"So Maybe this wasn't the best idea...."

Okay so I haven't updated in a while.....& a lot has happened. Mostly bad, as you can tell from the title, but hopefully thats over with.

Our neighbor Sarah (across the hall) fell off a horse three Saturdays ago and fractured her skull in two places. She hit the ground so hard on the front of her head that the back broke because of the force of the fall. The group was out on some ranch a few hours from Port Elizabeth (and legitimate medical care...especially for a brain injury), she ended up falling at 12pm and didn't get treated until about 10:30 that night. We finally experienced the medical system here, which is different from the U.S. Private hospitals are for people with money, and have way better medical care, while public hospitals are not even worth going to we are told. It took Sarah so long to be treated because she was first taken to a public hospital and then to a private hospital. Luckily she managed to survive and was cleared to stay this week by the doctor, which we are all so excited about!! This little experience has taught me though that having money and getting superior medical care is not reserved for countries like the U.S., you need $$ everywhere.

While Sarah was off getting injured, a few of us visited Kragga Kamma game park right outside of PE. It had giraffe, rhinos (which we didn't get to see at Addo), cheetahs, ostriches, and monkeys. I knew giraffes were tall, but seriously one was sitting as we drove by, and ended up standing right by the car and it was insane how tall it was. The rhino was also cool to see because it had a baby with it, and it was pretty close. You could see its horn, which was huge. It would have ripped a nice hole in the car if it had decided to charge us!

Last weekend my roommate Sam went to Coffee Bay with some other Americans, while most of us just stayed in PE & enjoyed the amazing weather. Btw i'm loving my tan, but compared to people from here we are still pretty pale :( But while Sam and their group were in & around Coffee Bay, they were robbed. She admitted that had the whole thing been a movie, she would have been yelling at the screen because they did every stupid thing possible before being robbed. They were walking towards a township/ rural village when these guys came out of nowhere carrying knives and a machete. I cannot imagine how scary that was, and you can tell that it really shook them.

Hopefully nothing bad happens to us next weekend because we are leaving for Cape Town next Saturday. I'm excited because we have a week off for school holiday and I can't wait to see another city! Plus I've heard there is 100000x more stuff to do in Cape Town! The only negative is that we are renting a car (an automatic car thankfully!) and each of us is going to take turns driving.....on the other side of the road. I hope I'm not the one to get into an accident first ;)

BUT SERIOUSLY.

ADDO

Okay so I know I haven't posted in like 2 weeks but nothings really been going on! We went to Addo Elephant Park last weekend with one of the teachers from school. It was awesome! We saw elephants of course, which are so cute! and zebras (i want one!) and ostriches and a few pumba's aka warthogs :) We had a blast, it was amazing! After Addo we had a braai and got to try ostrich meat, which was sooo good!

Besides that I don't think anything really cool has been going on....except for me trying to figure out my life. My history lesson on monday was horrible. I was so nervous once I got in front of the class even though I've taught like 20 lessons before....I knew the information but it is so different here because I'm used to having some form of technology like at least a projector, and not just a white board. It was hard to explain some of these concepts without pictures and I was so happy when the class period was over. It kind of sucked though because I had a better lesson for geography last week than I did for history on monday (fyi I love history and despise geography).

Also I told my parents that I wanted to stay here for a while longer & not come home until june when my visa expires.....as you can imagine, that didn't go over well (as i've said before...graduation is lame. you still get a diploma if you go or not). I want to teach abroad, but I think it will be easier with a degree in something other than history....I feel like the curriculum is too different in other countries for history & I think English as a Second Language would help me get a job easier. Ideally I would want to stay here, but I would also want to teach somewhere like Greece, India, or somewhere in Southeast Asia like Bangladesh or Thailand.

Anyway hopefully something more exciting happens this weekend. But in 2 weekends a bunch of us are going to do a 6kilometer run...(however you can convert that to miles) which should be a horrible time but were pushing ourselves to do it as a whole Boot Camp group!