I promise I'm still alive... a few photos from my 10 day trip to Botswana, a very last minute planned trip with my Aunt Jane that was absolutely incredible.

Vestiges of Apartheid

Here's a snippet of a reflection that I wrote for the IDIP website... in the near future you can read the full thing here and also expect more coming soon: http://www.seattleu.edu/IDIP/Inner.aspx?id=26198.

To some extent, prior to my arrival, I knew that Cape Town was a very sophisticated city, with lots of tourism (especially during the summer- Seattle’s winter). Judging from what I heard, the photographs I saw and books I read, I gathered that it was a relatively wealthy city with a very European vibe. Of course, due to the nature of IDIP, I was also aware that within parts of Cape Town, and immediately outside of the city (peri-urban townships), desperate intervention is needed to alleviate massive amounts of poverty.




But no amount of research on South Africa could have prepared me for experiencing the vestiges of apartheid that still shape society, and the frustration that accompanies it. It has been so heartbreaking to see the repelling standards of living, income disparity and the cultural differences that co-exist yet have no interaction. In this respect, South Africa is nothing like I have ever experienced before, despite the fact that my comfortable life style here closely mirrors the one I live at home.



From what I’ve observed, Cape Town and the neighboring Cape Flats (home to numerous Townships) most clearly exemplify the wide spread gab between rich and poor, although it is also visible directly within the city-center. I have such a hard time understanding how the elite crowd goes about their day driving their BMWs, wearing fancy designer clothes, drop their children off preparatory schools and return home to Hampton’s style houses, yet are completely aware of what lies just 20 miles down the road.





At first I was frustrated and confused, but now I don’t know what to think. I want to believe that these people do have some compassion and decency in their hearts, but the more time I spend here the more I lose hope, as new expensive bars and shops seem to open everyday and nothing changes in the Townships.



Just the other day I was sitting on the beach, trying to absorb the surreal aesthetic beauty of the mountains reflecting in the Atlantic Ocean—but I could not bring myself to appreciate it. I was so distraught over why I, and everyone else on the beach (white, middle-class South Africans) have the privilege to sit on some of the world’s most beautiful beaches yet thousands of people living just twenty minutes from the coast have never even seen the ocean.

Unlike my previous travels abroad, Cape Town does not make it easy to experience the amazing authentic, rich, beautiful culture that I know is here and I’m sure not living with a host family only makes it harder. There are just so many ways to distract oneself (as I’m sure the wealthy do) with materials possessions and recreational activities, and being part of that has given me a better insight on why development work here seems to have little progress.

If it hadn’t taken me three days to travel here, and I wasn’t part of IDIP, I could be easily convinced that I hopped on the wrong plane and landed in Miami. However, that is not the case and I know I owe it to myself to refrain from simply submitting to such mindset.

I swear, I'm not on vacation!

Though I'm partaking in tons of fun touristy activities, as I noted in the second post, I'm actually here in Cape Town for an internship, yes a full time 40 hour job where I don't get paid. Anyways, here's some proof that I'm not just on vacation... ;)

Actually before I go any further, I suppose I should quickly explain why you're viewing pictures of vegetables and gardeners, and not the EE&RE project that I wrote about last.

In a nutshell, I have reduced my 40 hours to two days at the microfinance organization and have started working three days (usually 10 hour days) for an environmental organization, located in townships.

Regarding the microfinance organization I am working for, the people there are great, the organization is very effective and they have lots of consulting expertise, as properly accredited. But, as a technical advisory organization for micro finance institutions (MFIs) the organization is quite removed from the ground, leaving me to feel completely disconnected to the people I am actually working for. This combined with the fact that I room with two Americans (who I love) and live in an area inhabited with wealthy white people, has failed to provide me true access and exposure to the real reasons why I am here.

So, I wanted to find an organization that was more than just sitting in an office, in a white neighborhood, with other foreigners. Something more hands on, in the field, working with the people who's living situations I want to help improve. This led me to Abalmi Bezekahaya: an organization who's dedicating to the alleviation of poverty through sustainable, organic, urban gardening. The organization works with multiple gardens and gardeners in two specific areas, Khayeliysha and Nyanga, and mostly with women who are over the age of 60.







I'm working on conducting Sustainability index's (SI) for each of the 65 community gardens that Abalimi partners with. The SIs usually take around 2.5 hours for each garden, I go with a field worker who speaks Xhosa (pronounced Kosa) and we interview the gardeners and observe the facilities and conduct a report on our discoveries. I'll mostly be assisting another volunteer with many of these garden assessment, but I have also taken it upon myself to create a data base where we can use this information to increase communication between the gardeners, fieldworkers, and the staff. I hope that we will be able to use the SIs as a tool to measure our success as an organization and find out where we can improve and what gardens need additional financial and non-financial support.






While at the microfinance organization, I am still working on the energy-efficiency and renewable energy microfranchising project. Since I'm only there twice a week I am mostly assisting the head of development with writing proposals and grants and researching potential funding opportunities. It's not the most exciting, but I know they are important skills to know and be able to use.

Lion's Head, not the rump.

Today I went on a magnificent hike to the very top of Lion’s Head—as opposed to Lion’s Rump (no joke, that’s what the rest of the mountain is called)—with an elevation: of 2,195 ft! Accompanying me were two other girls from the Connect program: Lisa (my roommate) and Ellie—who is from Scotland and recently set the record for climbing both Lion’s Head and Table Mountain in the same day! Although we had a bit of a late start, we caught a cab to the base of the mountain and by 11:30 we had began our strenuous hike. It took us a little less than an hour and a half to reach the top, but it definitely was not easy, especially with a temperature of nearly 432 degrees F.

The first fourth of the trail was just a regular old dusty red-dirt trail, reminding me somewhat of the national parks that I’ve visited outside of Las Vegas, with an incline that felt comparable to walking up Campion’s hill on the Seattle U. campus. Along that first stretch we ran into some paragliders (an actual professional company and their clients) who were jumping off the mountain and flying around like a human kite. They just kind of stand all prepared and wait for a big gush of wind and then run and leap off the mountain! It was so cool! They just catch the wind as if they’re riding a wave on a surfboard. It’s definitely something I plan to do within this next month. This made for a good rest stop for two reasons; 1) free entertainment! And 2) I was quickly able to down most of my Nalgene to compensate for the 30 gallons of sweat that I had just perspired.

Anyways, we continued along the path that gradually turned rockier, narrower, and steeper, for about the next 40 minutes. The last fourth of the hike resembled more of a climb than a hike. We climbed along boulders, climbed up ladders and even used handles, which were anchored into the rocks, to pull ourselves up. Let me just say right now, I’m much more out of shape than I originally thought… if that’s even possible. Regardless, I managed to make it to the top without any injuries.



The view at the summit was incredible, as was the view the entire time we were hiking. But, from the top we were able to see the city, the ocean, Table Mountain (of course) and coolest of all, Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years, during apartheid)! Lisa, Ellie and I ate a light lunch of fruit, crackers and Swedish fish, and rested for about 20 minutes before heading back down.

The way down was easier and definitely went by quicker. While descending we crossed paths (literally) with a church group who explained in passing that they were “climbing the mountain to pray to Jesus.” The fairly large group of black South Africans consisted of men, women, babies and children, most of which were hiking in flip flops (some were barefoot), carrying large drums, and wearing floor-length purple and white robes. I was in complete shock at their ambition and drive to complete such a task without basic gear (ie. water and shoes). I was almost tempted to turn around and follow them back up to the top to see what their prayer ceremony would look like, but we already were behind on our schedule and had planned to meet up with some other Connecters for a picnic dinner. Not to mention that by this point I was already feeling like my legs were going to fall off.

I’ll wrap this up just because I have so many more posts to write, but after we made our way back down to the base we decided to exercise a bit more and walked all the way back to our apartment. It took us a little more than an hour but it was all downhill. Needless to say, I’m physically exhausted and am focusing very hard on completing this post instead of crawling into bed. That said, I had a great weekend (I’ll write another post soon about Saturday’s adventure) and now I'll be going to bed. Goodnight!

Hamburgers, Child Life Specialists, and Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs

Welcome to Cape Town! This is the view of Table Mountain from my living room!



Goodness gracious! I can't believe I'm already starting my third week in Cape Town, time is just flying by! I already know twelve weeks here is not going to provide nearly enough time to see or do half of the amazing things here. But considering it is already the start of my third week, I thought I should give some basic background information that I have failed to provide you (my oh so dedicated followers) with thus far. So here we go..

First off, for those of you who don't know, I'm here in Cape Town, South Africa through Seattle University's International Development Internship Program (more commonly known as IDIP) until the end of March. I'm interning with a microfinance related organization based out of Paris who conveniently happens to have an office in Cape Town. Contrary to what I thought, the organization is not actually a Micro Finance Institution (MFI), but rather they are a consulting organization that helps build capacity and strengthen existing MFIs by providing technical assistance and advisory services. The office in Cape Town is pretty small and, on a good day, the team consists of maybe 12 people (including myself and the three other interns working there). We work out of two rooms in a house (really similar to the Global Visionaries office I used to volunteer at) and share the space with another NGO (I'm not really sure what they do).

Within the organization I am specifically working on a project that is focused on implementing a microfranchise (basically just a simplified, less expensive version of a traditional franchise) centered around selling Energy Efficient and Renewable Energy (EE&RE) housing products in Townships (slums right outside of the city). Basically we're creating a franchise (yes, like McDonald's) that sells EE&RE products (i.e. solar water heaters, energy efficient lightbulbs, etc.) instead of hamburgers. The objectives of establishing this environmental-energy-related-microfranchise are to stimulate economic growth through providing access to jobs, reduce South Africa's use of coal-powered energy (thus, decrease the numerous health related issues that are a direct result from indoor air pollution and alleviating environmental degradation), and advocate and extend awareness about the effects of coal on the environmental and personal health, all while while providing safer, cleaner, energy to peri-urban areas (aka slums/Townships). What a mouthful. As you can guess, it's a very complicated project and it is still in the early development stage, but it's getting a lot of attention and many people seem to think it has a lot of potential.

So the organization that arranged my internship (who Seattle U pays) also arranged my housing. The majority of their interns (who come from all around the world) stay together in a fully furnished, fancy apartment complex in the heart of the City. It's really nice because there is always someone around to do things with and I've been able to meet all kinds of fun people. I have a breathtaking view of the renowned Table Mountain from my living room and live with two roommates who are both from the states. Melissa is from Atlanta and is interning for an organization regarding violence against women and gender equality, and Lisa, from Boston, works as a Child Life Specialist (or CLS for short/cool) at a nearby hospital. They both immediately noticed my wide range of dietary constraints (most notably vegetables), in fact all the interns here did, but now I'm sure they are quite fond of cooking modified versions of meals for me... don't worry, I do the dishes.

Now that the boring background info is out of the way hopefully I'll be enthusiastic to write more interesting posts (be on the lookout for one regarding pirate ships, beat boxing and SPF 110).

Fun fact: I used more than 20 sets of parenthesis in this post alone (and most likely not in the correct way).



The roommates! Melissa on left and Lisa in middle.


Me in Stellenbosch, a section of the country side famously known for their wine vineyards!

We are now landing in Ghana... the start to my South African adventure.

So, as many of you might know I'm not actually in Ghana, contrary to the url of this blog. But, my adventure to Cape Town did, however, begin with an unexpected emergency landing in none other than the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana. Don't worry, everything turned out ok and I am safe and sound in South Africa. But my 11 hour flight from London to Cape Town turned into a 20 hour flight, boosting the total duration of my travel time (from Seattle to Cape Town) to a whopping 51 hours, and resulted in an event that is now in the top five category of the scariest moments of Margo's life.

Now things might not have been quite so scary if anyone actually had any idea what was going on, because it turns out that there was just a small malfunction with the air conditioning system on the plane. Logically, rather than continue en route, we ironically landed a mere five inches away from the equator during prime summer weather and waited in a hot muggy airport, which, of course, had no air conditioning. Awesome.

According to my watch, we arrived in Ghana at 3 in the morning (though I'm not sure if this was London time, Ghana time, or South Africa time) and it was pitch black. About an hour later the passengers were allowed to exit the plane and take a bus from the landing strip to up to the airport, but we were told that nothing would be open and not to drink the water. That being said, I decided to just stay on the plane with the elderly while nearly everyone else went to stretch their legs. Bad choice. Of course, about five minutes after the last bus left the sun started to peak out from above the horizon and the plane began to cook. The only time I remember feeling half as sweaty as this was when I got lost trekking through the jungle in Tikaal in long-sleeves and long pants carrying a backpack and carrying gallons of water (I know some of you GV people know what I'm talking about)... or during freshman year at the Homecoming dance that was in the cafeteria, instead of the commons. Sick.

Anyways, after two hours of talking to a British senior citizen the (smart) passengers returned and we were all told to grab our belongings, exit the plane, and sent to wait in the 'airport'. This was about as exciting as the waiting room at the dentist, minus the Highlights magazines, but 1000 times more hectic as people searched every square inch of the terminal looking for electrical outlets. After trying to use my useless US phone hoping to reach anyone who could assure my parents that I was still alive, I gave up and used my emergency credit card to purchase really overpriced and extremely slow internet allowing me to write a frantic email to my parents, who upon receiving the email probably had a heart attack. Oh, they're fine now too.

Overall, besides holding my pee for 16 hours, out of fear that if I went to search for a bathroom somehow the plane would rapidly reload, take off and leave me stranded in Ghana never to be seen again, the worst part was having no idea what was going on and knowing that everyone at home was really worried since the status of my South African Airways (SAA) flight was "unknown at this time-trying to locate". Luckily, around 1:30 a new, well rested SAA crew arrived and we were able to depart on another aircraft. The worst was over. We landed in South Africa six hours later on Sunday the 10th, where the local time was 8pm. I was pleasantly surprised to find my bag and a driver waiting for me and ready to take me to my home for the next three months: Cape Town, South Africa. Oh my Ghana, what a start to my African adventure.