South Africa arrival

I am finally in SA!!! After a 15 hour plane ride, started off with a 2 hour delay because of mechanical troubles, Katie and I exited into Johannesburg (or Joburg as the locals say) airport. We were greeted at the gate by one of the program assistants, Sdu, who took us to a hostel close to the airport, the shoestring youth hostel. The first thing that I noticed about south Africa was the fences. They are around every house, stone with razor or electric wire around the top. Even when we went to Soweto it was the same, or worse. Everything is fenced and gated in Joburg. It gave a feeling of violence, although the hostel we are in is in a fairly safe neighborhood. We got in at about 11 local time, and just kind of hung around the hostel with about 5 other girls who had come in on our flight. Katie and I tossed a ball around and played soccer with the hostel manager’s kid. We met with our program manager, Zed, who is very south African. His speech patterns are hilarious, and the accent is out of control. At about 6 the rest of the students came in. We had a “bit of a bar-b-q” including some local sausage, which was delicious. There are 27 girls, me and two other guys. At this point it is just me and Billy representing the male sex. I miss my boys, there is so much estrogen around here. We also got our homestay assignments, I am with a mother and her two sons, Brian and Carl (I know, how weird is that). They are 20 and 22, so hopefully there will be a little bit more man time shortly. Today we got up and had breakfast, then had a talk about safety, and then we went to Soweto, which used to be an appartide black community of about 1 million people and is still predominantly African. We visited nelson mandela’s house that he had lived in with Winnie before he was arrested, and also a museum/ memorial of a riot in 1976 which sparked worldwide controversy about appartide. We had lunch at a local restaurant, which was very good, lamb, chicken, beef, tripe (not too bad), and lots of starches. Then we went to a shopping centre to buy things we had forgotten at home. Back for dinner and some wine, which was quality but super cheap at the grocery store. Still cant stand the taste.