Emily's South African Adventure: After Cape Town and December…

When I came back from Cape Town- I was thrown into a series of exams that I really hadn’t studied for. I think I did quite well, but I haven’t actually seen my report yet!

I didn’t do much during exams as my host sister was quite busy studying so I stayed home most of the time. I went skating, went to a friends house before some of the exams, went to gym and did some Zumba dancing classes, and celebrated my host grandparent’s anniversary as well as Ma’s birthday.

This is the sun… weird right? Pretty Rainbow :)

On the 20th of November we had an overnight Rotary Conference- but it was just the one night. It was mostly for the outbounds… just training and stuff but we had lots of fun just staying up and asking questions and getting to know each other. It was really sad having to say goodbye to everyone though… It’s probably the worst part about the Exchange program- saying goodbye.

On the 29th I received a package of birthday cards from Canada- and I promise I didn’t open any until my birthday!!! The next day was my last exam so I went to a friends house after school. And then the day after that (Dec 1st) there was a Liquid Deep concert at a nearby mall! It was sooooo cool. I know half of the people reading this don’t really know who Liquid Deep is but here’s a link to one of his songs- he makes really good house music ( Liquid Deep- Angel). Then on the Second I moved in with my friend Alexa for a night, and had a small birthday party on Friday the 3rd. I then moved onto another friends house, Ashleigh, who hosted me for a few nights, one of which was my birthday!!!

We stayed up until 12:01 and Ash and my other friend Paige sang me Happy birthday. We then went to bed and got up at 8 or so. We had cake and sparkling fruit cider for breakfast ( I got to pop it like it was Champagne! It was so much fun!!) as well as poached eggs on toast- which is my all time favourite breakfast ever. I opened all my cards and guess what I got…. KRAFT DINNER!! I still havent eaten it yet but I was sooo happy. Thanks to everyone who sent me a card…We then went to the movies and saw Spud (a very South African movie), and then I went with Alexa, Clarice, and my two host brothers Chad and Matt to Zoolake. We didn’t really do much there- but just relax and laugh and stuff. Then my other friend Telisha was having a braai with her family that doubled as a birthday party. We ate and ate and ate, it was awesome. Telisha, my friend Rossco and myself then decided to not go to bed- but rather stay up as long as possible to see the sun rise. It was actually a lot of fun just sitting up talking- but as soon as the sun came up we went to sleep.

On Dec 6th I moved into my new host families home- Rotarians John and Alison Turner. They’re really nice and have a lot of pets- 3 dogs (2 German Sheppards, 1 Husky) and 2 cats (1 Siamese and one Ginger cat). Also they have a cottage on the property that hosts Alison’s parents who are also Rotarians-Margaret and Norman. Although they work all day they are very involved in their family and are usually quite busy in the evenings- which keeps me busy! I get along quite well with my new host cousins- Megan (28) and Michael (19) and have spent quite a bit of time getting to know them better. Megan is like my new big sister :).

Then on the 15th I had the priveledge of going to Kruger park until the 19th. I brought my friend Diana, who is also an exchange student from France with me. Although I was sick for the first few days we managed to get to the park twice. Where we were staying is called Sabie Park- and you can literally see Kruger National Park from Sabie Park. It was incredible. Even just driving to our house we saw about 10 giraffe, 3 zebra, 4 warthog an ostrich and 2 wildebeests. We even have a bush baby living somewhere in the roof of the house!! While we were in the park we saw almost all the animals we wanted to- except for Lions, only paw prints. We saw impala, water buffalo, hippo, elephants, rhinos, crocodiles, turtles, birds, baboons and kudu on the first day- which was 39 degrees C!!! And on the second day we saw more elephants, water buffalo, kudu, a tawny eagle, giraffe, rhino, and a leopard!! And you won’t believe what happened- while we were outside playing UNO, a baboon came into the house and stole a package of peanuts!! Hahahah!!