Not to mention that's constantly happening. Townships are always burning, and I have no explanation for this. But yes, so my book waiting to be written will be called "Townships Are Burning in the Western Cape."
This week was low on the adventure scale. My only real adventure could be titled " A Tale of NonViolent Protest." It all started on Friday evening when I got done playing soccer (pretty much all I did this week) and got home at around 7 only to find out that we had taxis ORDERED for 7:30. The thing about taxis is when you order them, you can't negotiate the price and you get ripped off. So ordering taxis is essentially spending my money without asking. This doesn't even mention the fact that there always taxis parked a 2 minute walk from our house. So in 30 minutes I needed to get showered, changed, and since we were going out I wanted to save on money at the bars, drink some at home. So I decided I would check the Jammie Shuttle Schedule (the free UCT bus service) and see if they were going downtown any time in the near future. And they were, at 7:40, still a time crunch, so I figured I would bring my wine on the bus, hope the restaurant has some kind of BYOB policy, get it uncorked at the restaurant. So I rush through the shower, etc. and run to the Jammie stop, get there 5 minutes early only to find out the bus left already, so now I appeared to be screwed. My friends had left in a taxi, and the next Jammie didn't leave until 8:55 (55 minutes after our dinner reservations). But my choices were spend about R50 on a taxi myself (An exact contradiction of my act of protest) or wait an 1:20 for the next bus on the other side of campus. I chose B because I'm cheap and on a budget. So I walked across campus which was absolutely deserted on a Friday at 8, and took a seat at the Jammie Shuttle Stop with my bottle of wine and proceeded to wait. (In retrospect this story is not that exciting) The story essentially ends with my drinking my bottle of wine at the bus stop and talking to this guy from Uganda about how inefficient the Jammie Shuttles are. Not exciting. I'm sorry I even told that story.
This week I also learned that I don't know what a CV is. And my task for Inkanyezi (volunteer organization) was to teach the kids how to write a CV. I taught them how to make a resume, because I don't know what the difference is.
Also this week I decided that this place isn't a place I could ever LIVE. It's the ultimate vacation spot, but its so close to the US in a lot of ways that the things that are really different or missing from home seem to stick out more. Because of this I've decided my next extended trip will be well off the beaten path, I currently have my mind set on Mongolia (I don't think you can get further off the beaten path than the least densely populated country in the world) Well except maybe Pacific islands, or Chad.
There are 10 countries in the world that have 4 letters. (The one you'll always forget is Chad) No one ever remembers that one. Laos, Oman, Iran, Iraq, Figi, Peru, Chad, Cuba, Togo, Mali.
I have very little to say today.
The train yesterday (the one that is free on the weekend) was so packed. I've never been more squished anywhere, ever.
Speaking of trains, a girl riding a bike was hit by a train on a Stellenbosch wine tour. She's a legend. Just broke here arm. But where in the world is it easy enough to ride a bike off the road and directly onto train tracks (South Africa was the answer).
The weather looks okay today. Very hot, but I have no work, so I may try to hike Devil's Peak or Table Mountain.
My next post will be better.
I'm also totally cut off from the news, I've mostly stopped using the internet during the week. So if anything big is happening in the world, I don't know about it. It's very strange to be so cut off.
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