Author: teaguecorrina

Or maybe the monkey trying to take my pencil bag!!!

The first weekend of September was full of laughter, screaming, and biltong. Lots of biltong.

Meagan, Nomsa and I traveled to Addo Elephant Park, just an hour outside of Port Elizabeth. And you won’t believe what we saw! Elephants! Lots and lots of elephants!

The weekend began with us finally our tents and having an elephant hanging out right in our front yard! After we got over the excitement that came with an elephant in the front yard, we settled in for some snacks and hanging out before our game drive was to begin.

We were enjoying our porch when we noticed a pack of monkeys slowing making their way towards us. Eating my candy bar, I didn’t think much of it because I was so used to seeing the same type of monkeys on campus. As the money gang neared us, we had no idea what was going to happen within the next 2 minutes. There was an electric fence separating our tents and the yard where the elephants and monkeys were. Within the blink of an eye, the monkeys were on top of the fence, then on our neighbors tent, THEN ON OUR ROOF AND THEN ON OUR TABLE! We panicked and grabbed the bag of Fritos trying to keep them and ourselves save from the monkeys! From inside our tent we videoed the monkeys stealing spree! They tried to steal my pencil bag (which those of you who know me well know that I LOVE my pencils so you bet I started yelling at that monkey to get its hands off my pencils!) and a map of the park that Meagan and I fought very hard to get! The rampage ensued for a couple minutes with their menacing little heads poking down from the roof, stalking us – their prey. We barely escaped and you best believe I made a video telling my mother how much I love her.

After surviving our first monkey attack, Meagan and I went on a beautiful game drive and saw so many different types of animals. Throughout the entire weekend we saw: black-headed heron, elephant, buffalo, kudu, Burchell’s zebra, common duiker, warthog, scrub-hare, vervet monkeys (ugh) and flightless dung beetles!

The night ended with a beautiful braai done by Nomsa. We sat outside with caution, making sure there were no monkeys near. We taught Nomsa was a s’more was. We had to make do with the materials that we were given, such as the candy strawberry marshmallows they have here, the chocolate covered digestives we had to use for graham crackers, and the thick Cadbury chocolate bar. It was quite a s’more to remember 🙂

We ventured around a little bit the next morning and then made our way back to Port Elizabeth. Such a fun weekend overall.

Corrina Teague

SOUTH AFRICA– NELSON MANDELA UNIVERSITY, 2018 FALL

Corrina Teague is a Hospitality Management major. She is attending the ISA: Nelson Mandela University program in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, during the Fall 2018 term. She is hoping to have local experiences and see the natural beauties of South Africa while abroad.

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My Orientation week here in South Africa happened a VERY long time ago. That being said, however, I still think it was super cool and fun week that everyone should read about! We got to really experience some parts of South Africa within that small week and I think that DU should consider taking the new students to a safari park during our orientation week… 😉

As international students, we got our own orientation week with all sorts of fun adventures and good information sessions.

Day 1 of 5:

• The took us to the Bay West mall which is this huge mall kind of in the middle of nowhere with what seemed like hundreds of stores! People were able to get housing necessities, like blankets and the such, since they still had not gotten those things yet.

Day 2 of 5:

• Registration. What an adventure that was. Registration at DU is fairly easy for me and I can understand it pretty well. Here however, I had no idea what I was doing. It was quite complicated to figure out when classes were and at what times you needed to attend them. I thought that you could choose off the timetable what times you went but that was seriously not the case so I am very thankful that one of the women running the registration checked my timetable because I would have really messed some stuff up. It was so difficult for me to understand and complete that it actually took me until Friday to register for classes so I was lucky that I was one of the first days.

Day 3 of 5:

• After our information sessions in the morning, we did a traditional African drumming session! We all got drums and face paint and got to learn how to do African drumming. There were people leading us in the drumming session and they also taught us how to do a traditional African dance at the end of the session! Then after our drumming session we got to make instruments out of recycled materials! After we made our instruments, they taught us traditional African songs and dances and we practiced them in little groups and then came all together and performed them for each other! It was a super fun afternoon!
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Day 4 of 5:

• WE GOT TO SEE ANIMALS ON THIS DAY!!!! We went on a game reserve drive at Kragga Kamma which is very close to where we are living and had such amazing animals. We went on a guided tour so we were able to learn about what we were seeing but to be completely honest with you, I was so focused on the animals and how amazing they were that I couldn’t focus on the lady speaking.
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Day 5 of 5:

• We had a city tour in the rain and learning about different parts of the Port Elizabeth! Got to visit this Mandela monument.
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Made it out of orientation week alive with some amazing memories and photos to show for it!!

Corrina Teague

SOUTH AFRICA– NELSON MANDELA UNIVERSITY, 2018 FALL

Corrina Teague is a Hospitality Management major. She is attending the ISA: Nelson Mandela University program in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, during the Fall 2018 term. She is hoping to have local experiences and see the natural beauties of South Africa while abroad.

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