29 April 2011 (Friday) - South Africa, Cape Point

Cape Point, the end of Africa

Drumming on Camps Bay beach

Penguin hunting . . . (We actually went right instead of left :D)

Oh look! There's one!!

And a whole flock of them!

Ostriches in Cape Point National Park, one of my friends was eating an ostrich burger while snapping pictures of these beauties

Cape Point

The end of the continent, with the Atlantic on the right and the Indian on the left

Cliffs . . . yeah . .

Sitting at the end of the world

A rainbow over Long Street

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27 April 2011 (Wednesday) South Africa - Cape Town Area

Visit to Robben Island and Khayelitsha

Robben Island is the place where Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in prison. It's just off the coast of Cape Town, but far enough out to sea that it is practically impossible to escape. And Khayelitsha is the second largest informal settlement in the country with a population between 800,000 and one million.

Pictures: The quarry on Robben Island where prisoners cut out limestone

The view of Cape Town from Robben Island

Our tour guide, who was a political prisoner on the island during the 80s

Inside the prison

Visiting the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in Khayelitsha, and the poster below is for the Toilet Queue protest put on by the Social Justice Coalition (that we went to today, pictures to come), demanding that the government provide adequate sanitation to the people of Khayelitsha

A community garden in Khayelitsha called Abalimi

Stop TB signs that are all over, in buses, buildings, lamp posts . . They used to encourage people to keep their windows closed, exacerbating the problem

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24 April 2011 (Sunday) South Africa - Cape Town

A deluge

We're under a bit of a deluge of work here at the end of the program, so I haven't really been able to find the time to make any sort of blog entry :(

Cape Town, and South Africa in general have been wonderful though. The weather varies between warm, windy, and rainy, but the scenery is always magnificent. There is also just a lot of recreation in Cape Town, from hikes, bike riding, boating, eating (yes, I consider eating recreation!), surfing, shopping (also recreation), and spotting wildlife. We're all really happy that the program ends here because Cape Town is such a vibrant place, and there is always something, no matter how little time we have, to see or to do.

I'm not sure how many extended posts I'll be able to make in the next two weeks, so I'm going to aim small, and just try to post few pictures to get caught up.

Pictures: Gum boot dancing

traditional African beer making

Zwelethemba (two pictures)

Bo Kaap in Cape Town, which is a the most photogenic part of town, and look what picture I have . . Just goes to show what a jolly photographer I am :)

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Web Assistant's prerogative:  Lizzie also sent this photo (in a personal message), and across both distance and time, I could feel how happy she was when she saw this book stall in Cape Town:

Billions of blue blistering barnacles, Les Aventures de Tintin (et Milou)!

10 April 2011 (Sunday) South Africa - Zwelethemba Township

Another whoops!!  Sigh, I deleted my post instead of sending it again. There wasn't much to it though, we've been having a tough two weeks work and travel-wise. Also, one of our students and one of our professors left the program this past week (for unrelated reasons).   Right now we're in the middle of our rural visit in a black African township called Zwelethemba. The area around us is absolutely beautiful, with mountains flanking us and a sky that just goes on and on. I've had to wonder here more than anywhere else though, just what sort of impact we're having on the community we're living in as a group of 33 Americans (and one Chinese) who are primarily white. I'm not sure if the group has noticed too much because in many ways South Africa feels like the US, and at this point we're so tired and have gone through so much change we're starting to get complacent and numb to our surroundings.  And so the marathon part of the program begins!    Pictures -- Our final IHP-China banner! Cape Town from the air The mountains near Fairhills Farm Zwelethemba (you can't really see but there are mountains in the background) Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry