This is Africa!!

TIA!! For anyone who hasn’t seen blood diamond, that stands for “This is Africa.” This sure is Africa, South Africa to be exact. It is so much better than I could have imagined here. We got here on Tuesday the 19^th so naturally I couldn’t sleep the night of the 18^th, and we got up to see my third sunrise (aren’t you proud dad) We got up at about 4:30 and were outside for 5 but the sun didn’t come up till well after 5:30. I don’t know why we got up so early. As soon as we walked outside, we could see land. We docked officially at about 7ish and saw our first glimpse of Table Mountain. (or table top mountain as tea calls it) The first thing I did in South Africa was a program called Operation Hunger through semester at sea. It is a program started in 97 to feed the young kids that live about 10 minutes outside of Cape Town. It was very interesting to see this city because at first look, it seems just like an American city. Everyone speaks English, you can buy American food, American music, and American magazines. The only difference is that all of the wealth in the country is very un-evenly divided up. 10% of the population holds 90% of the wealth. To be honest, I just made that up because I don’t feel like looking at what the percentages actually are. I feel confident in my numbers. So in Cape Town, it looks like America, but as soon as you drive 5 or 10 minutes outside of the city, you are in some of the poorest places I have ever seen in my life. The things we throw away after a corrugated metal sheeting job with dad is the same stuff they make their houses out of. Fiberglass, some wood, metal sheets, sometimes even cardboard comprise all of the houses in these outlying areas. The place we went to had two separate areas. One area had very small buildings made of block, about 100 homes. Directly to the left are hundreds of houses thrown together with the other materials. They said they are starting to build more block houses, but so far, they have built 100 in 10 years. That’s not very fast. The other houses are in an area called ‘the jungle.’ Use your imaginations to understand that name. When we got there, we waited for a long time and it was very unorganized. Eventually, the 47 of us were given 3 scales, some little cards, and were to weigh the little kids in these block houses. They would compare our weights with the weights from the visit last year and see if the program is working. So we were matched up with a Rastafarian guide, and split into 3 groups to start weighing kids. If you do the math, you’ll quickly realize that we had wayyyyyy more people than we needed. It ended up that all the people made the kids uncomfortable and complicated things. We did a lot of standing around. Our Rasta guide took us to the house of Mama B. This cantankerous jamacan woman has been kicked out of her hometown only to live in Europe and American for 3 months, then settled in Africa. She had very very serious views on how to get Africa back on track. She felt that all the world leaders should stop sending money to Africa because it is only making things worse. The money doesn’t get to the people who actually need it. It is corrupted and ends up in someone’s pocket. She said that Africa needs to give land to all the poor people that are in these shack areas. When they get land, they will learn how to use it, grow things, then eventually take ownership of the country instead of living on top of each other in these ‘housing’ complexes (without houses of course) Of course, that will never happen because the 10% of the people that own all the land would never want to lose their power making it impossible for Africa to get out of the hole. What a terrible situation. The kids were underweight but still very happy to be alive. Our guide said there is a program in some preschools that feed kids because there is a huge drop off in nutrition between the ages after they stop breast feeding and when they are old enough to fight for their food. This age gets pushed around by the bigger kids and basically eat nothing. When the parents eat rice and bean soup for example, the kids don’t get the same food, they eat whatever is left like the broth. It is very sad. They enjoyed our company, the towns people were very very friendly. We left to eat lunch (because our guide said we couldn’t eat there, because they never eat) and donated some portions of our lunch that we didn’t want to eat. When we came back after lunch, all the kids had gotten out of school. These little kids LOVE to have their picture taken. As long as they can look at the picture on the camera immediately after you snap the picture. Super cute. They jump all over each other and love cameras.

The next day I went on a safari. We left at 3:15 in the morning. We took a bus to the airport, a plane to jo-burgh (3 hours) a bus to kruger park (6 hours), then safari cars to our camp. Very long trip but it was worth it. On the way into the park, before we even got off the bus, we saw a herd of elephants and a crocodile. I knew it would be a good trip. The way they work it is we go out in the morning from 430-7 then breakfast then lunch later then another safari from 4-630. The animals don’t like the sun so they hide during the day and its hard to see anything. On our first safari in the morning, we saw a herd of giraffe, some white rhino (the common type) and of course a ton of impala. When we saw impala for the first time, my guide goes “that’s an impala” and I go “just like my car.” (I miss that boat of a car) Right before the sunset, we saw a single male elephant. His silhouette was beautiful and I took tons of pictures of him. Our guide said he was looking for a female to mate with and was very aggressive. We got some good pictures, then after we drove by him to leave; he started charging our safari vehicle. It was scary, but we can out drive and elephant, so I felt okay. I’lljust list all of the animals we saw and you can judge what kind of a time I had. The big five include the rhino, elephant, water buffalo, lion and leopard. I saw all of them. I also saw a hyena, a turtle, a black mumba (snake), a herd of elephants, a herd of zebra, a herd of giraffes, some wildabeasts, warthogs, mongoose, monkeys, birds, crocodiles, black rhino(very very rare), a pride of lions, and a leopard. Leopards are very hard to see, so I was sad when we hadn’t seen one and it was the last day. We drove an hour away from camp to look for some hippos in the bigger river. We were almost there when someone in our safari car saw the tail of a leopard. Can you believe how excited we were? So we backed up and they were right!! It was a leopard!! He started to walk away (like all of the animals do. –we actually are going to title our safari “lots of ass” because as soon as you see the animals, they turn their backside to you.) Luckily, the leopard turned around and sat still for a while. We took as many pictures as our cameras would snap because of how uncommon it is to see one. The leopard crouched down on it’s belly real smoothly and it was looking to the other side of the road. We looked over there and there were a herd of impala (the dumbest animals ever) We all got super excited. The leopard crept forward and when it got to the road, it took off, attacked an impala and had it clenched in its jaw. We watched the leopard kill an impala then drag it off to some tree. I’m not sure if you understand how rare and exciting that was. Our guide said he had never seen anything like that. He saw lions chase something into the bush, but never a kill. We took a picture with everyone in our lucky safari car. Everyone else was jealous (I would have been too) but they liked looking at our pictures. My heart was beating fast for the next 30 minutes. It was ridiculous. I WATCHED A LEOPARD KILL AN IMPALA. How awesome is that? Now, I’m back in capetown getting a couple things then going back on the boat tonight. We leave at 11 for Mauritius. A lot of people are renting houses on the beach there, hopefully ill hang out with some of the new friends I’ve met on my safari. South Africa is an amazing place, and I suggest it to anyone who likes to travel (especially you parents- don’t worry, everyone speaks English, and the food is very Americanized. You would have a wonderful time here!!) I hear the plane tickets are expensive, but it will be worth the money. I love you all very much. I hope you enjoy the pictures. To anyone who wrote me an email: I got them when I got here, but I will write back to you in the next 2 days. Expect one coming your way!! Love you all very much

Yay for keeping real turf on the field

Yay for Gino in the scoring race.

I hope the steelers are really thinking about their draft picks!

I miss you all very much.

When I get home, the first thing I’m eating is buffalo wild wings. Anyone who meets me at the airport better be ready to stop in the one by the airport!!! Bye!