Just the first day...

What a first day! 35 hours after leaving San Francisco, I arrived in Cape Town to some lovely winter weather. I was met there by Moses Karmali who runs Southern African Ambition, a program that helps students experience all that Cape Town has to offer. Our first stop was Boutique Backpackers 33 South—my home for the next 6 weeks—located in the suburb of Observatory. Obz (as it usually referred to) was one of the first “grey” suburbs under Apartheid where all races lived together. It has a very eclectic mix of people with lots of yummy looking restaurants all grouped together on Lower Main Road. My backpackers is right in the middle of it all.

Not wanting to waste any time(!), we then drove to the township of Langa about 20 minutes from Obz to drop some goodies off at a soup kitchen. Langa is the oldest township in Cape Town having opened in 1927, a result of the Urban Areas Act that forced Africans to live in townships. It is made up of small individual homes, schools, businesses, a squatter camp, and small businesses, ect. We were joined by two of Moses’s friends, Hakeem and Nomsa. Nomsa actually grew up in Langa and now has her own foundation that works to engage youth and provide them with the skills needed to get jobs. Other highlights of our time in Langa included meeting a group of men in the township…who then had me taste some African beer from a pail, a stop at the Guga s’thebe center where I was thrown into a Marimba concert, and tea and fet-cook, or “fat cake,” at Nomsa’s house. We talked politics, sports, the politics of sports, history, development, HIV/AIDS, family, and culture all day long. I’ve only spent one day with these great people and I feel like I’ve known them for much longer.

Today is a national holiday—African Youth Day. I’m going to meet up with Leah, another intern working at H4H, who came in on Tuesday from Dublin, Ireland. I think we’re going to explore the downtown area. Oh ya... and it’s possible that I have a birthday today.. My new friends have promised me a fun time Cape Town style :-)

Tomorrow will be my first day at H4H! Excited to get going.

Lindsay