~ one week in review

I know it’s been a week…but just like pretty much everyone else in the world, my life is busy! It shouldn’t be an excuse, but I just thought I’d let you know that I don’t sit around all day doing nothing!

So I finally finished my “8 page Desmond Tutu paper” last week, which then ended up being 10 pages long instead! I think it was good preparation for me to research his life and his influence in South Africa considering yesterday we started our “TRC” class, which stands for Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Desmond Tutu was the Chairperson for the Commission when it first began. This class is only for the Bethel students and it only meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays with Alan Jansen, whom we all dearly love now! It’s definitely going to be a really interesting and very challenging class as well, with a lot of out of the classroom interviews and the challenges of dealing with all of the hearings that were brought before the Commission. 22,000 victims brought their case before the Commission, while 7,000 applied for amnesty! It is very emotional to watch these people be in the same room as the people who have murdered their son/daughter/cousin/friend and hear the stories of how they were killed during the apartheid. I watch these people somehow find within themselves the ability to forgive one another in the midst of all their pain and loss. It’s truly inspiring, yet so difficult to understand at the same time!

Weekend update- Friday and Saturday night were jam-packed with “Umoja” which means the “spirit of Togetherness”! I went to the show both with my host family and with the Bethel students! Not going to lie, I was pretty much in heaven watching this show! The music was definitely up there with the Lion King broadway show! The show was a history of South African music from the beginnings of their tribal music up until today! 3 hours of singing, drumming, and dancing by some absolutely talented people! For anyone who wants to watch it when I get back home, I bought the DVD!

Monday night- All of us went to Wayne Hermon’s(professor at Cornerstone) house for an American BBQue! Hamburgers, potato salad, chips, and baked beans! What more could you ask for! Oh yeah, and Heinz ketchup! Usually they only have “tomato sauce” which is disgusting compared to Heinz! Anywhoo…we had a great dinner. Afterwards we decided to play Croquet in their backyard. Ryan and I were on a team and we pretty much were the worse team. Oh wait we WERE the worst, cause we lost L The dang ball would never want to go through that wicket!!! I’m almost certain that it had some sort of defect or something. Oh well, we had fun just messing around by the end of the game. No one cared that we had our turn whenever we wanted to go, cause it’s not like we were going to win or anything!

Tuesday night- Valentine’s day…..never mind…that story is too long to tell, yet so great…you must wait for it! Coming soon!