In the future, I will be more discerning about eating things which I do not recognize

Wednesday, unfortunately, was a much-wasted day, as was Thursday. My third hosts, a guy named Stephan (or Themba) and his roommates, were working for most of the day, so after Stephan picked me up early and took me out to breakfast (they have coffee milkshakes here, by the way!!!), I had made plans to get some stuff done in the morning and go about Jo'burg on my own until they got back. I went to an internet café in the morning to get some shit done, and in the course of going about my updates I decided to dine upon local, unfamiliar food. I was okay for a little while; I read, took a nap, even managed to parkour a bit. But then I started to feel a little off. Well, by the time the evening came around (and my hosts were home from work and ready to take me out), I felt nauseated something awful. I actually ran out of the restaurant so as to get sick on the sidewalk if I needed to rather than in a room full of people eating. One of my hosts took me home and made me tea and gave me water and some medicine while the rest of them finished their meal. I kind of feel bad for ruining the evening that way (although my hosts were completely sympathetic and said not to worry about it). I spent the majority of the remainder of the evening parked in front of the toilet, and when I did manage to feel well enough to lie down, I had a bucket next to my bed just in case. I didn't wind up sleeping until about 5:30 in the morning (why do roosters...or whatever rooster-sounding African bird it was...start to crow at 3:30, by the way, when it's not even remotely light out?).

When I woke up at 10/11 o'clock-ish, my hosts had all gone to work (although I vaguely remember Stephan/Themba popping in to check on me before he left) and I was on my own again. I spent a good portion of the day sitting on the porch watching colorful birds dart around the backyard. I didn't think to bring my camera with me when I went to sit out in the fresh air, though, and at that point I was still feeling too sick to do that much movement, so the journey into the house, up the stairs to fetch the camera, and back down again, was just far too daunting to contemplate. I'm sure there will be many other colorful and exotic animals awaiting me when I get to Kruger National Park. It is a game preserve, after all.

Stephan called to check in on me periodically throughout the day, and eventually I felt better. For most of the day, though, I was afraid to consume anything but water because I was still feeling a bit queasy. It's gotten very hot the past two days, so I decided that it would be a perfect opportunity to spend time indoors wandering around an air-conditioned mall (because heat + already feeling ill = not very fun). I managed to time my walk home just in time to catch the beginnings of a thunderstorm. It was actually quite refreshing that things cooled down a bit. I got a little bit of parkour in before it really got rainy, and in the evening, I went out with Ofentse, who'd offered to host me after I'd already made arrangements for the week, so we just got food and chatted while my hosts were working late. I actually managed to eat something and keep it down this time, which was an incredible relief.

I'm getting used to how English sounds over here, and to certain words and phrases they use that are different from ours back in the U.S.A. For example, shopping carts = trolleys, a porch is a veranda, mashed potatoes are just mash, and they've got a funny word for granola too, which I don't remember at the moment. I've even mostly gotten used to the fact that they drive on the other side of the road (it only phases me now when I have to cross a busy street and I need to look right first instead of left). One thing I don't get is that when someone in a store is asking if you need help finding anything, they say “Are you winning?” At least, that's what it sounds like to me. I'll have to ask Stephan about it when he drops me at the airport, because it's also very possible that it's an Afrikaans word that they just throw into an English sentence (that does happen down here), or that I'm totally mishearing it with their accent.

Now it is late, and I've got to get up early to catch a flight to Hoedspruit (which I found out at the beginning of the week was pronounced hood-sprite), where a representative from the Southern African Wildlife College will pick me up from the airport and bring me to the college inside the park, which will be my home for roughly the next three and a half months. I'll get settled and hopefully be completely over jet-lag and normalized to South African time over the weekend, and on Monday I start my internship at the college's library. Wish me luck!