Soccer, logic and lion's head

So as I have activated internet on my blackberry, which was thankfully sold to me unlocked by Sprint when I bought it a few years ago, I am able to email blog posts in on a more regular basis. I will probably need to format these posts once I get to a computer, but it'll do for now.

On Monday started with a trip back to Khayelitsha to have our first workshop with their youth leaders. After referring, and then assistant referring, two soccer games between the SEC interns and the youth leaders, we went inside to get down to business. Our group, Opportunity, is responsible for helping to create a "career wall" in the CTC-10 field office. This first meeting was to workshop ideas, from which careers to feature, to how the wall will look. It went surprisingly well and I'm looking forward to going back to build on our work Friday.

Yesterday, Tuesday, began with a meeting of the Bo Kaap Heritage Gateway (BKHG), a volunteer group seeking to find funding to make BKHG reach its full potential. The ideas are promising, and from my experience in these 10 odd days living in the community, I firmly believe the money would be used to achieve their goals...but perhaps I am now biased. Yesterday ended with a tour of the District 6 museum. District 6 was a primarily colored (as in not African or White) area known for its multicultural flavor. It was designated a whites only area but due to community protest, the area was razed in the early 70s. I truly felt for the story of the area, but the tour guide who spoke to us needed a lesson in political correctness. She railed on everyone from Mandela, to the Brits, to African Americans for thinking ourselves better than her people of colored origin. She also made ridiculous claims about the visible marks of slavery in American cities in the north...basically she had a lot of opinions that colored (pun intended) her facts. The museum itself was cool, a repurposed Methodist church, which itself had been a repurposed winery.

Today, Wednesday, we learned the Logic Model of evaluating business strategy. Basically you start with an outcome and then build a strategy around it so as to stay as true as possible to the original goal. However, the best part of the day was finally being able to hike up Lions Head, the little cousin of Table Mountain. What a hike it was! It started off easy on a inclined dirt road for about 15 minutes but then became a rocky path, which led to legit rock scaling, using ladders, hand holds and chains. It took the bulk of the group around 50 minutes to reach the top. A friend took a few pictures of me up there, one of which will become my new facebook profile picture soon. Coming down was scarier than coming up at first, but we all made it without incident. The night finished with dinner, some UEFA soccer (damnit Portugal) and now an early sleep. We're supposed to be on the road by 8am tomorrow morning so I need my sleep.

Ok, with that I bid you good night from Bo Kaap, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa, Earth. As always, thanks for reading!

-Diggs
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