Winding Down

Things are beginning to wrap up around PMB. Although I still have almost two months left in South Africa, the end is now in sight. Those two months break down to just a couple more weeks of class, a few weeks for exams, and a couple weeks of traveling before leaving this beautiful continent. Besides realizing that all of this fun will be ending before I know it, I am also starting to feel that I will be ready to go when the time comes. If you had told me last month that I had to get on the next plane back to the US, I would have been very disappointed. However, I am now starting to feel content with what I have experienced, plus I have growing nostalgia for the way things are back home.

Taking a break from traveling, last weekend we threw a Cinco de Mayo party in Denison. We made salsa, guacamole, and "faux-tillas"--our homemade version of tortillas since decent one's are impossible to come by in the stores. We also made sangria and mojitos...true, these are not Mexican drinks, but Africans don't know the difference.

Last Sunday, Lauren, Jessi, Mani, and I were lucky enough to be on the exclusive guest list for our friend Phindy's birthday dinner. Phindy, Thandeka, and Xolly had us over at their place on the other end of Denison for some home-cooked African food. They made amasi (corn meal and sour milk porridge), ujeqe (steamed bread--by the way, the q is a click), and tripe stew. I didn't try the stew, but reports are it was very good. On a previous visit they had prepared another delicious meal for us of pap (thick corn meal porridge), mashed potatoes, butternut squash, bean stew, and chicken livers. Even Jessi (an occasional vegetarian) who thought she hated chicken livers loved it. Yesterday we had the girls over to teach us how to cook African food, and now I have even more respect for it because it takes so much time and effort. We made all the dishes that we had for Phindy's birthday plus sugar beans (bontshisi). I'm not sure if tripe is kosher, even though it is from a cow, but I'm quite sure that I will never choose to cook it on my own. When you get it you first have to be sure that it is very clean (since it was the stomach of a cow), then you have to boil it for many hours because it is very tough, adding more water every few minutes. Another lovely aspect of cooking tripe is the smell...which also attracts flies. Besides the tripe, I will definitely try cooking the other dishes again. Since the kitchens in Res do not have ovens it was great being able to bake bread on the stove, although it was also a lot of work. All in all, we were cooking for about six hours. I may not be able to speak much Zulu when I get home, but at least I will be able to cook Zulu food. Us Californians have also participated in the cultural food exchange by having the girls over a couple weeks ago for Mexican food. We made beans, rice, fajitas, faux-tillas, guacamole (avocados are finally in season!), and salsa. The girls loved the food, insisting that we are welcome to cook for them every night. We are planning on teaching them to how to cook the dishes later this week.

As far as class go, I am pretty much ready to be done. I am very happy with my decision to stay here for a semester rather than a year. Don't get me wrong, I have loved my time here and would recommend studying abroad to anyone, but at Berkeley I have been spoiled by a higher standard for almost everything. This university has a way of making simple things difficult (i.e. dropping a class, checking email, etc.). Trying to do research is a joke because the library has very limited journal subscriptions, and it seems that most classes are taught at the high school level, so plagiarism is rampant. The one class that remains interesting, albeit frustrating at times, is Ceramics. On Friday we Raku-fired our "tomb guard" pieces. I had made a fish-bird as a sort of dedication to my dead pets, Peppy the cockatiel and Charbroil the goldfish. The Raku technique is specifically for glazing. There is significant variation in the appearance of Raku glazes after firing because it is a very manual process and it is chemically complex in that some glazes undergo oxidation and others reduction, but you never know exactly what will happen. It is also a very dirty process. The pieces are first placed in an outdoor gas-fired kiln to melt the glazes. After about 30 minutes, the fragile glowing pieces are transferred to a brick enclosure where they are covered with sawdust for another 30 minutes. This is when the reduction occurs in some of the glazes as the burning hot pieces suck the oxygen out of the air as well as carbon out of the sawdust. The result is a metallicky finish over the glaze and blackening of the clay that is not covered in glaze. Throwing sawdust on the burning hot pieces created a ton of thick smoke and sent burnt sawdust into the air. It was downright disgusting (after getting home I had to hang my clothes outside to keep them from stinking up my room). I now have an idea of why Ceramics is not offered for credit at many universities in the US--it is too big of a liability. Mind you, our only safety equipment for this whole process were some heat-proof gloves for those handling the pieces--no safety goggles, no aprons, lots of people in sandals. At one point as we were firing up the kiln the gas was on too high so when it got lit there was a loud 'boof'. Still, everyone survived relatively unscathed (with the exception of our lungs), and it was a very interesting technique to learn with beautiful results...I'm just glad I don't have to do it again. That was not the only time I have feared for my personal safety in Ceramics. The week before when the professor was out of town, some older folks were doing a semi-indoors gas firing (conventional kilns are electric), which is very laborious, and from my perspective, quite dangerous because you get flames shooting out from almost all sides of the huge kiln. For whatever reason, the people doing the firing insisted that we stop what we were doing and come watch as they open the kiln door at about 1200 degrees C (that's about 2200F). It was a hilarious sight when everyone went running for their lives as the small room became inferno-like and it felt like our hair would be singed off our heads. For fear of burning my retnas to oblivion I did not look directly into the kiln, but apparently the pieces were so hot they were almost translucent.

At the end of the week we went out to Stagecoach, a bar/restaurant in Scottsville, to celebrate our friend Murray's birthday. We gave him the Twister game left from the 80s party and an In N Out hat, which he wore for most of the night. We also met a few of the only Spanish-speaking people in PMB (seriously, there are almost no Latinos in SA). From Stagecoach, we got rides up to Crossways in Hilton, the only place around that doesn't have a cover charge. Lauren and I rode with a couple guys from Cuba and a girl from Spain. Along the way we listened to Reggaeton which was a nice break from the House music and bad pop that is so common. This was my first time going to Hilton which is about 10 km outside of PMB. To give you an idea of the class divide, if PMB is the South Bay, then Hilton is Palos Verdes. Besides the class divide, there is also a distinct racial divide. Crossways, which is a bar with a wide variety of music set in the entrance of a small hotel, had a completely white clientele (that is until we showed up). As we were walking in, Lauren voiced that she was worried people would give her weird looks. Henry from Cuba assured her that if they did it's because they're inbred. This place made Firkin look diverse. I also found it odd that the bartenders were all black--it was a strange dynamic. Although the music was decent, that is not the sort of place I would choose to go back to.

The next morning, Mani and I were up early and all ready to go to Trustfeed, but when we got to the meeting place only three other people from our group had shown up (a kombi holds 15 people and costs R500 for the day and we were not prepared to pay R100 each). Another, apparently better organized, campus group was to go along with us that day. They had 15 people to fill a kombi, a bunch of food to cook for the kids, and a plan to work on the vegetable garden. In the end we let them go and the few of us from our group decided to stay back as it didn't seem worthwhile with so few of us and for such expensive transport. Instead, Mani and I went into town to the cafe at the Tatham Art Gallery. We perused the bustling street stalls and shops before going to the lovely cafe overlooking Commercial Road. Although PMB on the whole is a diverse town it is very ghettoized. For instance, the downtown area where we were is predominantly black, but after a few months here I am not fazed by seemingly sticking out in a crowd.

Saturday evening, the boys in block B (Amir, Wakeem, and Jacob) hosted an Indian party. It was Bollywood-style, so we dressed up in saris and colorful skirts that we found at the hospice shop. The boys cooked some excellent Indian food: baigan bharta (eggplant curry), aloo palak (potato & spinach), beef curry, spiced rice, raita, and chai. After stuffing ourselves we tried dancing to some Bollywood music which proved challenging because each song is about 10 minutes long, so everyone was quickly exhausted. The dancing degenerated to playing along to the music with some of the crazy instruments Wakeem has acquired while here.

This has now been the longest stretch of time that I have stayed in PMB without any weekend trips (three weeks!). Although PMB is a slow town, there is enough going on to keep me busy and interested for a few weeks...but I will still be ready to leave when the time comes.