Good and Bad

This weekend I went to a going-away party for our friend John from New Jersey who will be returning to the US on June 4. The reality that we all will be going our separate ways soon is becoming more obvious with each day. Part of me is really looking forward to being home, seeing friends and family, eating burritos and In N Out, and having fast internet; another part of me knows that I am really going to miss the life that I have here. While the South African lifestyle* is by no means flawless, there are some aspects of it that I wish I could take home. Here's a quick rundown:

1) Ubuntu

This is a Zulu word that has no direct translation in English--the closest single-word definition is 'humaneness.' Basically it is the idea that as a human being it is your duty to look after other people around you. For instance, if your neighbors are struggling, you will help them out in whatever way you can, even if you yourself do not have much. This carries over to the idea of knowing your neighbors. South Africans are horrified when we (Americans) tell them that we don't really know our neighbors back in the US. They ask, "Who's going to look out for you when your house catches fire?" I think that the lack of ubuntu in the US has something to do with the deeply programmed fear of unknown people. As children, we are frequently told to never talk with strangers. There is no word for "stranger" in Zulu--when you are talking about someone you don't know they are simply a "person."

2) Kara Nichha's

Nichha's is perhaps the most democratic, equal opportunity institution I have encountered in South Africa. It is completely vegetarian Indian take-away at unbeatably low prices that is enjoyed by all people regardless of race, gender, or age. I find myself going there at least three times a week because I can always get lunch or dinner with the change in my wallet. Where else can you get a roti roll, biryani tub, or 1/4 bunny chow for $.50? At the beginning of the semester I thought that I would get sick of it after a while, but instead I find that the more I eat it the more I crave it (I even went through withdrawals over semester break). I have a feeling that when I get home I am going to miss Nichha's far more than I miss Mexican food and In N Out right now.

3) Bread Ahead

This is the bakery/cafe in Scottsville that my friends and I have made our second home. Sure the service is kind of slow (as it is at almost all restaurants), but they have incredibly comfortable couches, good pastries and coffee, and a friendly waitress that has learned our orders and even gossips to us about other customers. There is no place at home where I am sure to run into a couple friends AND where we are sure to have the place to ourselves.

4) Natural Beauty

I have become spoiled by being constantly surrounded by beautiful outdoor spaces. Back home it is rare that I get to see anything as stunningly beautiful as the white sandy beaches of the Indian Ocean, the rolling hillsides of the Natal Midlands, or the dramatic peaks of the Drakensberg Mountains. But here I am treated to these sights almost weekly. Day-to-day I am spoiled by beautifully kept grounds everywhere I go, such as around campus. While I think Berkeley is a better institution than UKZN in many ways, the PMB campus is gorgeous and makes Berkeley look pretty shabby.

5) Having Time

I never seem to have time at home. Especially when in school, I seem to be constantly bombarded with work or other commitments, and when I happen to have some free time it's usually not when my friends do. Although classes here are a joke and incredibly frustrating, I must admit that I am thankful for the lighter workload. I have had time to do what I WANT, and so have many of my friends, giving us the opportunity to spend quality time together and do incredible things. Back at home, there is no way that I could go away for an entire weekend without having to do any work like I have done here, a few times.


As I mentioned above, I am not completely sad to have to leave this place. Here are some things that remind me why I have it so good at home:

1) The Lan

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the Lan (various computer labs around campus) epitomizes my frustrations with this university. The download transfer rate averages between 1 and 2 kb per second during a weekday. The university connection, which probably has about 1000 computers networked to it, is a mere 2 mb/second. Mom & Dad, your house has about 5 times that much bandwidth. If excruciatingly slow internet weren't bad enough, the computers in the Lan are very poorly networked so people are constantly loading tons of viruses and other junk onto them. At any given time, in a room of forty computers there will be three that students cannot even log on to. This becomes a problem because the Lan computers are always in high demand since most students do not have personal computers. To get onto one of these slow-operating, virus-riddled machines, there is usually a wait. Another nuisance that is slowly alleviating itself as the weather gets cooler is the general smell associated with the Lans. Simply put, Africans do not have the best hygienic standards, and the Lan often has a strong funk which makes spending time there that much more unpleasant. Additionally, the Lans are generally unreliable. Printing credit has to be bought at vending machines located in buildings outside the Lan which cannot be accessed on weekends or at night, and sometimes these machines are broken (like 15 minutes before I had a paper due). And sometimes the security turnstiles do not operate properly. When this happens, rather than have a campus security officer check IDs at a door, they kick everyone out and shut down the Lan until a technician can fix the turnstile (which usually takes a day or two). I also usually get kicked off a computer at least once a week because classes are held in the Lan, so they will kick everyone out for 2-4 hours, exacerbating the overcrowding of the other Lan facilities. I am eternally grateful for having brought my laptop this semester. Although I have to use the Lan for research, I have been able to write my papers in the quiet and privacy of my room, not to mention these blog posts which assuredly would have been much more sporadic and less-detailed had I had to write them in the Lan. What perhaps makes the Lan most frustrating is that the internet has been my primary means of communication, and thereby connection, with life back home. Just today, the university has now denied access to facebook, a site that I use frequently for communicating with friends and sharing pictures. At home I can communicate with friends and family at the drop of a hat, so it is aggravating when I cannot do that here. Next year I will have SO much appreciation for Berkeley's remarkably fast internet connection and vast subscriptions to research archives.

2) Cell Phones

Telecommunication services in South Africa are unbelievably expensive. Cell phone calls (whether to local numbers or other cell phones) are about R6 per minute. That is almost $1/minute!! To give you an idea how ridiculous this is, I can call any landline or cell phone in the US from Skype for only $.02 per minute. The only reasonable way to communicate locally is through text messages (or 'SMS' as it is known here). A text is only 20-50 cents ($.03-.07). It will be nice to be able to talk on my cell phone without thinking that each second on the line is shrinking my bank account.

3) Little to No Public Transport

Within PMB, there is no public transportation. I mean no city buses, no light rail, no nothing. As I have mentioned before, the majority of the population manages to get around by means of kombis (minibus taxis), which work and are relatively inexpensive. But these are largely unofficial and unregulated, so there are no set timetables or stops like there are for city buses, and they do not run after dark. In this way they are somewhat unreliable, but people seem to manage. It will be so nice to have a bus pass again, and to be able to look up bus routes online.


On another note, winter has finally arrived. Over the last month or so it has been getting cooler at night, but staying hot during the day. This weekend the daytime temperatures were in the 80s and 90s. Monday was the first day that it didn’t get out of the 50s during the day and it is now in the 30s at night. This sudden change has managed to catch everyone off guard, including the people from the East Coast. Apparently the whole country is going through a cold spell and there has been snow in most areas--not PMB though because it is located in a basin. Since classes end on Thursday, the Denison girls and I are going down the coast to Oribi Gorge this weekend. Hopefully it will be warm enough to go snorkeling…if not, my back up plan is to swing across the gorge.

This last weekend, Lauren, Mani, and I went to Trustfeed again. This time we were working on the vegetable garden. I learned that I am not conditioned for hard labor. Mani and I gave the grannies a good laugh when we tried to lift a 50kg (110-lb) bag of cement. We managed to move it, but not as deftly as the old grannies. The grannies are also better at digging and lifting water buckets than my 20-year-old self. While many of the kids were diligent little workers, they were definitely less enthused about this activity than ones we have done in the past. That will possibly be my last visit to Trustfeed with Sibambisene since I will be traveling next weekend and exams are the week after. While I am not sure what kind of lasting impact our work there will make, at the very least all of us who participated have a better perspective of what life is like for kids in poor rural communities. My perspective is that there is still much work to be done in South Africa for there to be equality and it will be an uphill battle to acheive it. HIV/AIDS is without a doubt the most significant threat to improving quality of life for the tens of millions of South Africans still living below the poverty line. What is discouraging is that even though everyone knows people who have died from an AIDS-related illnesses, there is still a stigma associated with admitting to being HIV positive and people are still afraid to say that a young person died of tuberculosis or pneumonia BECAUSE they had AIDS. As they say, admission is the first step in realizing you have a problem, and I think many South Africans are still in denial. Everyone knows that HIV/AIDS is a huge problem, but not everyone is changing their behavior.

I am now looking at the end of my semester abroad. In many ways it has been easier than I expected, and in some ways it has been harder. Of course there is always a positive side to everything, and that is that the difficult aspects of life here have given me a new-found appreciation for how things are at home. I was definitely taking many things for granted before I left, and living abroad has given me a fresh perspective on my many privileges.

*Note: I have mostly been exposed to Zulu culture and I do not want to give the idea that this is the only indigenous culture in SA or that they are all the same. South Africa has 11 official languages, nine of which are indigenous--each one representing a different tribal group.