Cheers! A little from the windy city...

Hello hello! Prepare yourselves, its been a long three weeks since I left good ol' Omaha, NE and entered this adventure.. along the way I've had many early mornings, long days and late nights. Good news- never really had much jet lag! Just dove right into all the South Africa had to offer! How could I even think about napping-- I'm in Africa! --seemed to be the theme the first few days, and must have created a habit because that's the way things have been since.

I was warned before I left that the first rule to travelling/visiting/studying in any other country is just that, it is another country. Don't expect it to be the same. So along those lines and trying my best to follow that, I feel as if I've gained a bit of ground under my feet, am learning the ropes and taking things one day at a time... which is good!
Second rule of being in another country? Patience. Patience patience patience! Yes, a little bit of patience. This is Africa, it's called African time. And while we all know how "patience is a virtue" it is still rare and hard to find at times, but we are making it just find. But truly, this is South African time and it is different.
Now it's been nearly three weeks since I have been in PE (Port Elizabeth, but known by all the locals and whoever as PE) and I just can't help but imagine what our lives would be like without Bush Camp. Arriving in PE we knew where we would be living was mainly international housing, so of course there will be people studying from Europe mostly and other areas of Africa, but along with them are a multitude of international students hailing from the good ol' States (as everyone tends to refer to them as). Monalisa is a beautiful woman who has the rough and tough job of handling all of the US international students, and for the first weekened we were here we were loaded up into three big vans and headed to what we can now refer to as 'Bush Camp.' Piling in, we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into!
Looking back I am so thankful! Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved it while we were there-- between the team building activities (that yes- included team names, cheers and a little skit to tie it together), ziplining into a river that had eels and all sorts of other creatures, traditional African delicious food, camp fire both nights, and of course, sleeping in tents. Trust me, we definitely saw the best and the worst of one another there! But it was so good, or should I say so lovely-- no no, so grand as my Irish roommate Ashley would say. And it was!
Classes and registration and orientation were something else, but lets not forget that virtue we are all striving after- patience, patience, patience! Systems are not quite what we are used to, with speed, organization- not even mentioning the different lingo for everything, but we survived and am now into my second week of classes. The semester is split into two 'terms,' basically quarter system. The confusing part is that some are just offered second term and so you might want to take that one but not realize that there is a term before that you must take, and some are just offered first term and nothing second but then you worry that you're missing something, so on and so forth. But I am very very excited about my classes! This term I am taking a sports coaching class (a class with cute guys finally! thank you for a psychology break =]) and a photojournalism one with a professional photographer that I am very excited about, a third year social work class that is all about youth work and youth programming and youth studies (sounds perfect right?!). It actually is actually amazingly lucky that I am in that class (I suppose it was just meant to be) but there are only three other people in it. They are a bit older than I am and one is from Tanzania and two are from Botswana, shall be very interesting to talk about the youth programs and problems and different systems that are going on here in Africa, mostly the southern part and compare it to what little I have seen and experienced and know about from the States. There is a second part of this class focusing on intervention that I will take second term, and my other class is the community service learning module (class) which is pretty good!

Communication with my loves in the States, or Asia or Russia or South America for that matter has not been easy. Time to walk to the internet cafe has not been as much of a priority as I should have made it, I must admit and I apologize! Over and over I have written my first, second, fifth, eighth blog in my head just waiting to get it out! But for those of you who do not know, my lil computer decided to abandon me for the trip and adjusting to that in itself has not been the most fun, but we make due, right =), always. Thankfully I don't believe much is lost and my amazing parents are in the process of helping me sort through that, and as always, one day at a time.
So much to say! I've met amazing people! I haven't focused on that enough. It's just been amazing being here and seeing so much and how it applies to home life and all the differences, trust me there will be many a more blogs to come but I'm afraid I've already written so much that it might scare people away from reading, don't forget I love messages and comments and hearing about how you are doing! Sending my love from along the PE Bay, which yes I can see in the distance from the computer where I sit =)

Much love, loves.