Manuela's memories

I have been dreading writing this blog because it just makes me miss everything about Cape Town that much more. It has been more than a month since I have been back but yet it feels like I was never there. My experience still feels so surreal and I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Currently, Melanie has been posting all the pics she took during the trip and looking at them brings back so many great memories and events that I totally forgot that occurred.

Settling back home was a lot easier than what I expected but now that I have seen my family and friends I am ready to head back to Cape Town. My life style there was totally different compared to the one that I live here but I LOVED it. Every day was a new adventure whether it was hiking, going to the beach, going to a museum or simply exploring the city. I guess its true what my aunt told me its back to reality; now that I am home my life consists of working, going to the gym and my summer class that will start in July (oh and my trip to Florida very excited for that). 

I must say my biggest challenge since I have been back is telling people about my experience. I have so much to say about it and I do not want to respond with a simple “it was amazing” but it sucks when you can tell people want a simple recap and not the one-hour conversation I could have with them.

I guess it is pretty obvious how much I miss cape town and my Cape Town Fam but now I just have to take things day by day, carry my memories with me and see where the journey I call life takes me.

Side note: I have officially embraced the name Manny but it just not the same when it’s not one of my Cape Town peeps saying it. 

Melanie, Manuela, & Lauren

Housemates out and about

Cassie, Val, & Manuela at Supervisor Thank You Dinner April 2014

First Trip to Green Point Stadium to watch a soccer match (January 2014)

The gang during 1st night of excursion in Johannesburg 30 March

Manuela can't believe it's over

Even as I am sitting on this plane I can’t believe my days in Cape Town are over; it is unbelievable how quickly three and a half months go.  My experience in Cape Town will be unforgettable. I have met great people, made some awesome friendships and experienced so many things that are unexplainable.

Some of the awesome things I did in Cape Town:

• ·      Shark cage diving
• ·      Hiked table mountain
• ·      Skydiving
• ·      Hiked Lions Head
• ·      Attended Color festival
• ·      Rode an elephant
• ·      Pet a cheetah
• ·      Went paragliding
• ·      SURFED
• ·      Ate amazing food
• ·      Bungee jumped off of the highest bridge of the world
• ·      Went on a bush walk in Kruger National Park
• ·      Saw the big five (elephant, rhino, leopard, lion, buffalo) at Kruger National Park
• ·      Participate in a Treatment Action Campaign march for parliament to change bad patent laws
• ·       Watched two musicals (Blood Brothers and The Sound of Music)
• ·      Watched a play (A Human Being that Died That Night)
• ·      Went to the Freshlygrounds concert
• ·      Went to two soccer games one of which was the African championship game
• ·      Took a road trip to Plettenberg 

Ma Frances & Manuela

I was also able to become part of the communities through my internships. I had two internships for the time I was in Cape Town. One of the placements being at Elonwabeni family and child center; this shelter first started for affected and infected children with HIV/ AIDS. Unfortunately, the need for shelters has increased drastically in Mitchells Plain so it has now become a shelter for children that have been physically and sexually abused or kids who have parents that are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately there was not much for me to do at the shelter but I was able to meet an incredible woman called Francis or as we all at the shelter say “ma”. Ma is the social worker at the shelter and her dedication to the children is inspiring. She is such a wise women who taught me so much through her experiences and I could not be more grateful for everything she did to welcome Melanie and I. Through ma I was able to shadow a social worker, Daphne, at the department of Social Development.  Being at DSD and seeing how everything worked open my eyes and made me re-think the kind of social work I want to go into. When I first walked in to Daphne’s office I saw at least 60 files later to find out that those were all of her open cases. It was crazy to think that one person is in charge of so many files because realistically she only has time to work on one or two a day. During my time there I got to witness the middle process of a case all up to the court hearing that finalized the case. My first day at DSD, Daphne was working on a case for a teenage girl who needed to be placed in foster care. The foster family that she was going to be placed with was already the caretakers of her two younger siblings. My second day their I attended children’s court for this same case. I was given permission to listen to the hearing which was a great opportunity for me because 1) I have never seen the process of children’s court 2) it allowed me to see how the SA court system works.

Melanie & Manuela with kides at Klipfontein Primary School

I was also very fortunate to be able to intern at Klipfontein primary school although it was only five days it was my most favorite days. This school is located in one of the poorest communities, Netreg. At this school I shadowed the community worker Deon. Deon was an amazing person and very dedicated to his job he would not stop until he got what his clients needed. Deon took Melanie and I around the community to make home visits. As we did these home visits it was so sad to see how little the students I was with had but yet so astonished as to how happy these kids are at school. It was incredible to see how dedicated the principle was to his students and he always made sure his school was an environment in which his students would want to come to school everyday to learn regardless of the communities circumstances. Whenever there were no more clients Melanie and I went upstairs to the fourth grade classroom to read to the students. It is crazy how attached these kids get to you and vice versa when ever it was time for there recess the kids would come looking for us in the office so we would play duck duck goose with them or sing the “peel the banana song”. I will truly miss Klipfontein.

Melanie & Manuela

I was able to learn so much by being in the communities even though I really wont know what most of it means until I am put to the test after a few weeks/ months of being back home. My journey in Cape Town has come to an end but a new one begins.

Manuel'a last week

My last week in Cape Town was total last minute unplanned things. I had created a schedule for everything that I wanted to do but the schedule was definitely not followed. My last week consisted of finishing all of my final papers, getting all my last minute shopping done, finishing my activist project, going shark cage diving and just enjoying Cape Town.

My activist project was a project that I did with Val, Ava, Tina and Kiya. The project was redecorating a room in the shelter in which I interned at so that the older girls could have their own space. The shelter has 16 kids in the downstairs and upstairs house which means the older girls are constantly surrounded by the younger ones. We painted the rooms according to the girls’ request and we fundraised a lot of money from home in order to buy the paint and furniture for the room. On Saturday one of the volunteers and one of the girls from the shelter came to the house to pick up the carpet and a gift basket that we had made for all the girls with hair stuff, make up, crayons, markers etc.

I also went shark cage diving with Cassie, Val and Tina. This was something that I never even thought of doing and then that week I decided why not? It was such a beautiful day to go. When we got to seal Island the crew got all the stuff ready to attract the sharks. They tied big fish to a string so that it can go in the water, they threw a seal shape float and they made noise in the water with a bucket. It took like 20 minutes for us to see the first shark. It was amazing how close we were to the sharks and how big they were. I knew they were big but being that close to them was crazy. Tina and I were the fourth pair to go into the cage, when we got into the cage we were in it for 15 minutes and then they told us to get out. I was really bummed because I did not think were going to get to see sharks in the cage because we had been waiting a good hour. But then all of a sudden all you hear is shark get in the cage so Tina and I got in and as soon as we are in there is the shark. I was able to see the shark eat the fish when it jumped its head out of the water and then I got to see it under water, which was so COOL!!

This last week also consisted of a lot of eating out enjoying Cape Town’s restaurants especially since I had no groceries. Most of us met up on Long Street so that we could all celebrate our last night in the city and I must say it was one of my favorite nights.

Manuela proud of her mountain climbing

Cassie, Val & Manuela climbing Table Mountain.

I have officially hiked Lions Head and one of the seven wonders of nature in the world aka Table Mountain. Table Mountain was definitely a big challenge for me-shout out to Val and Cassie for sticking with me! We took the trail skeleton gorge, which starts, in Kirstenbosch gardens. Although it was challenging I really loved taking this path; there was plenty of shade and the path never stayed the same. I was able to climb some rocks and walk through sand. I knew that the path would take us around three hours to get to the top but I guess I wasn't actually prepared for this because I did not think I was going to make it at some parts; every time we asked someone how much longer they would say 45 min. but then 45min. would pass and we were nowhere near finishing.  There was one area on the mountain that had sand and a lake thing which I thought was so cool but yet so confused on to how that could be on the (almost) top of a mountain. When we got to the top it was extremely foggy and windy which made it a bit scary because we got a bit lost and it didn't help we couldn't see anything. At one point we ran into another group of students that we started to follow an luckily we were able to find our way to the cable car (our plan was to take it down) only to find out that the cable car was closed due to all the wind. Luckily the clouds were in and out and allowed us to see the amazing view from table mountain (definitely worth it!) but unfortunately the shops were closed so I could not buy a shirt that said I hiked table mountain (it's a very proud moment!). We did not want to accept the cable car was off because at this point our journey had reached four hours.  I had to seriously mentally prepare myself to hike this mountain down and it only kept getting more cloudy and windy.  I must say going down was more difficult than going up especially since we had to take a different route due to the weather conditions. As we were hiking down I realized how dangerous/adventurous what we were doing actually was (especially when we got lost on the top-I was glad we took this path down because now I have no interest of ever going up that path.) When we finally made it down after SIX HOURS I was so happy to see the taxi that was going to be taking us to cocoa wah-wah for our celebratory meal and our amazing chocolate brownie dessert!

Manuela at the top of Lion's Head

This Sunday was full moon, which is a very popular time for people to hike up Lions Head to see the view. The path was much shorter than Table mountain and we reached an area were we had to use chains to get up the path (my favorite part!).  When we reached the top of the mountain we had made it just in time to watch the sunset, which was beautiful, and moments later you could see the full moon on the other side this view was absolutely stunning! A lot of pictures were taken and then we started to make our way down. The line of people was so shocking to get down which is why it took us longer. It was probably a good thing that there were a lot of people because the hike down was very dark other than the light that the moon was shining.  I must say I am very proud of myself for hiking these two mountains! Two things I can cross off my Cape Town bucket list!

Manuela human rights weekend

When we arrived on the farm, we would be spending the weekend for the Human Rights workshop, I did not expect to be on such a beautiful farm; the housing we were provided with was amazing. We were given so much food during each meal and we got dessert after every lunch and dinner and I can’t forget about the tea breaks we received between breakfast and lunch.

The first night we had introductions of everyone participating during the weekend; it was really cool hearing all the different places people were coming from in Africa. A comment that was made, by one of the participants, really got me thinking. He thanked Africa Unite for being able to bring the United States to him because he will never be able to travel there. To him the UConn students were the closest thing he had to the U.S. Our stories would allow him to get a “real” sense of what the U.S is really about; his thoughts can become more than what he sees in movies and on TV. (A lot of the times when I have met people here they expect every American to be like the people they see in movies but the reality is movies are not an accurate representation of what the US actually consist of). Back to human rights weekend- for the activities that we did I expected to talk more as a group about our stories/ experiences and what the Human rights issues happening our countries. These things were briefly discussed but I was hoping it would have been a bigger part of our weekend. With that said the activities we did have were great and allowed me to learn about HR. I thought I knew a lot about this topic because I guess its obvious what our basic rights should be but as the activities went on I was disappointed in myself in how little I actually knew.

One of the activities presented to us was to get in groups and pick an African country to present to the United Nations in order for them to give money to your cause. My group chose Zimbabwe, when we presented our country I was not to sure how the presentation would turn out because we did not have too much time to prepare. When all the other countries presented I learned a lot about issues I did not know were happening in those countries. Unfortunately it had been a very long day that I started dosing off by the end of the presentations. When it finally came to the end it was time for the UN to make a decision of the winners I was so shocked and excited when I heard Zimbabwe was the winner.

           

I met so many great people during this weekend; it was wonderful getting to know people from different countries in Africa and to find out what organizations they take part in. On Saturday night there was a gathering in one of the houses. I had some amazing conversations with people and as a group we all started to dance to African music. Overall it was a tiring weekend but definitely worthwhile!

Manuela receiving her human rights training certificate at the conclusion of the weekend