Who are we?

This blog is an agglomeration of the thoughts and experiences of two American girls who packed up and moved to South Africa on a whim. Caz from Fairfield, Connecticut and Mandy from Milwaukee, Wisconsin first met as roommates in 4127 on Semester at Sea in Fall of 2010.
In the interim, Caz returned to finish her Bachelor of Science with a double major in Biology (concentration in Microbiology) and Geography with a minor in Chemistry at the University of Miami in Florida, while Mandy took a hiatus to rediscover her real passion working with pregnant women, advocating for home birth and delivering babies outside of a hospital environment. We reconvened to follow both of our fields of study (read: hopes, dreams, asiprations, life goals, etc.) outside of the United States. Hello South Africa?

We are both here for at least a year and a half, though the more time we spend falling in love with South Africa, the more we'd like to think it'll be longer. We are both starting jobs in November/December: Caz working with infectious disease at a hospital clinic and Mandy beginning her training to become a certified midwife. Before then, we are both writing a book about our experiences leading up to this adventure as well as the multitude of serendipitous happenings that led us here.

As always, feel free to comment or ask questions. If you have an interest in a topic, let us know and we will surely oblige you (within reason). Enjoy!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Red Latte You Say?

Rooibos. The red bush tea from Africa. The rooibos plant isn't actually a "real" tea plant but rather it belongs to the legume family and considered an herbal infusion when steeped, but everyone just calls it tea. Despite the fact that the US is one of the biggest importers of rooibos world wide, I had only ever seen it in expensive cafes as exotic delicacy drinks. Coming here the first time around it was all I or anyone else drank. It is WONDERFUL let me tell you. It's funny to think I ever drank anything else. What was I doing with my life? I left South Africa with a huge box of it to get me through life until I could come back. As luck would have it I ran out of that box just before returning to the land of red tea.

"You have to try this red latte at Melissa's" Caz told me, "It made my veins vibrate." Oh? Did it now? I sat staring at a menu trying to decide which type of "red espresso" beverage I wanted to try. South Africa started doing this pretty nifty thing with rooibos and turning it into an espresso substitute. Instead of a highly caffeinated and possibly detrimental beverage, you can enjoy the same thing but without the nasty side effects AND a much tastier drink. I thought, "What could go wrong?!"

Half way through the beverage I felt flush with excitement. "WHEN CAN WE CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN?!" I said way louder than I intended as I starred up at the HUGE escarpment in my immediate view. "How you handling that latte crazy lady?" Caz asked me. No caffeine my ass. I can't normally handle a small cup of coffee let alone espresso as I am very sensitive to caffeine. Considering red espresso is suppose to be caffeine free I shouldn't be feeling like my heart is about to jump out of my throat and climb Table Mountain itself. There is something in this beverage making me tweak out. After finishing my drink and calming down enough to walk home, nay, prance home, all I could find about this mysterious red espresso is that it has 5X the amount if antioxidants than in green tea and 10X the normal amount in regular rooibos. It's literally so healthy that I almost had a heart attack. I was SO excited to be in Cape Town that the combination of excitement and a huge boost of immediately absorbable vitamins and minerals made me feel I could conquer Lion's Head.

- Mandy


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)