My Delightful Flight Home

 Although I was insanely sad to leave South Africa I was ready to go home.  More than ready.  I was in a tizzy with anticipation to see my family again and be back in good old New England.  Unfortunately Africa had other plans. 

You may have heard that after being on planes for already over 10 hours, my plane sat on the tarmack of the airport in Dakar, Senegal for four hours before the pilot had to inform us that our plane was indeed broken and a new one has being sent up from South Africa- an eight hour flight!  So they unloaded all the passengers on this massive plane, along with all our luggage and sent us to a Hotel to stay at until a new plane could come.  I handled this set back better than anyone expected partly due to the fact that we were put at a hotel next to the ocean with a really nice pool.  It not a bad stay except for the fact that no one knew when we were leaving and i had no currency and was dieing of thirst towards the end of the day. 

I don't need to go into the rest of the journeys details (i will say it took me like 48 hours to get back home!), instead i'll just say that it was another african adventure, my last one of my trip abroad!  I'm very, very happy to be home, but i will miss South Africa and hope to return!

Last Days

After the harrowing experience of finals finally came to an end my friends and i spent every second we could at the beach!  Believe it or not (i'm sure you wont believe it!) but i actually got mildly tan while everyone else got horribly burned.  I tried to feel bad for them, but after years of being punished for getting burned instead of consoled i found it difficult to show them much empathy.  These were some of my favorite days while i was away.



This beach in Muizenberg we took the train to.  The train ride was pretty fun because i wrote notes about all the people on the train and then read them allowed later as if they were poetry.  It was funnier than it sounds.  Anyways sadly i lost my "poems" but my favorite on was about an overweight lady eating chips slowly while the man next to her (who was definitely crazy) babbled on and on for his entire trip.

 The beach was amazing and the waves were so much fun and perfect for body surfing.  the water was cold, but the type that was soon as you got used to it you could stay in for hours.  You could rent surf boards which was apparent because many of these surfers were simply bad. 

At one point a siren went off and people ran out of the water because . . . there was a SHARK!  baby, there was a shark in the water!!!  I could not believe it because A) what are the chances and B) that allowed me to sing that song for the rest of the day!

 This little boy sat right in the middle of this family on his way home from school.  The entire trip he tried to surreptitiously try to get a piece of candy off the floor that one of the other boys had dropped.  We was successful in secretly getting the candy by picking it up with his feet then pretending to scratch his foot and stealing the candy away in his pocket.  He was incredibly patient the entire trip as he slowly patted his foot around searching for the candy while trying to act casual.  He was really incredible.  

Our next beach adventure was in Hout Bay.  This place was more a fishing town and i wasn't obsessed with the beach or anything but i loved the harbour and  all the colorful boats.  did you notice how i spelled harbour?!

We went to Camps Bay beaches the most.  This water was absolutley freezing and our final day here (mine and Lauren's last full day in South Africa) was the day everyone except me got insanely burned.
 

 That's Lion's Head.  From previous pictures you can see the beach from an aerial view

I miss the beachs and South Africa a lot.  It is freezing and snowing in Hingham as i write this.

The Best Give Of All

Apparently now that I am safe and sound on familiar soil and not seperated from my beloved parents by the Atlantic, they have decided that funding the lifestyle i was used to for many months is no longer appropriate.  BUT This does not prevent me from giving them the best Christmas present of all times-- pictures of me!  Now i could give them nice delicate photos of me in sureen country sides or the like, but because of their choice to not continue to put money into my account my present may be slightly jaded.    I have decided the best present for the two of them is the complete series of photographs of their youngest, most beloved child throwing herself off of a bridge in South Africa.  Enjoy mum and dad!! Merry Christmas!!

If you play them really quickly then you can see my arms pinwheeling, desperately attempting to stop falling, but when i finally let go i had so much fun. 

Langa

So I have been quite retched about putting up pictures whilst i was in Africa because of their unreasonable inability to have actual working internet that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.  But i have no excuse since i am now home- incase you didn't know!  But here are some photos from Langa that is a Township.  It was one of our first trips when i got there.  It felt a bit disturbing since it seemed as if we were going to visit a zoo exhibition filled with people, but apparently this is how they can raise money and the like. 

People lived in shacks that had a building plan with specific measurements but no limit on how many people were allowed to live in said homes.  Others got to live in hostel rooms but three families lived in one room each having about 6 people in each family.  18 people in one room was incredible and very sad.

This is a picture of people cooking sheep heads.  They eat the entire sheep except the eyes, tongue, and brains because you are what you eat and no one wants to see, speak, or think like a sheep.

 This woman was braiding a girls hair that looked like it was taking years.  The Little girl to the right tried to braid my roommate Jess's hair with gusto.

 Boys playing some type of soccer game where there was one goal you had to flick the ball into

 All the children would follow us around and LOVED when we took pictures of them.  They liked to take pictures too, but would rather have you take their picture and then grab the camera to look at themselves.

The Preschool was surrounded by barbed wire probably to keep homeless people from sleeping in there at night.  Bellow is a preformance the kids did for us.  I'm sure they have to do it all the time but they seemed to have fun with it anyways.