January 2011 – Valpo Voyager

Month: January 2011 (page 1 of 3)

The quintessential German town.

January 30, 2011 / Hayden O'Shaughnessy / 0 Comments

View of Tubingen houses from the river.

Another amazing view of the houses of Tubingen along the river.

Remember me telling you in an earlier blog that Reutlingen was the quintessential German town? LIES!! Tubingen totally takes the cake. Tubingen is an adorable college town. It was one of the few places in Germany not destroyed during the war. All of the medieval aspects of the town are preserved. It has narrow cobble stones streets that wind around the town. According to our Professor, Herr Springer, it is super easy to get lost if you don’t know what you are doing. Veronica, Katy, and I loved Tubingen so much that have been there twice since we got to Germany. It is just gorgeous! The first time it was rainy and Herr Springer took us on a short tour and told us a little bit of the history of the town. Herr Springer is our Art History professor and he is pretty awesome! He lives in Tubingen and has done some pretty interesting things in his lifetime. He crossed the US from Boston to Los Angeles hitchhiking, and he won a semi-offical race contest on the big water slide of the open-air pool in Tubingen.

Frau Brixner cutting Nate's food. Nate broke his arm and isn't great with utensils.

The same day Herr Springer took us on the tour of Tubingen, we had our first faculty dinner where we met the Brixners for the first time. We all LOVE the Brixners!!! They are our German language professors and are a ton of fun! The Brixners have been with the program since its beginning! Our group is Reutlingen-87, just to give you an idea of how long the Brixners have been with the program. I have Frau Brixner for my German 101 class and she is a hoot! There are only 4 of us in her class so we all get a lot of personal attention. The other day she asked me to “springen sie!” which means to jump. That is the first time a professor has asked me to jump during class. I wish I knew how to say “how high?” in German.

Graffiti house

Katy, Veronica, and I went back to Tubingen the next weekend when it was warm and sunny. During our second trip, we ate at this cute little Italian restaurant, and the food was delicious. After spliting a banana split we continued our walk around the Tubingen and took a ton of pictures! We will definitely be returning again soon!

Welcome to the future…

January 30, 2011 / Hayden O'Shaughnessy / 1 Comment

Mercedes-Benz museum view from the outside.

Professor Szaniszlo took us on a class trip to Stuggart, capital of Baden-Württemberg. When we arrived we took a tour of the Mercedes-Benz museum. The beginning of the movie Get Smart with Ann Hathaway and Steve Carell pretty much exemplifies the atmosphere of the Mercedes-Benz museum. When I walked into the state-of-the-art facility I seriously thought I had become a secret agent and was entering headquarters. It was SWEET!!! It was probably the coolest museum that I have ever been to. The museum was modeled after Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York and was finished in 2006. The entire building is state-of-the-art; every building material is top-of-the-line, even down to the cement which has a higher concentration of cement than the normal stuff making the walls feel like marble. Pretentious much?…I think so! Our tour guide dressed like a secret agent and took us to the top floor using a futuristic looking elevator where the walls were lined with the leather in a Mercedes Benz. Seriously, look up pretentious in the dictionary, you will find Mercedes Benz.

We only had around an hour and forty-five minutes to spend in the museum, and according to the guide one could spend more than forty-two hours in the museum in order to see everything! Crazy, I know, but totally true. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery early on during the tour so I didn’t get many pictures, but I took a lot of mental ones! Click!

Futuristic elevator we took to the top floor where we started our tour with our guide, the secret agent.

After the Mercedes Benz tour, we got lunch at the train station and then we were off to take a bus tour of Stuggart. Our tour had both English and German speaking people so our guide spoke in both languages! First she would speak in German, and then she would start speaking in English! I was flabbergasted! Even though we had an awesome guide, I regrettably suck at bus tours. I tend to fall asleep within five minutes of the tour; I think it’s a combination of sitting down, the moving bus, and listening to a person with an accent that just puts me straight to sleep. Ask my parents about our trip to Ireland… So, I missed like two-thirds of that tour. I did wake up just in time to go up in the TV tour. I don’t remember how tall it was (I was asleep for that part of the tour), but the view was gorgeous. The sun had just come out and you could see for miles. I had to take a mental picture for that part of the tour too. Click!

The World of Beatles and Potter

The Great Hall Christ's Church

Four day weekends are a magical thing. This week we decided to use them to our advantage in a new way. Instead of traveling from the second classes ended Thursday to late Sunday night, we left Friday morning and got back Saturday night. Only staying one night in a foreign city instead of three really cut back on expenses and having some down time in our beautiful “home” city of Cambridge really cut down on the brain damage. We were still able to see a lot of Oxford and Liverpool, even though we only spent one day in each location.

The Staircase from Harry Potter

On Friday we caught a train early in the morning, even though Thursday’s late night had us begging for more sleep. Luckily, trains aren’t horrible locations to catch up on some lost shut eye. We got into Oxford right around noon and had lunch at a pub called The Grapes (turns out there is one in Liverpool and in Cambridge too!). Then we walk to Christ Church where they did some filming for Harry Potter. Being a big fan, it was kind of awesome to see the staircase where the first years line up and the dining hall that the Great Hall was based on. After looking at the rest of the campus and walking around the town a bit we decided we were happy to be “from” Cambridge and could start calling Oxford “The Other Place,” like the Cambridge locals do.

After deciding we wanted to wait until Liverpool for dinner, we got on the train. BAD idea. By the time we got into Liverpool and checked into our AWESOME hotel, it was almost ten o’clock and we were sooooo hungry. We finally decided on a little Italian joint because most of the pubs’ kitchens had already closed. The food at the Italian restaurant was really good, albeit a little expensive. We splurged a little, but aw well. Then we went back to our hotel for some much needed cuddling, snuggling, and sleep.

Our Beautiful King Bed

The next day I reluctantly tore myself from my center spot in the comfy king bed and got ready for the day. We went to The Beatles’ Story which is a museum dedicated to– you guessed it– The Beatles. After learning as much as possible about the four biggest rockstars, um, ever, we went to go find lunch. With the help of our own personal map reader, Lauren, we went into The Cavern where The Beatles supposedly played the majority of their show. Ok, it was only a replica built from the same bricks as the original Cavern, but it was still cool. Sadly, they didn’t serve food so we ended up eating a couple doors down at another Grapes! Now this was pretty cool, they had pictures posted of The Beatles sitting in the seats of that very pub! Plus the food was cheap and tasty, my kind meal.

At The Beatles' Story

After a little more walking and another museum, I was glad to be on another train heading for King’s Cross and before I knew it, I was out. Before too long we were back in our temporary home, which is starting to feel like a real home more and more every day. My seven comrades and I had figured out that Oxford shied in comparison to it and the Liverpool(ians?) were extraordinarily kind. Then Sunday I slept in til noon and made myself crepes. Man I love studying abroad.

Be sure to check out the rest of my album here!

It’s hot here.

January 30, 2011 / Molly Kestner / 1 Comment

And it’s wonderful. Everyone got a little pink/tan this weekend. It has actually stormed significantly every day since we’ve been here, but at least half the day is usually sunny and warm.

Namibia is still beautiful and Windhoek is just a lovely little city. When I say little, I just mean smaller than Jo’burg which was HUGE. There is still quite an expanse to explore here both by foot and taxi. And of course there’s the rest of the country which I cannot wait to see as well. Just to give you and understanding, the country of Namibia is twice the size of California but it’s population is only 2 million people. That’s less people than live in just the city of Los Angeles. It’s even hard for us to wrap our heads around, especially since we’ve just been in one of the only major cities in the country which contains a lot of people.

Our time here hasn’t been quite as packed as South Africa was, which is good, because I don’t think I could keep up much longer with a schedule like that. Thursday and Friday we did some touring of the city, especially Katatura which remains almost 100% black since apartheid, similar to Soweto. (Namibia was under South African rule until 1990)

Saturday we attended our first soccer game in Africa! It was the Namibia Women’s National team versus the Angola women. We met a local student who had been a guide for us around Katatura and walked to the game with him because his sister (who is only 16!) is on the team. Luckily I grabbed my raincoat before leaving because of course the rain started just in time for the game. And apparently they play through lightning and thunder here. There weren’t a ton of people there so we were able to sit under the overhang and keep a little dry. Despite low attendance, the crowd was still wild and loud and had plenty of vuvuzelas! The kids at the game were so lively and excited. The game was pretty exciting, but it ended in a 0-0 tie.

Last night we went out for our first big night on the town to celebrate two birthdays in the group. We went to the bar up the street and then to a club called Zanzibar. I think of 20 of us went dancing and we had a great time!

I just keep thinking about how we’ve only been here two weeks and I feel like we’ve done and seen and learned so much and it blows my mind! This program is definitely what I wanted. What we’re doing is so beyond just site-seeing and appreciating culture. We are actually placed into the culture through homestays and are pushed to see the issues in this region through so many different perspectives. There were definitely other study abroad programs that I would’ve been happy to go on, but I don’t know if they would’ve made me think as much as I have here. However, if you’re a prospective student, regardless of the program, if you even think you want to study abroad then look into it. I’m only two weeks in, but I know I’m going to learn way more here than I could ever learn in a classroom. (Too bad I had to write that french paper on the importance of travel before I came here!)

Tomorrow we start our internships! I was placed with the Namibia Development Trust which is an NGO that focuses on promoting rural development. It seems right up my alley. I’m excited and nervous to see what my time there brings and I’m hoping I gain some good experience!

¿Me puedes hablar en español? Ok, thanks.

January 29, 2011 / Nick Derda / 0 Comments

My gringo-ness at it's finest. And I wonder why people don't think I'm Mexican. haha.

After being here for almost a month, the initial shock of being in a foreign country has more or less worn off. There are still those moments when the fact that I’m in Mexico hits me like a ton of bricks, but more or less I’ve basically come to accept and respect the cultural differences that exist here.

Something that has been troubling me over the past few weeks is the fact that I have been relying on English way too much. The problem is that everyone here speaks English. Whether it be my suitemates, my Mexican friends, or even people at restaurants, everyone sees that I’m clearly not Mexican and they speak to me in English. At first this didn’t bother me that much because I thought that people were just trying to be helpful, but now it’s just downright annoying. I came here to speak Spanish. I need to speak Spanish in order to get better at it.

I have heard various reasons for why it seems that “foreigners” are able to pick up English with much greater ease than native English speakers can learn other languages. English is supposedly easier to learn conversationally, while foreign languages in the U.S. are taught through lectures and not through practice. Another theory is that English as a second language is taught much earlier than foreign languages are taught in the United States. Someone else suggested to me that English-language media, like movies, tv shows, books, etc., is so globally used that even this exposure primes people in non-English speaking countries to speak it with greater ease.

I haven’t been really sold on any one of these theories, as they all have certain flaws. And they don’t seem to explain to me why my roommate can speak English almost fluently after only taking one semester of it in college. I’ve been taking Spanish for eight years and he still runs circles around me.

The conclusion I’ve come to within the last few days is that I’m just going to have to accept that for some reason other people are able to learn foreign languages easier than myself. I’ve resigned myself to force myself to speak Spanish as much as possible. If native speakers speak to me in English, then I am just going to have to respond to them in Spanish. If they make fun of the way I pronounce things or of my gringo accent, then I just have to remember that they make mistakes when they speak to me in English and that I’m never going to get better unless I just ignore them.

The other thing that I have started to do is just telling people that I want them to speak to me in Spanish. I can’t count how many times I’ve said, “Me puedes hablar en español,” in the last week. It’s been working slightly, but as soon as they say something that I don’t understand, people start talking to me in English. I am just going have to be more proactive with all of this. Hopefully I will walk away with this semester with improved Spanish skills.

Hamburg Harbor

January 28, 2011 / Hayden O'Shaughnessy / 2 Comments

This is the view of Hamburg Harbor at night.

Welcome to the World!

January 27, 2011 / Lydia Mertz / 1 Comment

Yesterday, on a cold January day in an Indiana hospital, my cousin Nadia was born. Although I haven’t seen her yet, she’s gotta be a beauty. I’m so excited and thrilled at the new life that has been given to our family. Despite the miles that separate my family and me, I still feel a connection to her.

It’s a sad fact but my family has never been that close. However, my experience in Mexico has taught me the importance of family. I remember sitting in my management class last semester and being asked by classmates (except for a girl from Germany, everybody was Mexican) how many times I saw my extended family. I mentioned once a year if lucky. The reaction across the room was a series of gasps. It would be like telling a Mexican that tacos are the crappiest food on the planet and that mariachi should be banned forever.

Granted my family has problems and they are far from perfect but who cares? They’re family. After visiting and staying with the families here in Mexico, I’ve learned the importance of unity among family members. Every time I visit a family in Mexico, it always inspires me to be a better daughter, aunt, cousin, niece, granddaughter and anything else that falls into that category.

I can’t wait meet to meet my beautiful cousin Nadia and see ALL of my family again. It’s painful being away from everybody but I keep them in my heart and think about them often. Mexico teaches the importance of life and to never take it for granted. Despite the hardships, it’s still beautiful and worth living for-especially when there’s new life. Welcome to the world, Nadia.

Saludos

Pretoria and Windhoek…finally!

January 26, 2011 / Molly Kestner / 0 Comments

Monday morning after we left our homestay and had a reflection session, we hit the road for Pretoria which is the capital of South Africa. Pretoria is much smaller than Johannesburg, but quite beautiful.

Tuesday morning we first visited the Voortrekker Monument. It is a very large dedication to the Voortrekkers, who were Dutch colonists that decided to leave the cape for the interior of the country when they got fed up with the British presence. They encountered numerous challenges and especially clashed with the Zulus. The monument is 40 meters high and 40 meters wide and sits on top of a hill overlooking the city.

Next up was Freedom Park which sits about 2 hilltops away from the first monument. The park is still under construction, but what is done so far is a beautifully designed dedication to the past struggle and present freedoms of all peoples in South Africa. From the highest point in the park we could see many important representations of the new South Africa. The Voortrekker Monument could be seen in the distance as well as two different forts, downtown Pretoria, and two universities. It is peaceful and symbolic and looks like it will be even more impressive when the work is done.

We finished our day with a stop at the U.S. Embassy. We spoke with two women who are career foreign service officers about their jobs and the embassy’s role in South Africa.

This morning we got up too early to get to the airport and fly to NAMIBIA! I was very ready for this. South Africa was more wonderful than I could have imagined, but I was ready to stop living out of a suitcase and start settling down a little. Of course, these next 3 months are still filled with travel and sight-seeing and homestays, but now we at least have a constant place to call home here in Windhoek. The drive from the airport was beautiful; very stereotypical Africa. Rolling hills of green with small trees and bushes and some mountains in the distance. We sounded super touristy when we all yelled in excitement about the baboons and giraffes we saw on the side of the road! I’m so happy to finally be here!

I wanted to post pictures in the last post, but I ran out of internet time. However, now that we’re in our house I have lots of free internet! So go check out my Picasa to catch up my South African adventures!

It’s People Not Places

January 25, 2011 / hannahbauer / 0 Comments

Edinburgh from bridge

Their thick Scottish accent only allowed me to understand about every other word that they were saying, but I didn’t much mind because they were just so nice. You could feel the exuberance flowing off of them, as if telling us about their beautiful place of worship helped them feel closer to it. Only about halfway through their introduction to the Cathedral did they even tell us that they were married, but it made sense. This couple was by far the kindest people I’d met since my flight over the pond almost three weeks ago.
We only ended up in Glasgow because when we told our history professor that we were going to Scotland he told us that we won’t have seen Scotland without seeing Glasgow. After he said that, we altered our plans (which were for Edinburgh all weekend) and fit in Glasgow on Sunday. When we told Professor Murphy our good news, he asked us why on earth we were going to Glasgow on a Sunday because everyone there will just be hung over or maybe in church. Awesome. Well, against Murphy’s “better” judgment we made plans to go to Edinburgh on Thursday after class and stay there until Sunday when we would go to Glasgow.

Right after class on Thursday we took a taxi to the train station and hopped on the first of our three trains to Edinburgh. The first two trains were pretty quick but the last one took an entire four hours. The time went relatively quickly and before we knew it we were getting off the train and searching for a taxi. We quickly found the queue for a taxi and found a large taxi that would accommodate us all, but the bigger problem came when we told the taxi driver where we wanted to go. “High Street Hostel, please.” To which the taxi driver responded, “Grapwoi knsdnf oiwndn owei ponf?” At least that’s what it sounded like to us. “High Street Hostel? 8 Blackfriar’s Street?” Repeating those words over and over we eventually ended up at our hostel.
It was perfect! Our hostel was right in the middle of everything and it was truly amazing. Right off the bat, we were amazed at the beauty of the city and the architecture of Edinburgh. After a cheap dinner at a wonderful pub, we walked the (VERY cold) streets before we went back to our hostel and settled down for the night.

Edinburgh Castle

The next morning we walked the very short distance from our hostel to the castle, stopping along the way for some delicious breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. The stone castle towers over the city with volcanic cliffs plunging down from either side. The tickets to the castle may have been the most expensive thing we paid for all weekend, but it was so incredibly worth it. With cannons protruding from the walls from 360 degrees and buildings dating back to many various eras, the castle just oozed character. In addition, since the castle was built on the top of a dormant volcano, every way you looked off of its defensive walls you saw picturesque Edinburgh cascading down below.
After the castle, we went to Scotland’s National Gallery. Now maybe I’ve just never been to any real art museums, but this was amazing. There is something about seeing Van Gogh’s name by a canvas covered in his brush strokes that left me in awe. In addition to Van Gogh, I saw works by Rembrandt, Monet, Raphael, Botticelli, and by far my favorite were the works by Degas. I grew up seeing copies of his paintings of ballerinas in every studio I ever danced in, so seeing one in real life was really fantastic for me. Plus it was free!

Me, Cliffs, Edinburgh, Canadian

The next day we did something truly awesome which none of the guidebooks recommended. Close to town were two hills, one boasting multiple monuments and the city’s observatory. The other hill was much higher with sheer cliffs on one side. We walked them both and they both offered superb picture taking opportunities. The city was bathed in the glowing light of midday sun and it was just perfect. Not to mention we did all of this with our fun Canadian friend that we had met in the hostel. Hostel folk are just fantastic; you can meet interesting people from all stages in life who are trying to see the world, just like you.

That night we took a tour of the cavernous rooms lurking below the Scottish streets of Edinburgh. They were spooky for sure, but definitely had a dark and interesting path. With each new turn, a story was told showing some dark aspect of that room or corridor’s past. Not for people who are easily spooked, but definitely an interesting stop on our journey. However, no thanks to the complimentary whiskey that tasted like death itself.
After the short train ride the following morning we stepped out of the train station and into a Glasgow town square, abandoned by everyone but Santa. Yes, you read that correctly. Every direction there were clusters of people dressed like Santa. Within the walking of the first block we found there source with a big sign that said “Glasgow Santa Dash 2010”. Maybe it got delayed or maybe Glasgow doesn’t realize that Santa is usually reserved for December and that it is no longer 2010, who knows? Almost as entertaining as the “art” we found at the free Modern Art Museum we went to next…

Modern Art? Ok...

Then we walked to the Glasgow Cathedral which was just getting out of church. Before we could go into the main part of the church, the nicest couple ever met us and started telling us all about the cathedral, what was there, when it was built, how beautiful it was, everything. They were just so nice and happy to share with us. It really touched my heart, reminding me of the warmth of my own grandparents and my own church and even home. As abandoned and hung over as Glasgow, Scotland may have been that chilly Sunday morning in January, I found there a little piece of home. My dad always says, “It’s people not places,” I just know how amazing it is to experience a weekend where I get the best of both.

Goodnight, Scotland

Check out all of my pictures here!

The more, the merrier.

January 24, 2011 / Molly Kestner / 0 Comments

This sentiment was shared with me during a one-year-old’s birthday party with at least 100 people. However, this concept has definitely applied to a lot more than people in the past week. Such as:

The More…

Talking

Food

Information

Music

Soccer (There are so many fields and signs and statues and decorations EVERYWHERE)

All of these things have come together in multiple forms to provide a wonderful start to these next 4 months. The places we visited and speakers we heard from last week provided us with so much to think about that we often have trouble straightening out our own opinions in our heads. This weekend we did our first homestay with families in Soweto and I know that even though we were separated from each other, we all gained valuable insight into the lives of South Africans.

It’s hard to know where to start, but since the homestay was the highlight so far, I’ll just give a brief overview of the places we’ve been since I wrote the first time.

Wednesday we started the morning out with two speakers at the Khotso House in downtown Johannesburg. We first heard from Eddie Mikue who is the Secretary General of the South African Council of Churches. Afterwards we heard from multiple members of the Khulumani Support Group. In the afternoon we headed to the Apartheid Museum. The museum takes patrons through the apartheid struggle from the time whites landed in the cape to present day.

On Thursday we heard from 2 representatives of the African National Congress (ANC), a member of the Democratic Alliance (DA), and a researcher on Nuclear issues in South Africa. The ANC is currently the ruling party in South Africa and has overwhelming majority support because they were the organization that led the freedom movement. The Democratic Alliance is the closest opposition party, but they only had about 20% of the vote in the last election. Finally, David Fig discussed with us the downside of using more nuclear energy in this country.

Friday, we heard from the Treatment Action Campaign which focuses on support and treatment of HIV and AIDS. We also visited Constitution Hill which holds an old jail, an old fort, and the new Constitutional Court. It is an important landmark for South Africans as it brings together the troubled past of the country and the new freedoms of today. After lunch at one of the biggest and nicest malls I’ve ever seen, we headed for our first homestay…

Claire, me, and my host family!

For this stay, we were paired with one other student and lived in a house in Soweto for about 2 ½ days. Fellow Valpo student Claire Simonpetri and I stayed with our host mother, Thandi, her 22-year-old son, Karabo, and her 12-year-old daughter, Kayise. From the moment we arrived, the family was sweet and welcoming. While Thandi was preparing dinner, Kayise took us around the neighborhood…or she was supposed to. We only go to the second house because the neighbor invited us in and we ended up talking for over an hour! We watched some cricket, too, so Claire and I think we’ve got the basics down. Hopefully there will be some more cricket-watching in the future. We just spent the rest of the night talking with our family and watching a movie with Karabo. Saturday we sat around for a little (because timing hardly ever matters, really) before heading to a mall. (Our fourth of the week, there’s lots of malls in Jo’burg) We walked around with Kayise while Thandi shopped at the grocery store which was in the mall! We stopped at McDonald’s on the way home where they had cream soda and it was green! After a stop at home, we eventually headed to the previously mentioned birthday party which was packed. I was told this is because when there is a party, the whole street is invited, and when you invite one person, you should really consider it as 10 people. There is no such thing as not being invited. And of course, a party with that many people needs plenty of food. About a half hour in was when they started serving the meal, and then food continued to be served for remaining 3 hours we were there. After dinner (which we were forced to eat despite being full) came a custard/ice cream/jello dessert followed by juice followed by cookies followed by alcohol. Once we hit cookies and juice, though, they were just continually served and replenished. Just when I was getting pretty tired and ready to go, the best part of the party occurred. Shakira’s Waka Waka began playing and the whole party went crazy. All of the little kids lined up and started doing the dance from the video and then continued to dance the rest of the time we were there. All of their moves were better than I could ever imagine and it was crazy and awesome. Our friends Helen and Lee showed up with their family and we all ended up attempting to dance for a little while. Saturday night wound down like Friday night and we headed to bed exhausted.

On Sunday we woke up around 8 because we were told that they usually leave for church around 8:40…but of course no one is ever really on time so we left for church at 9 when the service was supposed to start at 9. Thandi’s church is Roman Catholic where they only speak Sotho and Zulu, but she had gone to the 7 a.m. service so Karabo took us to Grace Bible Church where they speak English. It was quite an experience. I’ve only been to one semi-mega church in the United States, but this was definitely a full blown mega church. In fact, the pastor’s sermon was actually titled “Becoming a Mega Church.” We were actually seated in the overflow building which was a regular sized gymnasium with bleachers around the top which was also full. We watched the pastor from the screens on the front. It was a bit overwhelming, but also interesting to see so many people together worshiping at the same time. And everyone sang loudly and proudly and often danced as well. It was especially cool when the pastor invited people to pray with him and everyone was praying in their mother tongue. (side note: children are actually expected to learn the father’s tribal language, not the mother’s!) It was certainly an experience I’ll never forget. Sunday afternoon, we visited Thandi’s sister for lunch, then stopped by a friend’s house. Later that evening, a girl we had met at the party named Hope who is our age came over to say good-bye to us. Somehow she and Claire ended up talking about running through these fountains in front of Maponya Mall, and what do you know, 20 minutes later we went to the mall and did it! It was silly and spur of the moment, but so fun.

I learned so much over this weekend, but I was definitely impressed with how friendly everyone we met was. South Africans are very talkative, which was totally fine with us because there was so much to talk about! Even though almost every house is surrounded by outer walls and locked gates, the community ties around Soweto are very strong. There are always people in the streets during the day just playing or talking or working.

I know this was a long one, but I should be able to depend on more consistent internet connections in the near future. We are now in Pretoria, South Africa, until we leave for Namibia early Wednesday morning!

Valpo Voyager

Student Stories from Around the World