updates

Okay so some news quickly. I'm finally moved in to my digs! Anna and I are sharing Chloe's old room. It's nice to finally unpack; I've been living out of a bag for two months. The past two weeks have been pretty uneventful. I've been working a lot. Grahamstown got totally empty after Fest ended. It was such a ghost town. All the students are back now because the semester starts tomorrow, so the town is starting to come alive again. Carmen's parents and grandparents drove her back yesterday and it was fun meeting them. I'm finally not sick anymore, so that's good. I went to see the new Harry Potter movie - for some reason it's the only movie that comes out at the same time as home. Kind of funny that the previews were for movies that came out months ago at home. Going to the movies here costs about the equivalent of five hours of working, so it was a one-time thing. I reactivated my Peace Corps application for next year and should hear next week where I'm going! It will still be somewhere in Africa but I'm not sure where yet. Chloe is from Zimbabwe and she went home and got in a bad car accident last week! She broke her pelvis and some ribs and has to stay in the hospital for two weeks. She's okay though. Also in the bad news department, an American student studying abroad here got stabbed the other night. He's only been in the country for a week. Apparently he was trying to break up a fight between two street kids. Pretty dumb move. I feel bad because Anna and I met all the Americans who are studying here this semester and offered them our wisdom, guidance, call it what you will... and now one of them goes and gets stabbed. Granted, our guidance usually unfolds in desperate circumstances such as "Where can we buy food at one in the morning?" and "Are we allowed to drink a beer while walking down the street?" Very crucial things like that. I know, I'm very wise. But apparently the American kid is fine, he got slashed across the chest which wasn't serious but is in the hospital having surgery on his arm where he was stabbed pretty badly through the tendons. No idea if he's going to stay for the semester; I can't imagine that he would. Can you imagine if that had happened to me or one of the other Americans when I came here to study abroad two years ago? Within the first week? Don't worry though, I'm fine, I'm going to buy pepperspray. And generally stay out of fights that are none of my business that take place between dodgy characters.