Vacation is Over

Since we went on a trip to Durban on Thursday, I had to take care of school business on Friday. Almost nothing in the registration process is done electronically at this university--much different from what I and the rest of the Americans are used to. Luckily they had staff and students from UKZN International out there to help us figure out where we needed to be and who we needed to see (they even let us cut in line). Still, it took more than an hour to add a class. I'm also still a bit confused because one of the classes that I'm registered for is not in the timetable so I have no idea when/where it is held, so I think I will just drop it and add a different class. In the afternoon I did my laundry, which is quite an ordeal itself. The laundry room is about 1/4 mile from my flat and has three washers and three dryers for a few hundred people. Luckily there was a washing machine available when I got there. When I returned to put my load in the dryer, they were all taken for another hour. Later I went back and put my clothes in the dryer for an hour...an hour later they were still very damp, but it was getting dark so I brought the clothes back to my room and hung them out for a couple days. Apparently it will only get worse as the term progresses (as in having to wait until 2am to do laundry), so I might start hand-washing. So for anyone who has ever complained about Telebears or lugging their clothes to the laundry room, remember, it could be soooo much worse.

On Saturday, the international student office organized a tour of PMB and surrounding areas for us. It was ridiculously hot that day. At 8am, it was already 30 degrees (almost 90 F) and very humid. There is no other way to describe walking around the main part of town than painful. It was good to see where things are, it was just a bad day to be outside. 'Maritzburg also has a pretty boring/oppressive history. For instance, the tourism office used to be a jail for blacks who were out past the 10pm curfew, and a block over there is a statue of Mahatma Gandhi because he was thrown off a train in PMB. We also made a pretty pointless stop at a former prison. It went a little something like this: "Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela spent a night here, but we can't show you any of the cells because we don't have the keys...There are craft shops here, but they're not open today..." Yeah, and there wasn't much shade at that place either. Finally, after that we went to the Howick Falls just outside of town. The falls are gorgeous and on a cooler day I'd like to hike down to the base of the falls. After perusing the craft shops, we were to go to Midmar, a dam where a swimming race is held annually, but the race had already finished. Luckily this left us with extra time, so our guides took us to see a nearby township. Right next to Midmar there was an open field where blacks used to live, but during apartheid the government tore down the homes and moved the people to the township about 20km away.

I am glad that they took us to the township because that is somewhere we cannot go by ourselves. In case you don't know, townships are housing settlements occupied by blacks. Leading up to and during apartheid, the South African government segregated different racial categories of the populations (i.e. blacks, whites, Indians, and Coloureds). Blacks were forced to live in townships which were deprived of basic infrastructure and services. Before the end of apartheid in 1994, most townships had no electricity or running water, and township schools were severely underfunded. To this day, job opportunities in the townships are scarce, accomodations are meager, and crime is high among other issues. There are different types of townships with different types of homes ranging from informal squatter settlements to middle class homes. The township we saw also had a range of housing, but most of it was government built. The most common dwelling in this township is a one-room rectangular box made out of cinder blocks with a tin roof. I would say they are about 8x20 feet in size. Many homes have small gardens growing maize or other food crops. Riding around in a big bus we clearly stuck out, but the reception of the people around was overall very good. Little kids on the street were jumping and waving at us--extremely cute, and lots of adults were waving too. The tour of the township was definitely the highlight of the day, and one of the guides even grew up in this township so it was very informative. Later that evening I went to a pantomime production of Snow White at the Hexagon Theatre on campus with a few of the girls from Denison--it was "different". Interestingly, there were almost no students in the audience and it was almost all white--a stark contrast from the culture show that I saw there the week before. During and after the show there was a crazy lightning storm going on. From about 7 until after 10pm (when I last looked) lightning was continually lighting up the sky, although it must have been pretty far away because I didn't hear much thunder. During intermission, we Californians were jumping around with excitement watching the lightning while the South Africans were doing anything but (seriously, no one gave a second look). After the show Mani and I took videos of it in front of Denison. A local student walking by noticed we were watching the lightning so I asked him if it gets any better than this and he responded, "Oh yeah, it gets a lot worse."

Sunday was our last pre-paid trip with the university. The EAP/Rutgers liason took the UC kids to Tala Game Ranch near PMB. Tala doesn't have any carnivores because it is in a farming area, but it has plenty of interesting animals. We got to go on a game drive in one of those crazy safari Land Rovers. Unlike the crazy hot weather on Saturday, it was COLD on Sunday. Apparently a cold front came in from the Cape so it was cold and rainy all morning. Luckily they had ponchos and blankets for us but it was still freezing. Riding around we first came across a bunch of giraffe. Unlike nature reserves, at the game ranch the animals are accustomed to seeing the vehicles so they don't run off and will actually get very close...and they did. The giraffe came within about 10 feet of us. We saw a bunch of impalas and blesboks (types of antelope), warthogs, zebras, white rhinos, and hippos. Afterwards we had a gourmet buffet lunch--this was definitely a posh five-star type of safari place catering to international tourists with money. Overall, this was the best trip we have been on so far.

Classes finally started today...sort of. For my first class at 7:45am, the professor never showed up (quite a first impression)! Next was Labour Economics which seems like it will be pretty easy in terms of the workload. What's weird is that the students racially segregate themselves voluntarily. Black students sit in the front on the right side, Indians in the middle right, a mix of black and Indian in the back right, and whites on the left side. I placed myself somewhere in the middle of the Indians and blacks, and I would've been the only white student on the right except that a German student I know sat with me. My next class was isiZulu, which seems to be at least half occupied by international students. We started to learn a few clicks today, but will learn them more formally tomorrow. Next I have a history class that I will probably wind up dropping because it is for first year students and will probably be too basic. After that I will be done with my first day of class.