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.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Pictures take four
I promised pictures that went with my last post... so here they are
our tickets to the fashion show
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-resMonday, September 21, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, September 11, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
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.
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 2We 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 3So 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 4We 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 5We 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.
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