I promised pictures of my apartment, and here they are. Imagine that you're walking in the door, and I'm giving you the tour.

My kitchenette, on the left of the entrance.


Bathroom on the right. Don't you like my shower curtain and orange bath mat? And me in the mirror...


Pantry on the right after the bathroom.


Kitchen table and bulletin board next to the kitchenette.

I figured you'd wonder what was on my kitchen table. It's a Kenyan kikoy used as a tablecloth and a Madagascan placemat on top of that, both from Lynne and Peter. Here's a closer view.

And here is a really close view of the stitching. All of the stitching is done by hand--we have art like this in South Africa--and it depicts rural life in Africa. In this image you can see a woman carrying a baby and a basket and a man sitting on a rock.

My bed, to the right after the bathroom. Isn't the comforter that Lynne and I picked out beautiful? And I found pillows to match! Of course, the Africa map is there to stay--as usual! It is quickly acquiring new Xs. Sadly, Paris is the only European city I've visited which isn't included on this map. Otherwise, my entire travel experiences could be seen by the Xs on this map.

There is also a desk in this room, but suffice to say that I was too embarrassed to show it in its current state.

This weekend was a lot of fun, but mostly running around. Ursula and I went to Rosebank Mall on Saturday to pick up a few essentials and get our hair cut. I don't have a picture, but it's just shorter. It always looks essentially the same, anyway. Rosebank is large with around 100+ shops and is much like the Summit meets the Galleria with outside and inside shop entrances. While we were there we found this lovely street performer who painted himself pink and then would dance for a few rand. Ursula gave him a few and is obviously impressed.



Here he is dancing:



After Rosebank, we went out to Melville with Tamlynn, a Rotarian in my host club who is 23, as well. She's a lot of fun. Melville is essentially the 5 Points of Johannesburg--lots of bars and trendy restaurants. Some of the restaurants voted best in Jozi are in Melville, and it happens to be only a 5 minute car ride away from campus. So, we went to a bar called Cool Runnings which has quite the Rasta feel (obviously). We hung out and talked and had a generally good time.

Sunday I went to the Catholic church on campus with my Zimbabwean friends Janet and Pascalia. The service was very traditionally Catholic, but with the African tradition of processing to the front to give your offering. I love it! Janet and Pascalia are sweet and live on either side of my hall. They said that at home, their service would have included lots more singing, some dancing, and a lot of drumming. I was sort-of disappointed because there was no choir--sad. I'm going to have to look harder for a church with a choir. As my mother rightly pointed out, I haven't been not in a choir since I was 7!

After church, we hung out with Keegan, an old Ambassadorial Scholar for a while. Then, sadly, I had to study a little. It was brightened, though, by company of my friend Elizabeth who is from Botswana. Elizabeth lives at Wits full-time to get her diploma, but has taught in Botswana for years and leaves behind a 14, 10, and 4 year old. She misses them a lot. We decided to walk down the street to get some airtime for her phone and ended up walking past a man begging for change in the road. He looked terribly physically disabled and had great difficulty walking. As we walked back past, however, we saw him standing erect and walking normally out of the view of the oncoming cars. I was so disappointed by this! There are lots of people in Joburg who beg, and most of them because they are truly destitute. I was so disappointed that this person would be willing not only to exploit being destitute, but also to exploit those who really are disabled and do need help. Elizabeth said it best--"what a moron." How sad.

I got to experience an interesting phenomenon from a distance. We had a soccer match on campus between the Wits Clever Boys and the Kaiser Chiefs. Apparently there had been some violence the last time the Chiefs played, so they didn't sell many tickets, so we missed out on that. Regardless, it was quite an extravaganza from what we could see walking by. Everyone dresses in team colors and brings or buys at the game a large trumpet-esque instrument called a Vuvuzela. You can hear vuvuzelas from miles around!! (Side-note, our campus newspaper is called the Vuvuzela, as well. Almost like calling it the Bugle, I think.) There were women with braiis (barbecues) all around selling chicken and cold drinks to the revelers. I think there were around 5,000 people at the game, and there would have been more except that tickets were limited. Anyway, next time we will have to attend a soccer match. Sadly, the Chiefs won. Then again, when you have violent fans, you want their team to win, huh?

Today's class is Human Rights (wooo!!). Then tonight I think I'll open my cheap bottles of South African wine. Do I mean cheap wine, you ask? No, but SA wine is much cheaper than at home, and usually much better. What a deal.