Reality Check

Its 12:31am and here I am, sitting in the living room of a groomed apartment, scattered with beer cans, wine bottles, and a shiny new guitar. The internet is a bit spotty, but working well enough, and the fridge is humming in the background. After returning from a drive down the curving N1 highway which overlooks all of the city, I've decided to plop down on our bean bags to type away on my computer and enjoy the silence of home for a bit while my roommates enjoy a night on the town. If I listen closely enough I can hear the bumping music of Long Street and the buzz of cars along the freeway next to our home. I'm in, but I'm still connected with the city.

Despite what one may think, I am far from real Africa or the Africa that many envision when they hear that I've signed up for a year abroad volunteer program. Allured by the Safari pictures and the grass hut depictions that Hollywood hits us with, recent grads take off on the 24-hour, around the world, flight expecting to touch down in a desert land of no running water, mud floors with gigantic spiders, and women roaming around with baskets on their heads. Scratch that-- almost all of Americans, not just college grads, believe that stereotype to be true.

My travel nurse, a plump little lady with pink spectacles, who worked at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and came across as being surprisingly well travelled, warned me before I took off for Cape Town. She convinced me that rabies shots were a necessity. I believed her when she told me that for a year I would have to go without salad, or any fruits or vegetables lacking a tough outer skin. I nodded along as she gave me instructions on how to avoid catching TB in the local outdoor markets. "Spread your arms out as far as you can possibly reach, spin in a circle, and use this area as a guide to what you should use as a "safety field."' The closest I've come to an outdoor market is The Old Biscuit Mill, the world's poshest Farmer's Market that I've ever been to and I've lived in Vermont and New York City-- Farmer's Market hotspots.

So while I am enjoying Africa Lite, as some of the interns as other sites have so kindly named Cape Town, it is far from what one may expect. Delicious tap water, no stray dogs, not a grass hut in sight, and perfectly edible fruits and veggies. There is a lot that does not exist in America and that does follow along with what one might expect, but let it be known, Cape Town is not the Africa that I'm sure many of you have envisioned.