Experience South Africa With Mrs. Ketchum: Days 22-24 including whale watching

Day 22 - August 7

Happy Birthday to me... I was spoiled as soon as I woke up with my awesome roommate singing Happy Birthday and giving me a grape Fanta and a Nosh candy bar. Grape Famta has been my drink of choice over here in South Africa and you are wondering what a Nosh bar is I bet. A Nosh candy bar is hazelnuts, nougat and caramel covered in milk chocolate. I am definitely going to miss these when we go back to North Carolina. We then traveled to the open air market for the last time on our trip and had some free time until 5:00. At 5:00 we had a discussion on the book The Making of Modern South Africa by Nigel Worden. This book gives us an in debt understanding of how South Africa came to be with all of the different things going on around the country. It discusses the major issues from racism, segregation, apartheid and resistance movements. Ya'll South Africa has come a long way. After our book discussion I was taken out to dinner by our marvelous teachers at CFIE plus Donyell and Kathy. It was a wonderful evening of eating, talking and laughing.

Day 23 - August 8

Busy day today at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. We headed out for a session with Dr. Paul Webb on An International Look at Educating Young Adolescents in South Africa. Among many items discussed one was how South African children's schools are over crowded and it is difficult for the teachers to teach deferentially with so many students in a classroom. We also compared our classes to those in South Africa. After our discussion with Paul we met with Ron again for a Xhosa lesson. We have one more lesson to finish up our Xhosa language learning. Tonight we learned counting. I can not wait to teach my kindergarten students how to count in Xhosa.

Day 24 - August 9

Happy Women's Day in South Africa they celebrate all women on August 9. It is a national holiday. Here we are at News Cafe and they gave all of us a beautiful rose for Women's Day.

I woke up super excited today to go whale watching. We arrived at Raggy Charters in the Algoa Bay and met Lloyd. Lloyd explained to us about the Baywatch Project and how they at Raggy Charters work to take care of the environment and save the animals. All of the money that comes into their charter goes back into the environment. The Baywatch Project aims to educate the community, specifically the youth, about the marine environment and the need for its conservation and protection. This is done through the running of the marine eco-tour company, Raggy Charters, which allows volunteers hands-on experience. Profits from Raggy Charters go directly to The Baywatch Project and the Penguin Research Fund. They also have beach clean ups and planting trees. After learning all about the company and how wonderful they are we got on our boat with Ellie (our guide) and took off. We traveled along Algoa Bay to many islands. Although we did not see any whales in our travels we met a very cute and exciting cape fur seal that was throwing his food up in the air and catching it, hundreds of bottle nose dolphins (man were they amazing), tons of African penguins and many other birds. It was an amazing and educational trip that I am so happy I went on. Lloyd made us promise to plant 5 trees a piece for the amount of fuel we would be using during the trip. So when we get back to the states we have already decided where we need those trees at on the Carolina Forest campus.