Almost a week later...

Malo!
(Xhosa for Hello!)
I know I haven't written in quite awhile, so I'll try and give the best update that I can.
This week was pretty darn crazy. We had some problems with our project. First, the dance school we were supposed to work with fell through. Our entrepreneur, who is now something of a mini celebrity in Cape Town didn't show up to present his idea to us. Our coordinator got really upset, because apparently TSiBA has done alot to get his dance theater (which has already done quite well) off of the ground and he didn't return the favor for his students. So, some ego got in our way. Honestly, we were pretty disappointed because we were so excited to work on the project. We had visions of tiny African babies dancing in our heads. But I suppose we wouldn't want to work with someone who didn't have time for us or who believed they were above us anyway.

Then, we got assigned a law office project which was one of our group member's uncles. We were kind of excited, but none of us are really law people, and I mean, it's not cute dancing children so we weren't really into it. We went and interviewed with the entrepreneur, and he had no idea who we are, his nephew hadn't informed him of anything that was going on. What's more is he didn't really need our help, we could have produced something for him in a day or two and the extent of it would have been: have both walk-in hours and set appts; get a better secretary. By the time it came to this, it was already Thursday and we have until this coming Friday to come up with, prepare and present our proposal, so if we were going to do another project, we needed to do it fast.

So, nothing really appeared, and the options of finding another enterprise would have had us getting in touch with them last minute, so Prof Shaugnessy suggested we make the project I was working on, a documentary of sorts, into something larger that the group could do. The videos produced will be fundraisers of sorts for the Social Enterprise Initiative and a means for TSiBA students to obtain funds to study in the US, like we have studied here.

I was disappointed at first. Ever since my Cameroon project fell through with Tita, I've really been itching to prove myself in an international project situation. I kind of felt like, I've finally gotten onto the continent, and now I'm doing this? But, I'm sure there's some lesson I need to learn out of this, to have faith and to still give my best.

I was thinking about it on the bus ride home today, and the thought occured to me that my co-op position for city year will be fund raising and attempting to work with corporate sponsors, so I guess these are concepts I need to start grasping now. There's a reason for everything, and I'm confident this situation is no exception. It'll be fun too. Our group gets to know every entrepreneur, each township community and the problems and sucesses each will face.

School and working days have been long, about 7 hours, and the people on our trip are definitely starting to feel that, piled on top of the jet lag. Last week each night was woooo let's go out to the clubs, go to Long St, go to the cafes! Today, we discovered what we will believe the savior to our gastronomic sanity in Cape Town: Mr.Delivery.com. Now, instead of having to get into a cab and go to the other side of town and eat, food will be brought to us. We just can't take the heavy cream and butter of the room service and hotel restaurants any more. It's been especially frustrating because our hotel is located in District 6, which until the 70's, was the black part of Cape Town before the government literally shoved, cleared and moved its 60,000 residents to the Cape Flats area townships and informal settlements. And, it's stayed pretty much dead since then, there are a few lazy shops, grocers and cafes that are open during the day, but they close by the time we get home from school and close on 1pm on saturdays, and completely closed on sunday. Anyways, we are pleased to be connected to the rest of the city/different food again.

This weekend was a nice and relaxing. It started out right on friday with a braai (try saying that in your classiest afrikaans accent) (aka a BBQ) which was SO much fun. Adeeb dj'ed for us and we played really fun games. I was the musical chairs champ, hard as it was for josh to swallow that bitter pill. I have the bruises on my knees from being shoved onto the ground to prove it. That night was crazy! Esther and I slept/layed around until 11, and then we met up with all the other crazy kids at Ricks Cafe Americain (restaurant featured in "Casablanca"anyone?) where they were having an American Fourth of July party. We danced to the Village People, Barry White, Rihanna, Britney Spears and all other fine products of American record labels. It was pretty darn fun/crazy. We got home around 3. Esther and I turned off the alarm and slept until 1:30 pm, which we were quite proud of, because as research assistants, we have gotten very little sleep during the week. Then we kind of putted around because it's been quite rainy and dreary here. Sunday we went to Kirstenbosch gardens which was GORGEOUS despite the gloomy weather. We kept saying that we felt like we were in Jurassic Park. It was quite beautiful and table mountain had its famous "table cloth" of fog rolling over the top of it.

So, that's the long and the short of it for this week. There's been plenty of ups and downs but now I think I've established a rythym of how to live and work here, so I'm excited for the coming weeks!

Much love,
dobbay