Coming to you from South Africa

the end?

2009-11-27T02:34:00.003+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

And a semester comes to a close

2009-11-07T01:12:00.006+02:00

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

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

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

The whole gang. Our host is the far left

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

And here's a picture of that!

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

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

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

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

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

Reception tent

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pictures take 5

2009-10-27T20:22:00.004+02:00

The vineyard! So pretty

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

The whole gang after our wine tasting

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

Sasha, Teresa, and me right near some hidden penguins

And this was the beach

Penguins!!

More penguins! They are so cute.

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

Cape Adventures

2009-10-26T18:23:00.002+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

A Reflection

2009-10-16T11:22:00.004+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And for the Prize

2009-10-09T13:51:00.002+02:00

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

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

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

SIAMAK HIRAI, SPOKESMAN FOR AFGHAN PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI

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

KHALED AL-BATSH, AN ISLAMIC JIHAD LEADER

Obama's winning the peace prize shows these prizes are political, not governed by the principles of credibility, values and morals.
Why should Obama be given a peace prize while his country owns the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth and his soldiers continue to shed innocent blood in Iraq and Afghanistan?

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

Pride

2009-10-06T21:44:00.004+02:00

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

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

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

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

Such awesome costumes all day! For serious.

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

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

A Picture of an Inverted Joburg

2009-10-01T18:42:00.005+02:00

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

To Talk the Talk

2009-09-29T10:54:00.003+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

Pictures take four

2009-09-27T21:56:00.005+02:00

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

our tickets to the fashion show

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

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

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

all-res picnic, the view from our picnic table

Kelsey and Tebogo at all-res

Thabo and me at all-res

Protests, Prada, and Picnics (oh my)

2009-09-21T14:53:00.003+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting around Joburg

2009-09-11T12:07:00.002+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mozambiqing

2009-09-06T20:40:00.011+02:00

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.

Stormy Weather

2009-08-27T15:24:00.002+02:00

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.

Pictures take 3

2009-08-26T18:21:00.005+02:00

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?

And Exams are Fast Approaching

2009-08-22T13:47:00.005+02:00

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.

And after a 24hr travel day....

2009-08-17T22:12:00.003+02:00

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?

Flying Home

2009-08-09T09:47:00.007+02:00

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:

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

Click here for audio

Stay cool everyone, I still have to readjust to the fact that I will be reentering summer

A South African Audience

2009-08-08T00:17:00.005+02:00

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.

Homeless

2009-08-01T22:37:00.004+02:00

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.

found!

2009-08-01T18:09:00.004+02:00

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.

Some Cooking Tips

2009-07-27T19:47:00.003+02:00

Hello again. Another Monday come and gone. And again I had no class. Well actually, I thought I had no class and it turns out I missed a 45 min session of Ayesha (our program head) going around to everyone, asking them what internship they were at and whether or not they liked it. So I guess I can live with missing it. It was totally unintentional though! So anyways, my Monday involved not going to class. Instead I went out to a nearby coffee shop near campus with Teresa and Sasha and Lesedie (a Witsie who hung out with us at Wits rural) and tried to get my reading done for my classes this week. Then we went clothes shopping unsuccessfully (unsuccessful for me because I couldn't figure out the sizing system and didn't want to keep holding up Teresa and Sasha so after trying on three different sizes of one shirt didn't bother getting new sizes for anything else). I want to get a few long-sleeved shirts that are more casual. I way over-packed in terms of business-appropriate clothing and under-packed in terms of normal winter clothing. The problem is that I am very used to wearing t-shirts in the winter, because everywhere you go it's heated. Except central heating is not a big thing here. So even if it's not that cold outside, it can get really cold inside. Hence the need for more long-sleeved shirts. Anyways, after two shops we gave up and went grocery shopping instead. I bought fresh baked bread (less than a dollar! I love shopping here) and have finally mastered the bread-slicing machine. It was a proud moment.

We had an Italian night last night and I was in charge of making the sauce. It actually went really well surprisingly enough. Especially considering that I wasn't exactly following a recipe. I had a rough idea of ingredients I would need and a little bit of a game-plan in terms of how to cook things, but mainly I was playing it by ear. Anyways, long story short, the sauce turned out well and so today I bought more ingredients I could use in sauce, because it was actually kind of fun and I would like to do it again. If you want my fail-safe recipe that I used last night, here it is:

-put some weird tomato and onion combination (found in a can) in a pot with oil and add in some finely chopped carrots and some of your own onion
-heat that for a bit
-cut up some peeled tomatoes (you can peel them easily by putting them in boiling water first. thanks mom for the tip) and scrape them haphazardly with a knife to get out some of the seeds
-put those into the pot
-add in an undetermined amount of garlic
-add in more of that tomato and onion mix
-smash some of the tomatoes somewhat effectively with a spoon
-stir that around and then while it's heating go on your computer and waste time on facebook
-get up when you remember the directions told you to put in basil
-put in some basil, skimp a little
-add some premade pasta sauce, but not too much because it smells a little weird when compared to the sauce you're making
-add in some carrots because you have some more leftover
-let that simmer (or whatever it does on a hotplate that kind of has a shaky control of heat) for an hour or so while you watch Freaks and Geeks over the shared itunes network of the international house
-add in some more garlic and a tiny bit of cheese
-taste it to make sure you didn't accidentally stir in rat poison during the chaos
-throw away the rat poison, why on earth do you keep that around when you haven't seen any rats? especially near food. come on now
-pour the sauce into a nice serving bowl, or whatever bowl is on hand
-take the premade sauce with you in case you're the only one who likes the sauce you made

hooray, you did it! congratulations

next time you should also add (but were too lazy to go shopping last time for):
-a little bit of tomato paste
-rosemary
-parsley

Happy cooking to one and all

"None of us has much time"

2009-07-27T01:24:00.008+02:00

I watched a movie (Synecdoche, New York) with a couple of people tonight and this quote really spoke to the mild recluse in me who sometimes needs life to come to me. I've posted it on a wall in my room to try to steer me away from that tendency, especially while I'm in South Africa.

And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right.

Ok, the quote in context doesn't exactly speak to what I mentioned above, but I think you can interpret it that way if you want to. So... I'm going to try to go out and do something outside my comfort zone this week, and I encourage you to do the same. What time is better than the here and now? Riddle me that.

Pictures! (take 2)

2009-07-26T14:39:00.008+02:00

Picture from last week when we had the brai outside of the International House

Day 1 of internships, waiting to meet our mentors

Teresa, Sasha and me outside of the student center

Ameet and me one of the first nights hanging out in Sasha's room for a friend's 21st.

The whole group who went to Wits Rural (picture right before we got on the bus to go back to Joburg)

More pictures from the rural homestay. We helped with chores in the morning.

Oh, and we helped at night too. This is me sort of helping to make pap. I don't know if I actually helped though. I didn't really know what I was doing.

My group playing games we would later play with the orphan at the school before our homestay. This game is called jump river bank. It took us an embarrassing amount of time to figure out the game. Though the kids did fine with it.

Ok, I stole the above pictures from other people's facebook photo albums. My camera is hiding from me currently, so I'm relying on other people for pictures at least for the moment.

Hi Ho

2009-07-23T16:05:00.003+02:00

I just got back from my second official day at my internship. I realize I didn't write about my first day, but since I did just about the same thing both days, I don't think it will be a problem. I've actually been finding it really interesting. Since Probono is a clearing house (meaning it takes in cases and then gives them out to high-power law firms) it has a ton of different cases to look through. And apparently a similarly-minded law firm called the Johannesburg Legal Center recently closed its offices and Probono inherited all their cases. So what I've been doing is going through a lot of these files, reading up on the cases so that I understand them, summarize the main points for myself, note what Probono workers have already done with the case, figure out whether or not the case should be closed (only happens if we haven't been getting responses from the client) or what else should be done. And apparently eventually I'll be calling people up to continue working on the cases. I'd better work on my phone persona. I tend to talk too fast and all that.

One of the more interesting cases I discovered was one for this guy who was hired by a security company as a guard. He was told that he was required to supply his own gun, however he was robbed on shift and the thief took his gun. The company suspended him until he could replace his gun, and he called back the next day only to be told that he had been replaced. And his replacement did not own his own gun. So the case was meant to get this man back pay owed to him because he was wrongly fired. However, the sheriff's department in the area was contacted to deliver the fee notice to the company and went to the company at 8:30 in the morning, even though they were told that the offices didn't open until 9:30. They then went back that night at 7:30 and (surprisingly enough) the office was again not open. The law center was then charged for the services of the sheriff's office, even though they went against recommendation. The office refused to pay the fees and then sheriff refused to try again. That's where the case was left. Unfortunately so many of these cases have been ongoing for like four or five years by this point. Anyways, the cases are interesting to read about, though the notes Shanon (the person I'm working on this for) has written about these cases are so illegible. I feel horrible each time I go up to her to ask her to translate her handwriting. Her handwriting rival's my dad's, which is saying a lot, I'm telling you.

Rehearsals for the musical piece I'm in are a lot of fun. Pretty unstructured, especially with the sort of student-run theater I'm used to, but it's definitely a different experience for me, which I enjoy. You can't grow if you're only doing the same thing every time. The piece is mainly this big group song, however it was 'composed' and written by the student informally directing it. I say 'composed' because he only has a rough melodic line in his head, and nothing written down. So during rehearsal we've mainly been trying to figure out an actual melody for it. I'm even singing lead vocals for one part of it (probably a reward for being the only person who has showed up to every rehearsal, or being the only girl there yesterday) which I'm not totally comfortable with yet because it involves a lot of improving and unstructured repetition that also needs to flow with the constantly changing background vocals. It's just not a type of singing I'm personally used to, and thus am not quite as confident with it as the rest of the guys involved in singing the song. I'm hoping it will get easier, and it definitely is helping me grasp harmonies quicker because there is no written music and there isn't even someone telling me when to sing harmony or sing melody, so I've been kind of doing it when I feel like it fits. Which doesn't always work, but I think I'm sort of getting better.

Academics (oh right, school. the reason I'm here) are going pretty well. Classes here are a lot more lecture-based than Vassar's, but we were warned about that like five million times before the program started officially, so I haven't minded. My lecturers have been pretty good. I still love my state sovereignty class the most. Natalie, our lecturer, said that next year it will be a semester-long instead of a half-semester course. I wish it was semester-long this year. My media studies class was interesting this week in the fact that she mainly focused on the logistics of media studies, which I appreciated never having taken a media studies class before. However she didn't even mention the readings, which was weird. Especially since she decided to let us out about an hour early. But come on, who in the their right mind wants to sit through a three-hour lecture in the afternoon, let alone teach one? I didn't mind. The core course (human rights, perspectives through law I think is what it's called) has a good lecturer as well, though it has the most minimal class participation. The class is also like 60-70 people (well, on a good day. I don't think we've ever had everybody in class), so minimal participation makes sense.

Our program is hosting a movie night tonight, which I'm heading to in about twenty minutes. It was advertised as a way to get our minds off of our homesickness, but I personally haven't been needing a distraction. I can't speak for everyone of course, but I don't get homesick very easily. And if I was homesick I don't know if this event would really cure me. Because it was also advertised as a movie followed by a discussion. Like another class. Can I get an oh God, why more school during our free time? I hope there's free food.

Monday, Monday

2009-07-20T20:35:00.002+02:00

My one class today (the internship class I've been... raving about) was canceled. Which was nice because I wanted to get a lot of my work for the week done today. Which I sort of did. There's still more to do of course. I hung out with Sasha and Teresa (two of my fellow Americans) at a cafe on campus reading all about international human rights laws. I also met with a fellow international student today named Gift who studies in the drama department and is putting together a music/theatrical piece for a month-long exhibition called Make Art/Stop Aids. He wanted to put together an international cast and asked me a week or so ago if I wanted to be in it (he had heard from the other Americans that I was musical). I'm really excited to be part of the arts just a little bit while I'm here. I sometimes get antsy without my art outlet.

Our performance will most likely be the second week of August, so we're planning on having three rehearsals a week. There's been a problem with schedules, so I haven't met the whole cast, but we did get to sit around tonight and riff on a song that he composed. We had a very talented acoustic guitarist with us, so it was really fun. I wish I could still play guitar, it's such a beautiful instrument. I'm excited about the project though, it feels like the theater for change thing I did with Heifer back like four or five years ago (wow that's a long time), where there was a leader who had a vision, but the performance only came about through the collaboration of everyone involved. And I personally love conveying messages through music and performance. There's talk of getting me to play the saxophone during it, which would be interesting seeing as I didn't bring mine. I don't know if anyone would actually be willing to lend me theirs. We'll see.

This weekend was nice. I met another American staying in the international house whose home institution is Tisch (NYU). He cooked with us on Saturday night. We had Mexican night and we all made different dishes (I made quesadillas-is that spelled right?) though I was severely limited by my lack of grated mozzarella. I have some fresh mozzarella I found at the larger supermarket we went to at the mall, but it doesn't melt the same way. It's ok, they were still really good. And we also had tacos and nachos (though we improvised a bit because they don't seem to have plain corn chips here). We're planning on having an Italian night sometime this week.

We also had a brai yesterday. It's basically their word for barbecue here, though you can buy meat pre-marinated with special brai sauce. Our chef was a guy named Ameet who actually graduated last year, but bunks here because his house is too far away from his job. He's my unofficial next door neighbor. The international house has a brai grill you can take out, so I'm sure we'll do it again in the near future. It takes awhile to cook everything, but it's definitely worth it.

Tomorrow is my official first day at my internship. I couldn't figure out transportation for last week. Unfortunately I still don't have a handle on how transportation will work for tomorrow. It's definitely too far for me to walk, but I don't want to pay for a taxi to and from Wits a couple of times a week. Elanza, the internship coordinator here, is trying to figure it out for me. I'm excited slash nervous because my mentor told me that she was planning on having me look through case files for the first couple of weeks. And since I know nothing about law, I'm hoping I won't be too over my head. If I don't understand it I know I can tell her and she'll find something else for me to do, but I want to be as useful as possible. Who knows, maybe it's much easier than it sounds.

Drinking with Lawyers

2009-07-16T21:09:00.006+02:00

So I attended my first fancy function thing. Yes, that's what all the people working for the very intimidating law firm were calling it. It was very interesting. I was by far the youngest person there, but that was fine. There were people in their mid-twenties there too, so it wasn't just a bunch of old people. This was the first time I've been in South Africa and white people have been in the majority. It's too bad that wealth is still segregated so much along race lines. Not to say there was only white people there, but they were in the majority. Interestingly enough however, I noticed more women than men. Most likely because the function was for the establishment of pro-bono work at this particular law firm, and it seems (in my experience here) that women are more likely to get involved in more charity-based work than men. Don't ask me why, that's just what I've noticed.

So, we get there and for awhile I just shadow my mentor (Erica) and introduce myself to all these high-powered lawyer people who's names I quickly forget. As a lowly intern I'm sure they weren't even really listening when I introduced myself. They did have quite tasty finger-food type stuff that people kept offering me. One was a little chicken potpie thing. Very yummy. And then I met some people who were apparently in close contact with my organization. They work with litigation around abused children. There are only three people in their entire organization. So small. Anyways, they're all very nice and I got to talking with one of them for most of the night. I don't remember her name unfortunately. I also met another person from probono (Sharon. Yes! Remembered a name) who I really enjoyed talking to. She's worked with the UN before she came to work at probono. They kept encouraging me to go up and get more wine, since it was being paid for by the law firm and all. I was actually trying to decide between white wine and diet coke (coke lite here) and I think the bartender person thought I wanted to mix them and he asked if I wanted to do that and I thought he was suggesting it so I was like 'sure why not.' It didn't taste bad, but I don't think I would combine the two again. Just a bartending tip, both drinks are better by themselves.

They had a couple of speakers at the function, including a new head justice for the Supreme Court of Appeal, Edwin Cameron. Apparently he has been living with HIV for the last twenty years. I didn't know that when he was giving his speech of course, my mentor told me later. He wrote a book about living with HIV that she said she would let me borrow. He didn't say anything groundbreaking, but he emphasized the need for the law to be working with the people. A speaker before him pointed out that apartheid was so horrendous not because of the deaths that were brought on by it, since there were other countries where the death counts were much higher, but because people used the law to justify their behavior. He made the point that the law should be used to aid people who may not have a strong political voice, stressing the importance of their pro bono work. Which makes sense of course seeing as the function was for the official launch of a new pro bono department (I think that's what it was at least, I may have heard incorrectly).

But anyways, I am really excited about getting to know my coworkers and helping out at the organization, though I'm sure this is the only fancy function I will attend while I'm here. It was a nice first experience of one because I wasn't very concerned about networking (seeing as it is my first day working at the organization and I don't know much about, well, anything), but I did get the chance to at least say hi to a lot of interesting people. I found out exactly why they were interesting on the car ride back to Wits when Erica (my mentor) told me about the people she was talking to. For the most part I felt too unimportant to try to truly engage anyone in conversation. I only talked a lot with the other girl because she was telling me how she often feels uncomfortable mingling. We bonded over that.

When I got back to campus around 9ish I found out that the rest of the Americans (and by the rest I mean like two or three of them) were really worried about me because I disappeared for like the entire day and they couldn't contact me because I still don't have a working cell phone. I'm getting one tomorrow though, which I am really excited about. I feel so disconnected from everyone without one. I often feel like I should be socializing or something, but can't reach anyone. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have internet.

Two posts in one day. How excessive.

Oh wait, for some reason my posts came up on separate days. How odd. I posted the one for Wednesday on Thursday around 6 or something, and this one at around 12:30ish Friday morning. Yes, you care. I know you care.

Oh the Weather Outside is...

2009-07-15T23:11:00.005+02:00

Ok, I just felt the cold. I've been walking around in t-shirts while everyone native to Joburg has been bundled up with scarves and hats, mainly because it isn't cold out. It's like 50-65 degrees outside (roughly) which is nice weather. However we went to a play last night and I stupidly wore a skirt with flip-flops and I am surprised my feet stayed on my body. This is going off of the assumption of course that once your feet get too cold they simply detach from your legs. I'm sure that's a correct fact. I'm not used to the lower room temperature that larger buildings have. So throughout the play I was trying to send warm thoughts to my feet, with very little success.

I really enjoyed the play though. It told the history of South Africa, somewhat from a Dutch perspective interestingly enough, through dramatizations of famous political figures (like Nelson Mandela) and performance of traditional African songs. I wish I recognized more of them because I really liked them. The only song I recognized was Amazing Grace (haha obviously I recognized that) which they sang near the end. While I've been in South Africa for about two weeks now, this was the first experience where I truly felt submerged in the culture. The combination of the dramatic retelling of South African history along with the reactions from the large audience was an experience I hadn't really had yet.

I've had my state sovereignty class (it takes place on Wed and Thurs) which I am really excited about. Not only is the lecturer very clear and leads discussions well, but the topic is one that really interests me. The class seems to be building on international politics, which I took last year and was the reason I decided to be a political science major. On the other hand though, the internship course lecture (which we had again today) has not improved and in fact our lecturer was getting such little response from us (not our fault, the questions she was asking were either too touchy-feely or too obvious) that she actually left halfway through on claims of feeling ill. Which meant we got to leave class early, so I guess that was nice. I do feel bad though. She's the administrator for Bard and is leaving tomorrow to go back to the States. I hope our next lecturer will be a little more intellectually-stimulating.

The other aspect of the internship class however (the internship part) I'm really excited about. I met my mentor today over a luncheon and she seems really cool. The projects that I may be working on really interest me as well. Mainly what the organization does is take in cases and refer them to different lawyers or facilitators who want to do pro bono work. The cases can be anything from family court cases, to working with HIV-positive people and recent migrants who are often discrimintaed against. And often large law firms require lawyers who work for them to commit to a minimum number of hours of pro bono work. So anyways, I'm working there with one other students from Wits and I went by the office with her today (the other students had a lecture) and she invited me along to a function tonight. I'm actually not positive what it's for, except I know that it's in the nicer part of the city. I hope I won't be too over my head. I'm sure she'll explain things to me, she's been very good about that. I'm actually at her house right now on her computer as she gets ready and looks after her son who has chicken-pox.

Classes are done for the week and all I have tomorrow is work at my internship site. I'm not positive how I'm getting there though since it's not quite walking distance. I guess I'll hail a cab or something.

So Apparently Other People Go to this University Too

2009-07-14T11:35:00.004+02:00

So classes started yesterday. The class thing actually wasn't that weird because it was a small class that met for a whopping 45 min. However I walked out of my door and started the trek to class and suddenly found myself stepping into a huge mass of people. I kind of forgot that the amount of people who had been on campus the past couple of days was a microscopic percentage of students on this campus. It was a little overwhelming. Especially since it seems like every students hangs out on the quad area or steps leading up to classroom buildings or benches surrounding the campus. I can understand it because a lot of students do not live on campus, so it's not like they have dorm rooms to go back to and hang out in. I don't know though, I'm going to take a picture one of these days to give you a sense of how crowded it is. I know if I went to a larger university I'd be much less impressed, but I go to tiny Vassar and the amount of students was shocking.

Anyways, in the morning yesterday I went to the bank for the second time since I got here to get money exchanged. Very exciting stuff. Actually we got a much better rate this time, which was exciting. Then we went to the pick 'n pay again, I swear I go there like every day, and I tried to find bowls. I had no luck. I've taken to eating out of Tupperware containers because the single bowl they supplied doesn't hold anything. It is tiny and shallow. I did buy a serrated knife. I thought I had more to cut actually, but I think I overestimated my need for a knife. I'm sure it will come in useful sometime in the future. Hopefully. Whatever, it was fairly cheap.

We had class at 12:30. And by we I mean the international students and a few other Wits students. It was for our internship class, and the program prefers that Wits students who take the course to be those who participated in IHRE last year. Mainly because they can't devote their entire schedule to IHRE classes because they have to take classes for their actual major as well. And because they want students to do an internship in their final year rather than their second (University only lasts for three years here) so that they are more competitive when applying for jobs. The class was actually really kind of stupid. I mean sure, it was only introductions and an overview of the course, but honestly, the way the teacher explained the course was so self explanatory. Seriously, I could have taught that first class. She asked us questions like 'what is a human rights defender?' and 'who can be a human rights defender?' You don't need to teach me these things, I can guess the correct answers on my own. I'm hoping the next class will be better. It's a longer block and we'll have read some articles for the class, so maybe it will be. I'm still glad I'm taking the class though, because I think the internship itself will be a really cool experience. We're having a lunch with our mentors from our internship sites this Thursday. Though the invitations were just sent to our emails today and the time they posted was from 12:30 to 12:45. If we stick to schedule, it's going to be the quickest lunch slash meet-and-greet ever.

What else did I do yesterday? Oh a lot of the other American girls wanted to create posters for their schedules (they don't have icalender, which is what I use) so we hunted down colored paper and bought some markers (which are called umm something else here. It was weird and I don't remember it. They call permanent markers markers and normal markers something else) and then we hung out in the common room coloring. I made an 'Everything is going to be OK' sign in honor of Vassar. Though I had to explain it to everyone because out of context it makes it seems like I have a lot of panic attacks or something and need to remind myself that I'll get through it. For those who don't know, people write that around Vassar everywhere.

Afterwards I brought over cooking supplies and cooked dinner in Teresa's (another American) room. We were joined by three other people and eventually put on Heroes. Yes, I am corrupting more people. I have no idea how many times I've watched the first season of this, but it hasn't gotten old yet. I also learned that apparently video chat doesn't work on Wits' network. I can still im, but that's the extent of real-time communication. Oh, and I can call out of my room using a calling card, but my minutes are a little limited. I did get to talk to my parents and David last night though, which was nice. People can technically also call my room, but if you want to consider doing that I would get an international calling card because otherwise it will be way to expensive. The number is 011 27 11 717 5484.

I'm going to make lunch now or something, and prepare for my insane 2hr 45min class this afternoon on media and human rights. Wish me luck for staying awake during that.

Pictures!

2009-07-12T09:59:00.004+02:00

Some of the IHRE (International Human Rights Exchange) participants back at Wits rural

The protein part of our meal at our home stay. They gave me a head, it kind of freaked me out.

It's chicken heads and feet by the way, my mom was confused

My host mother and her daughter who sat on my lap almost the whole night.

Zebras are quite photographic. The rest of the pics are from Kruger Park.

So it turns out my camera doesn't need a converter to be charged. I found that out because I got impatient and just plugged it into the adapter and it didn't explode. I hope everyone enjoys their Sundays

South African Currancy and Why it Continues to Baffle Me

2009-07-12T00:03:00.000+02:00

So today involved another fun-filled bus trip. You'd think after the eight-ten hour bus trips we took to and from our stay at Wits rural we would never agree to get in a bus again. I will admit that the bus today was actually much nicer than the bus we used to travel before. And there were much less of us because most of the South African students didn't want to do touristy stuff with us and preferred to sleep and all of that. Anywho, we got going around 10:00 and took the 'scenic route' to the mall. Which involved checking out one of the huge soccer stadiums (yes they call it soccer here. I'm not sure why because they don't have football), Nelson Mandela's and Desmond Tutu's house, and a lot of very poor and very rich areas of towns neighboring Joburg. The stark differences were similar to many large cities, but it was still a little shocking how close the two areas were to one another. Oh, and a fun fact: Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu are the only two Noble Peace Prize winners to ever live on the same street. Cool eh? Haha eh is used a lot at the end of sentences here. I don't think it's something I'll pick up, but who knows. I keep wanting to adapt a somewhat British accent because that's the closest accent I can fake to a South African accent. I've stopped myself so far though.

On our tour we also stopped at one of the most famous churches during the 60s and 70s in its connection to the protests against apartheid. When political meetings were banned, people would meet at the church to organize and give speeches. Of course the police eventually caught on and they would wait outside the church to assault those exiting. And even though the church has been renovated you can still see a couple of bullet holes in the ceiling. The balcony area has been transformed into a picture museum of sorts and the walls are covered in graffiti by people from all over the world. One of the group members had sharpies with her and I made a point of writing something encouraging the members of each new generation to never stop fighting for what they believe in. It feels cheesy writing it down now, but within context I promise it's much less cheesy.

Anyways, we finally got to the mall and were told we had about an hour and half to get lunch and shop for food. Do you know how insanely hard that is? Especially when you are shopping for your room for the first time. I needed to get things like sponges and dish detergent as well as food. I did make up a list, but didn't end up really consulting it at all. Oh well. By the end of the time limit I thought I had gotten all the things that were really important or at least semi-important and was ready to pay. I think I must have picked the slowest cash register ever because the people in front of me had some sort of problem. Anyways, I finally got to ring up all of my items and the total came out to 550 rand. Now you have to understand that a dollar is worth about 7-8 rand, so this isn't actually that much for the amount of stuff I was planning to buy... however I checked my pockets and all I had on me was 230 rand and $50 (which was of course completely useless. stupid American money). 230 bucks (they call it bucks here too. it's weird) seemed like enough early this morning, but of course I was thinking in terms of dollars rather than rands. So I had to return so much stuff. Not only did I feel bad for everyone behind me, but I felt bad because I was supposed to be back on the bus like ten minutes before. I had to give up all my spices, dustbin, special k, milk, potatoes, peanut butter etc. It was very sad. I'm going to the supermarket again tomorrow and this time I'm bringing my debit card.

After my failed supermarket trip we got back on the bus, said goodbye to our tour guide (who I'm sure was very good, but the microphone she was speaking into was so awful that I couldn't really understand any of the information she was trying to impart to us) and arrived at the apartheid museum. It is an excellent museum and I wish I had like two more hours to spend in there. There was a whole extra exhibit on Nelson Mandela that I had to leave early so I could actually check out the rest of the museum. What I enjoyed most was the video footage they had available. Since apartheid has only been abolished very recently (1990s if you can believe it) they had a lot of video available. The most common videos were ones of white politicians explaining in very rational voices the reasons why apartheid was so necessary and equally rationally black activists calmly explaining why the continued to stay in South Africa and fight for equality. One of the interviews that stuck out to me was a white politician explaining that while the system may be hard for those who do not have a voice, it was especially difficult for the white rulers. He made the argument that white leaders had to work to support their white constituencies as well as the whole black population who had no voice. I can't believe the argument of 'well, we know best. We can take the responsibility of making decisions for both whites and (politically unrepresented) blacks' lasted as long as it did.

If anyone wants to watch an excellent movie about a specific aspect of this movement they should check out Cry Freedom with Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline (you know, the famous South African actors). It focuses on the student movement, which peaked towards the end of the struggle against apartheid. While it does bother me that the movie focuses on the white guy, I did really enjoy the movie. We watched it a day or two before we left for South Africa during our orientation at Bard College. It focuses on the life of Steve Biko, one of the more famous black speakers during this time. It's a shocking idea that our program leader actually had to face apartheid during her adult life. I can't even imagine it in a modern context. I didn't have my camera today unfortunately (it still needs to be charged), but a couple of other people got pictures that I am planning on stealing. I really suggest visiting the apartheid museum. I realize that South Africa isn't always the vacation destination of choice (though I don't see why not, I've really been enjoying myself), but if you find yourself here you should most definitely make a stop at the apartheid museum.

The rest of the night has been spent eating out with some friends in a fast food place outside of Wits and helping another friend celebrate his 21st birthday (a much less exciting birthday here than in the States). The restaurant we went to is this chicken place that has no concept of the meaning of 'mild.' The food I got was hot. Or at least intensely medium. And it was my first time in Joburg after dark. I was in a large group but it still was a little scary. Especially since I don't know the area particularly well yet. We were all fine of course, but I did feel better getting on campus. The small party we had later tonight took place in one of the American's room. When we first got here her room was ready yet so they had her put her stuff in an RA's room. However when we got back her room still wasn't ready and she asked if she could stay in the same room and those in charge said it was fine. There is a reason people apply to be an RA and the reason is the room. It not only has a lot of cool windows and a bigger bathroom, but it has a balcony. It is so sweet. So I'm guessing our group will be spending a lot of time in her room. I met some more witsies (pronounces vit-sees) tonight who I am excited to get to know more.

I still haven't cooked for myself here. I keep going out for dinner with people, and for really cheap too! Seriously, I bought Chinese food last night for about 18 rand. That's like $2.50! And it was the large portion. Ok, yes it wasn't exactly the best quality Chinese food ever, but with prices like that who cares! Tomorrow I am planning on putting my lovely hot plate to the test for the first time. Hopefully it works, I haven't tested it out yet. That's only one of the very exciting plans for tomorrow. It will actually be the first time this whole trip where we don't have any scheduled activities we need to attend. One day of freedom before classes start. I guess that's enough, though I wouldn't have complained if we had another day or two.

First of many to come

2009-07-10T22:16:00.001+02:00

So I've never done this blogging thing, but I've had enough requests from back home for a blog while abroad that I thought I should look into it. It feels weird starting it now when so much has already happened in the week and a bit that I've been in South Africa. The American students (all eight of us) arrived here on July 2nd after about 20 hours of travel. The plane trip was fairly nice in the sense that there was plenty of entertainment (a must for me personally). I think I watched about five movies. The plan ride was about 14 hours unfortunately and I couldn't get myself to sleep at all, which was more than a little upsetting... until I just accepted it and watched more movies.

We talked a lot about culture shock during our orientation in New York, but so far the culture hasn't been that shocking. Yes the past week most of the students in the IHRE program (including the Americans) stayed in a rural area, which included a home-stay with a poor family from a neighboring village, but to me it felt more like a slightly more academic camp experience. The hardest thing so far for me has been learning everyone's names. I'm normally horrible at learning names, and now that the majority of people I encounter have non-western names it has proven even harder to learn them. I'm doing my best.

I don't know how I'll post for the whole past week. I think too much happened to adequately post now. I'll do a brief summary of the experience I guess. We got on the bus from our hotel and found that the bus was jammed with a bunch of Wits students we had never met. We stayed mainly in our respective groups for most of the trip. Once we got to Wits rural (about 10 hours later, factoring in breaks at quite a few scenic stops) we started actually meeting the other students. There were about 50 students at the camp in total. We were broken up into cabins of about six students each, each cabin fitted with bunk beds a la most of my camp experiences in the past. We played soccer together and I was continuously found introducing myself to people whose names I forgot about five seconds later. Such is life.

Throughout the week we had a couple of lectures geared towards human rights and rural South Africa. The lectures, for the most part, were very interesting, but I found myself being most academically challenged at the end when the lecturer would ask for questions and Wits students would ask some truly interesting and insightful questions. I've been very impressed by the other students on this program. Anyways, we also got to go to Kruger National Park where we were lucky enough to see some elephants, giraffes and zebras. I got quite a few good pictures. Apparently our program is having a photo contest. I don't think my pictures are contest-winning, but I'll enjoy sharing them with people. I'd attach a few here, except my camera is a tad out of batteries, and I don't have a converted yet, so I can't recharge it. Hopefully I'll be able to do so soon.

We also visited a center for orphans and vulnerable children and we got to play with them in small groups one of the days. My group had a lot of fun playing the games we would play with the kids while we were deciding which ones to teach them. I think we had more fun than the kids did. Our groups then were assigned to different rural homes and we stayed overnight with our hosts. I helped cook pap, a traditional South African dish. It looks like mashed potatoes but is made out of mealie meal and definitely doesn't taste like potatoes. It's actually really good. I felt a little useless during the home-stay though because my single fluent language of English wasn't quite good enough to promote communication. So instead of having deep conversations with anyone I mainly just played with the youngest daughter. She was quite interested in me, most likely because I was the first white person she had ever seen who wasn't on television. She sat on my lap for the majority of the night and kept trying to talk to me. I of course could only smile and nod at her. I hope I didn't give her the impression that all white people were complete idiots.

In the morning we went with our host to some houses in her village who had victims of HIV/AIDS. Our host is a volunteer caregiver for her community. I'm glad we had the opportunity to actually see the affects of this disease on one of the poor communities of South Africa, since it is such a problem in this country and we'll be talking about it in our classes. Wits teachers actually urge all students to get tested so that they can understand what the test is like. I'm planning on doing it while I'm here, especially since it's free. I'm obviously not expecting a positive test result, but it will be interesting to see what the test entails. I've been told that it's important to understand it and getting tested yourself before telling others to get tested.

Anyways, now everyone is back on campus and the international students are settled into the international house. My room has a little kitchen area and a private bathroom, which is quite luxurious compared to my experience with dorms. However, it does mean we are expected to cook for ourselves, which I am not very excited for. We're going shopping tomorrow for produce and cooking supplies. I wish I had a chance to talk to my mom to figure out what cooking staples I should be sure to get. I guess there's always the chance to go back to store. Apparently there's a Pick 'n Pay (grocery store) right off of campus which I'm sure I'll become very familiar with. Most of the Wits students in the program do not stay on campus, which is a bizarre concept for me coming from a college with a 98% rate of people living on campus. This does mean they will have cars though, which I hope to be able to make use of.

Classes start on Monday. We officially registered for them today and while I'm a little sad that all of my friends from home are enjoying summer vacation right now, I am actually fairly excited about my classes. All classes have an emphasis on human rights, but my concentrations will be: state sovereignty, media, politics and looking at human rights from a psycho-social perspective. I also will be interning at an organization called probono (http://www.probono-org.org/home.html). I'm not sure if I'm interested in law as a possible career, but I'm hoping to get some direction based on my reaction to this internship site.

Since it's Friday night, most of the students I've met are at scattered bars throughout the area (American students celebrating the 18 yr drinking age), but we have had very little (if any) time to actually decompress since we started this program, so I'm taking time tonight to relax. I've been reading Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I picked it up in the airport, though I barely read it on the plane because I was too busy watching movies (no, I am not ashamed). I have been really enjoying it though, so maybe I'll read a bit, figure out what I need to buy tomorrow at the grocery store and then get to bed.