Hot N Cold

Hello darlings!

If you’re like me there are certain nights where it is so hot inside your flat (that does not have air conditioning) that you can’t sleep. So what is a person to do in this situation? Well, if you’re like me, you can reminisce over memories of the weekend, watch Rob Bell videos, write a blog, and make your first little video! Just for some perspective- it’s so hot that the pictures on my walls are starting to curl… Yuck.

This past week has not been my best. I spent a lot of time preparing for my test on Thursday in Advanced South African Politics. When the day finally rolled around I felt fairly prepared. When the test was handed out Nate, Diane, and I just looked at each other and laughed quietly. The questions were completely out of left field. I picked one and did what I could, but it won’t be nearly enough. I’ve never been so nervous to get an assignment handed back to me. I’m trying to tell myself that in the grand scheme of things this test won’t matter. At the end of the semester, it’s only worth 10% of my grade. We’ll see how it goes, I guess…

I continued to volunteer at PASSOP. Not much happened on Thursday. After the test disaster I was no fun to be around and I really didn’t get much done that day. But today (Saturday) I went to Masiphumelele (a Xhosa word for “we will succeed) to help out the organization. Getting there was an absolute disaster. On top of being a royal… well, whatever… the volunteer coordinator has no idea what she is talking about. She instructed our driver to take us to the wrong place. Because of that we were 1.5 hours late. Once there, though, we had a great time. There were three of us: Carly, Hailey, and me. Today we helped people make resumes so they can enter the job market. I stood outside for a while trying to inform people about the work our organization does. It’s amazing the things you can see… The work might not sound very exciting, but I had such a great time. I was very proud of myself for going…

Why is that, you ask? Because on Friday we celebrated two very important birthdays: Elsha’s and Sydney’s!! We went out to a club to see the band Goldfinger perform. They were amazing. I wasn’t too excited to start with because they are a techno band and I’m usually not into that. But this show rocked! The band members are South African and they create such fun music. It is exactly what you need if you’re looking for a night of dancing with your girlfriends. Let me just say that it was sooooooooooooooooo hot in that club. My pictures are ruined because I look so horrendously sweaty in all of them. Sydney has magic hair that doesn’t sweat. Elsha and I? Not so much. In the end we left the club around 2, went to Long Street and had food, and arrived back at the Res around 3:30. I went to sleep at 4:30 and woke up at 9:30. How did I get myself to PASSOP in the blistering heat? Magic, I tell you. Magic.

Tonight we went to the Carnival. We thought it would be pretty cool. Basically, South Africa is trying to copy Brazil’s amazing festivals/parties. It didn’t work so well for SA. The parade was fine- it was just kind of anticlimactic at the end, which was disappointing. After that we were further disappointed by the disgusting 2 large pizzas we ordered, but we persevered and ate them anyway. The funniest part of the night was before we left for the Carnival: Elsha had received a bottle of bubbly from our friend Nate for her birthday. So we decided to crack it open last night! In the attached video, you see Diane trying to open the bottle and telling Kait that we learned how to open champagne bottles with knives in our Wine Society class on Friday. Chaos ensues.

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Please be safe.

Love you,

B.