Day One!

Yesterday we arrived in Cape Town around 6:30pm, bringing our total travel time to a lovely 23 hours. The flight was kind of yucky, especially since we weren't allowed to get off the plane at Dakar, Senegal. There were some delays at the airport getting picked up--we had so much luggage they had to go get another van for us. We got back to the hotel around 8, which is gorgeous. Our rooms are so nice. Living up to our reputation as Northeastern students... we went out at last night at 10, even after traveling for an entire day. We explored Long St, which was really fun, there were loads of people everywhere. Cape Town is a lot more European than I expected it to be. Very much like the UK. And Cape Town is BEAUTIFUL. I can't believe the view from our hotel window. I'll post pictures later when I get to use my own computer.

Today, we woke up and took a walk around the neighorhood around our hotel. The city was very quiet and everything was closed because it's Sunday. At noon the group met for our township tour. One of the enterprises that is supported by the business services at TSiBA gave us a tour of Langa, the township that he grew up in. We went to the community center Guga S'Thebe, which means a serving platter. The community center offers employment for people of the townships and lets artists get paid for their work. They also have art, theater and dance classes for township members. The artists we met there were very nice and friendly. We also went to a traditional healer... which was a complete tourist show. The guy came out from the counter after taking a swig of his beer and threw on a sash and told us that he hadn't actually cured anyone....
It actually made me very concerned for the health of the people that go to him, because all that was around him in the "shop" were empty liquor bottles and cans/bottles of kerosene and things that definitely aren't made to be consumed. The people outside of the medecine man's shop were laughing at us and calling out to us.

We walked through the neighborhood that our tour guide grew up and one of the TSiBA students that came with us told me that he had lived there his whole life. I met his little three year old son who was adorable. The kids were so cute in the township! They came up and wanted to use my camera and were so amazed at the zoom button and wanted to take pictures of each other. Two little girls started singing from their balcony, and our tour guide told us that they were singing "white people, white people". From time to time we'd get some hop-ons to our tour, little kids on bikes and wagons. We also went to a traditional beer house, where the men pay R15 (about 2 dollars) and can sit all day and drink beer from a communal can. They offered us some and I politely declined. But the people in our group that said it had a sourdough/awful after taste...sooo don't think I'm missing out. We also went to the "butcher" and watched a woman prepare a sheep head.

Our tour finished by going to a great restaurant on the main street in Langa. The people there were so friendly and they had music and dancers. It's been quite the first day, and tomorrow we're actually going to TSiBA to meet the other students and the entrepreneurs. Yay!

Anticipation...

Tomorrow.
I can't believe it's tomorrow.

22 students from NU (half from business and half from arts sciences) will be working with 20-25 TSiBA (Tertiary School of Business Admin) students. TSiBA is a business school (no kidding) in Pinelands, a suburb of sorts outside of Cape Town. The students who attend TSiBA live in the townships in the Cape Town area (Cape Flats, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Mfuleni). Townships were created during the time of apartheid, as a result of the government designating town/city areas as "white only". This forced the black and coloured to the periphery of the town/city. Some townships can be centers for violence, crime and poverty. At the same time, great movements and people have risen out of townships--Nelson Mandela, Desmond TuTu, the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid movement. Either way you look at township life, the students of TSiBA are going to have some amazing stories and be great teachers.

So, two NU students and two TSiBA students will be working together in business teams to consult a township entrepereneur on how to expand/improve their business--which helps more people to find jobs and provide for their families. Hopefully, enacting a ripple effect that improves the local economy and allows people to provide for the basic needs of their families. It's going to be tough--especially as I am not a business student, but I have love, enthusiasm and excitement that I hope will make up for my lack of business knowledge.

We'll be in Cape Town/Pinelands for one month, attending business and south african history/econ classes in the morning and consulting in the townships in the afternoon. We'll also be going on some pretty amazing excursions together--Cape Point, Robben Island, Table Mountain, a safari and much more. (shark diving anyone?)

Then, 3 other lovely ladies and I are exploring a tiny morsel of the beautiful continent of Africa. We'll be going to Johannesburg and Durban before taking off for Zambia (Victoria Falls! Bungee jumping!) and Tanzania (the lovely paradise island of Zanzibar).

It's going to be the experience of a lifetime. I can't wait!