"Organization is key."

I’ve definitely been lagging when it comes to my blog lately - It has been a pretty busy few days here in Joburg.

I also don’t even have any pictures to post today because something happened to my camera’s memory card and my pictures over the past few days got deleted, huge bummer! If they turn up, I will definitely add them. 

On Friday, we went to the Market Photo Workshop, which is a photography school in Newtown, Johannesburg. We met with other students and were able to network and share work with each other. 

For lunch, we went to Swaruchi, a vegetarian Indian restaurant in Fordsburg, which was delicious! I had a picture of my meal but, of course, it has gone missing with the rest. 

We stopped at the dojo, a training gym in Fordsburg, and found out that we can take kick boxing classes while we are here! I am so excited!

Friday night, we all enjoyed a night out in Melville together to celebrate our first week in South Africa. 

On Saturday, I had to finish up some interviews at the Maponya Mall for my hairdressers story, so we all loaded into the van and made our way to Soweto. 

Organization is key.

I realized (the hard way) how important and necessary it is to be organized while I am here. 

I was running late already, and since I am obviously not used to the mall, I had no idea where each salon was located. In a nutshell, I ended up going to the wrong salon for my first appointment, didn’t notice for 20 minutes, and in return - missed my interview at a different salon. This left me with only one store owner to interview for my story. 

I can’t even begin to fathom the immense feeling of stress I began to feel at this point.

Luckily, Nick C helped me with the video and Siena helped me not to lose my mind. I really couldn’t have done it without them. I’m happy to say I got through it though! Alive! and I can’t wait for the finished product.

As soon as I finished my hairdresser interviews, me and Nick C covered the U.S. NBA Nelson Mandela Day celebrations outside of Maponya Mall. I reported, Nick did the video work, and Dr. Bhayroo produced it. 

Here is our final product, and after about 10 hours of editing, we are pretty pleased with how it turned out: US NBA Celebrates Mandela's Birthday.

Saturday afternoon, Dr. Bhayroo invited us to his mother’s house for a meal. A delicious home-cooked meal with a family that just beams with love is exactly what I needed after such a hectic morning. 

I stayed in on Saturday night to work on my project. On Sunday, me and Nick C spent the day editing our NBA/Mandela story, while everyone else went out and covered more Mandela Day festivities. 

In the midst of everything, I now caught a bug, and having a cold in South Africa is way worse than having one in America. I just want to go out and enjoy the beautiful weather with everyone on Tata Madiba’s 93rd birthday! Luckily I have some granadilla flavored super-c candies and a whole box of tissues with calendula lotion to get me through the rest of the day.

That’s all for now! 

Don't forget to check out the rest of the crew’s Mandela Day stories.