Last Day in Cape Town

So its my last day in Cape Town now. Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, I've been really busy wrapping everything up in the project. But its all done now and I'm just waiting to fly home now. The last few weeks have been both really amazing and incredibly stressful. After my little vacation in Kruger, it was really a big push of work to get everything together in the end. The past week especially has been a very very "productive" week. Two weekends ago our professors came to us with a plan for the end of the term, and it was a very ambitious plan as well. This was both exciting and also daunting, for they didn't always provide the most obvious guidance, but this time it was a very ambitious goal for the end of the project.

Their plan was for our entire group of 22's integrated plan chapter of our "atlas" and also a presentation shaped around that chapter to present to both memebers of the settlement and the city departments that were sponsoring us. And so with a week and a half to go and no progress on either of those, we moved quickly to get it all going. Through the first month and some we had been there, we had all of the information and ideas we need for this plan, it just all needed to come together into one presentation and document. And somehow, through working early morning to late night for most of those last days we brought it all together and made a document that I think is really quite amazing. I have a newfound respect for anyone making a publication with lots of text mixed in with pictures and figures and charts. I had a large role in planning the format of the atlas and in compiling different pieces together and editing it, and it is a lot more work than just writing it up. Wow, much more complicated than the research reports I am used to writing. But in working to compile everything and seeing it all come together, I was really very proud to have been a part of creating it. In addition to that chapter, each team made their own chapter and we have now just today finally compiled all of that into one 210 page document, the atlas of our findings and recommendations for the redevelopment of Monwabisi Park.

While finishing up the atlas last week, we also turned our focus to our presentation. It actually turned into two, one for community members last Saturday and one for the city last wednesday. The first ended up being a sort of first draft of our presentation. It was a little rough, but we presented our findings and made a good final impression on the community. After doing that, we came back to another big group meeting and the advisors once again had a really ambitious plan to completely revamp the presentation and make it that much better for the city. So we reworked it, making it more fluid and more similar to our integrated plan, and came out with something much, much better I believe. We compiled everything together and all got together with the city officials and made our powerpoint presentation. I was manning the computer for that show and clicking through the slides as we all spoke, and I was really amazed at how in such a short time and with 22 people, we managed to make something I thought was really very fluid and everything flowed together very well. We all presented our groups findings in the context of our larger plan and it all came together surprisingly well. Our basic idea for the redevelopment was that community structures should be established at various central locations throughout the park first and then redevelopment should spread out from those areas for other water facilities and new housing ideas. It is a different approach than what the city normally takes, but something we thought made a lot of sense.

So the best part of this whole presentation was the amazing responses we got from the city people at the end. All of them were impressed with how much we had accomplished in the settlements and the level of interaction we were able to have and even said that they thought they could not have gotten results as good in that time if they had paid someone. But even better was how much they respected and liked our ideas. They were very interested in the different approach we had taken and seemed very prepared to work with WPI and the community and the Shaster Foundation, a non government organization that works with redeveloping the settlement, to implement parts of this plan. I think we helped to set up a lot of future work with other WPI teams here. Before we did our work, the city really was barely aware of Monwabisi Park and now are excited about the plans we helped make and seemed to think there are possibilities for city funding to go into helping with it.

All of this response and finally sitting back and seeing the publication that we created, and seeing how much better it looks and reads than the normal IQP report you have to write, I am so happy that I was able to come work here. I think it has been an amazing experience. I learned about many of the difficulties and stresses of trying to work together with so many people, pretty much living with this project for two months. But then being able to take a break and pretty much be on vacation in this amazing location. Cape Town is really a beautiful place. The beaches are all really amazing (although completely frigid) and you can see Table Mountain from everywhere looming over the city and the views from the top of it are incredible. Going to see all of these exotic locations and animals and this city, I can't believe this is still school. Much different from sitting in class and living in Worcester. I am very very happy I came here. And after that presentation, I feel really good about the work I have done. I mean I may be going home and moving on from it in certain ways, but our group has managed to give this informal settlement city attention, and serious attention, and to open channels to funding in the future and plans for redevelopment and lifting out of the terrible living conditions that currently exist. Our professor talked to the mayor of Cape Town about our presentation and she made sure to send someone she trusted and who could make changes to the meeting. Being able to be the bridge between these two groups that are so close together, but have so little interaction, is really very amazing to me.

However, as great as everything has been, I am now ready to be home. Living away from home and also completely surrounded by my work and by all of my fellow students, I am ready for a break, ha. So tomorrow I fly home and after that loooong process I look forward to snow and a break from the heat. I have tons and tons of pictures and also copies of the presentations and the report/book that we made and I will put those online when I get home and let all of you know for sure. For now, its time to head back and pack up. Can't really believe I'm heading home. Its been an amazing experience and one of the best decisions and opportunities of my life. Talk to you all soon.

My Thankgiving Safari Trip

So for Thanksgiving break last week I went on my safari trip to Kruger National Park. I've been planning this trip since the beginning of the school year and organized it for ten of us, which turned out to be a lot of work. So I was very happy to finally be heading out and luckily everything worked out great. We flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg and stayed the night in this really cool backpacker lodge on Tuesday night on the 25th. The next day we were picked up at about 6:30 in the morning. It was a long all day drive out to the lodge we were staying in that night. But along the way we got to see the awesome landscape of mountains and canyons along the way. One interesting thing was the miles and miles of logging forests they have outside of Johannesburg. They went on for over an hour while we were driving, big groups of long straight pine trees in rows. They were in all stages of growth and some were just fields of stumps that had been clear cut and then burned out. It seemed like a rough way of doing it, but with how many trees were out there, it must be effective around here. They re-plant once they clear cut, so it seems all right to me.

We also stopped along the way at God's Window and the Blyde River Canyon which was really amazing. The canyon is the third largest in the world and is 33 km long and We stopped at a few places to look out at it and it was one of the coolest places I have been. Sadly it was kinda cloudy that day so I didn't get the best views I could have. I put up a lot of pictures of it on the site, along with the rest of the trip.

After that we went on to the lodge outside the camp. We slept for the whole thing in big green tents on platforms with mattresses. Pretty fancy camping in my experience. They sure felt great after the long days we had though. At the first lodge, we got a great African dinner that we ate outside and also had some local children do some tribal dancing for us. It was a very cool night.

The next morning we got up very early and drove straight out into the park. The game drives were lots and lots of driving around on dirt and paved roads looking at mostly the same terrain. That part of it would get a little boring at times. A lot of the time was spent looking and waiting for a sighting. But it was all worth it when I did see things. I saw so many animals I've never seen before, even in zoos. And a lot I've only seen in zoos. As soon as we got in I saw a hyena on the side of the road. It was a lot broader and stronger looking than I expected. I would not want to mess with one of those. The most common things were impalas and zebras and wildebeest and other impala like animals. I must have seen hundreds of those over the three days. I also saw giraffes and elephants. Those were my favorite. They were so big and calm and just seemed not to care at all about anything else. I loved seeing the elephant. I saw a little baby one too, that was really cool. The best elephant sighting was when we saw some on both sides of the road and one walked right to our truck and then around behind it to cross the road. I've never been so close and this elephant was bigger than our truck!

The big five in Africa are the African Elephant, the White Rhino, the lion, the leopard, and the Water Buffalo. These are the five more dangerous land animals in Africa. I managed to see all but one of them. The lion I saw on the first day in the afternoon. We saw a big male sitting under a tree in the shade. There was another male under a tree near him and a female and another male behind the first one. There was also some sort of impala like animal lying dead beside them that they had caught. They were about 200 yards away, but I saw it through the binoculars. I figured out how to take pictures through the binoculars too. That was really useful too, because I saw the rhinos, two underneath a tree the next day and I managed to get some good pictures through them even though they were a couple hundred yards away. The rhinos were a lot bigger than I expected. The only big one we missed was the leopard. Didn't see a cheetah either actually, but its not a big five.

The trip was an amazing experience. I have been looking forward to this trip for months and it was everything I had hoped. I was very happy that all of my planning worked out great and I got a chance to see so many new things. The animals were incredible, the canyon was really awesome and it was a very nice break from the work I've been doing lately. I feel ready now to focus in and get all the work done we need to in the next few weeks for the project. We have a lot of writing to do now and have to bring all we've done together into our atlas, which should be interesting. We are planning to take all six groups work and put it into one large publication, which can hopefully be used for future planning and to help the park get foreign investors to contribute to the efforts. It should be interesting. Wish me luck!

The Cape of Good Hope

So we took an awesome tour of the Cape Peninsula this weekend. It was a big group trip that the whole group of students here took. I helped organize it actually, I've been feeling like a travel agent lately, what with planning this and the safari I did also for a group of us. But luckily this one was already paid for by all of us with our "activities budget".
We got on a bus at like 9:00 on Sunday and drove down the Atlantic coast to Hout Bay. It was amazing weather, no clouds and warm with just enough wind to stay cool. There were some great views along the way of the coastline and the beaches we've been going to lately. In Hout Bay we stopped at the harbor and got out to board a boat for the first part of the tour. We rode out in the boat for like twenty minutes to Duiker (Seal) Island. Its called Seal because it is literally covered in Cape Fur Seals. They were piled all over each other and all in the water around it. It was really cool. There were also some really great cliffs to see there and a big castle up on the hill.
We then boarded the bus again and drove across the peninsula to False Bay and to Simon's Town, where there is a colony of penguins. We walked down the hill to this little sheltered beach, surrounded by big rocks and there was a whole bunch of little tiny penguins. They were all just chilling out on the beach. It was very cool to see them. One of the things I wanted to do as soon as I knew I was coming here. So I am happy to have done that now.
Our next stop was to drive down to the Cape Point Park. We got to get out and ride bikes on the road then, which was really great. I miss riding my bike back home. I had a pretty bad problem with this one though, because I didn't realize until I stopped for lunch that my back brake was rubbing the whole time and slowing me down. It was like riding an exercise bike the whole time! But it was a really great way to see everything around there, and I got to see a big black snake on the side of the road.
The cliffs at the Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Point (which are separated by like a mile or so) are amazing. I got to climb around a bunch on one of them. The water was very clean blue and there was kelp everywhere in the water. It was pretty hard to imagine that area was the most dangerous part of a sailing journey around Africa. It seemed like a pretty beautiful great place to be on Sunday. We also got to climb up some stairs and a path to see the two lighthouses at Cape Point. And I can now say I have been to the southwestern-most point of Africa, which I think is pretty cool.
I also went to Muizenberg Beach on Saturday. That was my first time in the Indian Ocean. I have now swam in three different oceans. Not too bad. It was much warmer than the Atlantic beaches here. Very windy here. But another really awesome beach. Can't argue too much with all the sun and sand around here. Be sure to look at all my pictures from this weekend on my picasa site. And next week I get to go on a safari! But for now, its back to work on my project.

Settling into this place.

So starting off my third week here now tomorrow. We're really starting to get pretty serious into the project now. We've spent a lot of time talking to residents of the Park about how they use electricity and other things to cook and heat their homes and to watch tv. Its been really surprising, a lot of them actually have fridges in their shacks that are bigger than the one in my apartment. But they get electricity by either pre-paying for it like a pay as you go cellphone or by running little cords from someone who does have a box and just paying them. So it is all really inconsistent and goes down a lot. But everyone says that the most important change they would want is just to have their own box and have more reliable electricity, which was also pretty interesting. But having good electricity does make a lot of things simpler and safer in their homes.

We've also been working on building some little cheap and simple solar water heaters and solar ovens. There are a lot of designs out there, so we've found a few and are going to build them and then do some sort of a workshop with the community to show how they work. I think this is a really cool way to help solve their energy problems by just using simple devices that don't cost anything to run to cook and heat water. They might not be able to work for all of their needs, but they could go a long way in saving how much they have to spend on grid electricity and other fuels.

So now that we've done that initial work here, we have to start now analyzing all of it and to start developing a plan for improvement and redevelopment of their energy uses. This part is the most confusing, because none of us have any experience in this and it is really something that people are struggling with all around the world. But as our advisors say, it gives us a chance to really come up with whatever we want and make it something creative. And our sponsors and advisors are really pushing us to do just that, think creatively about this and come up with something new. So that part is exciting, but of course also quite a bit confusing and a big unknown. Hopefully we will bring together something good for the area and make a difference in the place, and also of course something that will get me a good grade on this project since this is a big part of my degree at school. That is an interesting balance I've been thinking about lately, but it seems that our advisors are gonna pre pretty flexible with the grading, and as long as we work hard toward making improvements and putting a lot of effort into our work in the park, we will get a good grade.

On a lighter note, I got to take a really great tour around a lot of Cape Town with on of the sponsors. The picture here is from that trip, when stopped on the coastal road along the Atlantic. That was really cool, just touring around the countryside and seeing everything from the road. Well thats all for now. Hopefully I get some good work done this week and I can update you all later on.

Devil's Peak and Table Mt.

So today was a very busy day for me. I got up early with a few friends and went to hike Devil's Peak and Table Mt. It was looking like really great weather this morning, sunny and warm. We got there about nine or ten I think after a crazy taxi ride up the winding mountain road. We then proceeded up the goat path of a trail that was there. After hiking about fifteen minutes we stopped to turn around and were amazed at how far down the road already was. That feeling persisted for most of the rest of the way up it. There was a really awesome ridge line off the side part way up that we got a lot of really great pictures from. Continuing up from that we scrambled up to the summit and spent a good while up there in the sun. The clouds started to move in a little though, but it was still great up there. After plenty of goofing around and lots of pictures, we made our way back down the peak, walking along the ridge and looking down into Cape Town the whole way. It is an amazing view of the city from up there. After making our way back down almost to the road, we decided to summit Table Mt as well even though the clouds had moved in pretty thick. It was still looking like a good hike. We got to hike up this crazy gorge in the picture. Most of the way up it was thigh high stairs of rocks with a lot of chicken wire holding them together. We blasted up this trail to the top in about an hour. I have not been that tired in quite a while. But once there, we walked over to the tram to get our nice ride down. I never thought walking down was very fun anyways. I will certainly be back there again soon when it is clear, because we walked by a lot of lookouts on the way to the tram that must be stunning if its clear. After getting down and back to the lodge, I also went out to the aquarium at the waterfront. Pictures of all of this are up on my site now.

Back to work in the settlement tomorrow. The project could be changing a lot because 8 shacks burned down near the community center in the Park over the weekend and we may be reorganizing our plans to redevelop the community a little quicker now that this opportunity is here. Everyone was ok in the fires, but there are a number of people without homes now and we will be trying to work all of that out this week. Hopefully we can find a good solution. All of us are still struggling a lot to get a solid focus on the project, but we are confident it will come soon. Just have to keep gathering info and experience in the area and do what we can. Can't believe its already week 2. I feel like its gonna fly by. Bed time now, talk to you all soon.

Welcome to Cape Town

Hello to everyone interested. This is my first time trying this, but I thought it might be appropriate for my situation, since so many people want to know whats going on with me here. I am right now sitting in a backpackers lodge in Cape Town. Its called St. Johns Waterfront Lodge and I am about 5 minutes walk from the downtown waterfront harbor. It is an amazing location in this beautiful area. Between the ocean views and the crazy views of Table Mountain hovering over the city, this is a really cool place. I'm not here for all vacation though. For those not aware, I will be living in Cape Town until Dec. 20. I am here completing one of the big projects I have to do at WPI, called the IQP. I am working in an informal settlement 30 minutes from here. There are 22 of us working in this one settlement and my group is working to improve the energy usage of the residents by making a plan for upgrading their options, especially in an alternative energy sort of way. It is really exciting work and we have made a lot of progress even in the first few days interviewing residents and getting an idea of what is going on there now. I took a bunch of pictures of the area when we made our first tour and they are on my picture website, http://picasaweb.google.com/cwells235

I also get to have plenty of fun on this trip as well. I've been down to the V&A Waterfront quite a few times now. It has a very cool place, right around the main harbor of Cape Town, with a good mall there for all our shopping and live music often in the central square outside. A lot of restaurants are there as well. And last Saturday I went to the beach with a bunch of my friends here. It was gorgeous and sunny and white sands and the whole area was framed by these crazy mountains called the Twelve Apostles that formed this amazing ridgeline running down the coast. The only bad part was how cold the water was. It was quite frigid. But the sun was very warm, so it was a good day. This weekend I'm planning to hike Table Mountain with a bunch of people. We are also planning trips to see the Cape of Good Hope and Robben Island and a group of us are going on a 4-day safari over Thanksgiving break we get here. So I am really excited for my time here. I'm taking tons of pictures of everything. The internet is limited, but I'll try to post some up to my Picasa site. You should get emails when I post if I figured this out right. Thanks for all the interest and look for more posts soon.

Chris