Final Week in Review –
This post marks my fourth and final week as an intern at the Iziko museums. Like the past few weeks, I spent it cataloging frogs. I don’t know if this is due to the ethanol fumes, but I have actually come to enjoy working with the frogs. And as a special treat, on Monday my supervisor gave the four of us a tour of the South African National Museum collections. Everyone really enjoyed it!
Since it was my last week, my coworkers organized a small going away party for me. The got me a card and thoughtful gifts. I found it very hard to say goodbye to the people I have come to know over the past few weeks. They definitely were the best part of my internship!
It seems crazy that this was my last week in South Africa. We did so many amazing things, but at the same time it felt like there was so much more we did not have time to do. This study abroad has been the experience of a lifetime.
We have just a few days left in Cape Town before we go to the States. This evening we decided to meet a friend at the Waterfront and had dinner with her before we all went our separate ways again. We shared each others experiences during our time in South Africa and what everybody has been doing. What they enjoyed, what they thought were interesting, etc. It was weird that the friend we met was also a Michigan State student, like wow what a small world. We can thank Brandon for getting us all together like that. Below is my meal that I ordered at the restaurant. Like I said I have been LOVING the food here. 
Week in Review –
Visited 24 July – 30 July
Full Map
Today was our last Monday in South Africa. Fortunately it didn’t feel like a Monday because today we were taken on another tour, this time I was able to see a lot more of the Natural History Museum. Emily’s supervisor took Tariq, MJ, and I along with the two of them to show us the space that they’ve been working in and explain a little of the behind the scenes action such as taxidermy, preservation, and storage. We got a chance to see the staff only areas that included the upcoming section of animal hides, skulls, etc.
During this third week of my internship it started to hit me how short our time here is getting. After this week, we only have one more week in South Africa! I had a really good week at work- I was put on a new project since I finished my first one. I am now working with a girl named Leslie (who is a fantastic conversationalist) and we are going through the collection of wet specimen to essentially check and see if what the label on the jar is matches what os inside the jar. We worked with the frogs all week, my job being to take them out of the jar with forceps and read off the numbers on the tags to her so she can update the excel spreadsheet. We definitely have to take a lot of breaks throughout the day to get away from the ethanol fumes!
This weekend has probably been the most action packed and exciting since we have been left on our own in Cape Town. On Friday, Mj and I went to the Norval Foundation, a museum that is owned in correlation with the Zeitz Mocaa museum. The exhibits there were incredible and all of them corresponded with what we have been learning about on this study abroad. I think it would be a great museum to add to the program, since it is far away but I was really glad we had the opportunity to go there.
Saturday morning Mj and I set off for an 8 hour wine tour through Franschhoek. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we got to see so many amazing wineries and met a lot of nice people along the way! Saturday night when we got home we went to an EDM concert at the Old Train Lodge, which was really cool and actually the last event they were hosting there before the place is getting demolished.
Today, Sunday, we booked tickets for the hop on hop off bus tour. We did not actually go through too many stops, but enjoyed the day so much. We went to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens and it was gorgeous there. Afterwards, we stopped at the World of Birds and Monkey Jungle where we ended up sending the rest of our day. They have over 3000 birds there and we were able to get up close and interact with them. We also had the amazing opportunity to go into the monkey jungle, where we sat and had Black Capped Squirrel Monkeys climb all over us. There were so tiny and cute! We stayed there until the last bus arrived to collect us, and then enjoyed the views of the bay and waterfront the whole ride home.
I think this week we have done so much to soak in the last moments we have in Cape Town. I am getting really sad to leave this place but we have a lot more activities upcoming that I am excited to share in my next blog post.
Today at my internship was the first day that I was given an actual responsibility that related to what I went to school for. I had to make a video for their social media page that would advertise that the planetarium would be having free admission for the week of 7/30-8/4 for National Science Week. The way I became a little frustrated while trying to create this video because the quality of the video wouldn’t stay as good as it did before I exported it. The video can be found on Iziko’s Facebook page under all videos.
Week in Review –
Places Visited –
This whole week I have been working on the same project as last week at my internship. I am updating the excel spreadsheet for the collection of mammal skulls and skins. It is a long and time consuming process and has me spending a majority of time in my office on a computer. I was however fortunate enough to get a tour of the collections on Monday and Tuesday.Currently, the various collections are spread around in whatever room they will fit in, but I was shown the new area for the collections that will be interactive with the public and hopefully operational in the next few years.
We did a lot of exciting things outside of the internship this week. On Wednesday, we went and saw two planetarium shows. They were very exciting and informative. On Thursday we went to an artist talk at the National Gallery that spoke on the topic of the challenges of preserving contemporary art. Afterwards, Mj and I went to go see a production of Kinky Boots at the Fugard Theater. It was such an incredible show, the music was great, and the performers were all extremely talented. Today we went to the Water Front Market and spent the day exploring there. Another exciting week in this beautiful country!
Today was my first time taking a group of high schoolers thru the South African National Gallery without any help. I was nervous but I prepared weeks ahead on which works I would talk about, techniques, subject matter, etc. At first I was nervous when I first started the tour but the school learners were very interactive and was a intelligent group of kids so it turned out to be a very fun tour. They were high schoolers and I was just in high school 3 years ago so it was easy to relate to them and for them to relate to me. Below is a picture of me talking about Gerard Sekoto artworks to the learners. 
Summer 2020 -- South Africa 