Boy I'm glad to have power this evening.,,

First of all, before I forget – thank you to all of you who have taken the time to write to me! I hope you know how much I appreciate the updates you all send me about what’s going on on your side of the globe. Though the emails/letters you send sometimes make me miss home even more, I still like to be somewhat “in the loop.” So now that I got that item of business covered, let me put YOU “in the loop” as to what’s going on in my side of the world:

We had a fun-filled weekend with a night at Gabby’s on Friday, for some of us, our first session of surfing lessons at Muzienburg on Saturday afternoon, and a South African movie “Tsotsi” on Saturday night.

Gabby is a fifth-year, very sociable Cornerstone student who we’ve come to know in the past few weeks at school. She was so kind to have all of us Bethel students and a few Cornerstone students over on Friday night for some fun and games. Kristi and I thought it would be a good idea to start the game of Mafia, which seemed to be a good idea only for a little while. We had to explain how to play the game to most of the people, so after a while we realized that we weren’t really the ideal crowd for Mafia. So we opted for our new favorite game “Happy Family.” You basically choose a name that’s familiar to most people, which then becomes who you are for the rest of the game. A list of the identities people have chosen is read and then you have to identify which identity matches to each person playing. Once someone identifies you correctly, you become part of their family. It’s then a ‘happy family’ I guess. Got it? Don’t ask me why I just explained the rules of how to play a game to you….

Yes we started our lessons for surfing! Becca, Kristi, Jason, Ryan, and I went on Saturday to Muzienburg beach to take lessons from the Surf Shack School. Though it was a very cloudy and not very warm day, which is not normal for this time of year, we still went out in the water with our wet suits and had an 1.5 hour lesson with two instructors- I can’t remember his or her name…sorry. So it’s definitely not an easy thing to do, which I learned very quickly while I was out there! The nose-dives were plenty, the collisions with other surfers were scary, the water was salty, and the sharks were not hungry. So needless to say, I’m ready for next weekend’s lesson. Anyone else want to go? They say South Africa has some of the best waves for surfing! Now are you in?

“Tsotsi”- Alan really wanted us to go see this South African movie, and I’m still debating whether I’m glad I saw it or not. It was so hard to watch! This movie is about a gang in one of the townships near Johannesburg. The word “Tsotsi” means “gangster.” The movie depicts the life of one of the gangsters and some of his struggles in dealing with his awful childhood memories. Tsosti had never been loved before. The ways in which these gangsters, however, resort to violence as a means to get what they need in life, makes it very difficult for me to watch on a big screen. This movie is up for an Oscar in the foreign film category. It is a very moving film that I would suggest to those of you who can handle watching a lot of violence.

A comment that made me think twice today:
This afternoon Astrid and I decided to give each other pedicures. I decided to wash her feet first, and as she put her foot on my lap so that I could dry it off before putting an exfoliating scrub on it, she said to me, “Ha this is kinda funny. We’re switching roles today.”
I was like, “What?” I had no idea what Astrid was referring to.
She said back to me in a semi-sarcastic fashion, “Usually it’s the African who is the slave, well at least in your country.”
I did not really know what to say. I felt sort of awkward at that moment. Even though it was said sort of jokingly, there was a whole lot of truth in her statement. I didn’t know whether to feel ashamed of my country or not. Is that just something in the past that we shouldn’t have to deal with any more? Slavery still exists in many parts of the world, with the US included, though it can be very concealed. Astrid probably had no idea of the impact that statement had on me today. I was not even thinking of the color of our skin as I was about to wash her feet- and I hope that will never have to be the case for me in the future. Needless to say, I was very happy to serve my African host sister today.

this blog entry was written on sunday yet it was posted today(tuesday) because of the power outages that have been happening for the past few days....tonight it's finally back on, but tomorrow it could go off again!