A Week in Africa

Hello Everyone!

We have been having some issues getting on the internet lately so we haven't been able to get on and update y'all about our adventures!

This past Thursday we were taught by the department head on all of the environmental and ecological  issues that South Africa needs to deal with. The professor was very interesting and very involved in the nature reserves here, which I think would be so awesome. He talked to us about how climate change is greatly affecting the vegetation and the animal life here in South Africa. With the way things are going, he told us that in 40 years species of plants and animals will be extinct. It's sad and scary that this will happen in my lifetime and who knows what will be going on whenever my kids join the workforce. It was a rather depressing lecture, but it definitely made us think.

We don't have class on Fridays so we went shopping to get stuff for our Karoo trip. While we are in the Karoo we are not entirely sure what we will be doing, but we will be there for a week. It's further inland so the temperatures are more extreme and we'll have cold nights and warmer days. Karoo is an area north west of us and it includes several different biomes like deserts, grasslands, and there are mountain areas too. We are staying at this place called Ganora Farms and it sounds like it is a sheep farm. All we know is to bring warm clothes..so it should be fun!

We haven't really talked about the food situation here. Pretty much every restaurant serves hamburgers. Fast food is HUGE here. Their favorite restaurants are Wimpy's and KFC. KFC even delivers and you can order online. When we went to the townships there was a KFC in the middle of the town and it was actually a really nice building. There is a McDonald's, but it's not like ours. They only have 5 different items pretty much and they serve cakes and muffins and stuff like that too. Most of the restaurants serve everything. The restaurant we went to on friday served croissants, sandwiches, pastas, pizza, hamburgers, fish, and tons of desserts. Most of the restaurants are like that and they are so inexpensive for us. It was 5 of us and we ate for 311 rand. I was mistaken when I said it was 10 rand to 1 dollar, it's like 8.5. So we basically ate for maybe close to 40 dollars for 5 people at a nice sit down restaurant. The food is all really good too!

I have finally started to feel comfortable enough and familiar enough with my surroundings to go running here. My room mate, Sienna from West Virginia, runs too so we have been going in the morning on the beach. I mentioned that they drive on the left side of the road and they also walk/bike/run/ on the left side too. It took us a while to remember that and I'm sure everyone thought we were really weird when we were zig -zagging all over the place trying to get back on the right side.

Yesterday, Addison and I planned to study all day. We walked to the Summerstrand village to get lunch and then catch a cab to the university. They told us that was the best way to travel and that public transportation wouldn't really be a trustworthy form of getting around. We ate and called the cab and ended up sitting there waiting for almost an hour. We called them and they said they were really busy and didn't know how long it would take to come get us so we just came back to the lodge and studied here.

Today, we are going to try and study again! We leave for Karoo at 8:30 tomorrow morning. We won't have internet access and it sounds like we won't have cell phone reception. I'll see if we can use the phone at the farm to try and get in touch with our parents and let you know that we are safely there.

To the Oxonians reading this blog, I have been craving Pita Pit and fried rice from Noodle bowl. I found some hummus at the grocery store, but it's nothing like the roasted red pepper hummus at Pita Pit :(

We miss you all and love y'all!

Natalia and Addison