Stella and Dorian share October birthdays!

Yesterday, October 18th we celebrated Stella and Dorian's birthdays. There were at least 20 people at the party, but because I did not know everyone I just picked these pictures (plus you have heard of this gang from Lesotho)!!! 

They did a wonderful job decorating and the weather could not have been better. We all played games, talked, and met knew people. It is crazy how even now events like this still bring new people together all the time. 

This was so fun and I will be so sad to say goodbye next month. But I have people to visit in France, Germany, Hong Kong and more....so it just means I have to earn money and get traveling again. So, really there is nothing to be sad about.

Happy birthday Stella and Dorian! 

Xoxoxoxo

Stella. Me. Stacey. Dorian. 

Stella. Me. Stacey. Dorian. 

Me. Dorian. 

Lovely outdoor decorations. 

Me. Dorian. Stella. 

Stacey passed out at the table. 

Last Digital Photography Practical!

Digital Photography was such a fun class to take this semester! I learned so many new things about my camera, and even cutting glass and framing pictures! 

My professor's name is Hendrick, but we call him Hennie. He is one of those natural professors who really loves to teach and loves what he does. He took us on practicals in Cape Town, animal reserves, and other nearby places to get good pictures for our final exhibition. He wanted us to learn to take pictures in different modes with our camera. For example, taking a picture of a moving item (ex: a car or bird), using your flash outside, pictures at night, portraits, landscapes, shallow depth of field, black and white, macro, and more. 

These picture are of our last practical where Hennie took us to his house where he has his own framing studio. He taught us to cut glass and we go to use the machine to cut the wood for the frame and staple it together. As you can see below, I was the one unfortunate person who made a mistake with the framing....I guess it had to be someone haha. I got a lot of crap because the Americans had just lost the rugby game the night before, so Hennie said at least it wasn't as embarrassing as that :) 

Whoops! 

I could have totally done this on purpose haha :) 

Sometimes you just have to laugh, especially when your photography teacher is taking pictures of you and cracking up himself :) 

Markets, Bakeries, Rings, and Beads

Delicious vegetarian sushi from a weekend market in Cape Town. 

Laura and I leaving our favorite bakery in Stellenbosch. 

Loving the mid ring, and my tiny braid and bead :) 

Dates.

Hot chocolate with Laura. 

Lunch with Stella and Dorian. 

Flowers. Proteas.

Julian snapped some fun photos of Laura and me after a man selling flowers at the Slow Food Market gave us flowers for free when we were leaving and he was shutting down his stand. 

Julian's September visit 2015

Laura. Julian. 

Laura. Julian. Me. 

Julian and Laura in the Botanical Gardens, Stellenbosch 

Julian & Laura.
Slow Food Market, Stellenbosch 

Julian. Me. Laura. 

Julian. Me.
Slow Food Market, Stellenbosch. 

Laura. Julian. Me.
Slow Food Market, Stellenbosch. 

Laura. Julian. Me. 

Birthday and Jam

Throwback to September. The cappuccino says, "Happy birthday Laura" (from September 22nd). The other pictures are of the jam that is homemade from Austria. I told Laura how much I loved jam and her mom makes her own and grows everything organically in Austria. Laura asked her boyfriend, Julian, to bring me one when he visited her. It was delicious! 

October Update

Hello,

Stellenbosch in October is beautiful. Aside from a few rainy days, the weather reminds of some gorgeous summer days I spent with my grandparents in California. Right now my friend, Laura, and I are outside sitting on the grass on campus. Both of us are wearing summer dresses, and we keep getting distracted by a lizard who keeps showing up who seems to want to play with us. The sun is shining. It is almost too hot in direct sunlight, so we found a spot in the shade. I am getting very brown from riding my bike every day and being outside so much. There is a nice breeze and the campus is busy. You can feel that the semester is getting close to an end. There are lots of people studying and hanging out.

Laura is studying for her Afrikaans final. She also completed almost all of her artwork for the semester which is really amazing. I finished my Transitional Justice class, and I did my framing and finished my final work for my digital photography class. I still have two more classes to finish up with, HIV & AIDS and Sociology. My HIV final is this Thursday the 22nd, and my Sociology final is October 27th.

After that there will be a little bit of time to relax before Laura and I leave for our trip in November. We will fly to Johannesburg and spend a few days there. Then we leave for Zimbabwe. We will spend one day there and then start our tour at Victoria Falls. We will leave Zimbabwe and go to Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania. Then we will spend an extra day or two in Tanzania before coming back to Cape Town. After that we get ready to pack up and go home for the holidays. At least, Laura, will be going home...and I will just be tagging along. I suppose the adventure continues for both of us!!!

Now I will add some pictures. Some are old and some are new, but I want to make sure the blog stays up to date and keeps up with life in South Africa :D :D :D

September Update

I have not posted in a while, and I felt like it was time. It seems like there has been a combination of a lot and a little going on since Lesotho. 

The reason why it feels like there is not much going on is because I have been falling asleep early on occasion, there is a public holiday this week so there is no class, the weather has been nice, and I haven't felt overwhelmed by school. 

The reason it feels like a lot is going on is because the mother load is about to arrive in October, and that is when things will get crazy. Final papers, projects, tests....etc. So, I feel that I am in the calm before the store. Nonetheless, I will tell you what I have been up to. 

Yesterday, September 22nd was Laura's 23rd birthday. In addition, her boyfriend, Julian, arrived the weekend before. Yesterday afternoon Laura, Julian, and I went to our favorite place which we call, "The Bakery." The waiter brought Laura a coffee that said, "Happy birthday Laura" in the foam. It was really amazing, and so sweet. 

Over a month ago Laura invited me to a small coffee shop she found and liked. We went together and we both liked the handmade bags they sell. There are purses, backpacks, and even larger bags. They are all handmade in Stellenbosch. We talked about buying one but decided against it, or at least we thought we would wait until before we left. I went back to check on these bags a few times. The one I really liked was gone. I asked them about it and they said they would order a new one and call me when it arrived. I decided it was the perfect present for Laura's birthday. 

I decorated the wrapping paper with stickers, and Laura did not even want to open it. She was super careful and said she is keeping the wrapping to frame. I spelled out "Happy birthday Laura" with stickers. My name was also in stickers, and then there were a few other cool ones added on there of course. She loved the bag, and our lunch together was amazing. Julian had to put up with the two of us, but he handled it quite well. He asked me if there was a word like "bromance" in English, except for girls, because that is what we have he said. 

Then I went to class yesterday evening, and unfortunately got out late. I tried to get home quickly to freshen up before Laura's birthday dinner. I forgot my camera, otherwise you would be able to see some pictures from last night. Laura decided to celebrate her birthday at a place called, Java. Many people you have heard of were there...Laurin, George, Sophie, Aylin, Kathrin, and a few others who you will not recognize. Plus me and Laura's boyfriend, Julian, of course. The evening was very nice. 

I did not go home too late because today I had my final test in digital photography. Now that today is over the theory part is finished for the class. Now we work on our pictures, framing, and work for our final exhibition at the end of the semester. 

It is already past 6:00 here, and it is a windy day...so I am going to head home. But I will try to get some more good updates out there soon!

The only other thing to look forward to is that I will be completely finished with school in October. Laura and I are looking into potential plans for where we want to travel together in November. It is very hard to decide! We will see soon enough :)

Final Lesotho Post

This post has a lot of pictures. And the pictures are only of the people. But it is important to me to show how beautiful these people are. 

Lesotho is an extremely poor country. I would never want to take pictures as a "tourist" and expose them in a negative light. I was specifically encouraged to take pictures of the people since they do not have cameras, and I was asked to please send them back so they could be given to the people in the photos. As I said in an earlier post, I will do this as soon as I can. 

As you can see, many people waved to us...especially the children. The children would even start running after us. You can see in one picture below they are following Stacey's horse. 

If some children saw us coming from a distance we could hear them yelling and running to tell the others in their village. By the time we got there the kids were all waiting and waving. Almost all the children we met said, "bye bye! bye bye!" I do not know if they thought this meant "hi" or "hello" or maybe they were saying "bye bye" because we were riding by and leaving. But the children and most adults all greeted us with "bye bye" rather than "hello." 

These villages do not have electricity. They rise with the sun, and the day winds down after sunset. To most people living in the modern world it might feel like the people are really missing out. Where are their televisions, computers, smart phones, running water, electricity, constant connection to the world, showers, and what we think of as a clean bathroom/toilet? I wondered about this. As a group we talked about this. Who was happier? Us or them? Was that even a possible question to answer? 

Ultimately I guess you really cannot compare. Although they do not have a lot, they were the kindest and most wonderful people. A child shared his corn with me even though he did not have shoes. I said I really did not need to eat it. He insisted. He is only 10 years old. They live in a different world. But it is a good world. A much more simple world (but I do not mean that in a bad or negative way).

 So after 4 days without internet, regular running water, a shower, or my smart phone...I felt weird coming back to the real world. I found myself missing my horse, the animals, the hut, the quiet, the people, and the stars that looked like you could just pick one right out of the sky. 

I will never forget Lesotho. I hope to go back one day. There are not enough of the right words to truly describe my experience there. Nonetheless, I was with the right people at the right time, and had an unforgettable experience. 

I hope you can enjoy the pictures and maybe feel a little bit of what I felt when I was there...

:)