Goodbye China, Hello South Africa!

So since I last blogged I have left China and am now in South Africa, where I think I might stay for the rest of my life. But first things first.

Since I last wrote we had our last few days in Changsha on case studies. Case studies in China were not exactly as organized as they were in India. That is to say, they were a giant disorganized mess. Our group did "school health" or at least we tried. Essentially we were not allowed to enter any of the schools in Changsha, and we had no contacts, and everyone in China speaks Chinese, and our "translator" was a complete joke who I'm pretty sure didn't even attend CSU. So we made a lot of stuff up and then presented on some information that was basically useless and made no conclusions. But it was a fun three days, as the sun was out for the first time since we'd been in China and we basically did nothing and hung out outside. So that wasn't so bad.

For the last week, we visited "rural" China which in fact was not rural at all. In fact when we opened the bedside table drawer of our hotel room (which came with TVs, showers, queen sized beds, and bathrobes in the closet) we found the Changsha Regional Phone Book. So in conclusion rural China was a joke, we stayed in a REALLY nice hotel with a bar and we did field visits and worked on country papers. Because we'd intended to have an actual rural experience and the country coordinators had clearly not gotten the message, IHP did manage to arrange an actual rural visit for our last night, and we stayed in an almost equally nice hotel in a more rural area. We didn't actually do any rural visiting though, just walked around and had an academic synthesis session in the evening. The next morning we took canoes through some really cool caves! And walked through the caves which was awesome even though it was pouring rain, thanks China. Then we drove back to CSU, had our evaluation session, packed up our stuff, finished country papers, Barbara and I had one last delicious Chinese dinner consisting of bread and jam in the pouring rain as we walked back from the internet cafe, stayed up way too late and got up at 5am the next day to leave China behind for South Africa!

Friday morning we took a short flight from Changsha to Hong Kong where we spent the day. A few of us met up with Zack's girlfriend Sarah, who lives in Hong Kong now and showed us around for most of the day. It was amazing to be in a city where people actually spoke English and simple things weren't really complicated and the food wasn't soaked in oil. For example, the first thing we did when we got into the city was take the outdoor elevator up the mountain to a cafe called Life, which was all vegetarian and organic ie HEAVEN. We had an amazing lunch of grilled vegetable sandwiches with sweet potato fries and salad-SALAD! Yes this is about to turn into a food blog because not eating Chinese food has turned out to be one of the best things that's ever happened to me. For the rest of the day we walked around, did some shopping, took the ferry over to Kalhoon and did some more shopping, had some delicious Thai food for dinner, and got on the train back to the airport just in time for the communists to have one last laugh and delete our entire group's booking on the flight to Johannesburg. So after many many hours of confusion (and a few group members wandering off inexplicably) and the possibility that those of us not booked on the group flight out of Cape Town in May (ie me) were going to be spending a few more nights in China, we finally boarded the plane to South Africa for our looooong journey.

After fifteen hours of flying and the realization that I'd prefer never to see an airport again in my life, we finally arrived in Cape Town. The first thing we did was drive to an organic farm and cafe called Millstone Cafe for lunch and a short orientation-quiche, salad, fruit and I knew I was going to love this country. After that we checked into a backpackers in Sea Point where all the rooms were named after animals that I'm hopefully going to see before I leave! We had the rest of the day to explore Sea Point and a bunch of us went down to the waterfront to have an amazing dinner with some amazing South African wine. Cape Town is without a doubt the most beautiful city I have ever been in, and everyone is so amazingly friendly and everything is so easy and the food is so delicious, I've been in love since pretty much day one.

Sunday we walked around some more and had a delicious breakfast of smoked salmon and homemade lemonade-I did say this was going to turn into a food blog-and then went to our country coordinator's house for dinner and orientation. Monday morning we started classes at a church in the Bo Kaap where our homestay families live. We had a really fascinating guest lecture come and talk about South African history and watched a movie about Apartheid. South Africa is such an interesting place to be studying health and it has such an amazingly complex history that I'm so excited to learn more about. Monday afternoon we had a walking tour of the Bo Kaap and then I met up with my REAL family who live just around the corner from my host family! Seeing them was amazing-they have an adorable house that overlooks the entire city and has a great view of Table Mountain (although pretty much everywhere in the city has a great view of Table Mountain) and it was so so nice to have some real family for the first time in three months. That night we went for dinner at their friends house in Sea Point and they dropped me back off at the hostel, where a bunch of us stayed a few extra nights because there was a slight mixup with our homestay families.

This week we've visited a township and an HIV clinic and had a number of really interesting guest lectures. On Wednesday afternoon we had a workshop with this organization called One Man Can, which is an organization working toward ending domestic violence and HIV. It was really really inspiring-led by two men who had both experienced domestic violence in their families and have been working for most of their lives to stop it from happening in South Africa. On Thursday after classes a bunch of us climbed Lions Head, which is close to Table Mountain, to the top where at sunset we could see the full moon and the sun setting simultaneously-and of course an incredible view of Cape Town. Basically this city is like too incredibly beautiful to be real.

Wednesday we moved in with our homestays! This time I am living with Sami and Heather, two of my good friends, so I'm happy about that. Our family is very sweet-there are four kids (three of them under 8) and a bunch of extended family. It is quite a small house and the three of us share one tiny bedroom, so that is kind of challenging, but our mom is wonderful and sarcastic and told me my hair was stunning and so I like her already. Her kids are crazy and enjoy climbing all over us, but for the most part they are cute so its manageable.

Today the entire group took a trip to Cape Point, which is claimed to be the southern most tip of Africa but is actually only the south westerly most tip of Africa, whatever that means. Along the way we stopped at an outdoor market where I continued my fruitless search for flip flops as I have given up on the one that was left behind in India. Cape Point was a short hike up to a lighthouse where the views are amazing. The only problem was some too-friendly-but-not baboons who stole some salads out of our hands. After Cape Point we were planning on stopping at Boulder's Beach where there are African penguins, but apparently in the winter season (winter! What a joke) they close early so we missed those. Tomorrow a group of us are going to get up early to hike up Table Mountain and then take the gondola down so we have time to do homework. I've never gotten so much exercise in my life!

Cape Town is my new favorite place in the world and I am so so happy to be here and in fact think I might not ever come home. I am so so glad I extended my trip for a few weeks so I'll have some time to just be a tourist and see all of these places I probably won't have time to see in my last remaining weeks of the program. I was a little worried by the end of China that I was getting kind of burnt out from traveling, but South Africa has totally revived me. Monday we head to Zwelethemba, a rural township, for ten days, then back to Cape Town for the last week and a half of our program! I cannot believe how fast this time has flown by and I am trying to stretch each day out so that it never comes to an end!