the end?

Ok, so I didn’t get to post this after I actually wrote it because I was writing it in the airport and on the 19 hour airplane back home, which had no internet access. I have decided to post it now, a little more than a week since I arrived back in the States. It actually sort of feels like longer than a week because it has been a weirdly easy transition back into my life in the States. So much so that it feels like my time in South Africa happened months ago, even though I know I can think back a week and remember being at Wits. I was warned about ’culture shock’ both going into South Africa and coming back to the United States, and surprisingly I didn’t really notice experiencing it either time. So anyways, I think this post will serve as a good last or near to last post for this crazy semester.

(Nov 18, 2009)
Last night was our final get-together for IHRE. We had little finger food, everyone got dolled up and lots of hugs were given out and pictures taken. I also have been going through my room, throwing away a lot of the staples that have gotten me through this semester (my granola, pasta, garlic, stupid bag of rice I could never seem to cook correctly, oatmeal… yeah ok, I ate other things, but I kind of stopped shopping recently, so those are the things that have remained despite a lack of shopping expeditions). Anyways, all of this sort of finalizing has made me come up with lists about what I am going to miss in South Africa and what I am looking forward to having back in the States. I thought I would share.

What I will miss (not necessarily in any order):
-The International House community (mainly the other American students, but others of course) which have fostered many game nights and tennis adventures, as well as just being a really nice base to come back to every day.
-Bunny Chow: this is an amazing Indian dish that I have never heard of in the States. Basically, you hollow out a loaf of bread and fill it with a slightly spicy dish including chicken or lamb etc It’s so yummy!
-Informal clubs on campus, I don’t feel like I really utilized these as best I could, but they had a really nice atmosphere and it was a great place to meet students who may or may not live on campus. Plus the atmospheres were a lot chiller than real clubs where you actually get dressed up and have to pay a cover fee etc.
-Walking around and being surrounded by all different languages and types of speech. While the language thing made me feel incompetent with my one language I am fluent in, it was so cool to be able to be around people with such language knowledge.
-All of the amazing people I have met through this program. While I feel like five months is a good amount of time for me personally to spend away from my friends and family at home, I do think that more time to bond with people here would have been amazing. I am a little disappointed I did not always take the most initiative to hang out with people, and I think I would start doing that more if I was here longer. However, I thoroughly appreciated every person I met through this program and the international house at Wits.
-The vuvuzelas blasting into the night keeping me awake and making me believe there was some sort of party going on that I was missing out on…. Oh wait, I can live without that actually.
-Staying at pretty nice backpacker establishments in places in the world that sound foreign, and learning that these different countries are not really as foreign as they are sometimes portrayed.
-Living in a place where the people are still very connected to their political situation and consciously working to move past the horrors of their very recent past.
-Cheap food. I love cheap food.
-The constant harmonizing and group singing. I am going to work to bring this back to the States. Haha
-People’s expressiveness. I feel like people here are much less reserved in expressing things like how they feel about situations or performers or anything.
-Clothing stores that sell clothes I can see myself wearing. That is kind of hard for me to find in the States sometimes, probably because I don’t do trendy that much. Not that South Africa isn’t trendy, but I think clothing stores may not focus as much on it or something.
-The expressions people use to punctuate sentences or thoughts. These include saying ‘aish’, kind of like when people in States may exhale in an audible way (So are you working this summer? Aish I don‘t know, I haven’t heard back from anyone yet). Also using hey at the end of sentences (it‘s been such a hectic semester hey?). Oh, and everybody calling each other ‘bra’ in replacement of ‘bro.’
-Summer

Things I am looking forward to going back to:
-My friends and family (surprise surprise)
-Progresso soup, especially minestrone. Yep. And on the subject of food: salsa (it’s not the common here)
-Driving on the right side of the road, and driving in general. And the prevalence of automatic cars. My mom and I had some major issues with the standard car that we rented in Cape Town. No crashes though, so yay!
-Not having to worry about how the dollar is doing versus the rand and getting upset about how much worse it is getting.
-Not having to worry about cooking for myself, eating delicious food cooked by my parents
-Speaking of which, Thanksgiving!
-Visiting Vassar
-Seeing David in My Fair Lady (and Full Monty at Vassar)
-Unlimited texting and not having to worry about buying airtime
-Student-run theater. Why do you not really have this Wits?
-Hanging out in my house, getting to see my dogs, sleeping in my own bed

I feel like that kind of diminishes both South Africa and home a bit because I can only outline a few things that stand out to me at this particular moment, but I hope it conveys how much I like both places. I don’t know if I will ever have another travel experience quite like this. Well, obviously not exactly because I finish school next year and will not be going abroad again for studies, but I mean the kind of emersion that I vaguely got to experience in South Africa. Yes, the studying part of study abroad is important and everything, but I think the most valuable thing you can get out of a study abroad experience is being able to truly experience a culture different in va personal way. Living in an area instead of traveling as a tourist is such a unique experience, because you interact with people in a different way, you get to do regular things like shop for food etc and you’re forced into the culture. You may not completely belong within the culture per se, but you certainly get a very good feeling for it and can learn how to interact within in it. This kind of experience is really why I decided to do a study abroad program and I think I got as much out of it simply through the cultural immersion as I did through the classroom, and honestly I probably got even more out of it in that sense. Anyways, I am incredibly grateful I got such a wonderful cultural experience, and actually I am also glad to be back with family and friends... even though my winter break is now two months long and I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep myself occupied for that long. I'm planning on filling my time with lots of trips to see people at Vassar, and maybe some time earning money.

Anyways, happy thanksgiving everyone. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog because I really liked having this place to record my experiences. I'm guessing this will be my last blogging attempt, at least for awhile, so I am signing off for now.

And a semester comes to a close

So my last final was yesterday. Everyone is making plans to travel now that we have no classes or exams to worry about, and I will be joining them when my mom comes to visit me today. I am so super excited to see her! We'll be going to Kruger National Park (safari central) and then back down to Cape Town. I actually also traveled last weekend and I didn't write about it this week because I was really busy um studying. But no excuses now that exams are done... so you all get a lovely recap.

All of the Americans (one of the only times all seven of us girls have traveled anywhere together apart from our epic journey here back in July) joined a friend of ours from Botswana to go home with her for the weekend to see a traditional wedding. Her brother was getting married and she offered to take us to see the wedding. In this case, and I believe most cases, the couple had already been married legally at the courthouse and this ceremony was more for tradition sake than anything. Our day started out very early. We got up around 6:30 and arrived at the bride's house (where the wedding was to take place) at about 8:00, under the impression that the wedding would be taking place at 9. Now have I talked about Africa time on this blog? I believe I have, but I will stress the idea anyways, punctuality is not held in such intense reverence here as it is in the States. In fact, often set meeting times are more rough estimates at best. This was no different. The bride's family had been cooking since the day before for all the guests, but by the time we arrived, the bride still had not even started to get dressed. In fact, this did not start happening until maybe around noon. The actual ceremony didn't get going until maybe 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon. How did we entertain ourselves you might ask? Well, let me tell you. Teresa introduced to us all this wonderful card game called Monopoly Deal which we got intensely involved in for the better part of several hours. It is amazing and I will be buying myself a set and I advise everyone else to do so as well.

So, anyways, at around 3 we all got out of the van we had been sitting in and got ready to walk over to the bride's house.

The whole gang. Our host is the far left

What I found most interesting was the fact that the majority of the group we were gathered with was made up of older women, who were very enthusiastic. They kept making that stereotypical Native American noise, but instead of hitting their mouths with their hands they would make the noise by moving their tongues really fast. It's much more difficult that way, we all tried to perfect it. We then all gathered together and walked as a group to the bride's house.

And here's a picture of that!

The male section of the wedding party. Since we were part of the groom's side of the wedding we went with him to get the bride

On our walk over we sang a traditional song in Setswana (and by we I mean the older women were basically doing all the singing, though a few of us picked it up after quite a few repetitions). Basically the song we sang was simply asking permission to get the bride from her house, or something along those lines. There was a dance that went with it that involved very specific stepping which we were all getting to be good at by the time our ten minute walk ended. Then the groom approached the house and the flower girls and bridesmaids came out followed by the bride. The two stood together while people sang around them in circles.


I love how much people sing here. And no matter where you are, people harmonize and it sounds wonderful. I wish that was a tradition in America and people could grow up learning how to harmonize like that. I feel like Americans have a lot more reservations about singing in public and even singing in groups, its sad. Anyways, then the bride and groom kissed and everyone danced out of the yard. I am still not 110%, but I believe that little thing right there was the entire ceremony. After the bridesmaids and wedding party all piled into cars, with the bride and groom in a fancy old-timey car, and drove out for about fifteen minutes to this lovely little area near a stream with mountains in the background and took pictures. They set up this cute little table and posed around it.

Ok, there were closer pictures, but this one gets a sense of the landscape

Anyways, after that we piled back into our respective cars and headed back to the house where the meal was waiting. What followed was very similar to what happens after an American wedding I believe. There were toasts (none of which we could understand, but that's ok), dancing, a cake (which no one ate, it is apparently kept for one year before being eaten) and wonderful food. We all had not eaten since that morning, so I think we would have eaten non-edible things like sticks or something, but this food was very good.

Reception tent

Wonderful looking cakes which we all fantasized eating. No such luck unfortunately. One thing I wanted to know about though, why is the couple white? The only explanation people could give me was that the concept of 'white wedding' is more catered to white couples, but I think this is silly.

The wedding party went in and out, each time changing outfits and when they came back they would do a dance to enter back into the tent. It was very coordinated and even the little flower girls participated. I wanted to know how many practices it took for them to get to that level, but no one seemed to have an answer for me. Once it got dark the wedding tent was packed up and we all headed out. All in all it was (for us at least) a twelve hour experience, and a very interesting one at that.

The biggest culture shock moment in terms of the wedding did not occur during the wedding actually. The night before we were all hanging out in the living room area near the door and all of a sudden men start coming through the door with huge sections of a skinned cow. And before our eyes the entire cow crossed the threshold in parts and was placed into a giant freezer, including the head with all its teeth and its eyes. We were told that the cow was a gift from the bride's family to the groom's family. Apparently not everything fit in the freezer though, because when we woke up the next morning and went to cook breakfast, the cow head and neck was just lying on the kitchen floor in front of the oven. It was a little difficult to cook around it because it took up a lot of space, but Kelsey, who was put in charge of the eggs, did an excellent job.

The wedding itself overall felt like an informal section of a wedding I could see in the States, though with more group singing and dancing and less talking and no one really leading the ceremony. I guess that was pretty interesting actually. Everyone seemed to know what to do, but there was no minister or anything comparable to take a leadership role. Which of course meant that those of us who didn't know what was going on really didn't know what was going on. It didn't make it any less fascinating though. I also thought it was interesting how the majority of the people actively participating in the ceremony were not friends of the couple but older relatives etc. Though I don't think this is that unusual. People often argue that weddings are not for the couple, they are for their parents and their friends. I guess I can see how this is true.

I like how weddings like this in Botswana seem to be a melding of tradition and modern, since you have two sort of weddings (one legal and one traditional). A bride price is still figured out (interesting fact, Botswanan currency is named after their word for rain because they are a farming country dependent upon rain), but often the money goes to the couple rather than the bride's family. Also, the bride is 'given away,' which is similar to Christian culture, except that here it seemed like an entire community was involved in the process, where it is just the father in Christian ceremonies. Both of those are obviously more symbolic than anything else, but its nice to keep some tradition to center the ceremony.

Anyways, I have to go clean my room so that my mom doesn't judge the state of my room too much when she gets here. Enjoy your weekends everyone!

Pictures take 5

The vineyard! So pretty

Haha, candid of Ameet, Teresa and Nathan with his camera. I have yet to see the pictures he got, but I'm sure they were amazing (these are all stolen from Teresa)

The whole gang after our wine tasting

View outside of our car window of a bit of the coast. I wish we had some more photos of this because it was gorgeous. If I come across some I'll post them

Sasha, Teresa, and me right near some hidden penguins

And this was the beach

Penguins!!

More penguins! They are so cute.

Ok, Teresa took over 200 pictures in the 3 days we were there, so this post may have a follow-up one with more photos. Very exciting

Cape Adventures

This weekend I went with five friends on an epic journey to Cape Town. It commenced on a 5:55am flight on Thursday and ended when we got back to International House around 11am that Sunday. The trip involved little sleep, much travel, and some amazing sites of the city in South Africa I am vaguely regretting not studying in.
Unfortunately my camera is still dead, so pictures will not be forthcoming until I steal them from others, but I can go through some highlights from our crazy but short trip down to the southernmost part of the African continent.

-Thursday, after waking up at 3:30am, booking it to the airport, getting held up and almost missing our flight and finally getting on and reaching Cape Town two hours after, we spent the day exploring the winelands of Cape Town. It was about an hour drive from where we were staying (a pretty nice backpackers place near the center of downtown Cape Town. Ok it's a backpackers, so my standards were fairly low, but still... nice) which we got to on a nice road-trip in a car we rented. The vineyard we stopped at was very nice with picturesque rows of grapes amid mountains in the distance. Cape Town is cool because it's right on the Indian Ocean, but it also has these gorgeous mountains. I experienced my first wine tasting and felt really sophisticated. Kind of. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, but I think I pretended really well. I'm pretty sure the wines I liked were the less classy ones (judging from their pricing) but I don't care.

-Friday: In the morning we explored the downtown area, went to some markets and bartered for some souvenirs. I suppose we probably still got ripped off, but we did argue the prices down. Afterward we took a car tour of the coast. It was so pretty! We were trying to compare it to beautiful places in the world, but we couldn't think of something that quite matched. Nothing in the States at least. We stopped at this place that supposedly had penguins, but we didn't find any at first. Sasha and I went exploring over rocks and through the water and after a bit of trekking we finally found quite a few. They are so cute and awkward, they put so much effort into walking because it takes them so long to pick up their feet. We got like three feet away from a couple of them. It was so cool. I think there were some good pictures from that, so hopefully in my next post I can include those. We watched the sun set over the ocean while sitting on a rock ledge above the water. It was breathtaking.

-Saturday was our last full day in Cape Town. Sasha, Teresa and Nathan (the three other Americans who came along) went up Table Mountain by cable-car. Apparently you can see the entire cape from there. I didn't go up because I'm coming back to Cape Town with my mom in a few weeks (I'm so excited for that!) and I wanted to leave at least one thing to do new with her. That night we went to one of our friend's friend's birthday party which basically lasted until we had to get going for our flight home. We ended up packing up at 3:45am and heading out to catch our 5:45am flight back to Joburg. We were all pretty delirious at this point, and again we had some issues with getting onto our flight (mainly because two of our crowd booked for the day after accidentally) but we all made it back in one piece. Yay!

I am so glad I got the chance to visit Cape Town. Honestly I don't know why on earth it didn't happen earlier. And while I have enjoyed my time at Wits, I would not have complained if Wits happened to be in Cape Town rather than Joburg. I guess you can't have it all though.

A Reflection

Classes ended yesterday for me. It's a little funny to hear about everyone doing midterms back home, but not all that funny because I have to worry about finals. During my last couple of classes this week I was reflecting back on the program and why I came and what I expected out of it and what I actually found and I thought I would share.

Honestly, I did not come on this program for the academics. I care about human rights in a disconnected, I want to help people kind of way, not exactly in a I want to study this for the rest of my life kind of way. I figured I would get an ok academic experience at Wits, but honestly knew nothing about the school. When it comes down to it, I decided to go on this program because I wanted to experience a different culture (where I could speak English) that wasn't a country I had already experienced (ie England) and I really liked the internship aspect of the program. In my mind I figured that putting a semester-long internship in South Africa on my resume would look really good. And I had been wanting to do an interesting internship in a different sort of environment. I also wanted a study abroad experience that would give me a different academic experience than what I could find at Vassar or on a Vassar program where basically you were doing the same sort of classes, just in a different location. Very honestly, those were basically the only reasons I went. And there's the fact that sometimes I just like to be spontaneous. Not in the sense that I just packed my bags one day and left, but in the sense that this was not the most thought-out venture I have ever committed myself to.

Coming out of this program though, I actually really enjoyed my classes, surprisingly enough. I obviously didn't love everything about every class, but I enjoyed aspects of every class, even the core law class which was pretty awful for us not studying law. Through interaction with students here I feel like I have a much better sense of world politics in a way that I have never connected to at home. This could be because it seems like students here are much more politically aware. I feel like Americans sometimes have less of a sense of what is going on around them. Maybe this is because we are a super power and feel like we don't need to worry less about smaller states, which is a really bad excuse. I have gotten an even better sense of how other countries view the States (which is not well) and why this is. It makes me want to figure out a way of changing the world's perspective of the States, not sure how I could accomplish this though. Thoughts? haha

My last psychosocial class was basically forty minutes of all us gushing about how it was one of the best classes we have ever had. Not only were the teachers awesome at leading discussion, but the variety of views and opinions in the class made discussion really interesting. Not to mention that we read some amazing theorists on subjects pertaining to colonization, entanglement and how teaching can be used as a way to get out of these negative societal relationships. It felt like a really good sociological/education class. We also got to have really great talks about things like language, something I wrote about a couple of posts ago, which (Fiona pointed out in class) could never have happened in the States.

There were of course a lot of frustrating aspects of the program. I mean, it has been pointed out quite a few times by different writers that working with human rights, while important, often feels, I don't know, like you are trying to build this sandcastle, but you are building it right near the water and the waves keep washing most of it away. It often feels pointless. Of course, I'm sure that when it feels most pointless it is most important to keep fighting. Plus, it isn't like there have only been failures trying to get people equal rights. It just is a little bit of an uphill struggle.

So ultimately I feel like I was possibly the least academically committed to this program when coming here, but I got a lot more out of it academically than I was expecting. I feel a lot more interested in the international aspect of politics, even though I have also gotten a sense that the level of state inequality is just one of those international aspects which will keep the strong states (what up US) from respecting the international system. I also would love to further explore how things like the media we are presented with can influence the way we interact with each other, positively and negatively. This program hasn't taught me things like how to write a better paper, honestly I feel like paper writing is approached so differently here and plagiarism is not something you just hear about occasionally. We got back our law papers and she told us that she found that 1/3 of the papers had plagiarized. 1/3! I will not get over that. But anyways, the things I have learned within my individual classes I feel very confident in my knowledge of, which I am really grateful for. Sometimes I feel like I get out of a class and I know I learned a lot of important things, but I wouldn't really be able to give you a comprehensive sense of the class without looking at a former essay or my class notes or something. I'm not really expecting to go on to study human rights further than this program, but I appreciate the human rights focus that has given me a different perspective on things such as politics, international relations, media etc. I feel like the best kind of academic experiences give students a range of different ways of encountering material. So ultimately, while I may have been a tad impulsive with this voyage into South Africa, I am ultimately really glad I decided to do it.

I am just four exams away from the end of this program. It doesn't feel like I've been here for four month. One month to go.

And for the Prize

So, it came out today that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The reasoning behind it was that the award givers wanted to show their support for his efforts to promote peace, diplomacy, and create "a new climate in international politics" (BBC News). We've been studying the UN a lot here in South Africa, which I thought was strange at first because we talk about it very little back home. Mainly because the United States, all big and mighty, hasn't always been much of a world player in the cooperative sense of the phrase. I mean, from a liberal international perspective, since the US is such a major power, it should be able to whatever it wants to.

Obviously this is not the absolute best attitude for world harmony, however in the current international atmosphere, where sovereignty of states is valued above everything else, there does not seem to be much of a move away from it. So, the fact that Obama seems to be respecting the international community a little bit more than we as a country have in the recent past apparently is one of the reasons he received the award. I can understand this, providing incentive for a powerful country to continue to play by the non-enforceable rules, but is it reason enough for a Nobel Peace Prize? I am certainly not saying I don't support the efforts of Obama to foster more international peace, but giving a prize for intention over results seems a little odd. You don't give a prize to the runner who has the best intention to cross the finish line first.

BBC.com quoted several different people's views on the matter, here are two from opposite sides:

SIAMAK HIRAI, SPOKESMAN FOR AFGHAN PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI

We congratulate Obama for winning the Nobel [Peace Prize]. His hard work and his new vision on global relations, his will and efforts for creating friendly and good relations at global level and global peace make him the appropriate recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

KHALED AL-BATSH, AN ISLAMIC JIHAD LEADER

Obama's winning the peace prize shows these prizes are political, not governed by the principles of credibility, values and morals.

Why should Obama be given a peace prize while his country owns the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth and his soldiers continue to shed innocent blood in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Interesting points. I have not yet figured out my own opinion, but right now I fall in the middle. I do think that it makes an important statement giving Obama the prize, especially since the world opinion of the US in the past years hasn't been the most positive, but was he the absolute best person for the award... especially since he has not even been in office for a year?

Pride

So last Saturday I went with Sasha to my first gay pride event. I had been meaning to do this in Boston, but it never really happened. Next time I'll be sure to wear a costume, man we got shown up by so many people. Jeans and a t-shirt really don't do it in the gay pride parade.

We got there around 11:30 and weren't really sure where to go to get to the parade, but then we saw some people in wigs and matching outfits and figured if we just followed them we would end up in the right place. Luckily this was a good guess. We got there just as the parade was heading out, so we joined the mass right next to a float which was playing so awesome pop music (it is possibly one of the floats in the next picture down). I stole these pictures from the website dedicated to the event, since I forgot to get pictures off of Sasha's camera. I wish mine wasn't broken. So, there will be no pictures of Sasha or me, but the pictures should give you some sense of the event.


So something I was extremely surprised about was the fact that floats like the picture below were common and that there were not any Christian protesters on the side with mean signs. In fact, the only signs I could see that people were holding next the parade were things like 'we love you' and 'God loves you' which I was honestly shocked to see. From what I can tell, pride parades in the United States are always being protested, which is one of the big reason they happen. They are meant to challenge societal norms. In fact, when Act Up (the gay rights group in the 70s) was first coming into force, they relied on tactics to emphasize the fact that they were part of every aspect of society and were not going away. This is partially the reason for the use of so much spectacle (shiny costumes etc). The other reason is that they are just so much fun. Haha. Anyways, pride parades have been going on for quite some time in the States and they only just started in the 1990s here. It was mentioned at the festival following the parade that the first marchers walked with paper bags over their heads to protect themselves from abuse etc, and yet today there is a much more vocal supportive community than non-supportive coming out to watch the parade. What's the deal, USA?

Supportive church group! And I didn't see one member of the other kind of church group


Such awesome costumes all day! For serious.



Another comment I want to make. In my media class last half of the semester we actually talked a fair amount about gay rights and homophobia in the media etc. It's interesting because South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world and is one of the few places where discrimination against people because of sexual preferences is constitutionally not allowed. It is also one of the few places that allows for gay marriage anywhere in the state. But (there is always a but) the public opinion I have learned is often not so progressive. For one thing, it is common to hear that homosexuality "is not an African problem." As in, it doesn't really happen here and that it was unheard of until Europeans came in with colonization. While that is utter crap, it is a very pervasive opinion. In the media as well, homosexuals are portrayed more as wealthy, white guys living the fashionable life. There is little coverage of homosexual individuals and couples who appear just like their heterosexual counterparts. Of course they exist, they are out there in droves, but they get no coverage. Possibly this is because they don't conform to a stereotype, or maybe just because people don't want to hear about the ordinary, they want to hear about the spectacular. However, because the aspects of the gay community that get covered are ones that other people will be less likely to relate to, there is this element of 'othering' that happens. Through this, communities can believe that they know no one who is gay, so it must not exist in their little part of society. I find it so interesting that a country can have such a disconnect between the constitution and a serious section of their population.

But at the same time, no crazy protesters. Johannesburg seems to not be quite sure how to make up its mind about its homosexual population. Hopefully the more conservative parts of the community will come around. How this can be achieved is of course another area of speculation. Is it simply through exposure? And does this mean in the media or do you have to have real-life exposure to a different element of the society before you begin to accept it? Like in many places around the world, helping people create a healthier, more accepting environment will be an uphill battle. Homophobic violence is still very present in South Africa, with a lot of attention going towards the idea of "corrective rape" where men try to 'turn' lesbians through rape. Putting aside how incredibly disturbing a concept like that is, what does it say that men have ideas like these? Is this something that is being expressed within the South African culture? And is this simply because of homophobia or is it also men trying to reestablish the culture of male domination and gender hierarchy, since lesbians do not fit within the 'correct' female role?
I have no answers, which is why I am posing the questions to you. Make of them as you will.

A Picture of an Inverted Joburg

So last night I was checking out some Nando's ads with friends because we heard that they get banned really quickly (because they insult everyone) but are super funny. We did find some good ones (here's one that would definitely get banned in the States, as well as here apparently). However, then I came across a different South African advert that shows a pretty good visual depiction of South Africa, except it switches black and white roles in the Joburg area society. I thought it was interesting at the very least, though I'm not sure if something like this is helpful or not in the larger scheme of things. I mean, sure it makes whatever target audience they are hoping for (I'm guessing middle class whites?) to hypothetically see someone else's way of life as if it was their own, but could something like this actually help change stereotypes or assumptions? Media is a great way of impacting people, it's something we are tuned into every day and it's impossible to encounter constant messages from the media without letting it affect you. But at the same time, what does a video like this really say? From what I saw, it seemed to be trying to make the white people (who are portraying the black people) more humanistic, and the black people unnecessarily privileged and hostile. So the black people (slash 'white people') are seen more in stereotypes while the white people are seen as those you want to relate with. And while everyone watching this video knows that the white people are representing a different race, does it say something that the white guy is still seen as the hero figure? I figured I'll just give you the link to the video and you can give me your own opinions on the matter.

To Talk the Talk

Language has been an interesting concept here in South Africa. For one, South Africa has no less than eleven national languages recognized by the state. Prominent ones are English, Zulu, and Afrikaans, but that is not to say the others are not important or prominent as well, those are just ones I hear about a lot. The others are: Ndebele, Xhosa, Sepedi, Southern Sotho, Tswana, Swati, Venda, and Tsonga. Some of them involve clicks, which I think is really cool sounding and also seems impossible to recreate. Often the language you learn first as a South African is what impacts your own personal accent, which means that there is no one accent that is recognized as 'South African,' there are different types of accents that fall under this category. Of course this happens everywhere, but in somewhere like the the States, there is (in my opinion) a base American accent and then you might have a different accent if you live in a very specific region (Midwest, South, urban areas like NYC or Boston). However, you can also identify a 'classic American accent.' There isn't really that concept in South Africa.

We talked about language as a form of oppression in my psychosocial class last week and it raised some very interesting points. We read Nguagi's Decolonizing the Mind. In this reading he talks about language in regards to colonized cultures. He points out that when colonized people came into a state they brought with them the sense of their own superiority and instilled within the natives the sense that they were in turn inferior. This was emphasized by the fact that white European was held as the ideal, but Nguagi stresses the importance in this concept of the fact that the newly established European language, whether English, French, Portuguese, was then established as the language of knowledge and culture. School was taught in this language, and literature was presented in this language, and children got to this point where they were punished in school for speaking in their native tongue, emphasizing an idea that their language and their culture was inferior and ingraining a concept of self denial. Language in this sense is a bearer of culture and by accepting this foreign language you are in turn minimizing your own culture and putting emphasis on the imposed European culture.

Those are some of Nguagi's ideas in regards of language at least. We talked about the idea that a common language does not have to also imply a denial of your culture or a minimization of it. Of course it is easier to communicate across state lines when there is a common language, but what does it say of cultures where this language is not the first one children learn? For example, South Africa has eleven national languages, but English is what is found on every sign and on the television and is the language everyone is expected to speak. Wits is taught solely in English. Students do not necessarily have the same proficiency in this language though. Students in my class talked about the idea that people could speak three or four languages fluently, but not speak English very well and be considered stupid. In a modern context, those who grow up speaking English as their native language have a clear advantage internationally, especially since people will never be able to express themselves as well in a second language as they can in their native tongue and English is so common internationally. But why should one language be granted such importance. African literature, for example, has often been composed in these colonized languages (especially because they were (and are) the languages of the educated and the elite), but there have been arguments as to whether or not these pieces of literature should be considered African literature. And why, in the past, were these writings seen as more legitimate than those written in native tongues? It is this concept, where more legitimacy is given to a European, foreign language, that goes with the idea of self-denial, taking emphasis away from your own culture and putting it on that of another.

And on the idea of language I have a story I experienced recently to share. I went to a birthday party dinner on Wednesday night for a South African friend I met at Wits rural. We had been eating and taking pictures and having a good time when one of the waitresses approached her and asked if she could talk to her. They had a fairly intense conversation off to the side and when she came back Dudu said that the waitress had told her that the manager told the waitress that he wanted Dudu's number. She mentioned that she always seems to attract people of different races from herself saying that the manager was white. However, when we finally saw him near the end of the night he was black. I turned to her and said that I thought she said he was white. She said that actually she had gotten confused because in the language the waitress was talking in, trying to explain the guy to her, she used a word that means 'white person' but is also means 'boss.' I was shocked to find that connotations such as this were still commonly used in the language. I mean, what kind of implications does it have if you are constantly associating 'white' with 'authority figure' just in the common language? It was a disturbing idea. I know languages evolve, and I hope in the near future those two concepts become separate words, because at the moment I can't see as anything good coming out of it.

Anyways, those are just some things I was thinking about and I thought I'd share them with you.

Pictures take four

I promised pictures that went with my last post... so here they are

our tickets to the fashion show

Sasha and me outside the fashion show... it's the barbie car!

a model with one of the ridiculous hat things I was talking about

and the barbie exhibit, apparently we found the barbie stuff pretty funny

all-res picnic, the view from our picnic table

Kelsey and Tebogo at all-res

Thabo and me at all-res

Protests, Prada, and Picnics (oh my)

I was going to wait to write this until I had stolen pictures from Teresa documenting the events. These will just have to wait until my next post. Get excited.

College and university campuses have often been the sites for student activism and protest. While this is clearly still the case today, it seems like a lot of US schools have left their intense activism behind in the seventies. I minimally got involved in some protests that happened at Vassar last spring. They were protesting the massive lay-offs of workers on campus along with the fact that our president refused to take a pay-cut (not following the example of many other university presidents). The rally/protest thing, however, was mainly focused on and included the workers rather than the students. Students obviously participated, but to a kind of limited extent. I must say though, I've had a very different experience here at Wits.

University prices have been continuously going up for students, making it more and more difficult for people to come to school. Apparently they have demonstrations and protests about it pretty regularly the past couple of years. So this year students continued the tradition of demonstrations. There was quite a lot of media surrounding the event, especially when students started disrupting classes, tearing up exams etc. Every night it sounded like some sort of sporting event was going on outside, which confused me for a bit because I felt like I was missing some celebration or something (there was a lot of shouting and horn blowing etc) until I figured out what the dealeo was.

For myself I've been trying to figure out if this sort of action from students on campus is the best response to the price increase. One of the members of the protesting student groups came in to speak to our internship about it today. She talked about how it was not a sudden event, that it had been building for quite some time and it was not the only action the students had pursued. Also, she emphasized that they wanted to disrupt campus life enough so that the administration had to respond. Another student, however, brought up the fact that students pay quite a bit per lecture and the fact that other students come in to disrupt these lectures is quite disrespectful. None of my classes were disrupted, so I don't have a personal account to tell, but at the time hearing about exam papers being ripped up so that students could not take tests felt a bit extreme. It's one thing to disrupt the school by acting against fellow students (in a way) and another to disrupt those in administrative positions, like possibly camping out in their offices until talks could be arranged or something. In the end they got the administration to agree to knock down the percent increase, but not by a lot.

The other issue raised was the idea that the protests were not as well organized as they could be, and that only a section of the student population fully knew what was going on. For example, all of us international students didn't hear about the protests until they were well underway. As well, there was a point brought up that the protesters were mainly the black students rather than the white, Indian, or colored students (those are real racial categories here, still leftover from apartheid times). I guess that's just the nature of the student groups on campus. I talked to some Americans this afternoon about this and Sasha brought up the point that our generation may be less about 'the protest' but it may be because we speak out in different ways. Are we still successfully getting our voices heard though?

Ok, well anyways that was going on throughout the week, but other things happened as well. Ayesha apparently has crazy connections and procured a couple of free tickets to a fashion show that she made available to people interested in IHRE. So, on Wednesday night Teresa, Sasha and I went to a really cool South African fashion show. I wore a dress I bought on like the second week here at this flea market thing that happens every Sunday at the mall. It's really pretty. Anyways, a couple asked me around the door who I was wearing. Haha I've never been asked about the designer of an outfit of mine before, obviously. I don't wear clothes that would normally merit such a question. Anyways, I flusteredly replied, 'uh, you know some person. I actually got this at a market so I'm not positive.' Next time I'm telling the hypothetical couple that I handmade it myself. Oh yeah. It was cool to be asked though, as if the dress was something fancy. Anywho, before the show we walked around the place and it had a lot of fashion vendors and a bar and this display of fashion students re-imagining of 'the little black dress' out of "waste products, recycled materials or found objects." It felt so project runway (the link is for you mom and dad, so you can keep up with my pop culture references). It was actually really cool and I felt stupid to not bring any extra money. I didn't realize there would be some high-end vendors there. I almost bought a really cool t-shirt, but the credit card machine would not take any international cards because apparently they've had problems with that in the past. Too bad.

The show itself was pretty cool. It was only about twenty minutes and the most interesting part of it was that every model was wearing some sort of hat or headpiece that covered at least her eyes if not her entire face with its veil thing. The hats kind of looked like this except you could see less of her face. Seriously. Oh, I guess they were a bit more stylish. Often they would be dyed an intense color, like deep blue, that in turn matched the outfit. It was interesting because it made you focus more on the clothes. Well, in theory I feel like that would be why the designers would choose to do it. Though honestly I was pretty distracted by the hats. And all the models wore bright red lipstick, so for the most part the only thing you could see under the hat (or below the head piece thing that had tassels that covered her eyes, which some models wore) were these huge bright lips. Very odd choice. But whatever, I'm not in fashion. I actually had more fun watching the line of very serious people right next to the runway. I assumed these people were important fashion figures, because they wore expressions of casual, disconnected interest and seemed like they could pass judgment that could make or break these designers' careers. So that was kind of cool.

So that was Wednesday. I had a nice night Friday where I went out with some other international students and some South African guys and we went out to get food and then I showed all of them Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was totally a hit, but how could it not be? That movie totally rocks. The next day was this little event known as All-Res Picnic. For my fellow Vassar students, I'd equate it with founder's day. Sort of. Except at Wits you all get on a bus at like 9 in the morning, they drive you an hour and a half away from campus to this park place on the water, give you packs of raw meat (which you then brai with friends) and alcohol (yes, the campus supplies you with alcohol. you technically paid for it in the fee for the picnic.. but still. weird right?) and they supply a dj and then they start the buses back up at 7 at night. What I like about founder's day over this is that it is on campus so if you want to take a nap from all the festivities (something I feel like people I know do every year, go us!) or get off campus and go out to eat at., you know, a diner or something, it is an option. But the picnic was fun, very chill. I actually was fairly low energy all day which was weird. I didn't start getting energy until basically when we were getting back on the bus. And then I belted out songs with a girl named Lethabo (who hails from Germany) all the way back. We made lots of friends. I then made cookies in a mini convection oven with Sarah and watched episodes of television shows. It was fun to bake, well bake is a loose term I guess, though we had the setting on grill for the longest time and it was really confusing why our cookies were not baking. And then we figured it out and they cooked pretty quick.

So that was my week. This Thursday is a national holiday and so a bunch of us are taking off to go to Durban. I've been told to equate Durban to Florida in terms of weather. We have some friends who live there and agreed to take a five-hr road trip with us and let us crash on their floor. I'm really excited about it. And the night before I'm helping a friend here celebrate her 20th. Maybe I'll also get work done this week... it could possibly be in the cards.

Getting around Joburg

Since we international students here in South Africa are car-less, which ultimately is all for the best because I think I would kill someone if I tried to drive here (what with everyone driving on the opposite side of the road and all), we have to figure out more inventive ways of getting around the city. Usually it's the standard hitching a ride with a friend (usually piling the car with more people than it strictly should hold) or getting a ride in a metered taxi (often doing the same, much to the annoyance of our drivers). However, these sorts of transports are more for the weekend outing. Everyday is a little trickier. You don't want to be a hassle and continuously ask for rides, but metered cabs are really expensive.

So this really only becomes an issue for me personally when I need to go into town for my internship. Up to this week I have been taking metered taxis (when I say metered, I just mean that they are your common private taxi that you call to pick you up, like in the States) sometimes three times a week back and forth. This really adds up. On the other hand, it was a little too far to walk (and apparently a little unsafe) and I didn't know how to take the minibus taxis (vans that you share with lots of other people). I have been keeping receipts and hope to someday be paid back, but we'll see.

Anyways, I had been having trouble finding someone to help me because the majority of Wits students I talked to never take these taxis. I guess they're more for the private transport. But this week I finally found someone who could show me the ropes to the minibus taxis. The reason they are so complicated is that to hail one you need to know the right hand gesture to signal the destination you personally want, because each taxi is on its own route. I kept asking people what hand signal I would need and kept getting different answers (which I think is because it depends on where you get picked up from). One signal is that you hold your index finger up slightly diagonally, one is where you hold it upside down, but the one we used to hail a cab when I went with someone was just holding up all five fingers. Anyways, the trip down was pretty uneventful because I had someone with me and could talk to him the whole time. The trip was quite literally a tenth of the price of a metered cab, which was awesome. We did have to hike a bit to get to my office, but I actually paid attention to my surroundings (sometimes I forget to do that) and could remember how to get back.

He couldn't make it back to take me home, but he showed me the spot to pick up a return cab from. I walked the three blocks over without any trouble and figured out which cab to take back. Unfortunately this involved having to ask this older guy who looked like he was in charge, and then he proceeded to hit on me. Oh well. I got in the front of the cab and the very nice woman sitting next to me commiserated with me about how forward guys are in South Africa (she's from Zimbabwe). Anyways, as the cab was leaving suddenly everyone started passing money up to me, telling me things like "two 7.50, three 8.50" and I had to make sure they gave me enough money and give them change. Except that people kept passing piles up and telling me amounts until I had like three piles of money in my hand and had completely forgotten what each amount was supposed to be. I was totally flustered. Luckily the woman beside me was a pro and actually knew what she was doing. So she did most of the work while I tried to add numbers in my head and probably just made a mess of things. No one yelled at me though, so I couldn't have completely screwed it up. I was the first one out as I just asked to be let out right by the Wits gate when he stopped at a stoplight (called robots here). Overall it was successful.. in the sense that I didn't get lost and I made it to and from campus for only ten rand (maybe about $1.25). Of course, later that same day Ayesha (our program head) emailed me about arranging campus transport for me to my internship. So, just as I figured out how to use the minibus taxi I was told I no longer have to. Oh well.

The other type of transport available to us during the week is walking. Sasha, Teresa and I actually walked to this really cute little boutique place about ten minutes from campus. The place is so adorable! It has little coffee shops and a really cool bookstore I want to check out and they have high-end food markets on the weekend that we are planning on making a trip to see soon. The one thing is that the walk there involves walking next to the highway. There is a sort of sidewalk, so we're not walking on the road. On the way back we decided to find a different way back to campus. We walked across a field which turned out to be part of a private school (we got lots of weird looks from kids in uniforms) and then I stepped into a mud puddle. Then we walked down this really pretty sidewalk with trees on either side and we passed a house where the kids stopped playing in the yard and just looked at us. And then we reached the end and found that there actually was no way out that way, just a lot of barbed wire. Which was unfortunate. And we could have walked back past the kids (who were still looking at us, because the end of the road is not far from their house), but we didn't want to give up that easily. So we walked to the corner of the fence and found a place where you could push the bottom of the fence out and slip underneath. So we all climbed up onto this ledge and slipped under the fence. It was quite an adventure. But then we still didn't really know where we were, so we climbed up this clay drain thing up a hill to a car park and walked a bit and realized that we were actually on campus. So really all we did was break onto campus. Which is a little worrisome that that's possible, but it made things pretty easy for us. Next time we may just stick to the road though.

Tonight probably won't involve any sort of transport since I have a very long essay to write for Monday that makes up 50% of my grade for the class. I think I will most likely stay on campus.

Mozambiqing

So this post may be lengthy since I am trying to cram a whole week of craziness into a single post, but to make it more reader-friendly I am going to limit each day to one adventure, instead of giving a blow-by-blow of the whole day. And I promise pictures to go with each story. Get excited.

Day 1
Well, this day was not that exciting actually. It involved catching an 8:30 am bus from Joburg and taking it for about 8 hours. It was a little more cramped than a greyhound, but fairly comparable I guess. Except it was totally crammed full of people and it had no a/c, so halfway through the trip it became sort of unbearably hot. Never fear, there was an adventure though. Ok, so I don't know how many experiences people have had crossing national borders, but I've had a couple. I've gone to Mexico, Canada (yep, very exciting) and then from Italy into Switzerland into France. Crossing the border from South Africa into Mozambique was nothing like that. Granted we were on a bus, but still. Ok, so we all had to get out of the bus on the South African side to go through customs (totally fine and normal) but then we get out on the other side and the bus was nowhere to be seen and we still weren't in Mozambique and not quite sure what we were supposed to do. Luckily Rutendo was with us and she's from Zimbabwe, so she's had similar experiences with borders. She let us know that we had to walk across the border and then go through customs on the Mozambique side. This suprised all of us, but we started trekking across the border in between huge trucks, which luckily were pretty stationary. It was crazy. Ok, I don't have a picture of that (we had other things on our mind than taking pictures), but imagine the last scene of the Sound of Music when the whole Von Trapp family is crossing the border over the mountains... well except there were only six of us and none of us were related and we weren't wearing matching traveling clothes and we were surrounded by fences and trucks rather than gorgeous mountains and grass, and there was no singing. But other than, exactly the same. That night we checked into a backpacker's lodge called Fatima's which actually had a really nice vibe. I do have pictures of the outdoor patio area of it:


Day 2
We decided that for this day we were going to just walk around Maputo (the city we were staying in at the time) and get to know our layout. Our adventure for the day commenced when a random guy on the street heard us speaking English (the native language in Mozambique is Portuguese) and introduced himself as Derrique. He then offered to show us to where we were trying to go. He then proceeded to lead us to a really nice seafood restaurant right on the water and back to Fatima's that night, and managed to fall in love with Rutendo in the process. Such is life. We thought it might be awkward to continue to hang out with him past this day, but he was an excellent tour guide of the city and was very nice.
A picture of him explaining directions to us, or something to this nature:
Day 3
So we stayed at Fatima's again, but we got to switch rooms to a private room (which is much better than a communal one that we slept in the first night). The beds all had mosquito nets on them (because of the malaria and all) which were really fun to sleep in. Or at least it just looked cool. A picture of Kelsey and Fiona's bed:
Anyways, we spent the day walking around the city again, though we felt like we knew everything so much better and felt really accomplished about that. The exciting story of the day however was how we got our lodging settled for Friday. We had been planning on staying at Fatima's but it was all booked on Friday, so we changed out plans to go to Pont d'Oro Wednesday to Friday and then come back to the city and find a cheap hotel to stay at for Friday night. We found a motel and then a nicer hotel for $130 a room, which was just at the cusp of our price range for the amount of time we'd be spending in it. Though we did have plans to sneak all six of us into that one room. Anyways, we then see this one other hotel and decide to go inside. It was gorgeous inside:
It was as fancy as that throughout the whole hotel (that was the lounge area slash outdoor lawn area through the doors). We were told it was $200 a night for their cheapest rooms, which we thought would be a little over our price range. We then decided that we would try to hustle our way into a cheaper room by being like "well, we really want to stay here, but the other hotel we were thinking about staying in is only $130 a night, can you match their price?" I know, trying to hustle a room, but we had been doing a lot of hustling all week so I guess we were in the mood. Anyways, we send two of our own into the hotel to try and barter and they come back like a minute later to tell us that they wanted to give us all a tour. We all came in and met one of the owners of the hotel, who then proceeded to show us the whole hotel (conference rooms, normal rooms, suites, presidental suite (which we think he was sleeping in, it was so nice looking! and it had it's own pool) and the pool area. We found out that the hotel had not even had its grand opening yet, it had just opened and some of the rooms weren't even finished. In fact, they hadn't had any guests stay there yet. We did our little bartering thing and before we even finished he was like "don't worry about the price, we would be honored to have you stay and tell us how the rooms are and the service and everything." Yeah. So we went to the desk and told the receptionist that we would like a single room for the six of us (two cots and one of us would sleep on the couch) and that it would be for $130. She was a little skeptical at first, but then everything was worked out and we became the very first registered guests at this gorgeous hotel. We took a picture with the receptionists.
Day 4
We had an interesting transportation day this day. We left Maputo early early to catch a ferry
and then when we got over to the other side (about 15 min, so quick) we decided to take a shared taxi to Ponto D'Oro, a gorgeous seaside town. This shared taxi experience was quite something. Fun, though not in a strictly conventional sense. To recreate on your own, follow these simple instuctions... take one white van:
fill it to the brim with people (this one managed to hold 19 adults and a baby)
and then drive off for three hours over dirt and sand roads playing techno music and stopping just once for a supposed bathroom break (we figured this out too late to get out ourselves. oh well). Fiona and I had almost no leg room because we sat with the luggage and had a lot of it across out laps so that by the end of the trip we had sort of lost circulation. But it was a definitely a cool experience. Though maybe not one I'll repeat in the near future.

Adventure 2, This day was kind of like two days, because the trip was intense, but since we got such an early start we still got to Ponto d'Oro by 11. We got to the place we were staying (Kaya Kweru) which wasn't strictly a backpackers place, it was more like a cheap motel, but it had its own pool and we got our own room and it was like one hundred feet from the gorgeous beach. Besides the fact that the power kept dying and our toilet stopped working halfway into day two, it served us well. We went to the beach pretty quickly and the waves were huge! I was overly excited about this fact. The one downfall was it had a quite impressive undertow which managed to knock those of us who went into the water over a couple of times. But it was very fun and the water was a nice temperature.
Day 5
We were convinced by Rutendo to check out the snorkeling options available on the ocean. After spending the morning at the beach we all decided to go snorkeling in the afternoon. We got picked up and rode over in the back of a truck,
then had to help push the boat into the water
but then we got a thoroughly exciting ride over the huge waves on the motorboat. The visibility for snorkeling wasn't wonderful. We were told we were swimming over coral at some point, though I didn't see any. We did get to swim with a whale shark, which regardless of its name is neither a whale nor a shark, but actually just a really big fish. In fact it's the biggest fish from what they told us. It was really cool to swim with, though eventually it out-swam me. The day really made me want to go and get re-certified as a scuba diver. I love being able to breathe in the water. Oh, and near the end of our time in the water I was the last of our group to get into the boat and just as I got both feet on the deck a huge wave rocked our boat and I lost my balance and flipped right off the side onto the snorkeling instructor. Whoops. Neither of us were hurt, so that's a plus. It was pretty funny.
Side note, the rest of the pictures will be coming from Teresa's camera because my camera happened to take the boat ride with us and even though it was in a compartment, it got wet and is no longer in working order. It is the one casualty from the trip unfortunately.

Day 6
We hitched a ride back early with the owner of Kaya Kweru, which offered us a less cramped, though just as bumpy ride back. The ride started with the song Sweet Dreams though, which was fun. Anyways, we got back to Maputo and went to our final destination, the hotel we had made arrangements with on Tuesday. We went to the desk and tried to check in as a group of six for one room for $130. The receptionist was different from the original receptionist and seemed to have a bit of a problem with us doing this. She told us to wait in the reception area and hang out while she figured things out. I went outside in one of the hanging dome chairs they had out there and finished Lolita, the book I had been reading that vacation. Just as I came back inside she arrived to tell us that everything was taken care of, that we would have two rooms and that they were ready for us. We had to make sure the price was the same though so we asked and she confirmed $130. We then asked if it was $130 for one room or for both rooms and she told us it would be $130 for both. Yep. We got two rooms at this hotel that is heading towards five-star status (or at least a high four-star) for the price of less than one room. It was incredibly exciting. We decided to be super classy that night and we all got into the hotel provided bathrobes and jumped on the bed
and drank champagne
and then retired to our separate rooms

and went to sleep (I don't have a picture of this). It was a good last day of the trip.
A side note. By Friday we were not the only ones checked into the hotel. The other guests were the Mozambican national soccer team. Fiona made sure to get a picture with some of the players, though those pictures will be found on her camera, not mine or Teresa's.

Day 7
Oh did I say last day? Well we still had to travel back. This was pretty uneventful too... except for the border again. So we didn't have problems with the concept this time, we were total pros getting off the bus and walking to the Mozambican border office. However when we got there we noticed that we were missing Sasha and Teresa. They had planned on taking a picture of themselves at the border sign, but it seemed to be taking them a really long time. Kelsey went back to see what was going on and then she didn't come back for awhile. I was just starting to get really nervous that one of them had been run over by a car or something when we saw them. Apparently they had been stopped by a guard after taking a picture, accused of taking pictures of the guards (which apparently is a huge no-no) and then threatened with six months in jail. Teresa kept asking what her rights were and for him to talk to them in English and finally a nice man came up to translate for them. He then explained that really what the guard wanted was to be apologized to and then bribed. When Teresa and Sasha found this out they showed him that all the money they had was one dollar and he let them go. There is a lack of picture for this event because he made them erase it, even though it was zoomed in just on Teresa's face and the sign saying Welcome to Mozambique. Oh well, you'll just have to imagine it. We then got back to Joburg by 4.

So that was the trip. It was really fun and exciting and I'm not really ready to get back to classes on Monday. Oh hey, that's in an hour. Darn.