It has been quite sometime since I have written. This is mostly because I have been pretty busy lately, as the year comes to an end. I am leaving in a little over 3 weeks, which is crazy to comprehend at this time.
First of all I though that I should update you all with the state of my knee. Two weeks ago today, I went back to surgeon to check out my knee. After m
essing with it, he determined that it is just a severe bone bruise and I do not need surgery. This was definitely good news. I was just not suppose to run for a month and it would heal completely in 3 months. So the day following I was able to do some work on an exercise bike. That same day we had another dinner party to celebrate Sam's mom being in. Once again, it was a great success and there was so much food. 
The next morning I woke up early and me, Brianna, and Maddie climbed Table
Mountain which was amazing. I was concerned that I would go to Cape Town twice and not visit the most prominent site, but those concerns were dashed upon reaching the top. The walk took us about 1 1/2 hours and then we took the Cable Car down. We returned at about 1PM and took a short break before heading off to the Rugby Game. Six of us went to the Blue Bulls vs. Western Province semi-final game. We cheered for WP who's chant was WP Jou Lekker Ding (Which sounds like V-P jew lecker ding and translate roughly to Western Province you the nice business in Afrikaans). It was a good game, but WP lost by 2 due to a penalty field goal with 2 minutes to go. 
However, we did get the opportunity to see Bryan Habana play for the Blue Bulls. Habana was the 2007 IRB International Player of the Year, the year he was the star player on the South African Springboks Rugby World Cup championship team.The next day we all took it pretty easy after the rather hectic weekend. All I did was do homework and hang out around the house. That work week I got all of my data back from my questionnaires about different races views of Apartheid. I will be sure to keep you updated in how those results turned out. That same week I distributed my questionnaire about homework to the Youth Group. The day that I distributed the questionnaire was the day of our biggest Youth Group in history. Over 400 learners attended the meeting so I was able to get a rather large sample size. Unfortunately, I only had 350 questionnaires, because we had not planned on that many people being there. We had initially planned on approx. 220, which is normally a pretty big group, so when 400 showed up it was a pleasant surprise. I have since tabulated the results and I will also keep you up to date on those results.
That weekend we went on our reflection retreat out in the bush. It was in the middle of nowhere. There we reviewed successes and failures of the program. Fortunately the majority of the things were successes. We did have time outside of meetings and we went on a game drive and saw a bunch
of animals. I also brought home the skull of a dead springbok that we found on the drive. So after I clean it up, I have to figure out a way to get it back to the States. The reflection weekend was good, but it was back to work this Monday.This week I got some good work done on both research projects. In fact, I turned in my first draft for my Social Research methods research paper. I still have a bit of work to do for my Capstone, but I have close to 30 pages at present. Also tonight, I turned in my final reflection paper for my Understanding Cape Town class. So it is really crunch time now.
At Equal Education, we had an interesting day yesterday. We had a strategic planning session in Muizenberg at Zackie Achmat's house. Zackie is one of our board members, but he is more famous for his work a prominent anti-Apartheid act
ivist. His is also the founding member of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a community based organization work on the behalf of people living with HIV and AIDS. Since its inception, the TAC has developed into a large nationwide organization. Zackie himself is living with HIV and continues the fight. Zackie is also a leading Gay Rights activist and the founder of the National Coa
lition for Gay and Lesbian Equality. The meeting was to talk about the plans for Equal Education in the future. These are exciting times to be apart of Equal Education, because there are so many exciting plans for the future. The meetings yesterday really made me want to stay at Equal Education because so much is happening just as I am leaving. I at least feel that I am leaving with the organization moving in the right direction.Today, I did not go into work because they were having more Strategic Planning meetings, but they were just for Admins, so I did not need to be there. This gave me the opportunity to work on my reflection and Capstone.
Well thats it for now. My posts will probably be less frequent as it is getting busier around here as of late.
Regardless, I will talk to you soon.
-Pat
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