It is Saturday the 27th, Right?!?

I feel like I have lost a day. We left D.C. at 5:40 on Thursday the 25th. We landed in Johannesburg at 4:30 PM on the 26th. We checked into the hotel, showered, then went to dinner. Then, I all but crashed into bed. But, let's back up a little....

The first leg of the flight to Dakar was not bad at all. I watched the Blind Side and 27 Dresses. Also, I just stared out of the window. The stars were so close I felt as if I could just reach out and touch them. I know it is a horrible cliche, but while staring at the stars all I could think about was the how much of the world I don't know anything about; so many people and cultures and ways of life. Before I knew it, we touched down in Dakar for a little over an hour to refuel. During this time, I just stood in the aisle. It felt so nice to stand after 6 hours; I knew the long leg of the flight was still ahead of us.

I normally do not sleep on flights, ever. However, I slept the entire way from Dakar to Johannesburg. I woke up once to eat breakfast (well, what a flight calls breakfast). Sleeping on a plane is normally viewed as a good thing, but this time it wasn't. I did not get out of my seat once to walk around. Once we landed, my calves and ankles were so swollen and tight. I felt exhausted, sore, and excited all at once. After claiming our luggage, we were excited to hear that the Mountaineers got the win and are now in the Elite 8!

We arrived at the hotel around 6 PM. After checking in, the first thing I did was shower. I actually washed my face twice. I am surprised that I did not fall asleep as soon as I was finished cleaning up. After everyone was ready, we walked across the street to eat a restaurant named Tribes. It was wonderful: the atmosphere, the food, and the company. Oh, by the way, I tried ostrich sausage. It has an interesting texture, but overall it was very good. By this point in the trip, it didn't even register that I was in South Africa, but I knew that would all change the next day.

My wake up call came at 8 AM on Saturday (I could have swore it was Friday). We had breakfast in the hotel and then departed for Mamelodi. The amount of construction that is happening for preparations for the World Cup is massive. I really don't believe it will all be finished by June. Anways...While in Mamelodi, we met with a man that we called Pastor Titus. He is an amazing man with an amazing vision of where he wants Africa and his service to be in 10 years. He and his church has built a clinic, an orphanage, a school, a counseling center and are currently building a disability home and a nursing home behind the orphange. Since family ties are so important in Africa, having a nursing home next to the orphanage assits in letting the grandparents care for the children. The school started out just with kindergarten and it is now K all the way through 7. The kids that started in K came back and they had first grade and it kept going. Next year, they will be K-8. While there, we went into the orphanage and was able to see some of the children that stay there. Let's just say, this was my favorite part of the day. They were so cute and they knew I was taking pictures of them; everytime I pulled out my camera they went from candid to posed! It was adorable. Also, we talked to the nursing staff at the clinic. We were not able to see or talk to any of the patients with HIV/AIDS, but the nursing staff was more than happy to answer our questions. All over their office were large notes from meetings were they discussed treatment and the overall theme was a holistic approach. You can' just trear the disease, you have to address emotional and spiritual problems as well. We talked to one of the counselors, Mama Peggy, and she gave insight to some of the problems she encounters. I mostly felt that everything pointed to the culture. Most women don't mind being a man's 2nd, 3rd, or 4th wife, so this lets the disease spread to a whole block of people, including the children. Also, when a woman (or man) is diagnosed with the disease, she is often too scared to tell her husband or others and it spreads rapidly. We briefly talked politics and I found out that the President recently took a 7th wife and annnounced that he had unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman and tested negative. With the President acting like this, it defeats a lot of education that people have heard about condoms and how easily the diesease could spread. Mama Peggy is a very inspirational woman that believes women need to start standing up for themselves. Her passion is inspiring. ...This is not enough to actually describe what happened at Mamelodi, just a little insight. What Pastor Titus is doing here is just amazing and he hopes to see this spread all over the country. He strongly believes that if all the churches would do something, maybe not to the extent of what he has done, that the benefit would be widespread.

On the way from Mamelodi to the airport to fly to Cape Town, I saw a billboard stating that you can buy a house for R399,000. That is Rand 399,000 and is about $50,000. The houses were two stories and looked as if they were at least 4 bedrooms. This really put things in perspective. Most people in this country will never see that type of money while a lot of Americans make that in a year. What was even more surprising was that 2 miles down the road were "squatter camps," where people live so closely and in metal boxes. However, the government is starting to move people into better homes and give them a tract of land so they can grow their food and sell food to others.

Upon arrival at the airport, we went through security and checked our luggage and then waited for about 2 hours for our flight. When we landed in Cape Town, the first thing I noticed was the water. Being on the coast is great :) Tomorrow we will be traveling to Robben Island and will get to view Mandela's jail cell.

It is now close to 1 AM here in Cape Town and you know what that means....GAME TIME! Myself and the 3 other students are going to be cheering on our Mountaineers and sporting our gold shirts. I hope we can beat UK tonight... LET'S GO!