Still free spirit running

So, I’ve been planning to post a wrap-up post about my amazing trip to South Africa for more than a month, but being me, I have failed to do so until today.  Why today?  Probably because if I wasn’t updating my blog, I would have to do my homework, and that would entirely unacceptable.

The week before I left South Africa shortly after midnight on Tuesday, December 9, AD 2008, flew by as fast as any week I can remember in my life.  I continued to drive my rental stickshift car around on the left side of the road without mishap as I drove from Observatory to choir practice and around the Cape Town area.  Maggie and I went to Cape Point, the southern point of the Cape of Good Hope that Cape Town is named after.  Interestly enough, Cape Point is not the southernmost part of Africa.  That distinction belongs to Cape Agulhas to the southeast.  Glenn and I also went to eat at sweet township meat market with our friend Kholekile.

Then, on Wednesday, December 3, a day earlier than initially planned, I headed off to South Africa’s administrative capital, Pretoria (now called Tshwane), with the UWC Choir for the Old Mutual choir competition.  I had a blast on this trip, despite the 18-20 hr bus ride each way.  I also got a sweet choir track suit out of the deal.  Out of a choir of 50+ members, we were only allowed to have 48 sing for each of our two graded pieces.  So, I did not sing the traditional Xhosa piece with the choir (definitely a good move), but I did sing the Western piece.  We all got to sing the indigenous piece, which each choir makes up on their own, and as the only white person in the competition, I ended up with some new fans after all the men went topless for the indigenous piece.  I also had some traditional paint on my chest and face, but since it was a rather pale shade, it didn’t show up on me very well.  Anyway, we finished 9th on the traditional piece and 6th on the Western piece, so we were 7th or 8th overall out of 11 top choirs.  Plus, I got to watch a bunch of the other choirs then.  The large category choirs (we were in the standard category) were absolutely amazing.  Another great part of the trip was the amazing buffet breakfasts and suppers provided at our hotel.

I got back to UWC the afternoon of Monday, December 8.  Kholekile picked me up and after running some errands, we went back to Mzoli’s, the awesome meat place in Gugulethu township, for my final meal on South African soil.  Then, I went back to Kimberley House, which was eerily vacant.  Only Liz and Jess were left from our group, with everyone else already gone.  When I saw what had been Glenn and my room absolutely empty, I guess I finally realized I was leaving.  After I said goodbye, our faithful driver and friend Pearnel drove me to the airport.  I embarked on the longest solo trip of my life (although only slightly longer than my sweet Greyhound bus trip out to Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s honors college a few years back) flew first to Amsterdam and then on to Chicago.

That’s about it.  I saw a lot of friends in the four days or so I was at Marquette before heading home.  Over break, I just worked and didn’t leave Phillips.  Due in part to my adjusting, my break flew by way too fast.  I started classes at Marquette last Monday, and due to my well-honed nerd instincts, I fell right back into the MU way of life.  In another interesting note, all nine of us who went to South Africa from Marquette last semester got together for pizza on Tuesday evening.  Only Chris, from Loyola-Chicago, couldn’t make it.  That helped me a lot with the transition as well, because I’m the kind of person who tends to promise to stay in touch with someone and then goes anti-social for a while.

Which brings me to my final point, although only because this is the last paragraph of my post and not because it’s related to anything above.  I have given some thought as to what I want to do with this blog now that I’m back in my Marquette routine.  I plan on still updating it when I feel like it, probably mainly with angry political and theological rants about our nation’s ever increasing descent into socialism and American Christianity’s ever increasing descent into irrelevance due at least in part to our shepherds’ lust for power.  Not that I’m opinionated at all.  I will also discuss and hopefully post pictures following my planned spring break with the Burke community service scholarship group to El Salvador in March.

God bless,

Andy