Getting hit by a car, getting kicked by a little girl, and a rainbow

Photos:
1) Me in the office under a newly hung South African flag
2) Duck/bird mother and furry little babies (I asked one if it wanted to come home to America with me and it said no)
3) Zenele wearing S.A. flag antennas and blowing zuzevela
4) Parliament house right by our office
5) Mount Nelson Hotel on the way to work
6, 6, 7) Views from the Gardens on the way to work
7) Ironic statute of British guy in front of Celebrating Slavery sign
9) Parliament again
9) Statute in the Gardens
10) Rose Gardens
11) Unexplained John Deere-themed zebra statute in Gardens (these zebras are popping up all over the place and we see more of them every day)
12) Rainbow over Mount Nelson hotel on the way to work


Tuesday was my second day at work here at ODAC. In the morning I dropped off some laundry and then took my time walking to work, taking a bunch of pictures along the way (see photos of my walk to work). It started raining on the way there, even though the sun was still out, which apparently is pretty typical for “winter” mornings here.

At lunch time at work, Jim and I walked around the City Bowl area, had lunch at this sandwich place, and checked out some of the shops. I located some black flats at a place that felt like K-mart (and they even searched me and my bags on the way out). At one point I was actually hit by a car that was backing out of a parking garage. It didn’t hurt or anything, but there was definite contact between the car and me. The interesting (read: unsettling) part about it was that this parking garage attendant was watching the whole thing from right in front of the car backing up, and didn’t try to signal to the driver that I was behind him or stop him. Faaaantastic.

I picked up my laundry on the way home from work (25 rands- awesome), and then tried to go to the gym, but at this point I really wasn’t feeling well. Went to bed at 8 pm and slept for 12 hours straight, and this morning when I woke up it was clear that I had come down with something.

Yesterday morning we saw a rainbow over the Mount Nelson hotel on the way to work. Once at work, there was some commotion when Ronald, a guy who works here, starting running around distributing South African flag-antennas and vuvuzelas (the really, really loud plastic horns that South Africans blow during soccer games). Then, everyone in like a mile radius decided it was time to go outside and blow vuvuzelas really, really loudly for about an hour. These things are really loud and when they’re blown by a bunch of people it sounds like a swarm of dinosaur-sized bees are taking over the planet. Jim and I went to have lunch in nearby Greenmarket Square, and we just watched people wearing riduclous soccer gear and running around dancing, yelling, and blowing their horns. When Jim was taking money out of the ATM, this little South African girl walked by with her father and kicked me, without explanation. Her Dad made her apologize to me (she refused).

I finally met the Executive Director of ODAC, Allison, and she told me that most of my work this summer is going to be dealing with rape victims and laws regarding their level of access to information about the litigation process involving their perpetrator. I'm going to be working with Rape Crisis, another NGO here in Cape Town, and I"m pretty excited about the work I'll be doing with that. I'm also doing some research for Lorraine, another person who works here, about free speech policies in the work place in a variety of different countries.

Last night we stayed in and had pizza, and I still really wasn't feeling well so after sitting in the steam room at the gym for a while I went to bed early. This morning I purchased some suspicious looking "traditional recipe" cough syrup at the store on the way to work- it smells like brandy. We'll see how that goes.

Also, apparently we only have to come into work for an hour tomorrow because the world cup is starting. I'm ok with that.

Cheers!