Time is flying by! Off to Capetown now!!

Wow! So much has happened this past week and this weekend that I do not know even where to start! Let me first start by filling you all in with what happened last week with the safari/living with the zulu tribe! Half of our giant group went to live with the zulu tribe first while the other half lived on a game reserve and went on a safari! I started at the safari and it was SO much fun! We woke up at like 4:30 am every morning in order to get a good start to finding some animals! I saw the most exotic animals... zebra, giraffe, elephants, rhinos, hippos, cheetahs, scorpions, spiders, mpala, and nyala! They were so amazing and I took about 400 pictures! haha! We were in these open vehicles so it felt like we were really out in the wild! My favorite part was definitely being a few car lengths away from cheetah! They were so beautiful and we actually got to see the cheetah chase an mpala right in front of our eyes! I seriously felt like I was on Animal planet or something!! We were literally out looking for animals the entire day.. we would only come back to base camp for lunch and dinner! At night we would play games as a group and it was so nice to be able to get to know everyone because we were in a smaller group.

It was time to swap places on Wednesday so all of us were very excited to go live in the zulu tribe... however there was a huge issue that had come about that we were all unaware of its serverity! Apparently 20 of the 27 students had become violently sick and many spent the night in the hospital the night before! They were unsure of what exactly it was that caused all the students to be sick but they think it was because they drank water that the tribe gave them! It was terrible... as we swapped buses it was probably one of the most pitiful sights I have ever seen. They all looked in pain and it was just so sad to see. It made all of us so nervous to go to the tribe because we didn't want to get sick like they did! But after some reassurance, we were still excited but very cautious and stopped at a gas station to buy a ton of water for the next few days! We got to the tribe (which was literally in the middle of nowhere... like an hour from civilization) and moved into these adorable looking huts with mud floors! We met a bunch of people who live there and a ton of people and kids from nearby villiages came by to hang out with us! They performed a zulu dance our first night.. which was so interesting and they pulled a few of us out of the audience to perform with them... It was fun trying to dance like them... but I have to admit, it was awkward too! haha But the next day we went on a super long hike and it was so hot out! We met a medicine man in the forest and that was sweet! We also stopped at this one woman's hut to buy some of her bead jewelry! I learned how to make some jewelry with them too and we hung out with them for a while and sang praise songs in zulu and just talked. The bathrooms and showers were very interesting! the toilet was literally a hole with a sheet of cardboard over it! It was disguting and anytime any of us had to use the restroom, we dreaded it BIG TIME! The shower part was interesting because we had to get hot water from this giant boiling pot over the fire, poor it into a bucket, and then carry it over to the shower to poor it into another bucket, and then lift it up on a rope so that we can shower ourselves with it. It was a lengthy process but a necessity if you wanted to be clean! We spent our second evening sitting around the campfire with all of our group and all the zulus! We sang sons and just chatted... It was so much fun and I cherished the whole weekend for what it was.... I appreciate the way they live and the hard work they put into everything! It is amazing how different of a lifestyle they truly live!
And so I thought I got through living with the zulu tribe being healthy, but that shortly failed today when I had a super upset stomach and found myself needing to use the restroom a ton... Along with the majority of both groups! It is not fun to be sick, but it has been comical to find our group talking about these very personal issues concerning "diahreea and throwing up" in depth and so freely! I love it.. haha... But we are unsure of what exactly caused us all to get sick... but for sure it had to be something while at the zulu tribe :/ But many are still sick and please pray for everyone to heal as we are getting ready to have a week's travel by bus down to capetown! It is such a necessity to be healthy as we are constantly going going going! Many have made trips to the hospital... so this incident was definitely not a good thing, but I feel it has brought us all closer in a very unique way.
Today I packed pretty much all day and cleaned out my room at African Enterprise. Tonight we had our fairwell dinner and it was very fun! We all got dressed up for the occasion and had a delicious and fancy meal! We had some of our friends from ethembeni come to join us for dinner and it was lovely. It was nice to have one last goodbye! They are like family for sure!
Tomorrow we leave at 7 in the morning and are driving all day!
Alright, well I am gone for the rest of the week and will not have internet until Friday and by then, I'll be in Capetown!! During this next week, I will be bungee jumping off the largest bungee jump in the WORLD!! YEA BABY! And also exploring into the deep Cango caves! I am SOOO FREAKING EXCITED! Hope all of you are doing well! love and miss you all!!
love, Jamie