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!
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