How are things? I'm great, and I hope things are going very well for you too. It's been a while since my last post, and for that I apologize--a blog seems to be a little too much commitment for me to handle. Anyway, things have been awesome and I'm going to love talking to everyone in person when I get back too. Let's see, where should I begin? Ok well I've been going to class for a little over a month now, and I like them alot. My housemates are all swell and we've been making lots of nice dinners, going on adventures in the city and generally having a really fun and eye-opening time. My schedule is a bit different than what I had been used to back home, but its been working quite nicely for me--my classes are pretty heavy on the reading and writing and light on the actual class time, so I've been spending most of my mornings in the library. On the weekends and afternoons, I have been going on trips and adventures. First of all, my classes are great--small and discussion-based, they are alot like those I might take at Macalester. I'm in an Urban Studies course called "the Rise, Fall, and Reconstruction of the South African City", which is fairly reading and writing-heavy but quite nice because it is teaching me about how cities were affected by the oppression and discrimination during apartheid. Another class is called "Disaster Risk Science" and involves the study of how people in different places are vulnerable to disasters and how. This week we conducted field work in the township of Imizamo Yehtu, which is quite interesting because it is a pocket of pretty severe poverty in the middle of a wealthy white area. Many people do not have convenient access to water and sanitation, and water management is a big issue. I'm also working on a independent research paper concerning the changes to transport infrastructures in Cape Town being made in and around the 2010 World Cup, a huge event that is being takled about as offering unique opportunities for South Africa. I have a really good advisor from the Civil Engineering department and we're working on a list of people to interview. On Mondays, I have been volunteering at a high school in an area called Khaielitcha, teaching environmental education. Four friends and I have rented a car for the semester (an awesome deal) and that has opened up alot of opportunities for us--last weekend we went to Stellenbosch, a suburb of Cape Town to hang out and visit wineries (tough life, I know). We spent the night there and left early for a tour of Gugulethu, a township that was very important for anti-apartheid activists, including the young Nelson Mandela. Afterwards the others on my program and I went to a restaurant called Mzoli's, where we consumed more meat than I thought was humanly possible--South Africans love to braii, kind of like a spicy barbecue--we've had quite a few of those too. Some fun things I have done are to visit a session of South African Parliament, travel downtown to the museums and used book shops, gone to a few beaches, climbed the mountains above Cape Town, and gone to weekly concerts at the beautiful Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, where we have pickniced and danced on Sunday evenings. Having just finished a paper for my disaster risk class, tomorrow marks the beginning of my Easter Break--I'm riding up to Namibia (a sparsely populated former German colony between the Namib and Kalahari deserts) with my housemates Ariane, Andrew, Katie, and Lily. Were going to spend the week going to the dunes and hot springs. Its sure to be awesome! I'm really excited and I'll definitely have lots of pictures to post when I get back. Ok well even though I wrote kind of alot it still seems inadequate...I hope this at least gave you an idea of what I'm up to. I'm so happy and grateful to be in such a wonderful place. Look for those pictures soon!
Peace and Love, Dillon
04 February 2008
A very incomplete picture summary of the past month
Ok so here are just a few of the pictures I've taken, mostly from the trips we've gone on as part of the seminar. Some of these are from almost a month ago! I can't believe it. I feel as if this is a pretty insufficient record of what we have done, but it'll have to do. I've been doing so much every day that cataloging the past month would be a monumental task. Ok, so the abbreviated version...
All of the seminar folks on one of our first trips, to the Cape of Good Hope. Huge beautiful cliffs and the bluest water I've ever seen.
Penguins at Boulder Beach--the ocean's ballerest ballers.
The view from the top of Table Mountain--downtown Cape Town and the city bowl.
One of my favorite things so far--the Quiver Trees, a succulent plant (they secrete liquid if broken) that grows near Nieuwoudtville, SA. The trees were used by the Koi and San as quivers for their arrows. There were hundreds of them in this area--amazing, it felt like some sort of sacred space. I'm really not doing this justice, just trust me it was awesome.
Me on the Cederberg trip--we spend five days in the wilderness outside area north of Cape Town, studying the vegetation and having just a generally awesome time. You can't tell from the picture, but the area around Cape Town is one of the most diverse and unique on the planet, home to the world's smallest and richest floral kingdom. We've learned alot about this unique ecosystem (called Fynbos) , and a new species is discovered almost every year.
Right now I'm sitting in my new room, having moved a couple days ago to this house from the one that we had all been living in. There are 10 (soon to be 11) of us living here, including myself and four other swell people from my program. These next two weeks are going to be pretty hectic, meeting people and finishing up with the seminar--we have a couple large papers and an exam, not too bad but hard since I'm not exactly in work mode right now...ah well, I really don't have much to complain about--it's beautiful here and every day is an adventure! I'm starting classes on the 17th and I'm looking forward to that.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures--I'll post some more sometime soon. I'm thinking of all you guys back home!
-Dillon
All of the seminar folks on one of our first trips, to the Cape of Good Hope. Huge beautiful cliffs and the bluest water I've ever seen.
Penguins at Boulder Beach--the ocean's ballerest ballers.
The view from the top of Table Mountain--downtown Cape Town and the city bowl.
One of my favorite things so far--the Quiver Trees, a succulent plant (they secrete liquid if broken) that grows near Nieuwoudtville, SA. The trees were used by the Koi and San as quivers for their arrows. There were hundreds of them in this area--amazing, it felt like some sort of sacred space. I'm really not doing this justice, just trust me it was awesome.
Me on the Cederberg trip--we spend five days in the wilderness outside area north of Cape Town, studying the vegetation and having just a generally awesome time. You can't tell from the picture, but the area around Cape Town is one of the most diverse and unique on the planet, home to the world's smallest and richest floral kingdom. We've learned alot about this unique ecosystem (called Fynbos) , and a new species is discovered almost every year.Right now I'm sitting in my new room, having moved a couple days ago to this house from the one that we had all been living in. There are 10 (soon to be 11) of us living here, including myself and four other swell people from my program. These next two weeks are going to be pretty hectic, meeting people and finishing up with the seminar--we have a couple large papers and an exam, not too bad but hard since I'm not exactly in work mode right now...ah well, I really don't have much to complain about--it's beautiful here and every day is an adventure! I'm starting classes on the 17th and I'm looking forward to that.
Hope you enjoyed the pictures--I'll post some more sometime soon. I'm thinking of all you guys back home!
-Dillon
02 February 2008
What it do, everyone?
How's it going? Things are swell with me, thanks. You may know that I'm in South Africa for the semester, studying at the University of Cape Town. I've decided to start a blog to share my experiences here--sending pictures in emails is really finicky, and this will be proof that I'm actually here.
I arrived in Cape Town on January 3rd and for the past month or so I've been having class, living and traveling with 13 other students and a great staff of people from UCT and America. The topic is a very broad "Globalization and the Natural Environment", and its given me a great opportunity to learn about South Africa and get settled in here.
I'm thinking that I'll probably just post when I can get to it, when I have some good pictures or something crazy happens--hopefully this experiment works out, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
Cheers, Dillon
I arrived in Cape Town on January 3rd and for the past month or so I've been having class, living and traveling with 13 other students and a great staff of people from UCT and America. The topic is a very broad "Globalization and the Natural Environment", and its given me a great opportunity to learn about South Africa and get settled in here.
I'm thinking that I'll probably just post when I can get to it, when I have some good pictures or something crazy happens--hopefully this experiment works out, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
Cheers, Dillon
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