Settling In

The first of classes was pretty hectic: figuring out where I need to be and which classes I'm going to take, but I think I have finally figured it out. So in the end I will be taking Zulu, Contemporary South African Politics, Labour Economics, and Ceramics.

On Wednesday morning, Mani and I went to the HIV/AIDS Support Unit on campus to find out about volunteer opportunities. This office focuses on outreach/education for the campus community, so we signed up for more information about the peer educator program. Clement, the coordinator of the organization, asked us how much time we had and since we both had awhile until our next class he sat us down to tell us his story. Here it is: In the early 1990s he was a drama student at this university. He had been donating blood regularly for a couple years, and one day he received a letter from the blood service telling him to stop. He went in to figure out what was going on and they took a blood test--20 minutes later they told him that he's HIV positive. In the early 90s, there were no HIV support services and limited treatment options, so he took this news as a death sentence. He started smoking, drinking, and abusing drugs heavily. This led him to criminal activity such as housebreaking and robberies. In 1997 he was finally arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison. He said that getting incarcerated was a sobering experience--literally. He began thinking, "What a spoiled brat I have been...My parents send me to university, but I drop out and now my mother will have her son die in prison." In prison, he used his background in drama to organize a play that involved about 100 inmates. First they performed at their prison, then a nearby prison, and eventually were taken out on tour to perform allover the country, even getting to shake hands with Nelson Mandela. In the early 2000s he became infected with his first opportunistic disease: tuberculosis. Prison staff decided that he should be released early for the work he had done so that he could die at home. After being sick for over a year, he was well enough to return to the university for his last year in 2004. When the former coordinator went on maternity leave, she decided he was the only person on campus up to the job. After telling us this story he gave us our first job: distributing a stack of newspapers with articles about HIV/AIDS. Training will be in early March which I'm really looking forward to.

On Thursday my Ceramics class started. The way the Art department here works is really weird. For this class I need to spend 10 hours per week in studio, so they schedule it for Thursday afternoon and all day Friday. When you have other lectures you just leave and come back. Like many other things at this university it is quite disorganized. For instance, we were told to come at 1pm, but the professor didn't get there until 2 and we didn't start working with clay until 3pm. The class should be pretty laid back though, and apparently we will learn to throw which should be fun (and hopefully practical too since I could use more dishes).

Friday was a long day mostly spent in the ceramics studio with a 2-hour "break" to go to Politics lecture. That evening we had a cultural dinner put together by some of the girls from the International Student Association. I had to rush around and forego eating a snack to make it to the Student Union by 5, but of course this being South Africa, our host Mandy didn't show until 5:30pm. Finally, we all made it to Angela's apartment a short taxi ride away. The girls who cooked for us are originally from central and southern Africa (i.e. Congo, Malawi, Kenya, and Angola). So the dishes they cooked were from all those places and more. Still being on South Africa time, we didn't eat until after 7pm. Although there was a lot of meat, I was able to find enough to eat such as the corn and bean stew, okra curry, and potato salad. They must have made at least a dozen dishes, all of which were made from scratch and delicious. All of that plus homemade chocolate cake and ice cream, and all they charged us was R25 for the groceries (about $3).

The next day I went with Mani, Lauren from UCLA, and Jessika from Germany to Liberty Mall which is THE shopping place for the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. This mall is big and fancy even by American standards. The favorite store of the international students is Mr. Price which is the South African version of Old Navy--but cheaper and trendier. For instance, a shirt runs about $5 and a pair of shoes are less than $10. One of the few things that is more expensive here than in the US is tennis shoes. A pair of Nike or Puma shoes here cost more than $100--I don't know how anyone can afford that. So Mom & Dad, can you bring my New Balance please? As the day went on, the mall got really crowded--like what we're used to seeing around the holidays. I was wondering why this was, and then I stepped outside--oh yeah. We had run into John from New Jersey and the rest of the Germans there who told us about a barbecue that was supposed to be at the Denison Clubhouse that night. When we went there at 6 (when it was supposed to start) there was no sign of a barbecue (or braai as it is known here). Then we remembered, "oh yeah, this is South Africa," meaning that people probably wouldn't be eating until 10. So out of hungry lazy desperation we ordered pizza and played South African Trivial Pursuit which Jessi from UCSD had picked up earlier in the day. There was only one South African playing with eight Americans, and the questions varied widely in difficulty which made things interesting. For instance, one entertainment question was, "Who is the host of Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and another was "Who is the wife of X obscure rugby player?"

This morning I went into town with Mani and Lauren. We went to the Tatham Art Gallery which is a cute little museum/gallery in the former courthouse. We were hoping to go the coffee shop upstairs from the gallery which we have heard lots of good things about, but it turns out the cafe is closed on Sunday (my trusty travel book said the coffee shop has the same hours as the gallery...wrong!). As we walked around we realized that almost every restaurant and many shops around PMB close on Sunday. One exception was a little African restaurant, Esithebeni, that some iternational students had been to before. We walked into the empty restaurant, grabbed some menus, and sat down. When the waitress came out, she told us that they were only serving chicken and beef curry (out of an eight-page menu). So I got a ginger beer which was quite ginger-y and satisfying and a green salad, which I foolishly assumed would be vegetarian but came with some sort of sliced meat mixed in. So the lesson is to go out of town on Sundays because most of PMB shuts down. I'm trying to plan some sort of adventure in the Drakensberg for next weekend so I will keep you posted.