Wow!!! That is all I have to say right now.

Where to start. Ok well I believe I left off on Saturday. So here we go. Sunday morning we got up early and went to church at the JLZwane center (I feel like I might have spelt that wrong but oh well). But before church, we got to meet our host family that we are going to be staying with tomorrow night, wednesday night and thursday night. The lady me and Aaron staying with is named Nelly. She is a social worker and a very nice women. She is really funny and involved in the church. Everyone got to sit with there host mom or dad and since ours is involved with the choir she sat on the stage and so did we. It was interesting sitting on the stage looking down at everyone in the church. I felt like everyone was looking up at me and they were wondering what I was doing there. But then the minister explained it in the service and I felt a little better sitting on stage. The service was really good. The minister would talk in english for a little while then switch to Xhosa and the back to english. This happened quite a bit. It was very fun and interesting. Also, when we were on stage, the lady next me helped me know exactly where we were in the songs we were singing since they were all in Xhosa. I would either be a head or behind in the words of the song. It was tough but I made it. It was a lot of fun and a great experience. Everyone we met at church were so nice and friendly. I was so impressed on how embracing they were. I am so going back next week.

After church, we went to Canal Walk which is a big mall here in Cape Town. I went to look for a battery charger which I found and will be trying to post them on here later. But I also went to go find some shoes. I found some that I like but the did not have my size even with the conversion to US size. I guess I just have to big of feet for here. We walked around the mall for a couple of hours and probably did not see the whole mall. It was very big and tough to find your way around. After that, we came home and I had to write a paper and blog. Then a few of us decided to stay up and talk about the experiences so far and life in general. That was basically what happened all day Sunday. It was a great relaxing day.

Well as for today. We went to the JLZwane center for class. Today in class we had Edwin, Spiwo and Kenneth come into talk to our class. Edwin gave a breif life and community history about Gugulethu. He is a great speaker as well as being a funny guy. He has an amazing story about his life and how he did start trusting or forgiving white people until about 5 months ago. Also 4 months ago he stayed with a white person in the US for a while for the first time and he said that he had a great time and it was a amazing experience. After Edwin, was Spiwo who is the reverand at the JLZwane center. He talked a lot about leadership in the Cape Town area. He said that the Greatest Challenge is that the Black person doesn't have a place in the world. This really sparked an interesting conversation after lectures were done. But I will talk about that later. After Spiwo was Kenneth from Institute of Justice and Reconciliation. He talked about what they are doing now to make help after the apartheid. He talked about how the are having community conversations about what happen through all of the apartheid and their story so the can heal. He does this with Black, White and Colored communities and then with them together so they can hear each others stories and move on. I just can't believe that all of this so recent. It is not like it just happened like a long time ago. The apartheid pretty much ended about 15 years ago and they are still trying to heal and move on from it. It is just astonishing that I have been alive with this going on and didn't know anything about it.

After all of the lectures, we had a discussion about today. It was a great discussion and I felt like it was needed. Just because I had a lot of things going on in my mind that I needed to discuss with people. Some of it was just how recent everything is, how it feels like there are a lot of similarities on what people said today and what we do in the leadership minor, and how that all these people we have as instructors are amazing people and leaders. I kind of felt that I might have talked a little too much in class today because I had so much going on. Even though I felt this way, I felt like everyone really respected what I had to say and listened to what I had to say. I always feel weird speaking in class because I feel like I don't know as much as everyone else. But today, I didn't feel that way. It was great.

After this discussion, we went down and watched a African performance. It was amazing. The singers were great, they could really dance and the were talented musicians. I am going to try and post the video footage of it. It was amazing. Then we had lunch at the community center. The lunch was made by some of the women at the community center. It was great food and a lot of it. I asked the cooks for the recipe for some of it so I can try and make it back home. I hope they will give it to me. That would be awesome.

After lunch, we took a tour of Gugulethu. This was a tough tour. We saw all the shantys were people live. They are super small and very close together. It was tough for everyone to see because as Americans we are very priveledged with what we have. It was very interesting trip. We saw where 7 Arfican men were shot by a police officer basically because they were 7 Black men walking together. Also we saw where a missionary lady was shot by 2 men for no apparent reason at all. There are memorials put up for both of these incidents. Just hearing the stories about these incidents is really sad. After these stopes at these memorials we went to a ladies house to see what a shanty looks like inside. There we meet a bunch of children walking around and asked them to take their picture. They said yes and were super excited to see themselves. It was adorable. It seems like all the people that live here are just really happy about all that they have even though it isn't a lot. They smile and laugh and it seems like they just love life. It is so crazy to see but amazing that they are able to do this. I mean I think about the little things that bother me and the seem so small to what some of these people are going through and have to deal with on a daily basis. I went in to the ladies house and was in shock. It was so small. It seemed like my apartment bedroom was bigger than the shanty. I don't know how they do it. After stopping at the house we went back to the Community Center. On the way back to it, we saw the market and their meat market as well. I have some pictures of them that you should look at because it is hard to explain what they look like. Once we got back to the community center we helped tutor kids with math and reading. It was so much fun. They are so happy and have a ton of energy. They really love getting their picture taken and looking at it. I kind of disrupted a classroom because of it. It was all good, I got them to settle down.

Today, was definitely a rollercoaster ride of emotions. I am just really having a great time here. I am more excited than nervous now for the rest of the week. I just want to experience all of this and learn as much as I can here. I do have a couple of worries though. First, I feel like I am going to go home and be changed for a bit but after a while I will go back to my routine at home. Cuz I feel like this sometimes happens to me and I don't want it to with all the stuff I am seeing, feeling and experiencing here. Another one, is that I am not going to no exactly what my part is when I am back home. I feel like I am here currently here to work with them and experience this but I feel like when I leave I don't know what I can do. I am sure we will talk about this in the last week here. Well I think that is it for know. I will not be blogging or checking my email for the next couple of days because I will be living with my host mom. I am super excited for this experience. I will let you all know how it goes. Hope all is well back home.