About this Blog

Hey readers, my name is Whitney and with my friends Chris and Amanda,  will be spending my summer before Senior Year in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. I was born in Johannesburg and lived in Cape Town until I was seven. Then my mom and I moved to Boston and every summer since I travel to Cape Town to visit family. Last year I spent some time checking out the organization SANCCOB and was inspired by the work they do. While I was there I met some other students that were volunteering at SANCCOB through a program called AVIVA. (Check out their website www.aviva-sa.com for more info on the program) This year for my annual visit I was very interested in going through the AVIVA program so I could be a long term volunteer at SANCCOB and live and work with other students. Of course I got so excited that I immediately told all my friends about it and dragged Chris into it. We had been talking for a while about doing some kind of trip or plan some kind of adventure this summer but never thought we'd do anything like this. We are both very adventurous and were looking for an excuse to explore some part of the world. Although I am very interested in Marine biology and animals, I wasn’t sure if working with the penguins would be Chris’ “thing”. Fortunately, he freaked out just as much as I did and it seems like it is all coming together. Then a mutual friend of ours, Amanda, expressed interest and before long she was on the trip as well. We will be going mid-July until the end of August and volunteering at SANCCOB as well as touring around Cape Town and blogging about our experiences, mostly to ease our parents nerves, but also for any readers interested in traveling or volunteering in South Africa. We will keep you updated on our trip when we get to the next step.