Oh man! Cape Town just keeps getting better and better! Every week brings new things to see and experience as well as new people to meet! And as always, I am loving every second of it. This past weekend was awesome. The house was virtually empty, well as empty as it's ever going to feel, until everyone got back from the Garden Route about 8ish on Sunday night. When they got back and settled a little bit they told the rest of us stories and showed us all of their bungee jumping videos. Despite a few of them saying that it was the most terrifying thing they've ever done (scarier than skydiving) and that they'd never do it again, the more videos I watched, the more excited I got! Especially when I saw the video of one of the girls jumping backwards. I'm glad I stayed home because I had a flippin ball, but now I can't WAIT! until I get to go bungee jumping with the next group. 

On Tuesday we went to the District 6 Museum as one of our many cultural activities. It was really interesting and sad to hear about the history of the people of District 6 who were forcibly removed from their homes so that the area could be rebuilt and reoccupied by whites. In a period of 15 years over 60,000 people were moved to areas which became the townships the other volunteers and I are working in today. But it was strange. Our tour guide went off on a 30 minute long tangent on global warming. One second we're talking about apartheid and the next I'm listening to how when we graduate instead of buying a car, we should buy a boat because the polar ice caps are melting and it'll come in more handy. I didn't quite make the connection...

But it's ok! Because right up the street from the District 6 Museum is the most amazing place in all of Cape Town...Charley's Bakery! At Charley's Bakery there are petitfours that make your eye's roll back in your head from deliciousness. There are quisches that make your full stomach beg for more. There are cakes and tarts and brownies and cookies that all look like they were made by someone on acid especially for you so you could trip without doing drugs! It was a-mazing! It was glorious! It was a fat girl's heaven (and cheap too)!

Wednesday. Oh Wednesday it's no wonder you're my favorite day of the week! I brought my camera to Nomzamo and me and the kids had a blast with it. Especially my little ninja turtle, Siyasanga. I've been trying to teach him how to say "cowabunga dude" to no avail. He gets the dude part every once in awhile though so I know there's hope. After I got picked up from Nomzamo the van-full of us headed out of Langa to Guguleto which is one of the other townships. It was celebrating its 50th anniversary. Anyways, we met up with the rest of the house and the staff at a shebeen called Mzoli's. A shebeen is our version of a tavern but not quite. It's more like a bar in a garage, beer in garbage cans included, with an outside seating area. It was quite an experience but the food was great! We ate pup, bread, and braii. Braii just means bbq. I ate a ton. But the best part...oh this is good! The best part is that we were listening to a live African music band the entire time. I felt totally saturated by the culture and like I was an actual part of it, not just a tourist because needless to say, not many tourist's eat at a shebeen in a township. It was absolutely tremendous. But if you think the fun stops there, you're wrong. From Mzoli's we went to a community arts center to watch "Themba-African Spirit." It was a performance but a group of kids roughly around my age who sing, dance, act, and entertain in traditional African style while educating young people about HIV/AIDS. They performed for a  half an hour and it was so inTENSE! I swear I'm running out of adjectives to describe my experiences here. But this, by far, was the coolest, most moving thing I've seen since I've been here. At the end of their performance they sang 2 a cappella songs for us. There voices were so strong that the entire room was reverberating with them. And they were good. They were better than good. No joke, almost every person in our group was moved to tears. It was tremendous! I was seriously awestruck the entire time. Final word on the matter- WOW! And my week isn't even over yet. I'm so tired but we have another performance tonight at the house. And we have another birthday this weekend, and a rugby game, and a going away party...oh man I'm going to be so tired when I get back! And I didn't even tell you guys about our visit to Bo'Kaap with all the fun houses and our Cape Malay dinner!

ooooooo! But before I go, the ladies at Nomzamo want me to taste as much of their culture as possible while I'm here...literally.  So this week I tried something called African salad, some bean curd-type dish, and this bread roll thing that could/should be classified as a donut because it's THAT good! But the African salad...ok so it was the first thing they gave me - ever. I didn't know what it was. I don't know how to describe it. I think it might be made with like a chunky maize-type  meal. They put it in a bowl in front of me. Then they poured milk in it and I thought, "cool, this is easy." But then...they proceeded to pour in this foul-smelling thick cream type thing that smelled like old yogurt without the mold to give it away. And they stirred it right in. With all of their expectant faces watching me, I took my first bite. It was awful. It tasted like and had the texture of old cottage cheese - chunky and sour as all get out! I worked hard to not make a bad face. And because I didn't want to hurt their feelings I told them I liked it and ate almost the entire bowl. But they were so happy and thrilled that I enjoyed it. I'm not gonna lie, I got used to it after awhile, once all the sour had killed my taste buds. And also, remember the little boy who is my shadow, my "son" apparently? Well Breyton saved my butt that day. When all the ladies got their fix of watching me eating they left. And Breyton was sitting next to me and it was just us. I watched him watch me eat. A lightbulb was clicked on. I gave him a bite to see if he liked it. Thank Jesus he did! So when no one was looking, I would shovel spoonfuls in his blessed eager little mouth! He ended up eating about half the bowl and I ate the other half. I left before the kids' lunch time so I don't know if I spoiled his lunch. Oh well! He saved my life hahaha!

The following pictures pretty much sums up my life here so far... African dancing, some of my kids, charley's, sharks, and amazing views!