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Sawubona! Yesterday we had our first Zulu lesson. We were learning all of the letters and the different sounds. The first one on the list said “a” as in duck. This caused me and everyone else to take a double take. We later found out there is an “a” sound in duck when you pronounce “duck” with a Bristish accent. Zulu is an extremely difficult language. There are 3 differnent clicks that have to be made and there are words that simply cannot be pronounced in English. None the less it will be cool to learn so we can interact with the people in their own language.

The Prayer Chapel at African Enterprise

Tea Time is my favorite time in the day. Everyday at 10:30am and 4:00pm everyone takes a half hour break to have tea and muffins. It is an awesome and relaxing time. Pretty much everyone in South Africa takes tea time. In the hospitals they tea time in shifts so everyone is able to have a break. Here at African Enterprise we all go to the dining hall sit on the couches and just enjoy each others company, in fact tea time begins in 36 minutes!

A monkey almost lost his life today. My friend Ashleigh was talking to some of the cooks in the kitchen when she saw a monkey come in the back window, she screamed and one of the people in the back screamed and threw his knife at the monkey. Luckily for the monkey it got away. The pepper spray comes in today so we can protect ourselves from the monkeys. The problem with the monkeys is that they have nothing to keep them in check, they don’t have a predator or a threat, so we have to establish ourselves as in charge. Here is a picture of one of the monkeys for your viewing purposes.

Jeff took this picture of one of the infamous monkeys

This is the second straight day it has been raining, but it is not a heavy rain, just a light rain. It was interesting becuase yesterday they mowed the lawn in the rain. I guess when it rains so much you have to mow the grass sometime.

Today was an interesting day. We had the opportunity to tour around the city of Johannesburg and learn about the history. We started the day by touring the Township of Soweto. Soweto is about 20 minutes away from Johannesburg. We saw many things there. We went to an informal community, this informal community was an impoverished neighborhood. This community was two minutes away from one of the biggest malls in the Southern Hemisphere. It was sad to see how this neighborhood was situated in the middle of a developed area. The informal township was an interesting experience. The people decided to give tours of the area to earn money to help make a living and raise awareness about the community to others. They said we could take pictures and ask any questions we may have. It was so hard to be in such an impoverished neighborhood as a tourist. I just wanted to help out in some way. It did not feel right just walking through this neighborhood and doing nothing to help. At the end of the tour I was saddened to see a KFC across the street. It was cool how they were willing to give tours so they could make some money for the community.

We continued around the township of Soweto, and went to the Hector Pieterson Museum. Hector Pieterson was a boy who was shot during the time of Apartide by the Police. The Goverenment wanted make Afrikaan the country’s second language, the language they would use formally, and the people wanted the language to be English. The police began to get aggressive, in turn the students got aggressive. The police began to shoot guns which ended up killing Hector Pieterson. It was interesting to learn about the apartide. It is similar to the segregation in the United States except South Africa segregated tribes and the United States segregated people.

We ended the day by going to the Voortrekker Monuent this was an incredible monument, but also extremely controversial. It celebrates how the South Africans conquered the Zulu and the Dutch and now had control of the country. However, this also represents the white supremacy that took place during the apartide. There is debate whether the building should still be torn down or it should be embraced for other reasons. With that said white people are a major minority here in South Africa, everywhere we have gone there have been far more black people then white people. The only black people that were in that memorial was our Professor and our Student Life Coordinator, Reegan.

We arrived safely yesterday around 5:30pm South Africa time. Last night we had the opportunity to meet the director of APU’s South Africa Semester and get our vital school schedule. We are staying in a hotel in Johannesburg until tomorrow where we get on a plane to fly to Durbin. From there we will get on a bus and go to Pietermaritzburg.

New York City was very cold and very fun. We only had a couple hours in the city but that did not stop us from soaking up the last few hours in the US!

From early impressions, the people here really like Obama and are glad that he is now our president. Our professor said that people’s impression and how they treat and interact with Americans has already changed since Bush is no longer our President.

Everything is much cheaper here. With that said, people do not make near as much money here as they do in the USA. Kelly our Student Life Coordinator told me that she met a girl who said she makes R9 (9 Rand) an hour which is equivalent to $0.90 in US Dollars. I had a sit down dinner last night that only cost about R40 which is about $4.

Jet lag has set in and it is hard to fight! I was lucky and slept through the entire night without waking up. But I still got extremely tired around the time I would go to bed in the US.