Yesterday I had a great day at work. It was Nelson Mandela's birthday. In South Africa, it is a HUGE celebration. This is the description giving on the Mandela Day website: The overarching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better, and in doing so build a global movement for good. Ultimately it seeks to empower communities everywhere. "Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day." To ...

I know I am already a couple weeks into this adventure, but I want to tell you all about the great people I am meeting. As some of you know, I am staying in a 17 bedroom house! Most of my roommates are also VACorps interns and most are from the United States. There is still so much diversity amongst us however. It's kind of funny actually, there are five University of Oregon students staying in my house and none of us knew each other before this experience! Kat...

Rituals, witchcraft, and animal slaughtering are things that I have no experience with and know very little about. I have been at Empilweni for a couple weeks now and have already heard several cases that involve at least one of these. * Whenever I talk about cases on this blog, I will either be very brief or alter certain facts for client confidentiality. The first case that I observed on my second day of work involved a mother and her child. The child said ...

It has been interesting to see the different reactions from locals about United States students coming to South Africa to work. So far from what I have experienced and from what I have heard from others, everyone at our internship sites are very welcoming. My supervisor has said many times that despite my age, she believes she can learn as much from me as I can learn from her. My experience has been a little different with people outside of my internship. It ...

This morning I got up around 8. I went to bed at about 3am last night but my brother Travis and I agreed to Skype at 8am my time, so I had to wake up! It was great to see him and catch up with him. To my surprise, I actually miss him quite a bit! After that, everyone else in the house was pretty much up. We all got ready and went to the Old Biscuit Mill. The Old Biscuit Mill is a big open air market. The food is absolutely amazing! I posted a few pictures, so t...