE RIGHT” or “TIGHT LEFT.” Only once did I hit the curb, a feat of which I was incredibly proud. Arianna, too, was a great passenger, handing me lots of Cadbury milk chocolate covered peanuts and commending me for my wonderful driving. From here on out, please keep in mind that Arianna is the eternal optimist – a quality that I most admire in her.

Our destination was to a Zulu crafts market and a Zulu dancing performance. We drove through the country side of KZN (KwaZulu Natal…peace, love, abbreviations), which is called the Valley of a Thousand Hills, in order to get there. We easily could have been in the European countryside, but the African hitchhikers on the side of the road just about every three feet (excuse me, I mean **meters**) made it pretty hard to forget where we were. We got sufficiently lost, but luckily once we found the craft market, the Zulu dancing was not too far away. Unfortunately, the Zulu craft market had all of the same supposed “unique” crafts that they sell all over Cape Town, and as we found out later on in the trip, all over the rest of South Africa. By the end of the week, I was pretty convinced that these goods are all centrally made in a sweatshop in India. Thank you, globalization.

Arianna and I in the empty amphitheater 

The Zulu dancing was the most absurd thing ever. We parked the car and went in to buy tickets, where we were told that the price of our ticket included a crocodile and snake encounter in addition to the dance performance. After learning earlier that morning about snakes and imagining myself perishing to the venom of a black mamba, I quickly explained to the man that we would only be staying for the performance and that we would like a lower price. For us, “three beautiful ladies,” he said he would take off thirty rand, a whopping four dollars! We entered through the gift shop to a completely empty African-hut-looking amphitheater overlooking the valley. It was absolutely beautiful, but all three of us were apprehensive about the fact that a 15-person ensemble would be performing for just us. Luckily, about 20 people eventually emerged from the croc-snake encounter and joined us. As we were waiting for the performance to start, one of the dancers about half her height came up to Kara and told her he would like her to be his wife. Unfortunately for the man, I don’t think Kara could see his lifestyle fitting into her future plans of getting a masters in public health at Harvard and going on to rule the world.

Eventually the performance started and 15 African men and women, decked in Zulu garb, danced and sang and drummed for all of us tourists sitting before them. I was dying of second hand embarrassment, as these dancers were clearly just normal people dressing up. If the Ammazulu palace was Las Vegas, then this whole experience, including the ensuing kitchen-hut demonstration, was the Zulu Sturbridge Village. We eventually got out, exiting through the only gift shop in all of South Africa that I have thus far left my wallet unscathed. From here it was on to meet the rest of our friends in the, as we thought at this point, promising city of Durban. 

Kara and her future husband

From the highway, the view of Durban looked beautiful, but from here on out it was only downhill. Although we stayed at a beautiful hotel that we got at a crazy good rate, Durban had few to no redeeming qualities. Firstly, the beaches (one of the sole reasons we came to Durban) were sketchy. One day I was sitting alone on the sand reading and three different men came up to me within the span of an hour. The first asked if I was “open for business,” the second asked me to rub lotion on the bodies of him and seven friends, and the third was curious if he could show me all the great things that Durban had to offer. Unfortunately the first man came up to me for the next three days in a row, until I finally screamed at him that I was closed for business and that I was reading a book and had no interest in ever opening up my shop for him. Second, Durban has really crappy Indian food. Although it boasts itself as the best location for Indian food outside of the homeland itself, the “bunny chow” that is offered across Durban gave us….let’s just agree that you don’t want to hear about it. Third, there are homeless people EVERYWHERE begging for money who will not leave you alone even when you are sitting on the beach. I am pretty sure my sister received a text from me saying, “If one more person asks me for another rand I am going to beat them over the head with my wallet” (thank you Haley for being a trooper and listening to all my crazy rants via WhatsApp from Durban). Finally, the main attraction in Durban is the movie theater. While the $2.50 movie ticket at a theater with the greatest selection of Bollywood movies in Africa may be worth the $2000 transatlantic plane ride, we knew it was time to go when Arianna and I were excited to see Monte Carlo, a teeny bopper film featuring the talents of Justin Bieber’s sweetheart Selena Gomez. Shortly after the credits rolled, I began to plan my escape out of Durban.

Liz after eating "bunny chow"

I woke up Wednesday morning in a funk. Durban, I had concluded was the worst. Arianna and I had been in the company of our friends Liz and Annie since Saturday when Kara and another friend Jenna had left to take a bus down the coast back to Cape Town. We all were thoroughly enjoying each other’s company in our luxurious hotel suite with the all you could eat buffet breakfast, but I could not spend another day in Durban. As we sat on the beach, I suggested to Arianna that we look into changing our flights. She immediately agreed, but to our dismay when I called South African Airways they told me it would be around 100 U.S. dollars to change our flights, even though my great aunt was sick and I needed to get back in the next four hours – the doctors said that was all she had left. Disappointed we sat in silence, and immediately a light bulb went off: let’s rent a car and drive back to Cape Town! We both agreed it was brilliant, called Avis, reserved a car, and went upstairs to convince Liz and Annie to come with us.

the beach in Durban (and my toes)

After a brief discussion, our two buddies decided they were going to come with. Annie called the airport shuttle, and we had to be out of the hotel in 10 minutes. Our getaway was quick; we likened it to escaping an impending attack. Upon arrival at the Avis counter, I worked my magic (thanks Dad, for teaching me all your tricks) and got us a VW Polo for $280 for three days with unlimited mileage. My new friend Deano wished us well, and we were on the road back to the indisputably greatest city in South Africa.

to be continued tomorrow….. 

back from vacation!

Hello!
Sorry for the lack of post recently…I have been away for the past 10 days traipsing across the coast of South Africa. What a journey it has been! I am anxiously awaiting having a free minute to write up the trip but for now, here is something to keep your eyes busy: http://umwhereisliz.blogspot.com/2011/09/get-comfortable-im-feeling-wordy.html . The link is to my friend Liz's blog. We went out the adventure together and she provides a great account of the experience. I promise I will write about it later this week after I turn in a psychology of religion paper I have that is due tomorrow (ugh).

Until then, all I can tell you is that it has been nothing short of an adventure.

Much love,
Talia

p.s. Liz does not understand the Andrew Klein method of making friends, bargaining, and getting what you want, hence her description of me as "hardly having excellent bedside manner"

things I'm loving this week

1. Being the group travel agent - lots of my friends have told me I should look into a career as a travel agent
2. Listening to music really loud
3. Not wearing a bra - Africa style
4. Hot chocolate
5. Not having internet so it forces me to bond with all my pals
6. COOKING!
7. Snuggling with friends
8. Having real, intellectual conversations with friends
9. Playing the would you rather game about possibilities for the future
10. Taking the train (I was the only white person on it)
11. Samosas (good thing Durban has the largest population of Indian people outside India…mmmm…..)
12. Talking to homeless people outside of the grocery store

almost spring break

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. We have been without internet for almost five days in our house and it seems that it is unclear when it will return. Typical Africa situation. But I'm rolling with the punches and going to cafes to get it instead! It is nice to get out of the house even though the weather hasn't been so great…lots of rain and cold. The silver lining to all of this is that I get to wear my puffy vest a lot, which is my favorite article of clothing.

I have been missing New York a lot this week. I don't know if it's because all my friends are moving back into Columbia or I'm just feeling like I've experienced most of what Cape Town has to offer or if I am fed up with the slow pace at which this town moves. My feelings are probably a combination of all of these possibilities, along with a pinch of homesickness. It's hard to explain how it feels to live in a different country that on the outside looks really similar to home in a lot of senses. There are grocery stores with everything available that we have at home (besides cliff bars and ziplocks - thanks, Laura!), gyms, restaurants, etc. The homeless people aren't that different than the ones who stand outside stores across New York, there are just a lot more of them. As I said, everything looks similar but the infrastructure is not even remotely as good and there is absolutely no consistency with anything.

We are coming on eight weeks since departure from the states and everyone is definitely getting a little testy. Everything is becoming normal and we are for sure warming up to each other. No longer is every activity new and exciting, because the second and third or twelfth time you go somewhere it, of course, isn't going to be nearly as exciting as the first. I feel like the girls in my apartment are my sisters and that comes with two things: acting like your real self (1) but even when you're screaming or crying or frustrated you thoroughly love each other (2). We are all finally getting a lot of homework (papers, tests, etc…everything that midterm usually brings at home) and it's clear that we are all missing our families (a lot). I'm so lucky to be living in an apartment with such amazing girls (the two American guys we live with are never there), but that doesn't take away from the fact that I am thousands of miles from home…that no matter what my mom isn't there to help with anything and I can't leave to just "get away" because for the next few months, this is home. That's something, though, that studying abroad is all about - making the people around you family and taking it all for what it is. Accepting that you're far away from "real" home, and learning from every difficult afternoon, every pang of homesickness, and every new experience. Understanding that there's no one to take care of me besides myself, and that I am blessed to have the friends I have made to be my family has been a huge lesson I've learned this week.

Tomorrow begins spring break (remember: southern hemisphere) and my journey to the other side of South Africa. I am flying to Durban tomorrow night with two of my friends in my house, Kara and Arianna. We are staying at a hotel called Ammazulu Palace. We have been jokingly been calling it "I'm a Zulu Palace" and it should be quite the experience. It is in Zulu Land (KwaZulu-Natal) and looks over a nature reserve. Then Saturday we will go into the city and stay at a hotel on the beach where three of our other friends will meet us and we will spend the week there. If anyone is looking for a vacation spot, let me tell you, hotels in Durban are cheap.

As usual, sending lots of love to everyone back home!
Talia