Sandton & A Tanzanian Lunch

Height differences though ....

   Only two weeks of uni until mid-semester break! I'm so excited, particularly because I'm hoping that by the time we fly off I will have 3 out of 4 of my major essays submitted and I'll hopefully not have to stress about essays while we are away! (But knowing me I'll probably still be studying while on holiday ...)

   Life hasn't been too interesting as its that point in the semester and everyone is quite busy. In class last Monday we watched the movie Hotel Rwanda, which was about the Rwandan Genocide. It was a very emotional movie and I really recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Rwandan Genocide, or who hasn't even heard of it. It's a conflict that I didn't know of until last year at university, but that changed the lives of millions of people. On Tuesday we watched another movie (one of my lecturers was away that week), Invictus, which was a much more friendly movie about reconciliation between whites and blacks soon after Nelson Mandela became President, using rugby to bring South Africa together.
 
   On Wednesday a few of us went to Sandton for a shopping trip. Sandton is known as the richer downtown area, the buildings are nicer, the roads are good, and you can see the affluence. Upon entering the main shopping centre its easy to forget that you're in Africa and not back home. In the end it's basically just like any other shopping centre, lots of stores, bright lights and you end up getting lost and tired looking for what you want. (I ended up buying a new camera lens at Sandton, I'm super happy with it and very excited to start taking more snaps!)

Massive statue of Nelson Mandela at Sandton

    After Sandton we took an Uber to an area called Rivonia which has an Asian supermarket. I was with Vivian (Malaysia) and Rin (Japan) who have been missing Asian food since being here so it was quite exciting. They had really cheap tofu and they had heaps of products that I hadn't seen in South Africa before (unlike in Melbourne, there is a massive lack of Asian food here). We bought so many groceries that day it was ridiculous.

All this tofu for 18rand!

    On Friday, one of Vivian's friends invited us [the exchange students] over to have a Tanzanian lunch at her house. She lives about 1km from the uni and is from Dar es Salaam. She was incredibly sweet, making us a massive meal of coconut rice, a red cabbage veggie stew and chicken. I made some hummus to bring over (plain and beetroot flavour) and we had a lovely afternoon at her house.

Hummusssss

Coconut rice!!

Red cabbage veggie stew - can't remember what the name is in Swahili but it was delicious. 

Featuring the fried rice Justin brought.

    It was a really nice day eating some really good food, she used so many different spices and it's making me consider going back to Tanzania in January during the summer holidays ... She also gave us plenty of leftovers. By the time it got dark we were all tired and full. Good food and good company is good for the soul.

Life Updates: Hello Spring!

Hello spring! The weather is warming up and it is no longer the cold South Africa that I arrived in a few short months ago. Time is literally flying by and it's already passed the halfway mark of the semester. When I realise how fast time has gone by it makes me glad that I've decided to be here for  a whole year, one semester just doesn't seem enough! 

Anyways, here is what I've been up to for the past couple of weeks;

Vegan market (Vegan Hippy Connection Johannesburg): What is a vegan market you might ask? Basically a market where no animal products are sold, ie. my idea of heaven. Surprisingly, there is one held in Johannesburg once a month near Rosebank, and I went to this one on the last Sunday of August - there isn't even a monthly vegan market in Melbourne (that I know of) so I was excited! I proudly wore my vegan t-shirt to the market, however most of the patrons didn't appear to be vegan, it was just a weekly thing to come to this market and eat and shop.  Nonetheless, there were plenty of vegan vendors and food...

It wasn't a particularly big market so we quickly did a lap of the place, but it had some nice grass areas to sit in the sun. Plus people were free to bring their pets so there were dogs everywhere!! We enjoyed a beer-battered tofu taco and a vegan margherita pizza before going for a walk out of the market and finding a vegan restaurant. We were too full to eat, but there was a health food store attached that sold tofu!! I've been in Johannesburg for 2 months now and the only tofu I have found anywhere has been this expensive stuff that comes in a carton on a shelf (not even in the fridge section), and that I've been too scared/stingy to buy ... this however was heaven, and unfortunately I've already eaten all the tofu I bought. I hadn't realised until I got here how much of a staple tofu actually is in my diet ...  However with that being said, not having tofu is probably the hardest bit about vegan in Johannesburg so I can't really complain.

... so .. many ... varieties ... omg

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4 avos for $2.30AUD, you usually can't even buy one for that price in Australia!

Avocado enthusiasm: Avocado is by far my favourite fruit, and one of the things I have been enjoying the most is that they are pretty inexpensive here. I can afford to buy a heap at a time and not be depressed about how much they cost. 

I hit the jackpot the other day at the Food Lovers market at Hillfox where I found massive avocados for only 40rand ... if you have me on snapchat you probably already got to see these amazing beauties.  They were actually so big, I nearly screamed in the supermarket when I saw them I was so excited. I'm just sad I only bought one!

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Saturday school: Every Saturday kids from around Johannesburg hop on buses and come to Monash to be tutored in numeracy and literacy. It's a student run and part of the Community Engagement program that the university runs. I did the training session way back, but it's only been in the past couple of weeks that I've found the time to go in and help out. It was a bit daunting in the beginning, but all you do is go through a few worksheets with the kids. They are all primary school students and are all pretty sweet. There is a big focus on keeping track of the students and making sure they are improving. As well as that, all the kids are pretty good at English so communication isn't difficult. I've only volunteered for two Saturdays so far, but it's been a good way to be involved with the university, and do something productive on a Saturday morning instead of sleep in!

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Study: I'm taking four units this semester and for some reason all of these classes have essays due just before or just after the mid-semester break (which is at the end of semester), which is definitely not ideal because currently I have planned to spend all of the break in Cape Town - with minimal study! Mid-sem is just under three weeks away so I've made it my mission to get 3 out of 4 of these essays finished before I go away ... the thought of beaches and not having to worry about study is the only thing keeping me going! Since the weather has been so nice lately, studying outside in the courtyard just outside of the building I live in has been somewhat motivating ... until you get distracted by the birds flying around!

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If you don't hear from me in a while it's because I've been drowning in a hole of essays  ... Bring on Cape Town!