Amy Biehl Foundation video on CNN

Video: Mother forgives killers

I got very excited about seeing this today, I thought it was really cool to see the people I worked with in Souh Africa in international news!!

For bilingual speakers

KIVA is a microfinance organization that I was reading about earlier today...
"Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back."

Anyway, they are looking for volunteers to do some translation. I decided to post that on my blog since many of you guys speak both English and Spanish. Maybe you would be interested in helping...

http://www.kiva.org/about/opportunities/

Some interesting links

These are some links to pages that have good resources and information

www.socialedge.org

www.nextbillion.net

www.ssireview.org

63 Graduation Ceremony at UDLA

I finally got to Puebla on Thursday after many hours flying and a two-day layover in New York City.
The graduation ceremony was very strange. The president of UDLA has been having many attacks from the media and from many students and faculty. Most of the problems are because he fired many professors without much explanation from the University. This has caused much controversy and this is why he decided not to give the traditional speech at the ceremony. Many students had planned all kinds of protest actions but since he didn’t really appeared at all nothing really happened, only about 10 students started acting crazy. I didn’t really know what was going on since I have been away. I just got my diploma. After the ceremony Armando Manzanero (very famous yucatecan song writer) gave a concert.
I am very happy to have ended this cycle in my life although now the real dilemma comes. I need to find a job! I am officially unemployed now, and that feeling is really not the best.

Pictures of the Camping trip

This is the link for the pictures of the trip to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe

Southern Africa Trip

Good-Bye Cape Town

It was hard leaving Cape Town, saying good-bye to all the people I worked with and all the friends I made. Caroline organized a farewell braai (barbecue dinner) for Elizabeth and me at her apartment, a lot of people came and it was really nice to get to say good-bye to everyone. We also had another farewell at the Foundation. The last night I spent in Cape Town I went to a reggae concert in Long Street, it was very very fun!

The next day I spent the whole day with Caroline and I then I went up the cable car to Table Mountain and I stayed there for about 3 hours just saying good bye to the city and trying to close cycles, the next morning I was going on a 3 week camping trip and after the trip I would not go back to Cape Town but to Johannesburg and then fly home.
I had a great time in Cape Town; I met amazing people and had really good experiences :)

From murder comes reconciliation, hope

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/12/09/biehl/index.html

Trance party!!

Last weekend I went with Sanja to this Trance Party. It was awesome! I had never been to one so I didn’t really know what to expect. Its really cool, people go and camp there under the stars and it’s a party that goes on from 5pm Saturday to 3pm Sunday. Some trance parties are for a couple days but this one was only 2 days. It was very cool because there are little tents that sell all kind of stuff, from souvenirs to food, coffee, alcohol and even drugs… Anyway, the party was really fun, I did not know this but South Africa is the capital of Trance (according to one of Sanja’s friends) and also Israel (although trance parties are illegal in Israel).
Anyway this weekend was not nearly as exciting because I had to work at the ABFT stand at the Waterfront. We sold new Tshirts that Caroline designed and we raised some money for the art program. It was good but a little boring to be sitting there, specially when some people where rude.
The Green Point Stadium (which will be used for the 2010 World Cup) is 4-5 blocks away from my house, and they have started demolishing it because they are going to build a huge one now. Which will cover a lot of people’s ocean view and will only be filled for 1 match of the World Cup, oh and by the way they are spending millions on it, which they are cutting from all kinds of programs that would otherwise benefit the Capetonians… hmmm oh and also drinking alcohol in public places and prostitution are illegal in SA… but they are actually considering legalizing these activities for the soccer (hooligan) fans that will come. Sounds smart, right? I am so glad I will be long gone by then…

Stars and Safaris and other stuff

When I was young and I watched the Lion King I had this really romantic image of Africa. You know, I thought that I would be able to hug little lions and hug the giraffes and zebras that would be wondering around… anyway I was 10 years old and didn’t know better…
Now that I am actually here and I see how things really are it could be further from the truth. I have to admit that Cape Town is even more modern than Merida (hate to tell you this Merida people… I know you hate it…) but really! And the whole animal thing is usually only for tourists... the people at the Foundation have never seen any of THE BIG 5 that are advertised everywhere as the “main attractions”… they have never been in a safari, and never will… safaris are sooo expensive, just getting in to a park for a day is about 100 dollars and this does not include the guided tour, the accommodation, the food… its ridiculous!! The media and the tourist companies have put these ideas in our head that Africa is all about the big animals that you see wondering around… but no. Hate to tell you but they are all in National Parks…
Also, in the Lion King I remember that at night he could see many stars, and this IS true about Africa. Since we are in the Southern Hemisphere, there is less light pollution (I had never heard this term before but it makes sense) there are far more cities in the Northern Hemisphere and this is why you can see so many starts here, its amazing. You can actually see the milky-way, and even another galaxy! It looks like a big blur but it’s amazing!!

Weekend Pictures

Weekend 13-15 April

Click here to see all the good pictures that I took this past weekend!

Cocodrile Meat, Nice Views, Baboons and Salsa Dancing!!

This weekend was amazing!! Elizabeth is back from her trip to Kanya and Uganda!
On Saturday morning I took a hike for 4 hours near Hout Bay with Isabel ( very nice and fit-- 60 year old woman that works for the Foundation). The hike was amazing! We walked and walked up the mountain but all the time I could see better views, it was great, I had never really hiked like that before and I could not believe what I have been missing its sooo nice, and also you get a really good workout! I saw a shipreck, I could see table mountain from an interesting view and also I could see Hout Bay.
Then Elizabeth and I went to dinner at this really good restaurant, that suposedely is number one in Cape Town, its called Aubergine and I ate cocodrile meat, it was actually very good. Then, on Sunday Caroline, Elizabeth and I had a FUN DAY! We went to eat lunch at this really good place that is called the Black Marlin and we had real good seafood and it was very funny cause a baboon went inside the restaurant and walked around the tables and the tourists were so scared, we were eating outside so the baboon did not steal our food but it was very funny because all the tourists where all freaking out!… Also it was really embarrassing because Caroline and I thought that a guest was our waiter and we ask him to move the umbrella and Elizabeth almost died, and afterwards when I realized that he did not work there I was very very embarrassed!!

After our lunch adventure we took a drive all over.. we bumped into sooo many baboons on our way! We saw dozens of them! Actually they look kind of gross when there are so many because they are a little bit dirty, and it was very funny because one was just sitting in a sign on the road and it looked very weird.

We also went to these surfing beaches and saw some surfers and then we went to a bar and salsa dancing afterwards. It was such a fun weekend, full of pretty places and views.
I am also getting very excited because today I went to see the travel agent that I am booking my overland trip to Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe and I am looking forward to my trip. I leave next month!!! Can’t believe that it is so soon.

Some Recent thoughts and stuff

Elizabeth, my roommate has been gone for two weeks and she comes back tomorrow! I am very excited to see her again because I have been a little bit lonely at the flat, specially because the TV does not work, there is no Internet and also at night I don’t usually go out alone because it is dangerous to walk around Cape Town at night by myself.. so I am kind of stuck in my appt..
The good thing about this is that I've had some time to think… about myself and about my future and stuff, maybe I have thought to much! Because sometimes I have trouble falling asleep… everything is so uncertain! When I left Mexico to come to SA everything was soo hectic, the thesis, the exam and then moving here.. so I didn’t apply to many law schools.... actually I only applied to two.. and I got rejected to one and the other one had some problems with my papers of the university and the people at UDLA where acting as complete idiots and I decided that maybe next year I will apply again and get a better LSAT and also some work experience. Actually I think that I need to work at least for a while before I go back to school. Well, with that off my back then I decided that I WILL find a job… now, the problem is where? And this is a double question, first, where geographically.. and then, what kind of job? I had not given much thought to all of this because of the reasons stated above… so now I am in a major direction crisis point in my life.. I don't know where I will live this summer!!
At least I will still work for the Foundation until May 11, then on the 13 I will take this amazing overland trip to the bushes of Africa, passing through Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe… I will go to two Safaris.. in Chobe and Etosha National Parks, to the dunes in Namibia, Orange River, the Okavango Delta in Botswana and to Victoria Falls.. I will be disconnected form the world for 21 days... after the trip I will return to UDLA for the official ceremony of the graduation, and then ....who knows?
I am trying not to stress about this whole uncertain situation.. but I guess that it will all solve out once I go back and when this experience is finished, so for now I will just make the most out of it because this place is amazing right now and I am having the time of my life!

Grootbos

The last weekend I spent it with Sanja at her house. Her family owns a hotel that it is also a private nature reserve.. the place is AMAZING! I never thought it would be sooo nice.. they have all natural indigenous species in the reserve, the fynbos (which is an ecosystem that has many many species of low plants) is one of the most well conserved in South Africa. It is so interesting because last year they had a fire, and everyone thought that it would all be burnt and devastated, but on the other hand... something amazing happened, the fynbos can only be regenerated by a fire... the Protea Flower Seed (one of the most pretty flowers of the fynbos) can only grow after a fire! so this year was the year that the whole mountain flowered and it looked amazing!
Also at Grootbos they have many things to do, you can hike, go whale watching (on whale season), white shark cage diving, horse back riding, or airplane riding... Since I went to visit Sanja we spent some time at her house, but I also went to the beach and saw mussels (I got very excited cause I had never seen mussels in their natural habitat) and then I also took an amazing airplane ride, from above I saw a great white shark and also about 200 dolphins swimming together.. it was very awesome.
I am really lucky that I had the opportunity to go to Gansbaai and stay at Grootbos... if you want to check out the website of the hotel it is www.grootbos.com
To see the pictures of the airplane ride go to this link:

airplane ride in Gansbaai

The Shackled Continent

If you are interested in understanding the problems of Sub-saharan Africa, this is definitely the book to read. Robert Guest writes for The Economist, he has a very objective view of the problems of Africa, and he answers most of the questions of "why is Africa still poor?"
It is a very good book, specially the for the people that are not very familiar with African Politics it explains everything in a very simple way.

My visit to Robben Island

This is the place where Nelson Mandela was a political prisoner during apartheid. I visited the island and it was very illustrating. The guides are ex political prisoners that explain how the situations where at the jail—it was kind of horrible actually. It is amazing to see the way this man takes things.
He was imprisoned there for 11 years and when someone in the group ask him how he felt about giving the tour and reviving all these memories. He said that all his life he had fought for a free South Africa, in which all men were equal and he was imprisoned many years for standing up to his convictions. But now history proved him right, and he was honored to give these tours to the new faces of South Africa, a rainbow nation, and that yes, he lived difficult times in Robben Island but that he is living the principles of forgiveness and reconciliation. Hatred will not take us anywhere, he said. I think that my trip to Robben Island was definitely worth it and I would recommend this trip to anyone that comes here, it represents a lot of the history of this country.
Oh, and if someone is interested in reading about the whole struggle read LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, by Nelson Mandela.
This is a quote from Ahmed Kathrada ( I talked about him before in the blog) its in the museum before you take the ferry to the island.

The Townships

There are a couple townships near Cape Town (Gugulethu, Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Langa are the largest). When the apartheid government had the Group Areas Act, and they literally kicked all the blacks away from the zones that will turn into “white” zones in the city and near the ocean so the whites could live in a blissful way without having to interact with the blacks, so they made them move to the townships. Well today people are not by bound to stay at the townships as before but they stay there because that is where their houses are now and their life is set there, now the townships are not necessarily all shacks, they have different types of housing ranging from shacks to normal cement houses with flowers and everything, also, the townships have all different businesses like grocery stores, and even night clubs! The government has been working very hard to improve the ways of the township and therefore there is a lot of government housing.
What I have found funny when visited the townships is that there are many beauty salons, they convert trading containers into little beauty salons and they are usually decorated very colorful on the outside, also as in many poor places coca-cola sponsors the painting of many places so therefore there are coke signs everywhere near.
I also think that today there is kind of a trend to go to the township, most tour companies in Cape Town offer “township tours” and supposedly take the tourist for a day in the life of a township person. I personally think this is crap, and in a way its just going there to watch and do nothing, but in the other hand it also makes people that have never seen poverty to realize that not everyone lives like in Europe or the USA, and also, sometimes they eat at the local restaurant which brings money to the community.




These are some pictures I took the other day in Guguletu...

Two Oceans Aquarium

On Saturday I went to the Aquarium. It is such a relaxing place to go! I loved seeing all the fish and specially the jelly fish they are so cool! They also have a very big predator tank that is very cool...
Here are some pictures of my day @ the aquarium

Some Nemos!

Some random stuff...

The "Cape Unifier Initiative" will start this week. Kevin Chaplin the ABFT managing director wrote an interesting article about how the different races get along in South Africa. Here is the link to the article published in the Cape Argus (main Cape Town newspaper) regarding the issue:

http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3750325

Some South African Music

If someone is interested in listening to some good South African music here are some suggestions...
1. Freshly Ground
2. Mafikizolo
3. Goldfish
4. The Rudimentals
5. Hugh Masekela
6. Brenda Fassie
I will continue to be on the look for good music.. but for the time being maybe you will like this...

ABFT Township Jazz Festival

Yesterday the ABFT had its annual Township Jazz Festival. I was the one in charge of organizing the logistics of the event. It was a fun thing, it went on from 11 am to 3 pm and we hosted the Milton Academy from Boston. The children from our programs performed some songs together with the Milton Academy and also each group had some stuff of their own.



The events was held in Gugulethu (one of the largest townships in Cape Town and where Amy was killed). At the event I was with Elizabeth and Caroline selling Tshirts, postcards, paintings and raffle tickets to get funds. We had a really good time, I danced and ate fried chicken (KFC is the most popular thing to eat in the townships). The only strange thing is that the only white people that where there were foreigners (some consuls, foreign students, and the parents of the Milton kids) but no white South Africans went at all, it is very sad to see how there is still much division between races, even though everyone is trying hard to stop seeing color, but I guess it will still take some years until people become color blind.
Next week a group of Stanford kids are coming and now we are planning their visit...

Wine Tasting @ Stellenbosch

This weekend Elizabeth and I went wine tasting to Stellenbosch! It is sooo pretty there, its almost an hour or 45 min. away from the City and they have like 150 different wineries that you can go and visit. Most of them are free, and the wine is not very expensive at all… we stocked up on good wine and we ate in this really nice place outdoors.. it’s so pretty there.

Ahmed Kathrada came to ABFT

Nelson Mandela's cell mate Ahmed Kathrada was a Youth Reading Role Model for the ABFT last Thursday. It was very interesting to meet him, he is in many of Mandela's memoires and it is amazing to meet someone who was an active participant in the srtuggle for democracy in South Africa. I was honoured to meet him and I am very glad he agreed to read for our children!

Peter's Farewell

Peter the intern from Boston was here for 6 months. He left last Thursday and Elizabeth and I have taken over his job! Kevin (the manager of the Foundation) was very nervous because Peter did many many things for the Foundation so we have big shoes to fill…
It is very hard to get money and do fundraising. Also we have to organize events and many other things, on Friday the day after peter left I was very overwhelmed about everything Elizabeth and I had to do… but by know, I am feeling a little better.
Here is a picture of the staff at the Foundation @ Peter’s farewell party.

Kalk Bay, Fish Hoek and the Cape Argus

I know I have not written in my blog for quite some time so now I want to catch up on all my new adventures! The weekend of 9-10-11 March was great, it was Peter’s last weekend here and he requested to go to the beach, so on Saturday morning after Elizabeth and I went to this “mystic fair” (they were actual fortune tellers at the fair, it was sooo funny) we picked up Peter and headed to the Indian Ocean to Fish Hoek. It is a very small, quiet beach, very pretty and pleasant. We soaked up the sun for some hours and then we went to this amazing seafood restaurant in Kalk Bay.
Kalk Bay is where all the fishermen go and take their daily catch, you can get really good fish here.
Sunday morning we woke up and it was the Cape Argus! The largest cycling event in the country and one of the most famous of the world. It was great! Sanja (my friend from here) did it in her record time: 3 hrs for about 180 km. I was very proud of her, it is the 4th year she does it and she has been training for almost a year. The Argus is very cool because you get to see all of these amazing views of the Cape Peninsula and the whole city is closed, about 40,000 people participate and it is pretty amazing, everyone talks about this and they were bikes all over the city, actually the Argus took over Cape Town for that whole day.
After the race there are some tents where they sell food, where people can rest and even get massages, the end of the race (where all the tents were) was 3 blocks away from my house so Elizabeth and I went just for curiosity and it was FULL of people. I wish I had known about this before I got here, maybe I would have liked to participate since it is such a fun thing to do, but I needed to train for about a year and if I had known that before maybe it would have been fun to do it…

Video of the children praying-singing in Xhosa, before they eat..

The Children

These are two of the girls I worked with the past 2 weeks. Now, I will only be going to the township once a week because they need me more in the office. I think that maybe I can make more of a change here looking for grants and funding and using my skills than trying to do something with children that do not even understand what I want to say.
I am still looking forward to go once a week because they are really very nice and even though we cannot communicate by speaking, we can communicate non-verbally... I really think that even though from now on I will not be working with them directly I will still make a positive change in their lives by finding funding for the programs we run, and therefore, helping indirectly.
In the video the kids are praying before they ate their snack..

Castle of Good Hope

Yesterday Elizabeth, her friend Jessi from Canada and Moses her friend from Jo'burg and I were going to hike Table Mountain, a 4 hour hike and come down in the Cable Car. Well, unfortunately the weather was HORRIBLE, it was super cold and it would not stop raining, so we had to find something else to do. Why not just go and spend the day at a museum? The Castle of Good Hope is the oldest building in the Cape Peninsula (Well maybe the oldest European building...) it was built in 1666 for the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company and it is built with brick the Dutch brought from Holland.
I was impressed by the austerity of the Castle, I though it was going to be a lot more imposing. Anyway, it still has a very "colonizer" feeling to it. The artifacts and decorations are all imported Dutch things from those times, very old.. I understand why women stayed at home, they had to do so many things! they did not have microwaves, or electrical appliances such as washing machines and other stuff.. I feel so lucky that nowadays women can just do housework and also find a real job and get away with doing both... cause housework does not have to take them all day long..
Well, the Castle is OK, not the best place in Cape Town, but indeed a must see. So I can check that off my to do things list.... I guess if the weather is nice next weekend I can hike Table Mountain! I definitely hope so...

Party at the Township (Langa)

This is the Birthday boy (Liya) and his older sister.
Justice (the driver of the Foundation) invited me to his son Liya's 1st Birthday party on Saturday. I was very excited to go because I did not know what to expect, my first party at a township! Well, it was a very interesting experience. First of all it was very funny that all the men are drinking outside in the garage (obviously at the end of the night they were all skunk drunk!) and all the women are inside, this is very traditional, the women are cooking or just sitting inside but they cannot go outside with their husbands. The children were all sitting and the music was super loud.. but it was good! the menu was fried chicken, pasta, green salad and lentils, it was pretty good. Peter and I where the only white people at the party (I had never felt soo white!). I also found interesting that all Xhosa women are fat. I asked Peter (he works at Amy Biehl and has lived here for the past 8 months) why was this and he said that in this culture a woman MUST get fat, because it means wealth, and that their husbands actually care for them and for their well-being. If a woman is thin it means that she has to work and that her husband does not feed her well... I thought this is hilarious, cause all the women at the party were fat.. Oh and men like fat women, they are disgusted by thin ones... I just think that is just so different from our standards of what is beautiful and what is not.
The party started at 1pm and I left at 9 and it looked like it was still going to go on for quite a while.. just like in Mexicooo....
Another funny thing that I learned this weekend is that children are not brought up by their mothers, but by their grandmothers. Mothers just go and do their thing and they kind of give their children to their mothers.. I don't know why this is the dynamic but I guess that young mothers do not have the experience and also they usually go out a lot and just keep living the good life while their mothers are the ones that do the raising of children.

This was the cake, a nice truck! made with cookies, gummy bears, licorice and icing... very nice.

The cousins of the Birthday Boy...

Amy Biehl Foundation visits Semester at Sea

Semester at Sea came to Cape Town a couple weeks ago and they invited the Amy Biehl Foundation to go and visit them at their cruise ship, it was very interesting because we got to see how these college students live in this ship, we got to talk to a professor there about the program and how it is like.
The students study while they ate travelling in high seas but once they dock they can do whatever they want, they can interact with the community, they can go on a safari (for example) and they don't have to go to classes. They are always important people that serve as Distinguished Lecturers and this spring Nobel Peace Prize Winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu is serving as “Distinguished Lecturer in Residence” for the Semester at Sea program. He is almost as important as Nelson Mandela for the fight for freedom in South Africa. I didn't get to meet him because he was not in the ship when we went.
The ship docks at San Juan, Puerto Rico; Salvador, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Port Louis, Mauritius; Chennai, India; Penang, Malaysia; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Hong Kong; Qingdao, China; Kobe, Japan; and Honolulu, Hawaii.
I think it is a great idea that students get this opportunity, although maybe I will not do it unless I really liked the people I was travelling with, because you are stuck with them for so long on a ship that it might be awful if you don't really like them! They are 700 students in the ship and it is very amazing, they have a library, computer lab, store, bar, 2 cafeterias.. pretty well equipped!

IL DIVO

They gave us tickets on Tuesday to go to see Il Divo concert in Kirstenbosch Gardens, this group is sooo popular here in SA, they were here for 2 nights and both nights were sold out. Anyway they donated these tickets to the Foundation and everyone from the office went. The place was great, I think it is one of the most beautiful concert setting, you can see the mountains while you sit in the grass and have a picnic, they were some people who even brought bottles of wine or champagne... well NO ONE TOLD ME THAT IT WAS GOING TO BE THIS WAY! I went with nothing! I had no blanket to sit on... no sushi, or sandwiches, or fruit and obviously NO WINE OR CHAMPAGNE! I felt like such a loser... and no one from the office new that either, only Carolyne this Austrian intern that works with us took a blanket but it was too small to share.. Well, taking that out the concert was really funny. It is this group of 4 good looking dudes who sing kind of opera in Spanish and Italian.. it is very hilarious, but anyway it was free!!... so it was OK.. I just think its funny that people here love them so much, I can't figure out why yet...

J.M. Coetzee

When I go to different places, many times I feel like a small child. I ask too many questions, I guess it annoys people sometimes, but at the same time I believe it is a great way to learn many things that otherwise I would never figure out. Well, such was the case with this author, he is very very famous here in South Africa, he won the Literature Nobel Prize. I felt very ignorant because I had never even heard of him! Well anyway, I bought the book and currently am reading it... Actually knowing about the places that he talks about in the book make it even more fun to read. Regardless if you know the place or not, I still recommend this read. The story is about a middle aged man who gets involved with one of his students, and the social problems that come with it. It also somewhat reflects the white reality in South Africa.
The situation between blacks and whites here is quite different than how I thought. The black government is seen as a disappointment (maybe because they had too high expectations) to many people because of the corruption, crime rates are higher than ever, and people expected very much from the new government, kind of the same thing that happened in Mexico, but very different as well. Today, the unemployment rate in South Africa is enormous and because of the affirmative action it is almost impossible for a white person to get a good job. So many people are emigrating to countries such as Australia and some of them still have British passports, or of any other European country so they are leaving to find jobs in other places, but at the same time these people where the ones who invested in the country. Also, for example it is very difficult to get scholarships if you are white, if you want to go to graduate school, it is very difficult to get grants or loans. Also, aids is such a big problem and the worst thing is that the government is not really doing anything! they are actually spending 10 times more on the Stadium for the World Soccer Cup on 2010 than what is spent on the HIV programs. Also, until recently the government admitted that HIV and AIDS where related, they argued that they where two completely different things.