Sanibona!

Hello from Durban! I have written this blog entry from the hostel where we are staying for Orientation, and intend to post it when we arrive at the program office tomorrow! We have been without internet for our first few days here, so I feel that I have so much to blog about! Orientation is at the Marian Hill Monastery boarding house, 10 or so miles out of central Durban. The grounds are gorgeous, and the vegetation is outstanding (and unique).

As all 15 of us are suffering from varying degrees of jetlag, orientation has been chock-full days complete with relatively early bedtimes. Because so much has happened, I will highlight a few standout experiences.
The Stadium – like the good tourists we are, one of our first stops was the World Cup football stadium outside of central Durban. The stadium is massive and is built with a cable car running to the top of it for touristy-folk such as myself. The sadium is very close to the Indian ocean! Right next door is a rugby stadium, and we have been told that we will be attending both a football match and a rugby match while on this program! Hooray!
Zulu – we have started to learn some basic conversational Zulu, this includes the clicks. For those of you who are not familiar (I was not at all) youtube it, I’m sure you can find it, basically clicking sounds are incorporated into words… it’s VERY hard. Sanibona is the basic Zulu greeting, and thus the title of this entry. I am getting a hang of the few phrases we have been taught, however it is strikingly different from French, the only other foreign language I have studied at all.
The Beach – it is with great sorrow and regret that I inform you all that we were FORCED to spend some orientation time on the beach. As if the 80+ degree weather weren’t punishment enough, we spent an entire afternoon lounging, swimming and walking on Durban’s North coast beach. Oh the injustice. Unfortunately I have no pictures from this experience because it was so traumatic (read: it’s not a good idea to leave your camera lying around on the beach while you are swimming, also you could get mugged).
The Drop-off – today’s exercise featured a scavenger hunt in central Durban that focused on developing our sense of orientation as well as making key political and social observations. We were challenged to use a very safe public transport service (the people mover.. it’s a bus) to navigate the city and given some money to buy both lunch and a small gift for our roommates. My roommate Lauren and I (we were in different groups) both ended up buying each other fresh fruit .

Anyway, life has been fast paced and tiring, and the program has only just begun. My body is slowly starting to adjust to the time change, and I’m enjoying the warm weather (although I could do without some of the humidity!!). I will have more regular internet for awhile now, so updates should be fairly frequent. On Thursday we move into our first home stay and I am excited to find out what my family is like!
Selani Kahle (stay well),
Judy