Cape Town – Got up early this morning to fly into Cape Town – it was beautiful even on the approach – so green with the mountains and ocean. We were picked up by the LEAP van and taken to the Beulah Lodge where John Gilmore met us and took us to LEAP for a quick tour …two very sweet learners gave us a very thorough tour. It was wonderful and yet difficult at the same time because we were so hungry, but this gave me an insight into what it must be like for those students who come to school hungry and how difficult it must be to concentrate on anything other than the fact that they are hungry, because toward the end, that was all I could concentrate on. LEAP 1 and 2 is much bigger with more students than LEAP 3. The school is housed in a three story building, with LEAP 1 on the first two floors and LEAP 2 on the third floor. The TWAs here are on a bonding weekend, at the farm, as they call it, so unfortunately we won’t get to see much of them until Monday.
After the LEAP tour, John could see that we were struggling a bit and was nice enough to take us to lunch and then up to where the penguins were. It’s really beautiful country here.
We spent an hour or so looking at the penguins, watching them swim and some of their other interesting behaviors – we watched two males vie for the attention of a female by walking in circles around her and then facing off with each other. Another interesting observation -- they bray like donkeys (they were called jackass penguins for a while because of this).
After we left the penguins, we went for a nice walk along a footpath and then up to the road, and walked to the bus station so that we could eventually catch a train up to Cape Town. I think the town was called Scott’s Bay? We stopped during our walk to have a cup of coffee and a milk shake at a really nice little place on the ocean, and then caught a bus to Kalk bai and then had a nice train ride along the coast until we got to Cape Town. Once in Cape Town we walked to Long Street (with the assistance of a very sweet young woman on the way to meet her husband at his work), where we had dinner at the Long Street Café. We had a great seat right by the window, in nice over sized leather chairs, so that we were very content eating, drinking, and people-watching for a good part of the evening. A little later we walked to a few different music venues – one of which was a great little duo playing 80’s/90’s music, so we stayed there for at an hour (maybe two), and had a great time singing along.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
We got up around 8, had a wonderful breakfast that Monica, one of the TWA fellows, had made and then headed over to Table Mountain to take the cable car to the top. We really lucked out as it was a spectacular day. We walked all the way to the other side, really taking our time and looking at the plants, bugs, birds, views, rocks, etc.
After Table Mountain (which took 3-4 hours) we went back to Cape Town and had a Falafel (my first and I loved it!), browsed some of the markets, and then headed back so that we could recover a little before we headed out for dinner.
Monday, July 26, 2010 – Cape Town
We got up, walked over for coffee, ran into TWA fellow Heather at the coffee place, and then headed over to LEAP. I was able to sit in on a few classes and had a few interesting conversations around teacher voice, planning, and LO. It’s interesting in seeing another model, to see how many things I take for granted – things I assume every school must do because I think they make sense, but that just goes to show how many different paths there are and how much we can learn from each other– and if I can share some of the lessons I learned along the way, then great! I know I’ve certainly learned a lot since I’ve been here!
While we were at the school, we watched as one by one, the TWA fellows turned an interesting shade of grey/green and then walked out the door back to the Beulah Lodge. Turns out their time at the farm had made them all sick – the guess was that it was the water. By the time we’d gotten back to the Lodge, almost everyone was sick, sick, sick. What a bummer…that’s the worst!
That afternoon, we were given a tour of the nearby township Langa – which is the township that LEAP originally served, and still does (LEAP stands for Langa Educational Assistance Program). We stayed in the van for most of the tour, which was different than our walking tour of Alex.
I was so impressed with the positive impact LEAP has made on the town – we saw trailers set up for after-school tutoring and in the town, LEAP was a well-known and respected institution.
Toward the end of the tour we stopped at a roadside stand where cooked sheep’s heads (called “smiley”) were being sold. John and Marc decided that they just couldn’t live another day without some of that, so the van pulled over and they bought a sheep’s head to share.
This poor vegetarian was coerced by my two “roomies” into trying just a tiny bite (of the tongue) – I figured I was in South Africa and when would I ever have a chance again, so I did it. It actually tasted pretty good -- if I didn’t think about what I was eating or focus on the texture. But I can safely say I will never ever have “smiley” again.
After school, we went to dinner with Sarah Diefendorf – seriously one of the coolest people I’ve met. She works at Dominican University in San Francisco but travels all over the world helping in various ways with environmental projects and education. We went to this great loungey place that John had found and stayed there for a while ordering all kinds of interesting drinks -- and then we went a few doors down to a great hamburger place where I had (seriously) the best vegetarian burger of my life – as Marc says, I had a burg-asm. The burger was soy, but the rest was brie, carmelized onions, and some other stuff I can’t remember, but so, so good. Heaven! I so enjoyed our time with Sarah and am confident that our paths will cross again some day!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Today we had a tour scheduled of Robben Island. This was the one thing I wanted to do in Cape Town, but as luck would have it, the tour was canceled because it was too windy. We stayed for a little while at the museum at the ferry landing, and I learned about the soccer team that was formed at the prison – (I had no idea!) as well as some of the key people in Mandela’s life and work. I really wish we could have gone over to the island to get better sense of his struggles and his life.
So instead, we had breakfast and then caught a cab to Long street to quickly see if we could find the vendor who was selling horns from a few days previous and see if we could bargain our way into affordability. John and I were both successful in finding horns that we liked and were able to bargain the price down. This was the first time I had actually bargained and it was out of necessity more than anything else – I only had 200 rand. I don’t like bargaining – I’m not a very confrontational person and I figure I want to support someone trying to make a living, so just usually pay what they’re asking. But this time I only had 200 rand so the nice lady in the shop let me have a beautiful Oryx horn for that price. I was stoked! Now I just have to find a way to get it home! (It’s pretty long)
After that, we headed back to LEAP to say goodbye to John and thank him for his wonderful hospitality and then flew back to Joberg.
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