It's raining again for the second time since I've been in South Africa. I think right now the average is once a month or so. I'm inside my room with a cup of five roses tea, my take-home exam for my media class (which is kicking my butt by the way) and the oddly comforting sound of the rain bouncing off the tin roof.
I really want to go outside and play in the rain, except that a. it's a little too cold out for that and b. I still have this stupid final exam to do. My state sovereignty exam this morning was only brutal in the fact that it made my hand cramp. Otherwise not too bad. There was talk of having a brai (barbecue) tonight, but it just started thundering a lot, so I don't know if that will be a go. We still have three hours for the weather to clear up, so here's hoping.
My week-long vacation officially starts tomorrow, and a bunch of us are leaving for Mozambique on Sunday, which is right around the time Vassar really gets going. We have to get visas first, which hopefully won't prove to be a problem. I went out with Sasha yesterday to take some truly awful passport pictures. Mine would double pretty well for a mugshot. Actually I feel like my mugshot would look cooler. Well, except for the fact that it would mean I'd be going to jail.
Anyways, this is me stalling. But now I'm going to be good and do my work.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Pictures take 3
The following pictures were taken from the lion and rhino park we went to on Sunday
Sasha and the baby white lion we got to play with
Cheetahs posing for us outside of our car
It's a lion! This one was kind of scary actually. Walked right next to our car. Our windows were definitely rolled up
It's a baby tiger!
Baby tiger and Kelsey's leg. Yes, one of our own was attacked by a tiger.
Such a diva, it kept posing for me
Teresa and the baby tiger
my current desktop photo. Yes there was fence between us, but still a cool shot right?
Sasha and the baby white lion we got to play with
Cheetahs posing for us outside of our car
It's a lion! This one was kind of scary actually. Walked right next to our car. Our windows were definitely rolled up
It's a baby tiger!
Baby tiger and Kelsey's leg. Yes, one of our own was attacked by a tiger.
Such a diva, it kept posing for me
Teresa and the baby tiger
my current desktop photo. Yes there was fence between us, but still a cool shot right?
Saturday, August 22, 2009
And Exams are Fast Approaching
So the count-down has started for the beginning of the academic year at Vassar. It's very weird to think about that and the fact that I won't be there this semester. Over here I'm basically half-way through my semester. Our exams are coming up this week, which means I should be studying right now. Whoops. We may have just had our media exam canceled, which I think I'm happy about. Except that means we have one less grade and I haven't gotten the grade back on the paper I wrote last week, so I'll let you know later if I'm actually excited about the prospect of not having an exam.
Speaking of grades, of all the papers I've gotten back I have yet to get a grade in the 80s. Never fear, the grading system is very different here. Apparently we inflate grades in the United States to an insane degree. The IHRE program has worked out a conversion for us Americans. Basically it works like this:
75-100 - A
70-74 - A-
68-69 - B+
62-67 - B
60-61 - B-
58-59 - C+
and it continues, with an F being a 44 or lower.
It's still disconcerting to get a paper back in the 70s. I talked to a friend and he said that he has only heard of one person in his year ever getting above a 90 and the professor (who didn't grade the paper, the tutor graded it) said that he wasn't sure about the grade because he never gives grades above a 90 to undergraduate students.
So this was my first full week after my break in the States. The only hard thing about spending a week away was the fact that I had to use up almost all the food in my fridge, which meant that until I had time to go shopping (not until Wednesday) I was a little stuck. I had a lot of oatmeal, some salmon that I had in my freezer, and I ordered in food with some people. But not to worry, I can feed myself again. And I brought back a lot of spices from the States, which I am very excited to use in my numerous cooking adventures. I went to see the film Julie/Julia with my parents while home and it made me want to be more ambitious with my cooking. And then I realized that all I had was a hotplate. When I get home though... eh maybe I'll cook. It's hard to motivate yourself when you have two parents who cook so wonderfully. We'll see.
Yesterday was a pretty full day. In the morning I met with my state sovereignty group to work on our presentation on Zimbabwe and the international community that we were going to give later that day. It was a presentation that I felt a little disconnected from because for the large part of the research and meetings I was in the States. However, I did make the powerpoint, with no help from the computer I have in my room. It doesn't even have Microsoft Word on it, there's no way it could handle powerpoint. So I found out all about the computer labs around campus. The best one being in the Commerce Library, and the most annoying one being the library closest to the International House. I say that because I went in, got yelled at for trying to use a computer that was turned off (I turned it on and then was scolded for doing so), and then when I finally found a computer that worked I was told that the lab would only be open for another minute. Fun.
Anyways I found out (on like Monday or Tuesday of this week) that the dramatic presentation thing that I told you about a couple of weeks ago about HIV/AIDS was going on Friday as well. So I told my teacher and she kindly let our group go last. So I went out on Friday after our meeting, met up with Gift (the creator of the project) and this other drama student who drove us into New Town (maybe a five minute drive) to the Museum Africa. Our presentation thing was supposed to happen at 1:15, but instead it started around 1:35, which made me be the jittery person backstage freaking out about missing my presentation. Luckily the song is only about 5 min long and went well for the kind of informal practice we had been doing on it all semester. The audience was only very slightly enthusiastic, but they were a bunch of young school children, so I don't know what I was expecting. Right after our performance I ran out of the tiny little auditorium we performed in, got some free paraphernalia (like a shirt that says drama for life on it, it's pretty awesome, and this weird flat bag that sort of reminds me of what they put on you when you're going to get an x-ray, do you know what I'm talking about?), and then was driven back to Wits by yet another random person I met that day. He was very nice. I jumped out of the car the minute it stopped and ran all the way to my class. When I got there I ended up being right on time because my group was in front trying to figure out how to project the slide-show. We started about a minute after I sat down to do my very important and difficult group role of clicking the slide-show. I was totally necessary to my group. Anyways, we had two people do the actual presentation, both very knowledgeable and passionate about Zim, which was just good luck on the part of our group to have both of them. Especially since one of them is a youth leader in Zimbabwe. We got a really positive reaction from the class, which felt good, especially since this makes up almost 20% of our grade.
Later that night I was hanging out with some guys and we ended up driving around for a good deal of the night. I got KFC for possibly the first time in my life (it's pretty big here for some reason, I wouldn't exactly be tempted to go back sometime soon. It wasn't bad- it was just really greasy. Yeah so weird, deep-fried fast food that's greasy, what a concept), and then we went back to the International House, rallied up a lot of people and all went ice skating at a local mall. I shied away from playing ice skating tag that three of them were playing because I was just a little too shaky to skate around that fast, plus tag games scare me and I don't think anyone would appreciate me screaming. I didn't fall though, so that's a plus. I almost did while just standing there, but was caught by a friend who just happened to be standing right next to me when I decided to be uncoordinated. Lucky me.
Today I think I may stay in and do work. Or at least that's the plan now. People want to go to this park tomorrow where you can play with baby lions! And then go to this restaurant called Carnivores where they have an insane collection of different meat you can try (ex. Zebra, Antelope, Elephant etc) which should be interesting. I don't want to miss that because I have to do homework... thus doing it tonight. I am expecting a call at some point from one of my favorite guys in the whole world, so at the moment that's my biggest plan of the day. Besides that it's just going to be me and international human rights plugging away. And maybe some studying for upcoming exams. I'm a little nervous. I haven't had to take a final exam that involved going into the class and having to write essays since high school. I'm so used to doing take-home exams. Oh well, at least it will be completely done in two hours. That's something.
Speaking of grades, of all the papers I've gotten back I have yet to get a grade in the 80s. Never fear, the grading system is very different here. Apparently we inflate grades in the United States to an insane degree. The IHRE program has worked out a conversion for us Americans. Basically it works like this:
75-100 - A
70-74 - A-
68-69 - B+
62-67 - B
60-61 - B-
58-59 - C+
and it continues, with an F being a 44 or lower.
It's still disconcerting to get a paper back in the 70s. I talked to a friend and he said that he has only heard of one person in his year ever getting above a 90 and the professor (who didn't grade the paper, the tutor graded it) said that he wasn't sure about the grade because he never gives grades above a 90 to undergraduate students.
So this was my first full week after my break in the States. The only hard thing about spending a week away was the fact that I had to use up almost all the food in my fridge, which meant that until I had time to go shopping (not until Wednesday) I was a little stuck. I had a lot of oatmeal, some salmon that I had in my freezer, and I ordered in food with some people. But not to worry, I can feed myself again. And I brought back a lot of spices from the States, which I am very excited to use in my numerous cooking adventures. I went to see the film Julie/Julia with my parents while home and it made me want to be more ambitious with my cooking. And then I realized that all I had was a hotplate. When I get home though... eh maybe I'll cook. It's hard to motivate yourself when you have two parents who cook so wonderfully. We'll see.
Yesterday was a pretty full day. In the morning I met with my state sovereignty group to work on our presentation on Zimbabwe and the international community that we were going to give later that day. It was a presentation that I felt a little disconnected from because for the large part of the research and meetings I was in the States. However, I did make the powerpoint, with no help from the computer I have in my room. It doesn't even have Microsoft Word on it, there's no way it could handle powerpoint. So I found out all about the computer labs around campus. The best one being in the Commerce Library, and the most annoying one being the library closest to the International House. I say that because I went in, got yelled at for trying to use a computer that was turned off (I turned it on and then was scolded for doing so), and then when I finally found a computer that worked I was told that the lab would only be open for another minute. Fun.
Anyways I found out (on like Monday or Tuesday of this week) that the dramatic presentation thing that I told you about a couple of weeks ago about HIV/AIDS was going on Friday as well. So I told my teacher and she kindly let our group go last. So I went out on Friday after our meeting, met up with Gift (the creator of the project) and this other drama student who drove us into New Town (maybe a five minute drive) to the Museum Africa. Our presentation thing was supposed to happen at 1:15, but instead it started around 1:35, which made me be the jittery person backstage freaking out about missing my presentation. Luckily the song is only about 5 min long and went well for the kind of informal practice we had been doing on it all semester. The audience was only very slightly enthusiastic, but they were a bunch of young school children, so I don't know what I was expecting. Right after our performance I ran out of the tiny little auditorium we performed in, got some free paraphernalia (like a shirt that says drama for life on it, it's pretty awesome, and this weird flat bag that sort of reminds me of what they put on you when you're going to get an x-ray, do you know what I'm talking about?), and then was driven back to Wits by yet another random person I met that day. He was very nice. I jumped out of the car the minute it stopped and ran all the way to my class. When I got there I ended up being right on time because my group was in front trying to figure out how to project the slide-show. We started about a minute after I sat down to do my very important and difficult group role of clicking the slide-show. I was totally necessary to my group. Anyways, we had two people do the actual presentation, both very knowledgeable and passionate about Zim, which was just good luck on the part of our group to have both of them. Especially since one of them is a youth leader in Zimbabwe. We got a really positive reaction from the class, which felt good, especially since this makes up almost 20% of our grade.
Later that night I was hanging out with some guys and we ended up driving around for a good deal of the night. I got KFC for possibly the first time in my life (it's pretty big here for some reason, I wouldn't exactly be tempted to go back sometime soon. It wasn't bad- it was just really greasy. Yeah so weird, deep-fried fast food that's greasy, what a concept), and then we went back to the International House, rallied up a lot of people and all went ice skating at a local mall. I shied away from playing ice skating tag that three of them were playing because I was just a little too shaky to skate around that fast, plus tag games scare me and I don't think anyone would appreciate me screaming. I didn't fall though, so that's a plus. I almost did while just standing there, but was caught by a friend who just happened to be standing right next to me when I decided to be uncoordinated. Lucky me.
Today I think I may stay in and do work. Or at least that's the plan now. People want to go to this park tomorrow where you can play with baby lions! And then go to this restaurant called Carnivores where they have an insane collection of different meat you can try (ex. Zebra, Antelope, Elephant etc) which should be interesting. I don't want to miss that because I have to do homework... thus doing it tonight. I am expecting a call at some point from one of my favorite guys in the whole world, so at the moment that's my biggest plan of the day. Besides that it's just going to be me and international human rights plugging away. And maybe some studying for upcoming exams. I'm a little nervous. I haven't had to take a final exam that involved going into the class and having to write essays since high school. I'm so used to doing take-home exams. Oh well, at least it will be completely done in two hours. That's something.
Monday, August 17, 2009
And after a 24hr travel day....
So I am back safely in South Africa. People kept telling me to have a safe trip, so I wanted to let you all know that I totally completed that task. Go me. The flight was fine. Rather long, but I watched some really good movies.. and um did work. Lots of work. I was super productive. But I also somehow got the chance to watch I Love You Man (ok, I thought it was funny, not exactly high-brow but whatevs), Sunshine Cleaners (not very funny, but good), Frost/Nixon (had annoying Dutch subtitles because I was flying on a Dutch airline, but excellent), Star Trek, and Disturbia. I will let you know that all those were spread out over four 8-11 hour flights, so I didn't go crazy with the movies. As a reference I watched 5 on my singular flight up here, so I think I'm getting better. If I had a media problem hypothetically this would totally show that I am getting over it...
So I arrived last night at 9:10pm, having left the good ole US of A at 7:30ish Saturday night. I came with an extra bag (my green side-bag that is much preferable to my fairly ugly backpack that I've been using), some graham crackers (they don't exist in South Africa and people wanted to teach our friends about s'mores), extra summer clothes, and without my computer. The screen decided to stop working two hours before I left. I know, devastating. How am I writing this you might ask... well I have brought with me my grandmother's old computer. It's this tiny travel-sized pc that actually seems to be functioning pretty well. It is without a dvd drive which makes seven seasons of Buffy that I brought back with me (don't judge!) have to sit uselessly on my shelf. But I found out that it does have a place for my ethernet cord, so that's a definite plus. I have to rely on my ipod since my grandmother had all of two songs of this computer, but I can deal with that. Anyways, my computer will be in the States until it is fixed by the lovely folks over at apple, so until then the one I use will be the cutest computer in the International House.
Look how tiny! (those are not my hands)
Oh, and when I got back my door was plastered with cards and notes and other festive things like that. Which was surprising and really nice to come back to. Apparently a lot has happened here while I was gone, including everyone seeming to have computer problems, not just me. The most important thing that happened, however, was that Bret (the one American guy) was hospitalized and we found out this morning that he is very sick and is going home tomorrow. Which was obviously incredibly upsetting. We went to visit him at the hospital today. People are taking one last trip tomorrow, but I'm stressing out about a media essay I should be writing right now, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the last trip. I will definitely miss him though. He is really genuine and nice to everyone, something I really admire in him. I hope he has a safe trip back tomorrow.
And now I'm off to write that wonderful essay that I am procrastinating about right now. Shame on all of you for tempting me into writing a post. Don't you know how much work I have?
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Flying Home
I'm leaving for the States tonight at 11:30pm and should arrive in Michigan (after 19 hours of flying and a three hour layover in Amsterdam) at 3:40 pm. Oh the magic of time travel. I'll be there for my grandmother's funeral and a hearty dose of family time and then will most likely come back to South Africa in a week or so.
I'm going to leave you for now with one of my favorite songs:
Stay cool everyone, I still have to readjust to the fact that I will be reentering summer
I'm going to leave you for now with one of my favorite songs:
Click here for audio
Goodbye, Goodnight
A flower for your vanity, a penny for your thoughts
About the world's insanity and how we've gotten lost
Strike up the band to play a song as we go waltzing by
And fake a smile as we all say goodbye
Say a prayer for recognition, kiss the ones you love
Gather up the ammunition, sigh for all the lost
Strike up the band to play a song as we go waltzing by
And fake a smile as we all say goodbye
Raise a glass for ignorance, drink a toast to fear
The beginning of the end has come that's why we all are here
Strike up the band to play a song and try hard not to cry
And fake a smile as we all say goodbye
Goodbye
-Jars of Clay
Stay cool everyone, I still have to readjust to the fact that I will be reentering summer
Saturday, August 8, 2009
A South African Audience
Tonight I went out to a talent show hosted on campus. It was interesting, let me tell you. For one, it was about three hours long, which is a bit too long if you ask me. They also had a real mix of talent, and some of the singers just could not keep their pitch up. Which made me uncomfortable, I hate people not being on pitch. Anyways, I'm a music geek. Those aspects of the show however didn't make it any different from other similar shows I've been to in the US. The distinctly South African difference for this show was the audience. I don't know if I can quite explain the difference in a comprehensive way. Let's just say that American audiences, for the most part, are quite passive and unemotionally involved comparatively. Audiences here (true I have been to all of two shows, so this is a vast blanket statement, but I feel like it would hold true in other circumstances) are so participatory. I don't think the audience was silent once. And everyone around me was so expressive in terms of whether or not they thought the act was good, if they thought the performer was hot, if they thought the act was going on too long. People were quick to boo performers they thought were bad, which made me want to go up and smack all 200 (overestimation) of them. Thought that wouldn't be practical though. I'm of course not saying I've never heard anyone be booed before, but never to that extent. Someone argued with me afterwards that if they are of the age to be in university, they are old enough to hear that they are no good. I tried to argue that the stakes were not high enough at a silly university talent show to warrant that kind of criticism, but he wasn't buying it. Thoughts? Opinions?
To show their appreciate for good acts (though honestly, the acts didn't have to be that wonderful. They just had to be better than average) people were quick to stand and scream and get fairly riled up when they thought something was good. That's rare in the States right? A single person standing in the middle of an act totally engrossed in the performance? It's not like it was like a rock concert or anything. And it wasn't just one person, lots of individuals would do it. Not at the end or the performance either, though it would happen at the end too of course, right in the middle of like a dance number or something. The other weird reaction from the audience was at the very beginning of the show there was a request for everyone to turn off their cell phone (normal right?) and there was this outcry unlike any I would have ever expected. It's standard procedure to switch of cell phones when you're going to see a performance right? More people have cell phones here than in the States (I think) because the payment method is different. You buy airtime rather than a cell phone 'plan.' That means that you can pay as much as you want for a set amount of minutes and once you run out of those you go and buy more. That way people who maybe don't have a lot of money for an extraneous cost of a cell phone can just buy a few airtime minutes and only use it for emergencies or something. So, according to Duduetsang people are very attached to their phones here. She said people would die for their phones, which I'm banking on being a joke.
Anyways, after the talent show I got a text from a friend that they were going laser tagging, which of course got me really excited. I ran out from the talent show a little early (ten minutes before it hit the 3 hr mark. they were deciding the ultimate winners, which I didn't have very high personal stakes in) and hopped in the car knowing next to nothing about the plans besides the fact that they involved laser tag. Unfortunately once we got there we found out that it was closed for the night (at 10:30 on a Friday, it was super lame). It wasn't too huge a loss. The mall was an outdoor one and Sarah (the other American Sarah) and I danced to ABBA next to rainbow fountains, which was a good time. And then we got hamburgers and drove around. It was really fun actually, even though we didn't really do a lot of concrete things. All in all, I mark it off as an interesting and ultimately successful Friday night. And maybe I'll actually get work done tomorrow. I know I didn't do any last night. Instead I had a marathon with those who could manage it (four of us in total who made it through the entire thing) of all three Bourne movies. It was pretty intense. I really didn't think we'd make it through all three, but by the time we got through two we figured that we had made it that far and had to commit to the last one. Totally worth it, even if my bed started getting pretty uncomfortable to sit on by the end of the night.
To show their appreciate for good acts (though honestly, the acts didn't have to be that wonderful. They just had to be better than average) people were quick to stand and scream and get fairly riled up when they thought something was good. That's rare in the States right? A single person standing in the middle of an act totally engrossed in the performance? It's not like it was like a rock concert or anything. And it wasn't just one person, lots of individuals would do it. Not at the end or the performance either, though it would happen at the end too of course, right in the middle of like a dance number or something. The other weird reaction from the audience was at the very beginning of the show there was a request for everyone to turn off their cell phone (normal right?) and there was this outcry unlike any I would have ever expected. It's standard procedure to switch of cell phones when you're going to see a performance right? More people have cell phones here than in the States (I think) because the payment method is different. You buy airtime rather than a cell phone 'plan.' That means that you can pay as much as you want for a set amount of minutes and once you run out of those you go and buy more. That way people who maybe don't have a lot of money for an extraneous cost of a cell phone can just buy a few airtime minutes and only use it for emergencies or something. So, according to Duduetsang people are very attached to their phones here. She said people would die for their phones, which I'm banking on being a joke.
Anyways, after the talent show I got a text from a friend that they were going laser tagging, which of course got me really excited. I ran out from the talent show a little early (ten minutes before it hit the 3 hr mark. they were deciding the ultimate winners, which I didn't have very high personal stakes in) and hopped in the car knowing next to nothing about the plans besides the fact that they involved laser tag. Unfortunately once we got there we found out that it was closed for the night (at 10:30 on a Friday, it was super lame). It wasn't too huge a loss. The mall was an outdoor one and Sarah (the other American Sarah) and I danced to ABBA next to rainbow fountains, which was a good time. And then we got hamburgers and drove around. It was really fun actually, even though we didn't really do a lot of concrete things. All in all, I mark it off as an interesting and ultimately successful Friday night. And maybe I'll actually get work done tomorrow. I know I didn't do any last night. Instead I had a marathon with those who could manage it (four of us in total who made it through the entire thing) of all three Bourne movies. It was pretty intense. I really didn't think we'd make it through all three, but by the time we got through two we figured that we had made it that far and had to commit to the last one. Totally worth it, even if my bed started getting pretty uncomfortable to sit on by the end of the night.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Homeless
Today was the first day we have had rain since we've been in South Africa. I love raining days, even if today was particularly cold. I actually had a really nice day. I went to Rosebank (the nearby mall) with Duduetsang, a friend I met at Wits rural, and one of her good friends I met yesterday. We went to see the new Transformers movie. I haven't seen the first one, but that turned out to be fine. After the movie we got food at this place called Chicken Licken and went back to my room to hang out. I later went out for coffee with some of the Americans and Ameet (who drove us, which was good because it was really cold today. And the place we went wasn't in walking distance). I didn't get any work done, but that's what Sunday is for right?
Actually every Sunday at Rosebank there's a flea market where a lot of local vendors come. I went last week and bought this really pretty handmade dress. It had to be altered a bit, so I'm picking it up tomorrow. I also got a watch there last week. My old watch's band broke right before I left, so the last month I've been feeling lost without some sort of timekeeping device. It's pretty nice, though it honestly took me about half an hour in total to pick a watch. I'm sure the person selling them to me wanted to punch me by the time I finally decided. But I did buy one, so that's something.
So what can I tell you about this week? I've gotten more structure to my internship. Two out of the three days I'm scheduled to work will actually be spent in my room researching. They don't have a computer for me at the office, so it just made more sense to save the taxi fare and have me stay on campus. Basically what I'm researching is the change in housing laws since the abolition of apartheid. During apartheid blacks could not own property. Instead there were different types of permits they could get, either to only own the house and not the land the house was on or to only rent the house etc. I've been asked to research how the laws have translated into the modern apartheid-free era. For example, if multiple families were renting a house, who inherits the property rights. That sort of thing.
The one day a week I do go to the office I'm sitting in on consultations. Last Thursday I sat in during the clinic hours they have for refugees. I asked the person working afterwards and apparently 95% of the cases involve appeals for renewing permits. The rule for staying in the country as a refugee is that you need to prove that you have a legitimate reason to fear persecution from your government if you stay in your country. The problem is many of the refugees don't speak English well, and thus may not completely understand what is needed in order to renew their permit. I don't think I'll have trouble conducting consultations. Mainly you just need to find out their specific problem, ask for papers that support what they are saying, take down their information (and the info of the next of kin if they don't speak English well) and then give them advice about the next steps to take (once you consult with someone who actually knows how to give advice, something I'm clearly not actually qualified for). I'm excited to be able to do it myself actually, though it will be a couple of weeks before they'll let me. Thursday I just sort of sat there and 'took notes' which were incredibly minimal. I'm pretty sure all of the refugees that I saw were from the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) which, according to the very credible wikipedia, has around 45,000 citizens dying per month. A lot of the people who came to us were involved in political organizations, which in turn put them in too much danger to stay in the country. Unfortunately there was one girl (only 20 years old) who fled because she was afraid her uncle would kill her, which isn't a sufficient excuse to be a refugee in South Africa. It was horrible to hear the attorney operating the clinic say there was nothing in the law that allowed us to help her stay in the country. I got the impression that she left her home and came to South Africa by herself, finding refuge at a church nearby. This is a girl my age who is worrying about life and death issues, not the state of her homework or what to cook for dinner or all manner of trivial things that I think about every day. I realize that millions of people far younger than I am are in states of living far worse than this girl, but to have her sitting across a table from me asking for help that we apparently couldn't give her made it that much more real. And what can you do, as someone working in the legal profession, in a situation like that where the law is very specific about it's qualifications and there's nothing you can do to help? If I skip out on the law track entirely, it will be because of things like that and the issues that would come up having to defend someone I knew was guilty. Luckily I can hold off on that decision for a couple of years or so. Or at least until the end of my time at this internship.
Every day driving to the Schreiner Chambers office (where probono.org is housed) involves being dropped off in front of one of the courts in Johannesburg (the office building is right across the street). Every day the sidewalk is filled with people standing around in lines, apparently often spending the night there, though a nearby church (I have been told) has been housing as many people as they can. My mentor told me the first day I came in that they were refugees from Zimbabwe. We have four students from Zimbabwe in the program and I've recently found out that most, if not all, of them are actually heavily involved in politics. One of them has mentioned that she has been a politician since the age of 15. Can you imagine that? Talk about actually doing something with your life. She's been heavily involved in politics for five years or so now. And being involved in politics in Zimbabwe is nothing like being involved in politics in the United States. There are repercussions to holding certain political views. I'm just here because I wanted to experience a different culture and the program seemed interesting, but this is the sort of thing they experience every day back home. It's actually their life. I can't even imagine it.
Actually every Sunday at Rosebank there's a flea market where a lot of local vendors come. I went last week and bought this really pretty handmade dress. It had to be altered a bit, so I'm picking it up tomorrow. I also got a watch there last week. My old watch's band broke right before I left, so the last month I've been feeling lost without some sort of timekeeping device. It's pretty nice, though it honestly took me about half an hour in total to pick a watch. I'm sure the person selling them to me wanted to punch me by the time I finally decided. But I did buy one, so that's something.
So what can I tell you about this week? I've gotten more structure to my internship. Two out of the three days I'm scheduled to work will actually be spent in my room researching. They don't have a computer for me at the office, so it just made more sense to save the taxi fare and have me stay on campus. Basically what I'm researching is the change in housing laws since the abolition of apartheid. During apartheid blacks could not own property. Instead there were different types of permits they could get, either to only own the house and not the land the house was on or to only rent the house etc. I've been asked to research how the laws have translated into the modern apartheid-free era. For example, if multiple families were renting a house, who inherits the property rights. That sort of thing.
The one day a week I do go to the office I'm sitting in on consultations. Last Thursday I sat in during the clinic hours they have for refugees. I asked the person working afterwards and apparently 95% of the cases involve appeals for renewing permits. The rule for staying in the country as a refugee is that you need to prove that you have a legitimate reason to fear persecution from your government if you stay in your country. The problem is many of the refugees don't speak English well, and thus may not completely understand what is needed in order to renew their permit. I don't think I'll have trouble conducting consultations. Mainly you just need to find out their specific problem, ask for papers that support what they are saying, take down their information (and the info of the next of kin if they don't speak English well) and then give them advice about the next steps to take (once you consult with someone who actually knows how to give advice, something I'm clearly not actually qualified for). I'm excited to be able to do it myself actually, though it will be a couple of weeks before they'll let me. Thursday I just sort of sat there and 'took notes' which were incredibly minimal. I'm pretty sure all of the refugees that I saw were from the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) which, according to the very credible wikipedia, has around 45,000 citizens dying per month. A lot of the people who came to us were involved in political organizations, which in turn put them in too much danger to stay in the country. Unfortunately there was one girl (only 20 years old) who fled because she was afraid her uncle would kill her, which isn't a sufficient excuse to be a refugee in South Africa. It was horrible to hear the attorney operating the clinic say there was nothing in the law that allowed us to help her stay in the country. I got the impression that she left her home and came to South Africa by herself, finding refuge at a church nearby. This is a girl my age who is worrying about life and death issues, not the state of her homework or what to cook for dinner or all manner of trivial things that I think about every day. I realize that millions of people far younger than I am are in states of living far worse than this girl, but to have her sitting across a table from me asking for help that we apparently couldn't give her made it that much more real. And what can you do, as someone working in the legal profession, in a situation like that where the law is very specific about it's qualifications and there's nothing you can do to help? If I skip out on the law track entirely, it will be because of things like that and the issues that would come up having to defend someone I knew was guilty. Luckily I can hold off on that decision for a couple of years or so. Or at least until the end of my time at this internship.
Every day driving to the Schreiner Chambers office (where probono.org is housed) involves being dropped off in front of one of the courts in Johannesburg (the office building is right across the street). Every day the sidewalk is filled with people standing around in lines, apparently often spending the night there, though a nearby church (I have been told) has been housing as many people as they can. My mentor told me the first day I came in that they were refugees from Zimbabwe. We have four students from Zimbabwe in the program and I've recently found out that most, if not all, of them are actually heavily involved in politics. One of them has mentioned that she has been a politician since the age of 15. Can you imagine that? Talk about actually doing something with your life. She's been heavily involved in politics for five years or so now. And being involved in politics in Zimbabwe is nothing like being involved in politics in the United States. There are repercussions to holding certain political views. I'm just here because I wanted to experience a different culture and the program seemed interesting, but this is the sort of thing they experience every day back home. It's actually their life. I can't even imagine it.
found!
So my camera has turned up. Apparently I was nervous about it being stolen during the first week and so I hid it really really well. Unfortunately, the only person I ended up hiding it from was myself. But I finally located it. Yay! So expect more exciting news than this and maybe some pictures in the next day or so (or tonight if I'm feeling crazy).
Ok, I'm off to eat dinner in a friend's room.
Ok, I'm off to eat dinner in a friend's room.
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