Friday, January 30, 2009

Arrival

I'm here in Johannesburg after 3 days of traveling. We had a 17 hour flight from NY with a stop for fuel in Dakar,Senegal. It was a long flight,but we got to see all the stars,it felt like we were flying through the milky way,they were so close!

We're staying at a backpackers lodge until Wednesday then we leave for Cape Town. We're just doing orientation stuff for the next week. It's going to be a jam packed next couple of months!

A couple of interesting things: I'm staying with a family that is either vegitarian or able to accomodate not only that,but my wheat allergy. That's going to make that homestay so much easier! Everyone on the program is really nice & friendly. I'm sure there were other interesting things,but my brain is pretty jetlagged.

love,
lila

Friday, January 23, 2009

First post

Well,this is it. I'm down to 5 days before I leave for my first adventure. I'm pretty busy gathering everything I need and trying to figure out the confusing parts of international travel: money & food. But it's hard not to be really excited. I've created this blog so that I can write about my experiences for my friends,family & their friends to read about. I can't promise it'll always be interesting,but it'll be here. It's not going to be the ins & outs of my personal life while I'm there,this will be my record of the cool people I meet,neat places I go and amazing things I learn.

Here's the general overview of my trip if you haven't already heard it one million times:
On January 28th I fly to New York City
January 29th I take a 17 hour flight to Johannesburg. From there we have an orientation & then start our studies & homestays in Cape Town one week later. I'll be living with 3 different families while I'm gone: 1 Xhosa speaking black or "colored" family, 1 rural Xhosa speaking family, 1 white Afrakaans speaking family and then one probably Muslim,Xhosa speaking family. After this I'll spend 1 month doing a research project. I am hoping to study some aspect of women within the labor movement,but it's very possible my interests will change when I get there.

I'll be posting here as often as I can,but I'm not sure how often that will be. Pictures may or may not be included,who knows what the internet situation will be!

I'd love to hear your comments,ideas,etc. I think there's a button somewhere on my page where you can "subscribe" to this blog.

Love,
Lila