The Past Week

This past week we have had a very busy schedule. The exchange has been going so fast and I just can't believe that we're half way through already. We have been making as much use of the time we have and while our poor exchange students have been working very hard we have been visiting cultural sites in Cape Town, during school days and after school as well as during the weekends.

On Monday Nicky and Debbie (Lily's Mom) took us to visit the Kirstenbosch gardens. It was not an extremely hot day, which was nice as we were walking around the gardens. It was absolutely huge and very pretty. We saw loads of brightly coloured flowers and as we had walked up to the top of the gardens we had the most beautiful view of Cape Town below. Another very nice aspect about the Kirstenbosch gardens was the extensive souvenir shop where we all over spent.

The Kirstenbosch gardens:





On Tuesday we had our first real JUMP lesson. We met our children that we would be teaching for the next few weeks and started our first lesson. Katherine and I were paired with three children, two little girls Litha and Namimba and a little boy called Babolo. The three of them are 9, 10 and 11. They are all very bright kids and caught on to what we were teaching them very quickly. We had a fantastic first lesson and they even taught Katherine and I a few words in Xhosa. They were in hysterics about the way I was pronouncing the words, but then again I must sound very odd. They also spoke a bit of Afrikaans, which was a lot easier for me to understand. Their English was also surprisingly good which made it so much easier to teach them.

On Wednesday we missed a day of school and went to Robben Island. The trip was organised by the same people that had organized the tour to Khayelitsha, so we went with the same group as last time. This time though I got to know the other exchange students van St. Cyprian Girls school a lot better. They are all staying for 6 months!

The tour of Robben Island was very impressive. We first got taken around the island by bus, to see the small community starting there and where the prisoners used to work. From Robben Island we had the most amazing view of Table Mountain. After the bus tour of the island we got a guided tour of the old prison. The tour was given by a former prisoner himself and it was very nice to hear it from someone who had actually been there. We also got to see Nelson Mandela's cell, which was the main attraction of the tour.

After the tour we went back to the mainland by boat. All the Herschel exchange students (Sandra, Nienke, Megan, Caroline and I) had another two hours before we were to be picked up so we spent the afternoon having a very nice lunch and shopping at the Waterfront.

The view of the Waterfront from Robben Island.

The view of Table Mountain from Robben Island.

Nelson Mandela's Prison Cell.

Sandra, Caroline and me at the Waterfront.

Friday we missed school again and Debbie and Gail took us to Boulders Beach and Chapman's Peak. The weather had done a complete turn around and it was cold and rainy. We decided to go out anyway, despite the weather. Boulders beach is a beach in Cape Town where penguins live. The penguins didn't seem to mind the rain one bit and we saw loads of them.

After Boulders we drove through Simonstown and stopped there to have lunch. There were a lot of tourist shops in Simonstown and again Sandra, Nienke and I overspent on souvenirs. We had a lovely lunch there. After lunch we drove over Chapman's Peak. Chapman's Peak is part of the mountains and very high up, which gave us a fantastic view of the sea.

All in all we have had a very eventful, but extremely fun week and these were only the weekdays. In another post I will tell you all about the weekend.

Kirsten