Liz on a weekend full of firsts and adventure:

To start off the weekend I started work on my activist project, which will be assisting in the development of a library for Sithembele Matiso Secondary School in Nyanga, Cape Town. Three students had started this project after 11 of us went to the high school to discuss the importance of education in a grade 11 classroom. During this talk the teacher asked us to give suggestions to the students on how to access resources if they do not have internet at home, naturally we told them the library at their school, there isn’t one. Then we told them the town library, which is over crowded and essentially over used with not enough resources so we told them to go to the Cape Town library, a mere $4 round trip bus ride away. We starred at the teacher we had nothing else to say. I joined the project earlier this week when I was reading one of my books and was at the point where I couldn’t put it down. I realized how important reading is as a part of my life and I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to not have the opportunity to read so I asked to join the project. Thankfully I was allowed to join the project and started helping the second I got the go-ahead by getting people from home and UConn to join the project.

Friday Anna, Allie, Patrick and I made our way to the hardware store in the pouring rain in order to procure primer and all things needed to scrap, sand, wash, and prime the walls of the current library. We then made our way to the school where we started sanding and scrapping all the old paint that is on the wall in order to ensure we had a nice smooth service to paint. After this we scrubbed all the walls and windows in the room, which were extremely dirty and started to prime. Luckily after school was out some of the students from the class that we had visited came to help us and we more than willing to help clean, scrap, and prime.  With the extra hands we were able to move a lot faster. While we were priming our first donation arrived via Erica and her boyfriend, Dan, who had brought over a bunch of books that he had collected from the states. It was awesome to see the faces of the teachers that were helping us when they saw the books. Around four we paced up and headed home after a long hard day of awarding work. On the way home we were all exhausted but we all felt extremely accomplished. That night Andrea, Elise, Savi and myself went to see the movie Argo. It was EXCELLENT and once I again I found myself questioning all my career aspirations in life, in a positive yet confusing way of course. If you’re bored I highly recommend you go see the movie (won best picture!).

Saturday was another day of adventure we wandered into the city to do a little bit of hopping and stumbled upon a filming. We wandered down to the set that had turned a typical Cape Town street into a London bank robbery. Very cool. We met a guy who told us it was a Pimms Commercial Filming and that if we came back after lunch we would be able to see them in action. We did. Which was very cool to see this after seeing Argo the night before. Reminding me how much I love movie. For dinner we went to a Korean BBQ on Long Street where they brought you the raw meat you ordered and then cooked it on the BBQ that was built into your table! So cool! We also got to try a bunch of different Korean drinks. It’s nice to know that just because you’re in one place doesn’t mean you have to learn jut about the people from there but you are also capable of learning about many different cultures in one place.

Sunday we went to go to the biscuit mill, which is closed on Sundays so DO NOT go. Even though it was closed it was cool to see the buildings completely empty. Now I understand why I feel so claustrophobic there all the time. The building was tiny! Anyways we continued on to Cape Town where we caught the mini bus taxi to Camps Bay. This was a bit of an adventure because the major roads were all closed down due to the Cycling race. When we got here we were standing up against one of the fencing watching all the cyclers go by when all of a sudden we heard a loud sound we turned around to see a car driving down the sidewalk. Now I don’t know if I’ve been in Cape Town too long to the point where I now accept extremely out of the ordinary things to be kosher or if I was in too much shock to see a car coming directly towards me but either way my life flashed before my eyes as I saw the driver smash his car into a sign post that was five feet away from me at full force. Now I think I was still in shock when Andrea and Wylie started taking to me and saying how we all almost just died. Turns out the car had had break failure and he smashed into the sign to stop. Thank god he choose the sign, ultimately totaling his car, rather than the fence that we were in front of. Either way I’ve never been so close to an accident in my life. On the plus side due to the race the police were there instantaneously.

After that delightful wakeup call we walked down the street only to find a crepe stand which was what I had been craving all weekend and was looking forward to getting from biscuit mill. Sometimes things have a way of working out! Also, they were real French crepes from a real French crepe with a real French flag on top of his shop. We had them with Nutella of course and continued to the beach. I jumped into the water the second we got there and then laid on the beach all day and read. Bliss. Although, in my own personal opinion, Muizenberg > Camps Bay. Then the way home was an adventure because of this big race. We ended up squeezing 20 people into the mini bus taxi. Fun! But no worries we made it home safe and sound.