I Survived: Snorkeling with Seals

I would like to preface this post by saying that I survived... obviously. But leading up to it I wasn't so sure what the outcome would be.

So it was Anna's birthday and being the swimmer that she is, she decided that she would like to go snorkeling with seals. At first thought, this sounds great and happy and fun. Seals are cute, right?

The week leading up to our adventure, I wasn't so sure about participating since it was supposed to be cold and rainy... but most importantly because sharks like seals. And being in a wetsuit, me and a seal would be pretty difficult to tell apart. I voiced my fears, but was made fun of and was signed up with the company before I even said yes. A few days later, this picture was taken, easing my fears of becoming shark bait.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon (we were scheduled to snorkel on Sat) when I told my boss what we were planning on doing for the weekend, and his first response was, "You know someone just got eaten by a shark this morning off the coast, right?" No, no I did not know that. His second response was, "Why would you want to swim with seals? They're mean and they bite you. There's a picture of a lady in Hout Bay with half her face eaten off by seals with a sign that says Seals are Wild Animals, Keep your Distance." Why was I doing this again? Here's the article in case you don't believe me.
Shark Attack: Snorkeller killed in South Africa

Saturday morning came too quickly, and during breakfast our house decided to celebrate the day we may die with a soundtrack mimicking our emotions. Songs on the playlist included, "It's a Great Day to be Alive" "My Heart will Go On" "Arms of an Angel"... you get the picture.

We arrived in Hout Bay to a beautiful day, squeezed into our wetsuits, and were ready to face whatever was hiding in the water. Shockingly, it turned out to be so much fun and I didn't think about being lunch for a shark once! There were SO many seals and they swam really close, but not close enough to eat my face. They also have really big eyes underwater and will just stare at you as they swim by. Such cool animals. I guess I'm glad I went...

Yes, I realize how ridiculous and dramatic we were... but come on, how scary does snorkeling with seals sound?

Becoming a Local

Contrary to my blog post title, I'm still very far from actually becoming any where near a local, but these past two weeks were a start.

Heritage Day was a few weeks ago and we had the day off work. I'm not positive exactly what heritage we were celebrating, possibly Zulu, but it happens to coincide with National Braai Day so we concentrated more on that. Added bonus, it was also Chris Barba's, another GRS employee, birthday. A big group of GRSers went over to Kloof and relaxed on their astroturf roof while Jeff cooked us up some delicious braai meat. It was a beautiful day to be outside, eat good food, and sit around with friends. We ended the night playing the South African version of Taboo, which was semi-challenging given the different cultural/political/geographical references I have no idea about, but also funny bc there was a lot of random American pop culture references. Side note: I'm still good.

I got to go out to Khayelitsha to see a SKILLZ Street Holiday camp graduation. As previously mentioned, SKILLZ Street is our female-only intervention that educates about HIV and empowers girls to challenge gender norms . Since it was a holiday week and all schools were on break, GRS did a week-long program ending on Friday. Walking up to the classroom all you could hear was a chorus of voices singing and feet stomping; it was overwhelming happiness. It proceeded with each group of girls and their coach putting on a skit or singing a song they prepared. Some were lighthearted songs, while others showed skits of domestic violence or parents shunning their kids for being HIV positive. As the program went on, girls would spontaneously stand up and share stories about their experience with HIV or gender-based violence, some even burst into tears. While the topics were heavy and the message extremely powerful, the coaches made sure to keep it up-beat with lots and lots of signing and dancing. After a busy week in the office, getting out and seeing something like this puts it all into perspective and makes you realize exactly what we're doing it all for. 

"What if HIV isn't here to kill us, it's here to challenge us"

South Africa played Australia at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town and I got to go!! Yay rugby. I was initially pretending that it was fall in the US and I was getting ready for a football game, but a rugby game in the spring turned out to be a ton of fun.  We journeyed out to Newlands and explored tailgating here in SA.... pretty similar, with lots of braais and drinks. We had standing-room only tickets (they were only $10) and were in this weird section under a huge overhang, but we could see the field just fine and made a few new friends. It was definitely a good time and hopefully next time I'll understand the game a bit better. Here come the Boks! or in Afrikaans, "Hier kom die Bokke!"We started (brunch), and ended (dinner) the day at one of our favorite restaurants, Clarke's. The waiters laughed at us.

Got our game faces on

Not the best photographer... sorry Kat, I think he cut you out

On Sunday we went and saw the wildflowers in West Coast National Park. They were so beautiful and calming. The only slight downside was we rented a tiny car that is intended for 4 people and barely fits 5... and we squeezed in 6 for the hour and a half drive. It was definitely not the safest thing to do but we survived. I either sat on the floor on top of the cup holders, or when we were driving slowly through the park I had my feet out the window to make more room inside. It was that crowded. The flowers were worth it and the good company made the car ride bearable.

Our miniature car

Flamingos!!

...and pretending to be flamingos!!

Just showing off our sweet new socks of the Big 5

My attempt at a heart-shaped rock. Always thinking of you mama T <3

This past weekend we went to the music festival Rocking the Daisies. It was out in the winelands and is kinda like a mini-Coachella. Four interns from other sites drove out for it so it was also like a mini-reunion. It was so good to see them and catch up on all our GRS experiences, they're all so different and unique. Rocking the Daisies was really fun and a lot of great music (Alt-J woo) but it was freezing and super windy which was kinda a bummer. We also squeezed 4 people in a 3 person tent so there was not much sleeping at all. I "slept" with my arms folded bc there was no room to put them by my side. Despite the weather and sleeping situation, it was still a great weekend with great people. (Here's a link to some good South African music I'm listening to now)

Tent city

Part of the crew 

I had a pretty exciting and successful week at work. Since I first got here I've been working on coordinating a visit with the CEO of MAC Cosmetics and two other very important MAC women. MAC AIDS Fund is a big donor to GRS. The visit finally happened this past Friday and it went smoothly and everyone was very satisfied afterward. Julie, the head of BD for GRS, flew in for the meeting and we also had 4 coaches attend and tell their personal stories and then lead an activity for the women to participate in. It was exciting to be a part of but I'm definitely glad it's over. The second exciting thing was that we found out that a grant we submitted got accepted! I got to work a lot on the proposal, so this was especially exciting for me since it's the first one I've ever worked on and submitted. It's not a huge grant, but it's to implement a programme I really like in a new site, Alexandra. I'm pretty happy about it. 

My desk. Julie gave me some treats for a successful MAC visit

Yay it's Friday and the week is almost finally over!

But why are we still at work...

That's all for now! I'll try to make them more frequent and less ramble-y, but we'll see how that goes.