South Africa

Sorry it's taken me forever to update. It's pretty difficult to get to the internet cafe other than on weekends, and I tend to be busy then too.

Anyway, I got here 2 weeks ago and I can safely say Cape Town is the most beautiful city I've ever seen. The ocean is super clear and the sand on the beaches is bright white and soft. It's a little too cold for lounging around on the beach, though, but winter is on it's way out.
The day I arrived, Kevin, the project manager took me and 2 other girls on a tour of Hout Bay, the schools, and the township. It was quite a shock to drive through the township just after landing. The houses are made of tin and wood and look like they could crumble at any second. At night, the wind gets really strong, and we've had some pretty awful storms, and it's hard to imagine that these shacks can stand up to all of it. There's live wires dangling everywhere and glass all over the streets. The kids I work with in the primary school all live in the township, and from time to time they tell us about what it's like. They're constantly warning us never to walk there, even during the day.
The headmistress of the primary school is incredible. She's absolutely sick with stress, but she took some time out to talk to all of the volunteers about what she does everyday. Last week, she spent her entire weekend working with the police and the hospital to test 3 girls who had been raped by an HIV positive man. All of the girls were 12 years old, and all I could think about was how when I was 12 I was dancing with my friends to Britney Spears. I don't think I even understood the concept of rape, but this is a daily threat to all of the children here. Apparently 10% of the children at my school are HIV positive, which means 5 of the kids in my class are sick. It's hard to tell, though, as nearly all of the children look sickly due to malnutrition. They eat only chips and white bread except for the one meal the school provides them everyday.
I'm in a 4th grade class, but many of the kids don't even know the alphabet. If anything, I'm learning patience here. They ask me to spell a word for them, but they write the wrong letters, so I have to go back and teach them the letters and the sounds they make. It's exhausting, but I'm getting used to it now, and I'm definitely a lot more patient with even the worst of the kids.

I leave for Nepal in 2 weeks, but I'll try to update from here again soon!

London

I just want to start off by saying that, much to my surprise, the world seems to be continuing on as normal even though I had to leave my iPhone back home (with the exception of one tiny panic attack in the Chicago airport when I desperately wanted to check Facebook). This is quite an achievement in my life, as you can see on my List of Things I Really Don't Like:
1. Not having my iPhone
2. Bugs
3. Carrots

I won't ever stop hating carrots, but I have a feeling that the bug thing will fade away soon considering I'll be in bug-loaded areas like South Africa, Nepal, and Thailand.

But as of now I'm in London, and it's been great. When I got here, my dad's friend's wife, Paula, gave me a tour of the city to help me get oriented. On Tuesday, I went out on my own to peruse the Tate Modern. It was AMAZING! The building itself is really cool, but seeing all the art was awesome. I went into every room because I just couldn't imagine not seeing everything there. I discovered my new favorite artist, Francis Bacon, there.

From there, I went to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. Turns out 1500-1800 art is really not my thing, but in the basement there was an exhibit called From Carot to Monet, which had all of the oil sketches of a lot of the impressionist artists. That was actually pretty cool.

So after that I went to get back on the bus to go back home, but I realized my wallet was missing. I got it back, but oh what an adventure that was. Luckily, Paula came down to London to rescue me and we went on a quick walk to see part of Buckingham Palace.

Today I went to Brighton, a beach city in the south of the UK. The weather was awesome, but the beach is covered in rocks. No sand. It was rather uncomfortable. Afterwards I walked around the streets and peeked into some shops.

Tomorrow I'm planning on seeing Buckingham Palace up close before I leave for South Africa. I am SO excited to go down there.