We were told to eat a good breakfast, wear workout clothes, and bring water and a snack for this morning’s meeting. Needless to say, we knew something was up. At breakfast, we were served a bowl of cereal…without milk. Everyone was looking at each other like, “what are we supposed to do with this?” and “seriously?” About five minutes later, after everyone had just assumed we were to eat it dry, we were brought warm milk to add to it. Again, we were a little thrown off by their seemingly odd traditions. Amongst the talk of worry for what our plans would be for the day, something that needed good nutrition as a start, the cereal wasn’t quite going to cut it. I don’t know if the second course was originally planned or if the staff were just horrified at our looks of confusion and worry, but each person was then served a couple small slices of breakfast pizza with a small hashbrown on the side. That seemed to take care of it.
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| View from the start of our hike up Table Mountain |
I really enjoyed our class this morning- it’s occurred to me that this trip is not only based on service, adventure, and history of South Africa; we’re focusing a good deal of our time on character building and incorporating it into our classes. For example, the other day we spent a while talking about our top 5 strengths- something most people weren’t aware of. We spent today discussing our core values and their importance. We were instructed to take 30 seconds and write down what we spend most of our money on, then 30 seconds for what we spend our time doing, then 30 seconds to list our core values. After this, we were asked, “do your values align with your time and money spent?” Sadly, most did not, including my own. Most of my money goes towards food, clothes and other accessories, or sorority things or events. My time is mainly spent studying, hanging out with friends and family, exercising, or cleaning. However, I had listed faith, love, relationships, being genuine and honesty as my core values. Do these align with the way I’m spending my life? Not really. And that was pretty tough to see and recognize.
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| hiking up Table Mountain |
We were then asked to write five of our core values on small strips of paper. “Hold these papers close to your heart,” she said, we need to always remember these and not let them go forgotten. We were asked to throw three away in trash bags being sent around. For many people, groans were followed by feelings of resentment- they didn’t want to have to choose which of their core values to throw away! I held onto faith and love, and it wasn’t hard for me to choose at all. Again, we were instructed to throw away only one this time, leaving just one to hold close. This wasn’t hard for me to choose either. Faith remained, as long as I have my God, I have everything. As long as I have my faith and I stick to its teachings, the other values that distinguish good character will come.
After all the emotional commotion this stirred up, we were surprised to hear that we would be climbing Table Mountain this afternoon and that we would need to gather our things and meet outside for the bus to take us. Once we got there, to the bottom of the mountain, most people were shocked as to how we would actually climb this thing! It looked impossibly steep and rocky. We followed the staff to the trail and got to it! Within five minutes, most of us were quite out of breath and working with shaky legs and burning hamstrings. We decided it was like a stairmaster on steroids. As we continued to climb for an hour and 45 minutes, going in and out of the shade, snapping pictures every couple hundred yards, the air got thinner, our bodies got more tired, and the water supply dwindled. We finally reached the top, and let me tell you it was one of the most gratifying things I’ve done. I’d just climbed that gigantic monster of a mountain! I’m officially a legit, full-fledged mountain climber for goodness sake. Will I go back? Absolutely. Tomorrow? Absolutely not.
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| about 3/4 up Table Mountain |
After some mild hyperventilating for pictures and such, it was time to get off that thing. Cable car was our method of choice, considering our legs would probably buckle if we were loony enough to try to hike back down the mountain. In case you’re not already aware, heights aren’t really my thing. I’m working on it. Anywho, we hopped in the cable car and were informed that it would be rotating. Slowly hopefully, I couldn’t help but picture the teacups at Disney World. We made it back to the busses and then to the apartments, where many a shower and nap ensued. Then we were off for dinner!
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| View from the top of Table Mountain |
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| Me during my panic attack in the cable car going down Table Mountain |
A group wanted to go to Buena Vista, we’d already been but they hadn’t, so we went along. Bad idea. It took 3 hours outside in the cold for the wrong orders to be brought out. Not the happiest situation if you can imagine. We dealt with it, then decided it was time to meet up with Ish- our awesome local tour guide, cab driver, and bodyguard- at Chrome, a club downtown. There was great techno music with a few American songs intermingled and I was ready to dance. A couple shocked looks from my friends told me they didn’t realize I was either 1) crazy, 2) outgoing, or 3) liked to dance. Nevertheless, we had an awesome time. A few people fizzled out and headed to another bar down the road that frankly made me sleepy, it was so chill. A group of us left to find Ish and got a ride home.
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| on top of Table Mountain |
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| Erin, Blair, Laura Claire, me and Ches |
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| Lion's Head from Table Mountain |
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