Jenn's Adventures in South Africa

Final Wrap Up...Thanks for Reading!

2007-07-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

As of two weeks ago I am now back in the States. I enjoyed my last few days in Israel since I last posted an entry. As I mentioned before, we went to Calanitte's parent's home for Shabbos. They live in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, a kind of hippie progressive area with cute cafes scattered at random street corners and lots of flowering street trees. It was a pretty crowded Shabbos dinner as one of Calanitte's brothers, Uri, had just returned home from a year in Boston, so family friends, aunts and uncles, and cousins were also visiting. On Shabbos morning I walked with Calanitte's father Raphi, her sister Keren, and Aaron to the Great Synagogue. The last time (and first time) I had been to the Great Synagogue was 15 years ago this summer when our family first visited Israel. Along the half-hour walk there we passed by a couple residences with large walls and fences that reminded me of home security measures used around ordinary South African homes. At first not knowing what we were passing I pointed this out. Raphi informed me that this was the Prime Minister's home and that I was currently on camera--so maybe the security is higher than around middle class homes in SA. I then stopped pointing at things and tried to act nonchalant as we walked the length of the block. The other residence a couple blocks away happened to be that of the President. During the service I had trouble at times keeping up with the 100% Hebrew service, but then Keren would help me find the right spot, and I enjoyed the singing of the chazzan and choir. The second and third Shabbos meals were much less hectic than the first and I even squeezed in a nice Shabbos schluf (nap) in the afternoon.

That evening Raphi helped Aaron and I map out our trip to Tzfat for the next day. Since we had a couple free seats in the rental car, we invited to Uri to join us. He excitedly accepted our invitation as he had been thinking of going up there for a while. So the next morning we departed on our mini road trip. Tzfat, the home of Kabbalah, and a main spiritual/artistic/hippie center of Israel is located about 300km north of Jerusalem in the mountains above Lake Kinneret (aka the Sea of Galilee). Besides stops for Coca-Cola (Uri's passion in life--I kid you not) and lunch (falafel in Tiberias...mmm), we made a number of stops at the tombs of Tzaddikim (big holy rabbis). We first stopped at the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal Ha'Nes, who is buried close to Lake Kinneret. The reason that people pray at the tombs of Tzaddikim is not to pray to the person (that would be idol worship), but to ask the Tzaddik to pray for you since they are closer to G-d. After lunch in Tiberias we had trouble finding route 90, so we wound up driving through Tiberias a few times. It was encouraging to see so many tourists around (Tiberias is one of Israel's vacation playgrounds due to its location on the lake) because there were almost no tourists around the last time I was there about three years ago, and this time last summer Tiberias was within range of rockets flying down from Lebanon. After our inadvertent driving tour of Tiberias it was only another half an hour up the road to Tzfat. We stopped at a large cemetery built into a hillside where dozens of tzaddikim are buried. This is also the location of a very holy and notoriously very cold groundwater mikve (ritual bath). Many of the tombs are painted light blue which I learned on this day is supposed to confuse evil spirits so that they cannot tell the difference between the earth and the sky. From there we continued up the hill to the main part of town. Tzfat has lots of high-quality art shops as well as lower quality touristy shops and overpriced food stalls. There were so many American tourists in one stretch (mostly Birthright kids) that the shopkeepers were yelling out prices in dollars. I just window shopped since I didn't want to spend $100 on a necklace. Uri picked up one of those Coca-Cola in Hebrew t-shirts to further profess his love to his favorite soft drink. Earlier at lunch I was surprised to hear that he didn't already have one since I see them allover the States (probably because they're only bought by Americans). Just as we had driven a few circles around Tiberias earlier that day, we drove up and down Tzfat a couple times trying to find the tomb of Nemucha (sp?) where you supposedly go and pray to get married. As it was starting to get later we gave up on Nemucha and decided to go to Rabbi Tarphon instead since Aaron knew how to get there. His tomb is just down the road from one of the numerous hippie communes around Tzfat. From there we headed back towards Jerusalem, stopping along the way at Rabbi Meir Baal Ha'Nes again to daven mincha. Since this trip was during the three weeks leading up to the destruction of the Temple, the Ninth of Av, you are not supposed to listen to musical instruments (although you can listen to a cappela). With no a cappela music for the road, Uri provided us with a live soundtrack on the way back.

By the time we got back Avital was already asleep, and apparently she was upset earlier that day because she didn't get to spend more time with me (awww...such a sweetie), so the next morning I went with her to kaitanah--a sort of summer camp run by one of the moms upstairs for neighborhood girls. To say it was hectic would be an understatement. Of the dozen or so girls there ages 3-6, Avital was the only who spoke English. The mom running it spoke some English but soon after I got there she left me with another older girl about age 10 to do a craft project with the girls. After leaving Avital at kaitanah, Aaron and I went to run some errands around town. Upon returning to his place, I had a few hours to coo at Feige and pack my stuff up before leaving for the airport. The nesher came early, leaving me the most rushed I have ever been right before a big trip. I even had a scare in my last few minutes that I had lost my passport. My passport had gotten wedged within some CDs that I had thrown into my purse when we returned the rental car. I put the CDs on the table, not knowing my passport was mixed into the stack. Luckily I saw the CDs on the table and thought to look through them. Had they been put away earlier I might still be in Israel. A few hours at the airport and a 15-hour flight later I was home in Los Angeles. Amazingly, I had no jet lag despite the 10-hour time difference.

I am now slowly getting back into the swing of things here. Last Monday I started working at the Job Placement Center at LA Harbor College where I have worked for the past couple summers. I am happy to have a routine because I think I would feel a bit lost without it. In the first couple days after I got home (before I knew I would have this job) I woke up in a bit of a panic wondering what to do with myself and eager to find something new to consume my time. Being home has been strangely familiar and yet distant all at the same time. In many ways, it feels that my life here has simply been on pause for a few months. Same people, same places, same food, same traffic, same bad television. However, I now have another place to be homesick for. So far, more than anything else I miss my friends and everything we had the time to do together there. I miss communal dinners, group walks to the Lan and Scottsville, cramped cab rides around town, weekend adventures, costume parties, rewatching old TV shows, shopping for curios, and frequenting Bread Ahead among countless other experiences. Right now my consolation is that I will be living in International House next year and will hopefuly have the opportunity to bond with a new set of international students. Until then I am just trying to adjust to the small things day-by-day and evaluate my options for what to do next. Any suggestions?

Sala Kahle

Goodbye Winter, Hello Summer...again

2007-07-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

I am now in Israel at my brother’s home in Jerusalem. I spent Tuesday night at a hotel in Boksburg near the Jo'burg airport before flying to Tel Aviv yesterday. After Susanne left last Thursday, Jessi and I went on various outings around PMB to keep ourselves occupied. One such activity was a trip to the Natal Botanical Gardens on Sunday. The gardens are located in the western part of PMB just past a pretty sketchy part of town I wouldn't want to walk around, day or night. The gardens had a nice selection of indigenous and exotic species, as well as some nice benches for napping in the winter sun. After wandering around for a while, Jessi and I decided to get a snack at the cafe. As it turns out, the owner of our favorite cafe at the Tatham Art Gallery had just relocated the restaurant to the gardens that day. At first, we just ordered the salad with their great dressing, but then decided to go for the full Sunday brunch which was amazing. The service was also incredibly attentive and friendly. The chef even offered to prepare us vegetable lasagna when he noticed that we had not taken any of the meat entree. (Note to self: try cooking curried sweet potato and butternut soup in the fall.) There happened to be a group of a few couples and their kids dining at the same time as us. As soon as the five kids walked in the door, one of the little girls obnoxiously chided the server because there were only four place settings. Throughout the meal, the kids were generally whiny and picky about their food, much like American kids of their age often behave. Needless to say, the disrespectful families were privileged white South Africans, and the friendly kitchen staff were black. Back in the States I have gotten used to tuning out bratty children, but what really struck me here was the stark difference between the behavior of these privileged children and the deprived children of rural Africa. The kids from rural KZN, Lesotho, and Mozambique that I have met are ridiculously adorable. Rural kids are very respectful, easily entertained, and enthusiastic about just about everything. What I have trouble accepting is how someone can literally spoil their child rotten when there are orphaned children who receive one meal a day growing up half an hour down the road. Knowing that my life will likely continue to be one of privilege in general, I am now concerned with how to raise children with the qualities of rural children, but without the life of deprivation. While it may not be possible to raise kids who are captivated by colorful books in a foreign language, I hope I can find some sort of middle ground. As we left the restaurant I asked Jessi to please tell me should she ever see my children behaving like that, "You have raised South African brats."

On the way home from the gardens we had yet another interesting, or should I say disturbing, experience. Our cab driver noted our American accents and started going on and on about how he is saving money to leave SA and move to the US, Europe, or anywhere to work as a chef. Towards the end of the ride, he asked us what we were studying at the university. When Jessi mentioned politics, he began ranting about the corrupt nature of South African politicians, such as the president. He even prefaced one of his statements with, "Not to be racist, but..."—meaning, I am about to say something horribly racist. He tried to argue that back when de Klerk was president (the last president of the apartheid era) there were no street children begging for money, crime was not as bad, etc...and that quality of life has generally gone down since the ANC came to power. It was the combination of this statement with this his previous remarks about wanting to leave the country that made me realize that perhaps racism is even worse in this country than I had previously thought. There is a significant amount of people (primarily white, Indian, or coloured) who wish to leave this country for the UK, Australia, or any other western country that will grant them a visa. Many of these people cite that they do not see a future for themselves in SA, but almost no one dares to refer to race as a reason. Listening to the cab driver made me realize that perhaps many people do not see a future in SA BECAUSE the country is now run by the black-led ANC government, and there is no sign of that changing any time soon. While it does not necessarily seem like a bad thing to get rid of these racists, there is still the dilemma of stopping the flight of skilled people. It is not uncommon for people to receive a South African education and then leave the country without 'giving back' as a productive citizen. I know at least one such person--a girl who was in my ceramics class graduated this semester and is possibly already in the UK looking for work. This girl definitely came from a privileged family as she had traveled all over the world, including to the US which is a very difficult thing to do for most South Africans. People like her are a drain on society. The government subsidizes education with the intention that their investment will be repaid in the form of income taxes, but when people take the education and flee, the government is left with a serious debt of both money and skills.

I still believe that the overwhelming levels of inequality and racism in SA make it so that I cannot see myself living there indefinitely. I worry that if I would stay longer, I would become apathetic and the horrible injustices would no longer bother me. Apathy is the only justification I see for the way that the privileged classes seem to turn a blind eye to the fact that half of the population lives in poverty while they live an incredibly comfortable catered life. Although it sounds strange, I am glad to say that this still troubles me to no end. When it no longer concerns me, I'll know I've become one of 'them'--that is the uncaring, selfish elite.

After many hours of packing and difficult decisions about what to leave behind, Jessi and I flew out of PMB on Tuesday morning. Our neighbors and some of the Denison staff were not necessarily sad to see us go because we left behind a lot of nice stuff that we had acquired throughout the semester and couldn't take with us. I was glad to see that our extra food and cooking supplies will be well utilized and that the extra blankets and clothing are going to the homeless. Although I didn't expect to get emotional, as our plane took off I couldn't stop my eyes from welling with tears. As I saw my last glimpses of the university and Scottsville from the plane it finally hit me--it's over. Luckily it was a beautiful clear day, so there was a lot to see from the window. I recalled being on the flight to PMB, now over five months ago, my mind filled with wonder about my new home. The flight on Tuesday paralleled the N3 all the way up to Free State, the whole length of which I was able to recognize exactly where we were. I was able to spot Howick Falls, the Midmar Dam, the toll plaza next to a big township, Monk's Cowl, and the Amphitheatre among numerous other notable spots. The land below me was no longer mysterious, but rather very familiar. I definitely feel that I got to know KZN as my home.

My last few hours in Africa, spent in Jo’burg, were largely uneventful. One of the few notable differences that I picked up on there (albeit during the 15 minute shuttle ride to the hotel) is that at each intersection there were about a dozen men in the street trying to sell things to people stopped at the light. The items seemed completely random (i.e. DVDs, clocks, baskets, etc.), and it being Jozi, there is a chance that the goods were stolen. I have not witnessed this sort of informal trading anywhere else in SA, which makes me think it is possibly connected to the notoriously high crime rate there. It was also obvious that the city is heavily reliant on nuclear power as there was a six-tower plant visible from the airport. I’m sure that this plant dates back to the apartheid days when SA was internationally sanctioned and could not import energy sources. Besides that and the mountains of mine tailings scattered around town, there was not much interesting to note about Jo'burg.

Although I have mixed feelings about my departure from South Africa, I am positive that I want to return...possibly not to live, but definitely to travel. I have left with no regrets about my choice to go there and the experiences I made. I wholeheartedly believe that anyone who gets a chance to live or study abroad should take it.

My flight went by without any major problems, just some small annoyances (i.e. pushy families at the airport and the news that I am only getting back $3 worth of taxes…in 4-6 weeks). Also, while at the airport my laptop started acting up by giving me a blue screen of death when I tried to turn it on. I restarted it numerous times, even in safe mode, and still got the blue screen so I’m hoping that Aaron can work his computery magic and fix it. I am grateful though that my computer waited until now when I’m on my way home to get sick.

I spent today playing with my nieces and enjoying the wonderful Israeli summer produce. Feiga has doubled in size since I last saw her (she’s now 7 months!), and Avital who is turning six later this month is as cute as ever. For lunch I satisfied my cravings with falafel and my favorite drink, malt (unfermented beer that is only done right in Israel). Tomorrow we are going to Calanitte’s parents’ home in another part of Jerusalem for Shabbos. After Shabbos I just have a couple more days with the family here before boarding a 17-hour flight to LA that should have me home by Tuesday morning.

Zanny's Visit and Wrapping Up

2007-06-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks since I last posted an entry [disclaimer: long post to follow]. Almost all of the international students have gone home or at least left PMB, and my sister, Susanne, has come and gone. Also, seeing as I leave SA on Wednesday, this will likely be my last South African post…although, never fear, I will probably post some more from Israel before calling this blog thing quits.

A couple Thursdays ago (the last time I posted an entry, to be exact) I went with Amir, Jacob, and Wakeem to Durban to do some last-minute curio shopping at the beachfront. We were supposed to get a ride with our friend Rob who called at the last minute to inform us that he couldn’t find the registration papers for his car, so he couldn’t drive outside of PMB. It was now almost 11am and we weren’t willing to give up on the trip since Wakeem was leaving the next day and Amir (who had a ridiculous amount of gifts to buy) was leaving Monday. So our only option was to take a kombi to Durban, a very cramped ride that takes about an hour. I had never before taken an unchartered kombi to Durban, so I did not know where they would drop us. I assumed the guys would know (I now know to never make such an assumption), but they were just as surprised as I was when we were dropped at the taxi rank a couple miles from the beachfront. As soon as we got off the kombi I had a feeling this was not an area we should stand around looking lost. We walked at a pretty good pace, dodging traffic, to the beachfront about 30 minutes away. We made it there without incident, stopped for lunch at an Indian restaurant, and went about perusing the craft stalls. The stalls more or less sell the same things, so there is always a good deal to be had due to the competition. I stocked up on some more beadwork and woven baskets. Although I am not especially good at bargaining I was pleased with the deals I got. We took a cab back to the taxi rank where we picked up the PMB taxi. We made it back safely, but sore and tired from being cramped in kombis so long.

Just two days later I went back to Durban via uncomfortable kombi rides as Mani and Amir had some more shopping to do. By this time, everyone except for Mani, Amir, Jacob, me, and Jessi S. (who was in Lesotho for a few days on a solo adventure) had left Denison. Faced with the prospect of being stuck in PMB by myself, I accompanied Mani, Amir, and Jacob back to Durban. We were dropped around the same place so we still had to walk to the beachfront, but at least there was less traffic on this day. Tired of the craft stall scene, I picked up some more beads and we sat on the beach as Amir finished his shopping. At this time I noticed that I was starting to feel out of it, but I didn’t know why. When we got back to PMB we stopped in Scottsville to get dinner at Debonair’s and then catch a movie. We all ordered the same thing: margherita pizzas (cheese pizza is not an option here), but my pizza did not sit well with me. We had a few hours before the movie, Ocean’s Thirteen, started so we decided to try out the ten pin bowling alley which we had been avoiding all semester. It turned out to be pretty fun and inexpensive--they even let you wear your own shoes. At 6:30pm (apparently when late-night starts in Scottsville) they turned on black lights and disco balls. When we got home from the movie, Mani and I found Jessi on our couch. She had returned from Lesotho earlier that day.

The next morning, the three of us and Amir woke up at 5am to walk down the road and watch the Comrades Marathon. Comrades is the biggest ultra-marathon in the world run between PMB and Durban. This year was a “down run” so they started in downtown ‘Maritzburg and ran to Durban 56 miles away, a run which has numerous difficult hills in between. This area is also known for having the worst air quality in the country this time of year because there are lots of fires and the pollution sits in the basin, which I cannot imagine makes things any easier for the runners. The race started at 5:30am and the runners were given 12 hours to complete it (the winner finished in about 5:20). It was pretty crazy seeing 12,000 people run by in what felt like the dead of night. Most of the runners were very focused, but some were in crazy costumes (like one guy dressed as a fairy) and many even thanked us for our support as they ran by. There were not many women in the race, but I was impressed by the number of African runners, who clearly made up a majority, rather than rich white men as I was expecting. Later that morning, after a few more hours of sleep, we took Mani to the airport.

Later that evening Susanne arrived. After narrowly making the last flight of the night to PMB due to her flight being delayed from DC, we learned that her luggage did not make it. Unfortunately it did not just miss the flight, but it is truly lost. Right now, two weeks after her first flights, the airlines have no clue where her bag is--not even which airport. We didn't let this set us back too much though. Susanne was able to use some stuff left behind by Mani. On Monday I tried to give Susanne a 'real' South African experience by taking her to downtown PMB. After breakfast at Bread Ahead in Scottsville we took a minibus taxi into town. I think Susanne developed an appreciation for how uncomfortable it can be to ride the taxis (because they pack people in) and for how hectic things are in town during the week. Shortly after arriving in town I realized I had a pretty bad stomach virus, mild symptoms of which I had already been feeling for a couple days. I wound up puking right in the middle of one of the plazas--it was a fine moment that Susanne was lucky enough to witness. After defacing public property, I was temporarily feeling better so we did some shopping and I introduced Susanne to my favorite, Kara Nichha's.

On Tuesday I was still not feeling so great, so we took our time getting to Durban. We arrived later in the afternoon at the lovely Gibela Backpackers Lodge. Gibela was incredibly clean and had very comfortable beds and great art. I took it easy as Susanne and Jessi went out shopping. After resting for a while I thought I was ready to try eating something, so we went to the Green Mango, a Japanese/Thai restaurant just up the block from Gibela. The Green Mango had surprisingly good food and service--definitely the best Asian food I have had while here. Trying not to irritate my stomach, I just had miso soup and avocado maki. I thought I would be okay until we got up to walk back to the hostel. As soon as we reached the street I puked in the gutter--the third time in two days that Susanne witnessed me puking in public. The car park guard seemed to assume that I had too much to drink as he assured, "It's better to get it out." After a great nights sleep, we headed down to Florida Road, the trendy area of Durban, to do some shopping before heading on to the Gateway Mall in Umhlanga. Gateway is proud of its title as the largest shopping center in the southern hemisphere. Susanne was able to get some clothing and shoes to get her through the trip and I was finally able to stomach some food.

We continued up the North Coast to Cape Vidal in the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a good thing we didn't spend any more time at Gateway because we arrived at the gate for the Cape Vidal Camp at 5:57pm, and the gate closed at 6:00pm. Even in the dark we were able to spot large herds of zebra right next to road. The three of us wound up having a five-bed fully-equipped cabin located about 200-ft from the beach all to ourselves. Signs around the cabin warned against walking around at night because we were in a game reserve and we could encounter hippos, which are responsible for more deaths than any other animal in Africa.

On Wednesday we got up early to watch the sunrise over the ocean and go for a drive around the game reserve. We did a very nice self-drive around a lake and wetlands. During the drive we spotted cape buffalo (one of the big five), wildebeest, reedbucks, kudu--a type of antelope, warthogs, zebra, and countless monkeys and birds. I was thinking about how gratifying it was to do a self-drive with no other tourists around and how much cheaper it was than going for a game drive in a private reserve. Then we got back onto the paved road and noticed a strange rhythmic thumping sound. We stopped and realized we had gotten a flat tire when a sharp rock got lodged in our back right tire. So Jessi, Susanne, and I went about changing the tire--something we had all only been shown how to do years ago--while still in our pajamas. We were actually doing pretty well--we jacked the car, had the spare and tools out and ready, but when it came time to loosen the bolts we ran into trouble. The bolts had probably been tightened by machine and would not budge when the three of us tried to loosen them. I even tried sitting on the wrench to get more leverage. Luckily a truck with some park workers came down the secluded road (I had also left my cell phone in the cabin so we couldn't call for help). As a couple workers approached the car, the man seemed to say that he wasn't sure if he was capable of helping us. We told him that we were having trouble with the bolts so he gave it a shot...he had the spare tire on and tightened in about two minutes. I guess he was just trying to be modest when in reality he could work in a NASCAR pit crew. After getting back to the cabin we had breakfast (my stomach was finally doing better) and got ready for a day on the beach. Only in Africa can you have a great beach day on the winter solstice. The sun was shining and both the air and water temperatures were in the 70s. Susanne took us for a walk down the beach (as she is known for doing). Just like in Mozambique, once we walked a few hundred meters past the fishermen and other beach loungers near the Cape Vidal Camp we were the only ones on the beach and ours were the only footprints in the sand. Susanne spotted some sand dunes in the distance that she wanted to walk to. I think they wound up being about 5km down the beach from where we were staying, but it was still a very worthwhile walk and the dunes were very dramatic as they seemed to flow out of the densely forested hills running along the beach. We made it back to our cabin before sundown (being winter solstice, the sun set around 5pm) to find our cabin completely surrounded by monkeys. The monkeys seemed unfazed by our presence and went about whatever they were doing such as grooming each other on the driveway. For dinner, Susanne impressed us with her from-scratch cooking skills by preparing a delicious tomato pasta sauce with sauteed greens. We enjoyed dinner with our new favorite wintery drink: chai tea with amarula (a fruity cream liquor made in SA--a few bottles are on their way home).

The next morning we checked out of our cabin and spent a few more hours on the beach before leaving Cape Vidal. Susanne and I went swimming which was refreshing but semi-treacherous. The waves were pretty small and the sand was fine, but all along the beach there were large patches of rocks just under the water making them difficult to spot. We were able to maneuver around the rocks but finally got tired of it and went in. From Cape Vidal we continued on to our next stop: Isinkwe Bush Camp just outside of Hluhluwe. On our way out of the park we spotted more reedbucks, kudu, warthogs, and zebra. Along the way we stopped for lunch in St. Lucia, a very white, touristy town. For lunch we went to the Greek Sizzler--the name drew us there more than anything. St. Lucia had an Avis where we traded in our cushy Corolla, Ruth, who had gotten the flat tire for a more South African VW Citi who we named Tootsie because it smelled like tootsie rolls. The PMB Avis had given us a free upgrade, but the St. Lucia Avis had the car group we were paying for in stock, so that's what we got. Most of our rentals have been something similar to the VW Citi--a car not sold in the US because it would never meet the stringent safety standards. Cars in SA are ridiculously expensive due to high tariffs on parts, so many are sold new with manual steering, no airbags, exposed metal on the interior, tiny 1.2L engines, etc. The exterior of the VW Citi, for instance, looks like the VW Rabbit sold in the US in the 1980s, but the car itself is in fact new. Jessi and I justified that our downgrade gave Susanne a more authentic South African travel experience. After switching cars we left St. Lucia, happy that we had stayed at Cape Vidal and not in the uber-white tourist town. We stopped in Mtubatuba, a much more 'African' town, for some groceries. To say that the town center of Mtubatuba is bustling in the evening is an understatement. It reminds me of the hectic movement of religious neighborhoods in Israel right before Shabbos. Just after dark we got to Isinkwe, which is located a few kilometers down dirt roads from the N2, truly in the bush as they claim. We were some of the only guests there that night as it is now the low-season, so we had the kitchen to ourselves. Susanne impressed us yet again by whipping up an excellent chickpea and tomato curry. While cooking we took a break to watch the bushbaby feeding, a nightly activity at the backpackers which attracts its namesake (isinkwe is the word for bushbaby in Zulu). Sure enough, the cuddly bushbabies with their big eyes came out of the trees and munched on the bananas set out for them.

After dinner we decided to have an early night since we planned to get up at 5:30am to go for a morning drive at the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, a public game reserve that has the Big 5. I was happy to be in our heated rental car rather than an open safari vehicle that cold morning. We only had a couple hours to drive around the park, which although only one-twentieth the size of Kruger is still quite large and you could easily spend all day driving around. We only drove through the northern section, Hluhluwe, where we saw more cape buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe in the distance, a few types of antelope, and zebras crossing the road right in front of our car. Judging by the amount of dung in the road I expected to see more game, but it's possible that they weren't very active that morning since it was pretty cold. We drove back to our backpackers to get some sleep before having to check out. From there we headed back to PMB. In between doing laundry in the ever-frustrating Denison laundry room we met Jessi H. and Stine and her brother for dinner at Firkin. Jessi and I had Susanne try Firkin's red ale--what Jessi and I consider one of the best beers in SA. Susanne was thoroughly unimpressed (as she should be) and empathized with the pathetic selection of beer available to us over the last five months. I should have had Susanne try a Hansa Pilsener--a disgustingly bitter beer with no flavor. After dinner the six of us squeezed into our compact rental and then said our goodbyes as Jessi H. and Stine would be leaving for a roadtrip on Monday and this would be our last time seeing them in SA.

After a late laundry night we got up early the next morning to head off for the Drakensberg Mountains. We drove up to Monk's Cowl in the Central Drakensberg where I had gone hiking months earlier on separate trips with the Denison crew and my parents. The landscape had an entirely different character than when I had been there before. Rather than lush and green, the mountainsides were now a dry yellow or black from fires. There was also an unpleasant haze from the fires burning throughout the Natal Midlands. At 1pm we started the Blind Man's Corner trail, an 11km hike I had done during my first visit to Monk's Cowl which at the time nearly killed me and during which I got the worst sunburn of my life. However, just like the scenery, the winter conditions were very different from those back in the summer. The first time I did the hike, the temperature was about 30C, there was no shade, it was humid, the air was still, and I was with a group that was going faster than my own pace. This time, the temperature was about 20C, it was dry, there was a light breeze, and we went at a very comfortable pace. This time I was incredibly surprised at how much easier I found the steep ascent. Never once did I feel like I was going to collapse and need to be carried down the mountain. However, due to the relative ease of the climb, I underestimated the amount of time it would take to get back. Once we reached the top, around 3pm, we stopped for lunch and then continued along the plateau at 3:30pm. I guess because the plateau was the easiest part of the hike, I remembered it being shorter than it actually was. The trail on the plateau had us hiking in about 3km further so we didn't reach the descent segment of the loop trail until 4pm. At this point I silently started to get a bit worried since it had taken us three hours to get to this point--essentially half way--and the park gate would be closing in two hours. On top of that, I knew that I had struggled with the descent portion of the hike last time because it was very steep and I am very slow at climbing down rocks. Since I anticipated being the slowest, I led the three of us on the way down. The fear of being locked inside the park forced me to overcome my fear of falling down the mountain and I'd say I completed the descent in half as much time as it took me the first time around. It was also getting dark fast which forced me to keep moving. We did make it out in time, reaching the parking lot at 5:45pm. Even though my legs felt like jell-o when we got to the car, I was still very proud of myself for being able to complete the hike faster and in a much better condition at the end. From Monk's Cowl we drove up to the Northern Drakensberg where we would be staying for a couple days. We stopped for dinner at Tower of Pizza--still the best pizza I have had in SA. We then checked into Amphitheatre Backpackers where I had stayed with Jessi, Mani, and Lauren a couple months ago. Last time I was getting over the flu so we took it easy. This time we were there to take advantage of the adventurous activities.

On Monday the three of us went on the tour up to Lesotho. This tour took us through the Monantsha Pass border via the Free State province, a border not otherwise used by tourists unlike the Sani Pass border in KZN. Also along for the tour were a Dutch couple, a girl from the UK traveling with a South African girl who now lives in the UK, a guy from Israel (incidentally the same town as my brother), and a guy from Michigan. I'm not sure of the name of the area in Lesotho that we toured through, but it is fairly close to the town of Buthe-Butha. Not only is this part of Lesotho less touristy than Sani Pass, but it also has different topography. Sani Pass is characterized by rolling pastures (at very high elevation) with rivers meandering in all directions, whereas the Monantsha Pass led us into a valley surrounded by rocky cliffs on all sides. Also the Sani Pass area was mostly inhabited by shepherds, and this area had many more families and a much higher population density (although still rural, so really not 'dense' by any measure). Our first stop was a primary school established by a South African in the 1970s. The school consisted of two large classrooms (and one still under construction), the first of which was built entirely by students, teachers, and parents. The original classroom accommodates four teachers instructing grades 1 through 5, and the second classroom accommodates grades 6 and 7. The school is currently out for winter break, and our local guide was a math and science teacher at the school named Power. After seeing the school we hiked up the hill to the edge of the cliffs where we stopped for lunch to view some San rock art. The San were hunter-gatherers who roamed around southern Africa for the last 10,000 years but their culture went extinct about 100 years ago for numerous reasons, part of which is that they could no longer hunt for animals on property claimed by whites and Zulus. The shaman, or leader, of a nomadic San group would create rock paintings of animals or people as a signal to other San groups that would come through the area indicating what types of animals had been found and where or if nothing had been found. Recently the rock art sites allover SA have been protected and access is only allowed with guides, but for many years the paintings were subject to vandalism. On our way back to the school we came across some cute Basotho kids who wanted their picture taken, so Susanne and I took pictures with them and gave them our extra sandwiches from lunch. From there we continued on to visit a local sangoma, or traditional healer. On the way to the sangoma, Power suffered an epileptic seizure, a condition he is familiar with but which had not been bothering him recently. Luckily he was not driving but was sitting next to one of our guides who was able to keep him from injuring himself. I had never witnessed a seizure, so at first I was not sure if it was for real. We stopped the bus and waited for him to 'come out of it.' They lied him down in the front seat with his head tilting down so that he would not choke on his saliva. It took a few minutes before he was able to respond to questions, and in about half an hour he seemed back to normal. Further down the winding dirt roads we reached the home of the sangoma. In this case, the sangoma was a 71-year-old Basotho woman who became aware of her gift in 1968 while working as a maid in South Africa. Sangomas are apparently chosen by their ancestors who come to them in dreams and tell them of their gift and of which sangoma to be an apprentice for. Sangomas administer treatment with locally grown herbs that are drunk, smoked, or eaten. She told our guide Power to drink a brownish liquid filled with herbs sitting in a jar on the table. This particular liquid is given to people with head problems such as headaches or 'to make someone less crazy.' He drank it, but from the looks of it, it couldn't have tasted good. After hearing the sangoma's story and asking her questions we headed back to stop at a shebeen, or unofficial bar, to taste local beer. I have tried Zulu beer (utshwala) a few times before, but the beer that we tried this time was made from pineapple so it had a really nice sweetness and fruity flavor. Interestingly enough, the beer was served to us by a group of children probably between ages six and eight. After trying the beer we went to Power's home where we tried pap (maize meal porridge) and cabbage. As we were getting back into the bus our guide bought a string of dead field mice from a local kid, which were cooked and offered to our group at the hostel later that night. From there we headed back to the border.

The next day we went on the other tour offered at Amphitheatre Backpackers: a guided 15km hike along the Sentinel Peak trail up to the top of Thukela Falls, the second highest waterfall in the world (the first being Angel Falls in South America). Although the Amphitheatre, an 8km long rock face in the Royal Natal National Park, can be seen from the backpackers, it is about a two-hour drive to the trailhead which is accessed through the Free State province. On this tour were the three of us, the Israeli guy, one high school-aged guy from Oregon and three high school girls from Europe who had been studying in Jo'burg and Pretoria for the last year...crazy. The trail begins at about 2500m (8200ft) from where we climb up to about 3000m (9850ft). As soon as we got out of the bus it was obvious that the weather was very different from where we started that morning. It was extremely windy as we were on a mountain ridge, which made it very cold (I am eternally grateful that I brought all of the layers that I did which I wound up sharing with Jessi and Susanne--only wish I also had gloves). My legs were still sore from the hike in Monk's Cowl a couple days before, but I was determined not to miss this hike so I took a couple ibuprofen before starting which sort of helped. The hike started out at a gradual incline, so I was not feeling the altitude too much. The scariest thing was that, as I mentioned before, it was very windy and the mountain dropped off quite steeply for a couple thousand feet on one side. After hiking for about an hour we stopped at the bottom of a rocky corridor that led up to the top of the mountain. I thought we were going to continue along the contour trail, but our guide, Sim, had something else in mind. To reach the top of the Amphitheatre, still a few hundred feet above, we were going to scramble up the passage of rocks. Jessi and I started out confidently and enthusiastically, but about half way through I felt fatigue starting to set in. I was on all fours literally the whole way up. As rock climbing goes, it was pretty easy because it was not vertical and there were sturdy foot and hand holds almost everywhere, but it was still a lot of climbing. Susanne was loving every second of it as rock scrambling is her thing. I asked her to stay behind me so that I knew she could give me a boost if I needed it. Every now and then she would ask to go ahead because she couldn't stand all the starting and stopping, so she would bound ahead about 30 feet and then wait for me as I took my time. Susanne was under the impression that we would be coming back down this way, and about two-thirds of the way up she told me this and I almost started freaking out as I knew it would take me hours to get back down, if I could get myself to do it all. Jessi called up to Sim and confirmed that this was not so, so I was able to keep going. For the last hundred feet or so, I wanted nothing more than to be at the top because I was getting more worried that I would make a mistake and get injured. Not only was I getting tired (the three ibuprofen I had taken that morning were not helping), but my hands were getting numb from the cold and I was having trouble grasping rocks. I finally made it, quite a bit slower than most of the group, but I did it nonetheless. Once at the top, we were on a ridge overlooking the Amphitheatre, just about 20ft away from a 3000ft vertical drop. There we stopped for lunch which for me was much needed after the rock climb. From there it was an easy gradual decline down the hill to the Thukela River and falls. The plateau at the top of the Amphitheatre reminded me of the top of Sani Pass in Lesotho--similar rolling hillsides and meandering rivers. This was the first place I saw snow in SA. There wasn't much, but on hills with southern aspect there were some patches of white. Susanne was practically frolicking she was having such a great time. The Thukela River, which has pretty low flow due to the drought this year, was half-frozen. In little time we were at the edge of the falls which is also the edge of the Amphitheatre--a 3000-foot drop that occurs in five stages. I am not usually one to have a fear of heights, but looking over the Amphitheatre was downright intimidating. Unlike Susanne, I could not get myself to dangle my feet over the sheer precipice. One of the high school girls even got close enough to spit over the falls. Just watching this made my heart pound. We stopped just long enough to take a few photos, take our malaria pills, and split a Lara bar before heading back. It was obvious that a storm was rolling in from the Free State side and we did not want to be at the highest point around should it be a lightning storm. As we walked through the alpine meadow we could spot Mont Aux-Sources, the third highest point in southern Africa which is the source of two major southern African rivers: the Thukela which flows to the Indian Ocean and the Orange which flows to the Atlantic. Although we had finished the rock climb, the difficult parts were not behind us yet. To get back down, we had to descend about 100m of chain ladder which has been welded into the sheer rock face. There were two ladders, the second of which was about twice as long as the first. Jessi, who is not a fan of ladders, was worried that she would not be able to make it down, but with the help of our awesome guide Sim, she made it down like a champ. While I did not struggle with the ladders as much as Jessi, I cannot say that it was easy. To get myself down, I repeated a mantra: one step at a time. It didn't help that it was still extremely windy and cold. Most of the time it felt like my wool cap was going to be blown off my head and by the end my hands were numb and frozen into a curled shape which I was barely able to latch around the rungs. From there we hiked a couple more hours, following the trail back around to where we began, which seemed like a piece of cake after the rock scramble and chain ladders. As we approached the end it was obvious that the storm was getting close as flecks of snow were starting to fall. We made it back without trouble and spent most of the evening lounging around the bar of the backpackers, which we've decided is the best hostel bar we have been to, with much credit belonging to Zi, the most talented bartender we have come across in SA. We suggested that she write a book.

I had not visited the Free State province before the two tours, so even the drives through there were fascinating. The part of Free State we saw, Qwa Qwa, is a former 'homeland' where blacks were forced to live and which was recognized by the apartheid government as an independent state. The landscape is high desert, so there are almost no trees growing and everything seems to have a yellowish-brown tint. Unlike most other parts of SA that I have seen that have a general diversity of population, absolutely everyone in Qwa Qwa is black. This is yet another reminder that the Sotho and Zulu tribes did not choose to inhabit this area, but that the white-led apartheid government forced people to relocate to this isolated land. Apparently over 1 million people are packed into this desolate valley. The only economic opportunities present in the area seemed to be some industrial factories set on the outskirts of town. On our way back from the Lesotho tour we passed the headquarters for the provincial government (basically the equivalent of a state capital), and Sim was quick to point out that it wasn't a jail...wow. Can you imagine driving past the capital in Sacramento and someone pointing to it and saying, "It's not a jail." Oh, Free State, what impressive architecture you have. After the hike, we were riding through Qwa Qwa around 5pm, when everyone seems to get off work. The sides of the road were suddenly filled with thousands of people walking home. On each side of the road, the line of workers was about ten people wide. What is startling is that these workers, who are probably employed in the industrial factories, are so poor that they cannot even afford to take a minibus taxi, so they choose to instead walk home in the cold. It was like witnessing rush-hour traffic on a freeway, but it was all pedestrians. On top of the amazing tours, which Susanne noted as the highlight of her trip, I’m glad I got to see another part of this ever-surprising diverse country before I leave.

On Wednesday we headed back to PMB, stopping along the way in Howick to see the falls and the craft shops. The storm we had seen rolling in the day before while on the Sentinel Peak hike turned out to be a pretty big one and dumped a good layer of snow on all of the surrounding mountains, and even much of the Natal Midlands. Not only did we see snow on the side of the highway, but we drove through it for a bit while on the N3. Luckily it wasn’t cold enough for the snow to turn to ice so it was still safe to drive. By the time we got to Howick and PMB, the snow had turned to a steady rain. We drove to downtown PMB to take Susanne to the Tatham Art Gallery. Since we usually take taxis into town we didn’t realize that there is a shortage of parking, so we wound up parking a few blocks away at the Voortrekker Museum and walking through the rain. After a nice lunch at the lovely café, we went over to Liberty Mall to replace some things lost in Susanne’s missing luggage. After introducing Susanne to Nando’s, Portuguese-influenced fast food, we went back to Denison to pack things up. Susanne left Thursday morning and is now back in the States. Her visit definitely went by too fast, but I am glad she was able to make it, as I’m sure she is too.

After saying our goodbyes, Jessi and I went over to the National Alamo car rental counter at the airport to try to sort out a rental that we were overcharged for. Our encounter is a perfect example of the brain drain that is plaguing this country. When we got here back in February, the PMB branch was managed by a guy named Mike who always got us good deals, honored online confirmations, and was always helpful and friendly. Mike, who did not see a future for himself in this country, left for the UK back in the beginning of April. Since then, Mike has been replaced by four people, and somehow neither on their own nor combined can they do the job that he did. Last month, Jessi and I rented two cars from National Alamo for our weekend trip to Umzumbe. According to our online confirmations, which had been honored in the past, we were supposed to be charged $150 for both rentals, but instead we were charged $350. The new manager had us return to the airport to bring him the webpage print-out so that he could fix the rate, but he did no such thing, insisting that the rate is set by the system and he has no power to change it (he also charged us for an extra day when we returned one of the cars half an hour late after he had wasted over an hour of our time). A couple weeks ago, Jessi confronted the new manager about this. He was utterly unhelpful and after some demanding gave her the phone number of someone who never returned our calls. On Thursday, I went to talk to him to see if he would be reasonable. He immediately started giving me the same run around, saying that he has no power to change the rate (even though he is the manager), that it is not his problem that the system does not work, and that there is nothing he can do when other National Alamo employees do not return our calls. As if this is not bad enough, it is what this man said next that should alert his company that he should never work in customer service. He then told us that we were giving him attitude, that he wanted us to leave his sight, and that he would like us to never rent from National Alamo again. This man was even so naïve to tell us that he was only losing the business of two customers. Even when we assured him that we would make sure that all of the international students we know who take frequent trips would also never rent from him, he did not back down. He clearly has no appreciation for the power of word-of-mouth. I can only imagine that that sort of behavior from a representative of a multi-national firm in the US would have them out of a job before the customer got a chance to bad-mouth the company. But somehow, in SA it could be years before customer feedback makes the company realize that this is a damaging person to have on their payroll. Customer service frustrations aside, it is time for me to leave South Africa. I have had a fully satisfying, challenging experience here, and I definitely feel ready to go. The question is, am I ready to return?

The Strike and Birthday Wishes

2007-06-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

I finished my last final on Tuesday, and as it turns out that was just in time. Yesterday, commercial and educational activities in South Africa came to a standstill. Civil servants (i.e. school teachers, hospital workers, municipal workers, etc.) have been striking since June 1 for higher wages. On Wednesday, university faculty struck in a show of solidarity. Exams scheduled for Wednesday were postponed until Friday. There are a few international students who had exams scheduled Wednesday and who are going home on Friday, so their exams are going to be mailed to their home university and they will have to take them in July (that's why I am so happy I finished on Tuesday). University faculty were not the only workers showing solidarity. On Wednesday there were no taxis running. If you have been following this blog, you can possibly appreciate the significance of that. The majority of South Africans use minibus taxis as their primary form of transport. This means, with no taxis running, most people could not get to work, whether or not they were part of the civil servants' strike. Mani, Jessi, and I were going to grab lunch at our favorite cafe, Bread Ahead. After sitting down we realized there were only three workers in the entire bakery/cafe (there are usually about 15 at any given time), so we would certainly not be getting food soon. Instead we got pastries from the counter and left. I was going to get something from Kara Nichha's, but it was closed as were many other shops and restaurants around Scottsville. From what I heard, the central business district of PMB was completely dead. Unlike the major supermarket strike in southern California a few years back, there were no picketers to be seen on Wednesday - at least not in Scottsville - but according to the news marches were held in major cities all around the country. As far as I can remember, I have never witnessed such widespread strike action as occurred on Wednesday.

On an unrelated note, today is my brother Aaron's 30th birthday. Happy Birthday Broader!! I would like to take this opportunity to say that you are officially old--your youth is behind you. I mean look at you...you've got a wife, a house, a job, a couple kids bouncing around, and a beard that must stretch to the middle of your torso by now. If that doesn't scream "I'm an old fart!" I just don't know what does. Sibling cruelty aside, I really am happy for you and hope you have a wonderful day! Love, Toader/your sis/the "Old Maid"

In Between Finals

2007-06-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

Classes ended two weeks ago on Thursday (although I still had to finish some glazing in Ceramics on Friday morning), and to celebrate the Denison girls and I went down the coast to Umzumbe for the weekend where we stayed at Mantis & Moon Backpackers. It was the perfect post-school, pre-finals break. Located just a couple blocks from the beach in a subtropical climate, the backpackers had a very jungle-y setting. I stayed in a treehouse, you heard right, with Kate and Debbie. The rest of the girls (Lauren, Jessi H., Jessi S., and Mani) stayed in adjacent treehouses. The treehouse had a bathroom, a hammock on the porch with an ocean view, as well as a view of the many vervet monkeys bounding through the trees (and on top of the treehouse). The backpackers also had a jacuzzi set within the trees--the first I have seen in SA, and much appreciated now that the nights are getting cooler. All of us would have been pretty content just lazing around the backpackers all weekend but there was so much more to see. On our second day, after chatting with another guest who had just sailed from Argentina to Antarctica and then Cape Town, we went off to Oribi Gorge. The Gorge, which is located about 20km inland from Port Shepstone, is gorgeous and dramatic as it cuts a deep and long slice through what would otherwise be a swath of sugar cane. We went horse riding around the mouth of gorge. This horse ride was only walking (no trotting) so I didn't feel like I was going to fall off like when I went riding in the Drakensberg, plus they used western saddles which are much easier to hold onto. During the ride we saw a family of warthogs--the guide said this was the first time in four years of doing this ride that she had seen them. The Gorge is also an adventure junkie's paradise as it is home to the tallest gorge swing in the world. I briefly considered trying the swing until I saw what it entailed--a 100m freefall. I opted instead to try the 'foofy slide' or zip line that traverses the gorge. What happens is they strap you into a harness that hooks into a wheel mechanism that goes over the cable. You just sit into the harness and slide into the middle of the gorge. They let you hang there for a minute, suspended 160m above the ground, before pulling you back with a rope that is attached to the harness. The scariest part is at the end when you're almost back and the tension of the rope makes you swing and bounce back and forth. I would definitely do it again (if it weren't so expensive). The next day we spent as much time as we could on the beach before having to head back to PMB. Umzumbe has a beautiful relatively secluded beach, but the waves are brutal. The sand is pretty course and filled with shards of shells, there are patches of rocks right by the shore, and the waves break in very shallow water on the beach. Just sticking my feet in the water, although warm, was painful as it felt like being attacked by seashell shrapnel. I tried walking in past the breaking waves, but my efforts were thwarted when I was knocked down by a thigh-high wave. I then determined it was not worth it and went back to lounging on the beach. Amazingly, the local kids about half my size seemed to have no problem with these waves. Possibly immune to the pain, they would stay out for ages and a few of the little guys were excellent body boarders and got some great rides. Later in the afternoon we reluctantly headed back to PMB.

After returning, I spent much of last week cramming for my two finals that were at the end of the week. When not studying I was usually ranting about the format of exams at this school, which I assume reflects the format of university exams in this country due to the British educational influence. In South Africa, finals carry much more weight than in the US (i.e. more than 50% of your final grade). There is a lot of pressure to do well on the three-hour exam, while 'real' work during the semester receives a marginal grade. I was discussing this with a girl in my Zulu class, and she was insisting that it is probably better this way because so many people plagiarize their work during the semester and it is harder to cheat in an exam setting. I do not agree with this. Many lecturers here are lazy and do not change their exam questions from year to year, so people pass off the prompts to their friends who are going to take the class in the future. Since I had so much material to memorize in a short amount of time, I tried focusing on certain areas I thought would show up and ignoring areas that I had already been tested on. This was not a good strategy because in both of my exams thus far the lecturers repeated questions already asked during the semester. Also the exams do not focus on comprehensive understanding through analysis and interpretation, but rather memorization through regurgitation. For instance, for my Labour Economics course (the most basic economics course I have taken since high school even though it is offered at the senior-level here), we were expected to memorize ten topic areas as they appeared in the textbook (since lecture notes very closely mimicked the text). My single-spaced typed notes with half-inch margins wound up being 12 pages, excluding graphs. After getting a very low grade on a test during the semester and talking with the lecturer, I realized that they were looking for exactly what is outlined in the book--nothing more, nothing less. This is problematic for me because I am not good at memorizing text. I thoroughly understand all of the topics covered during the semester because they are so basic, but I cannot necessarily memorize the five advantages and six disadvantages of bargaining councils in South Africa as stated in the textbook, for example.

If the content and expectations of exams weren't bad enough, the examination setting is not at all conducive to focused thinking. Exams are held in big halls around campus where they test about 300 students in one room, with possibly four different classes being tested at the same time and place. You have to check your bag at the door "at your own risk" and are assigned a seat situated in long rows of about 25 desks. The exams are not proctored by lecturers, so you cannot ask questions during the exam, and the people who do proctor the exams walk incessantly up and down the rows, stopping every now and then to stare at you (no, that's not distracting at all). Twice during my first exam they called out car registration numbers on the loudspeaker. Not only was this terribly distracting, but did they really think someone was going to get up and move their car, cutting short their own exam time? On top of those nuisances, the lights flickered regularly and it was cold in the exam room.

Besides screwing up my GPA, the higher education system here concerns me because, the way I see it, it does not prepare students for ANYTHING. Exams are incredibly unrealistic scenarios. In the real world you have time to research and prepare your work in a thoughtful manner. In the past, I have developed intellectually and professionally by doing work during the semester, but never by cramming for exams. I honestly believe that I did not develop academically at all this semester--if anything I have reverted to the warped expectations of high school. From what I have seen, many students are incapable of producing original university-level work, and yet they are able to slide through and graduate. This leads me to now severely question the validity of a South African college degree. The universities here are not creating thinkers, but rather machines that learn how to work the system. This is problematic for the current and future state of South Africa. The country is already experiencing a massive skills shortage, and I do not believe that the existing caliber of the university education will alleviate this anytime soon. I would like to be proved wrong. I hope South Africa does fill its skills gap and that its ‘educated’ population will be able to think critically to solve some of the country's major dilemmas such as mitigating the impacts of HIV/AIDS and lifting millions out of poverty.

After the frustration of my first two exams, I took a much-needed mid-finals trip to Mozambique with Kate, Patty, and Amir. The southern border post is about 500km up the coast from PMB. We left in the evening on Saturday and stopped about halfway in Mtubatuba for the night at Khumbulani Lodge where Kate and Patty had stayed before. The backpackers was basically one big converted house, with many home-y comforts. We spent most of the evening lounging in the living room on the big comfortable couches in front of the TV, and even though we stayed in dorm beds we had two clean bathrooms to ourselves. Continuing the trend of meeting interesting people at hostels, we met a woman from Nova Scotia who is in the middle of a six-month round the world trip. Her work offered to either transfer her to Atlanta or give her a severance package. She took the severance package and decided to take a trip of a lifetime--I think she made the right choice. Sunday morning we continued on to the Kosi Bay border post to make our 2pm pick-up. We got there early and there was already someone there from the resort, Ponta Malongane, with a pick-up truck and trailer waiting for us. Even though the place we stayed at was only 15km from the border we had to leave our rental car there because Mozambique only has sand roads, so you need a 4x4 to get around. It worked out fine because there is a private lot on the SA side where they watch your car for about $3 per day, and once you get to the beach you do not want to leave. The SA-Mozambique border was probably the most lax border I have seen. The fence separating the countries is smaller than the fences most people have around their homes, and people were bringing in pick-up trucks with tarps over their cargo in the back--no fear of terrorists here. A group of five from Pretoria was being picked up at the same time so we waited as they loaded their stuff. As it turned out, it seemed like we got ripped off at the Mozambique border post because we were charged R172 (almost $25) each for our visas, while the South Africans were charged only R10 each. They are at Ponta Malongane for a week, but when I first saw how much food, equipment, etc. they had brought I seriously thought that they worked for the place and were restocking it and that perhaps the language they were speaking was Portuguese (it was actually Afrikaans). The 15km ride to Ponta Malongane took 45 minutes because you cannot drive faster than 20km per hour on the sand roads. Some background on Mozambique: After decades of colonial rule by the Portuguese, Mozambique won its independence in the 1970s. In 1977 a civil war broke out as factions vied for control. The war lasted until 1992 and resulted in the displacement of about 4 million people and close to 1 million deaths. Life is now peaceful in Mozambique, but many people still live in poverty, and the government still does not have the resources to provide many basic services such as tarred roads or clean piped water.

We stayed in the dive camp at the resort which was more like a hostel than a fancy resort, which was fine with us. We stayed in tents with mattresses on a covered deck with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. The beach was about 200 feet from our tents and you never needed shoes because there is fine sand everywhere. After realizing how warm the water was (about 23C or 73F) we decided to go for a swim before the sun went down. Unlike the beach at Umzumbe, the sand was very fine, there were no rocks, and the waves crashed a bit farther out. As is apparently the case along most of the Mozambican coast, we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. After swimming we were ready for dinner. We cooked some spaghetti in the questionable water which is supposedly okay when you boil it and enjoyed our dinner on the deck of the bar which overlooks the beach. After dinner, Kate, Patty, and Amir got their books out to start studying since they have a few finals left. Totally burnt out from having just finished two brutal finals, and with only Zulu left, I did not bring a single book with me. Their studiousness seemed to weird out a bunch of other guests who were horrified by the sight of them studying while on vacation. With the only light being at the tables by the kitchen and having nothing to read, I decided to go to sleep early. However, none of us slept well because it was raining most of the night, and with only a tarp above the tents it sounded like it was raining right on the tent. The next morning we started our day off right with a breakfast of Portuguese bread rolls still warm from the oven. The folks from Pretoria (I will refer to them as the Pretorians from now on), a few of whom had stayed at Ponta Malongane the year before, invited us to walk down the beach with them to the town of Ponta D’Ouro. The town is located about 7km down the secluded beach from where we were staying. We took our time walking, enjoying the tide pools, shells, and warm water, spending about two hours walking each way. Along the way there were a handful of nice beach houses just above the sand. Leonard told us that the people who own the houses do not actually own the land that it is built on. Apparently it is a risky endeavor because the Mozambican government can come in at anytime and tear down your house, plus there are still many landmines leftover from the war, so it’s not safe to go walking around in the bush. We eventually made it to Ponta D’Ouro which is an absolutely lovely little beach town. The streets (still sand roads) were lined with brightly colored charming bungalows--no electric fences, no bars on the windows, and kept in very good condition. There was however an eerie juxtaposition--about one in ten homes were completely gutted. From what was left you could tell that these were once very nice homes, but they were abandoned during the war and no one had come back to claim them and fix them up. I’m sure that these broken down homes are just the tip of the iceberg that is Mozambique’s remaining scars from the war. Overall, the town had a very different vibe than towns in South Africa. It is difficult to describe the difference, but a big part of it was that we did not feel threatened or targeted in any way even though we were some of the only white people in town. The town was pretty small and quiet, which means it is probably a boring place to live but a wonderful place to vacation. After getting a drink (Mozambican Coke in a glass bottle really is better) the Pretorians wandered back and we went to lunch at one of the restaurants. I had a surprisingly good veggie pizza that I enjoyed with the homemade peri-peri. Peri-peri is a citrus-garlic chili sauce that is used commonly in SA, but comes from the Portuguese influence in Mozambique. It was definitely the best peri-peri I have had. After lunch we slowly made our way back to Ponta Malongane. After another swim, dinner, and studying, the girls and I sat around chatting with the South Africans. The Pretorians were in the middle of a board game when we joined them. I’m glad I got a chance to hang out with them because I now realize that I had some stereotypes about Afrikaans-speaking South Africans since there are not many of them in KwaZulu-Natal. Unlike many white South Africans I have met, these people are not itching to flea the country. They love South Africa and Africa and appreciate its astounding and unique beauty. They acknowledge that crime is a problem, having all been victims of carjackings and armed robberies, but they did not seem bitter or fearful of this, but rather accepted it as a way of life.

The next morning we woke up early to watch the sunrise over the Indian Ocean. Since it is almost winter, the sun does not rise until about 6:30am. We unsuccessfully tried to join a boat trip to go snorkeling since you need eight people to launch a boat, but there was no one else going out so we were stuck on shore. Instead we each wandered down the secluded beach in the other direction from where we had walked the day before. I stopped to lie down on the sand and rest for about an hour. For that time there was no one around me in either direction for at least a kilometer. After a quick swim we walked back towards the resort where we lounged on the beach for a few more hours. It was an incredibly relaxed day--the sort that is desperately needed during finals. For dinner, we had arranged for one of the workers to buy and cook prawns for us (I of course did not have any). They were cooked in the traditional Mozambican way with just butter, garlic, and lemon. They were supposedly excellent and the guy only charged R80 per kg (about $5 a pound). Since this was our last night in Mozambique we decided to take a break from studying. After the Pretorians finished braai-ing their dinner we built another fire on the beach. As we went out there the moon was just beginning to rise over the ocean, the light from which helped us to see the hundreds of crabs on the beach (luckily the crabs were very afraid of us and kept their distance at all times). The beach fire was definitely the perfect ending to our great trip. The next morning we spent some more time on the beach, where it was now very windy as another storm rolled in, before packing up and heading back to the border. Kate, Patty, and I joked about stealing a Mozambican kid because they are so cute. As the truck passed, some kids would start running after us waving. We made it back across the border without incident. As soon as we got in the car it started raining, which lasted for the first few hours of the drive. Along the way we stopped at a collection of craft stalls near Hluhluwe. Since it had been raining, a lot of stuff was covered in the tarps and the rest was wet, so I just got some beads. As we approached PMB there were flashes of lightning in the sky, and as soon as we pulled up to the Denison gate it started pouring (apparently it hadn’t rained the whole time we were gone).

I now reluctantly have to get back to studying for my Zulu final which is on Tuesday. After that I have a few days before Susanne arrives a week from Sunday. Sadly, many of the international students are starting to pack up and leave in the next couple weeks. We are trying to plan one last bash for this weekend and talks are beginning for a reunion trip to Alaska in a year or so. I have had some experiences of a lifetime with these people and I’m sure I will miss them dearly.

Good and Bad

2007-05-23T02:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Winding Down

2007-05-14T03:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Freedom Day

2007-04-27T02:22:00.000-07:00

Easing back into school life was difficult in the first week after the break. Zulu was frustrating as always and deadlines for assignments and exams crept up quickly. Just about everyone was going through some sort of Cape Town withdrawal. To get ourselves through the week, Lauren, Mani, Jessi, and I planned an 80s party for the weekend. Even the preparation for the party was fun since we had to find period costumes which were readily available at the Hospice Charity Shop next to Checkers. The shop is like a mini-Salvation Army, so just about all of the clothes are perfect for 80s outlandishness. There is also an accessory shop in Scottsville with lots of cheap costume jewelry where I found big purple plastic hoops for less than $1. We went all out with 80s-themed snacks (or snacks from our childhood), decorations, and Twister. At the end of the week a few of us met with Giulia, my hair stylist, to talk about Mozambique and Swaziland. She had some good tips, but had just been in a car accident the day before and her notes had been in the car. She had some kind of rare 60s sports car (hers was one of 12 in the country) and she had saved for two years just to ship it here from Italy--quite a bummer, especially considering it was the other guy's fault. Anyway, as it turns out we have decided not to go to Mozi/Swazi for the long weekend (there are public holidays today and Tuesday so we're skipping Monday) because we are still burnt out from the last road trip and getting around those places (especially Mozambique) is not easy. For instance, in our conversation with Giulia we learned that you need a 4x4 to get around Mozambique because the country has sand roads, not tarred roads. Plus, there are no street signs, so you really need to go with a local or get picked up at the border. There is a dolphin research place that we want to go to where they take you out to go swimming with the dolphins and they will pick you up at the border, but they were full so we will try to go in June around final exam time. Instead, this weekend I am going up to the northern Drakensberg with Mani, Jessi, and Lauren for a few days. Should be relaxing as the 'Bergs always are.

Last weekend, Mani and I went with Sibambisene to the rural community center again to work with the kids. On this day we drove past two funerals--one in the morning going there, and another in the afternoon when going home. The small cemetery is just a couple minutes down the road from the community center, and it seemed relatively new as the twenty or so burial mounds had not settled yet. On this day, Cindy from Rutgers had planned science-themed activities for the kids. So we made "oobleck"--a kind of silly putty that looks liquid but feels solid--out of water, corn starch, and food coloring. A local classmate, Penwell, came along and translated for us which was enormously helpful. The kids are generally well-behaved and receptive, but it's hard to give directions when they don't understand them. After making oobleck, we had them do crayon leaf rubbings. The biggest hit of the day was the water relay race. This was a sort of water conservation activity where each of the two teams had a bucket of water, a sponge, and a bottle about 25 ft away that they had to fill as quickly as possible. Some of the kids were very gentle and careful with the sponge, trying to squeeze every last bit of water into the bottle, while others ran as fast as they could to pass off the sponge to the next kid in line. We must have played at least ten rounds of this game, and the kids did not get tired of it. Every time a team won every kid would jump, scream, clap, and dance with just as much enthusiasm as the round before--it was adorable. We finally had to end it because it was time for us to clean up and get going. The day went very well, but it was not without its difficulties. The most heartbreaking thing was a little girl named Mbali, probably four or five years old, who kept throwing up. Unlike all the other kids she had very little energy and hardly smiled. Back in the US, seeing a kid in her condition wouldn't worry you much because you can pretty safely assume that she just has a cold or the stomach flu and will be better in a few days. But in South Africa, you can't assume that, especially not when most (if not all) of these kids are AIDS orphans. I don't have much information on the background of these kids, but I saw one of the older women working at the center wearing a shirt that said "Noah," and as we were leaving I noticed a sign on a fence surrounding a garden that indicated that Noah is a program whose name stands for Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for Humanity. This is what makes me think that perhaps all of the kids who come to this center are orphans. The woman wearing the Noah shirt was one of a few women providing lunch for the kids, which from what I hear is all the food that many of them get for the day. The kids were being served phuthu (pronounced poo-too) which is a type of corn meal porridge made with water and sour milk. The government subsidizes corn meal and mandates that vitamins be added during processing since so many poor people survive on it. Shameless plug: If you are interested in donating to Sibambisene (the organization has a PayPal account) or would like more information, check out http://www.geocities.com/sibambisenekids/index.html.

On a lighter note, the combination of good music, crazy outfits, tasty snacks, and fun people made the 80s party a big success. A good mix of international students and South Africans showed up and everyone agreed that they had a great time. Suffice to say, the girls and I now have a bit of a reputation around Denison for throwing great parties. Unfortunately, the combination of playing with germy kids and staying up late was bad news for my immune system and I have been sick most of this week. I am slowly getting better, hopefully fast enough to enjoy our trip to the Drakensberg this weekend.

And in other news, today is Freedom Day which commemorates the first democratic elections held in South Africa after apartheid in 1994 in which Nelson Mandela was elected president. To celebrate Freedom Day, I am working on my Politics paper on whether it is in the interest of the working class for the Tripartite Alliance between the dominant neo-liberal ANC, and more socialist COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and SACP (South African Communist Party) to continue. Writing such a paper emphasizes the difficulties of being a foreign student because, while doable, it requires a significant amount of work on my part since I have virtually no background knowledge of South African politics. Fun stuff!

Road Trip!

2007-04-17T03:31:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a road trip to Cape Town for semester break with seven other international students. To give you an idea, Cape Town is about 1900km from PMB. I rode with the Jessis (one from UCSD, one from Germany) and Amir. In the other car were Mani, Lauren, John, and Jacob. We left early on Friday, April 6, to make it to our first destination, Port St. John's in the Eastern Cape. The roads do not parallel the coast, but are rather windy in some parts, especially the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape. This region is also known as the Transkei, which was a large and notoriously underserved 'homeland' under apartheid. Seeing this area, one could say that the neglect still shows, or that the isolation helped to preserve the indigenous Xhosa culture. Most dwellings are brightly colored rondavels and the town centers look stereotypically African (i.e. lots of street vendors, bustling with people, etc.). A disturbing consistency between all of the towns is that each one had at least two or three funeral parlors. Although beautiful, the driving was not easy going due to the windy undivided roads and numerous obstacles that included stopped cars, people, and livestock (we had a close call with a cow that decided to walk into the middle of the road and take a break there). After four hours of this we reached Port St. John's which is beautifully situated between two rocky cliffs known as the 'gate.' Unfortunately the weather was not so great for the first couple days and it started raining, really raining, right after we got there. So the first day was spent mostly hanging around the backpackers, Jungle Monkey. As always, we met some cool people at this backpackers, including our roommate Harrison who is South African but lives in Sweden most of the year working in music. He was carrying around with him a 24" widescreen iMac, which made for some very good movie watching that night.

The next day we moved on to the geographically convenient city of East London. Along the way we made a quick stop in Mthatha (pronounced Umtata), which to me came off as a big gritty African city. Mthatha did not seem to have an elite class that employs the lower class to do its dirty work, and as a result it was a lot dirtier than PMB, or any other big city I have seen in SA. This was most evident when Jessi and I went to the public restroom in the shopping center and the flushing mechanism had been removed from the toilets. Once we reached East London it did not take us long to realize we were staying in the 'hood. There are almost no people on the streets and you needed to get past three padlocks to reach the dorm in the backpackers. The staff also advised us not to leave our cars on the street and not to walk at night, and the staff were black, not paranoid white people. Despite being overall unimpressed with East London, the backpackers was clean and quiet, and thanks to my travel book we found a great restaurant for dinner that night, Smoky Swallows. Up until that point it was the best meal I had in SA complete with great atmosphere, great service, and great food.

After a surprisingly good nights rest in the ghetto, we continued to Jeffrey's Bay. Reading my trusty travel book, I realized that one of the reasons that crime is such a concern in East London probably has something to do with the fact that the second largest township in South Africa is located next to it (second in size only to Soweto in Jo'burg). To reach Jeffrey's Bay we passed the large city of Port Elizabeth, or PE as it is commonly called, and J-Bay was definitely worth skipping PE for. Jeffrey's Bay is famous for its "Supertubes" as featured in the classic surf movie "Endless Summer." Unfortunately, it seems that the best surf is in the winter (a few months away) because the waves didn't look too spectacular to me. However, we were still able to enjoy the beautiful weather of the "Sunshine Coast" and the unbeatable deals at the Billabong factory shop down the street from our backpackers, Island Vibe. After settling in, a girl staying in our room told us the "history" of the beach. Apparently the backpackers is located on the lower end of what was the "white" beach and the beach to the right of the backpackers was the "black" beach--the line is demarcated by some wooden poles in the sand. Supposedly it is "unsafe" to go on the beach to the right of the backpackers because the rules are still unofficially followed by the people living in the township. This seemed to be overdramatic because the next morning we walked along the beach to the right and did not feel at all threatened, nor did the locals seem displeased to see us there. Plus, the shells in the sand to the right were much better, probably due to fewer tourists over there. As we were about to leave we noticed a pod of dolphins hanging out around the cove. John from New Jersey who had never seen dolphins in the ocean, and one of our roommates from Holland decided to swim out to the dolphins. As they got in they realized that the water was very cold, the dolphins were pretty far out by some rocks, and that each guy thought the other was more experienced swimming in the ocean than he really was. It was pretty amusing to watch.

We reluctantly left Jeffrey's Bay to get to our next destination of Mossel Bay on the Garden Route. Along the way we stopped in Plettenberg Bay for lunch. I first heard of Plettenberg Bay from Jackie who spent a summer (or winter here) there. Other people and the guide books also spoke highly of it. As soon as we entered the town we could tell this town was not like any other place we had been to in SA yet. Rather than an African or westernized South African town, Plett more closely resembles Malibu, Laguna Beach, or La Jolla. It is crazy rich and crazy white. We went to lunch at the Lookout which had a nice deck right on a point that overlooked the beach. We were lucky to get a table at the corner of the deck so we had a very nice view. I felt a bit uncomfortable at this restaurant—not because I stuck out, but because I was worried that I fit in. Every guest and all of the wait staff were white, many of whom were speaking Afrikaans (a very politically incorrect language), and of course all of the kitchen staff were black. When ordering we asked the waitress to bring us tap water, but she discouraged us from drinking it because they supposedly had some scare with the water a few weeks before and it was smelling funny or something. So we gave in and ordered a bottle of water. Later I was very thirsty after my glass of expensive water, so I asked for tap water. The waitress told me she wouldn’t be responsible for whatever happened to me, and gave us a weird look when she put the glass down on the table. It smelled and tasted like nothing and I feel fine. As I looked around I noticed that everyone had ice cubes in their drinks, so we asked the waitress if they use the tap water for the ice cubes, and she said of course they do… Enough said. After lunch we played in the water before getting back on the road. Driving around Plett we noticed that unlike every other place we have been in SA, the crazy nice houses did not have big fences around them. We jokingly proposed that perhaps there is a Plettenberg Bay fence. A few minutes later we were back on the N2...and sure enough, there is a Plettenberg Bay fence on the other side of which was a very rugged shanty town. Within less than a five minute drive were the nicest homes I have seen in SA and the poorest. I felt disgusted for supporting the rich, paradisical lifestyle while clearly so many are suffering for it. As we continued along the Garden Route a similar situation appeared to be present in other towns such as Knysna and George where beautiful beach villas were juxtaposed with tin and plywood shanties, separated by a metal fence along the highway. This painful reality definitely diminished the beauty of the Garden Route for me. Just before sundown we arrived in Mossel Bay which is a very charming town whose strong Dutch roots are still present. Just like the town, our backpackers was very clean and charming. For dinner we had a Girls' Night Out at a Cuban restaurant in town. Cuban food in an Afrikaner town--that's South Africa for you.

The next day we got an early start to get to our splurge for the trip--a night at five-star holiday apartments in Franschhoek in the Winelands. To get there we had to drive over a mountain pass. Sign reading was tricky throughout the Western Cape because there is a surprising amount of Afrikaans still used there, so every other sign is in Afrikaans. I was particularly confused when I saw signs towards "Kaapstad"--I simply could not find it on the map (it turns out that Kaapstad is Cape Town in Afrikaans). On the way down into the valley we came across a family of babboons in the road. We pulled off and watched them, windows rolled up, for about ten minutes as they played on the rock face and dodged cars. There is an amusing video of the incident on YouTube if you are interested. After the babboon encounter we made it to Sorbonne (our five-star digs for the night). The other car excitedly beat us there and luckily we were able to check in early. At $50 per person per night that place was a deal because it was without a doubt the nicest place I have ever stayed. It had everything from a full kitchen to plasma tv's, a washer/dryer, and heated towel rails. Franschhoek, settled by the French Huguenots in the 1600s, is the food capital of South Africa so after settling in we walked down the main road in town which is lined with fabulous French restaurants and cafes. We went to French Connection for lunch. I had the most amazing mushroom tortellini and warm chocolate tart. This meal bumped the one at Smoky Swallows in East London from the place of best meal I have had in SA. Even though this was the food capital, I couldn't resist the opportunity to cook in a real kitchen and save a few bucks, so after lunch I went shopping for ingredients to make eggplant parmesan. My only disappointment with the food capital (and SA for that matter) is that we could not find a French bakery of any sort. You would think that along with good wine and cheese would be a demand for good bread, but I guess not. We finally found a baguette at the grocery store but I would say it was a step below the baguettes at Petit Casino. Anyway we had some very nice local wine with dinner and for dessert we had smores which we roasted in the fancy fireplace. After a good night's rest and a light breakfast in anticipation for lunch, we checked out and went wine tasting at a local winery. The first winery we tried was Stony Brook where we tried eight wines for only R20 (less than $3). Of course I bought the most expensive wine--a Ghost Gum Cabernet '04, but it was by far the best, and still reasonably priced at R140. After the tasting we had to make our reservation at La Petite Ferme, a restaurant that only serves lunch with a great location overlooking the valley. Those who got the soup starter agreed it was some of the best soup they had ever had. I ordered the beet fritters which were served with asparagus and a bean salad. I adored the salad, but was not sure what to make of the beet fritters--they were unlike anything I have ever had, yet they had a bitterness which I found unpleasant. Nonetheless, as a foodie I was satisfied with the novelty of the dish. For dessert I had a pine nut-lemon tartlet which was served with lemon ice cream and icy limoncello. It was divine. After lunch we went outside to get a better view. It had been raining so the grass was pretty wet and I stepped in a particularly mushy part and slid onto my butt...in front of the crowded restaurant, getting mud up my leg and on my butt. Luckily my luggage was in the car so I was able to change, plus I was still feeling 'happy' from the wine tasting that morning so I was not completely mortified but able to laugh it off. The long lunch event only left time for a stop at one more winery, Glen Wood. There I bought the '06 Vigneron's Selection Chardonnay which I will try to let sit for a few years.

Once done at Glen Wood it was time to continue on towards Cape Town. Along the way we passed through Stellenbosch, the South African town that is practically synonymous with wine, but once there looked much more like a busy college town. We were very happy that we stayed in quaint little Franschhoek instead. After passing an immense township alongside the N2 we were finally in Cape Town, the Mother City. Cape Town resembles San Francisco in many ways--hilly streets set on a grid layout, good food, mixed-use buildings, a vibrant gay community, and a touristy but beautiful waterfront. Finding the backpackers was tricky because the signage in Cape Town is poor, and some of the streets don't go through which is not indicated on the map. We stayed in Green Point, which is a pretty nice district close to the V&A Waterfront. Having gotten there close to dark we didn't have much time to orient ourselves with city, so after having dinner nearby we had an early night in anticipation for an early start the next day. So before sunrise we got up to head down the Cape Peninsula. The vistas were spectacular and the roads in Table Mountain National Park nearly empty that early in the morning. Along the way we were treated to a full rainbow, and just before Cape Point we had another encounter with babboons. Although this time there were a lot more and they were even more inquisitive. So inquisitive that one of them climbed onto our car! I was a little worried because they are known to be aggressive animals and we were clearly outnumbered (although we never dared step outside the vehicle). After the babboon climbed off the roof of our car we decided it was time to keep moving. The roads within the Cape Point park were very empty when we got there so Jessi and Amir let me do some driving. So not only have I now driven on the other side of the road, but I drove on the other side in a manual! Go me! I drove us to Cape of Good Hope, the most south-western point in Africa which is on the cold Atlantic side. We then went on to Cape Point (although we didn't make it all the way to the point) which is where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. We took a funicular up to the lookout spot, but didn't have the time or the proper footwear for the two-hour hike to the point. Instead we continued back up the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula to Simon's Town, the home of the African Penguins which were very cute as penguins always are. We then headed back to Cape Town to go up Table Mountain. We lucked out because apparently the cable car hadn't been operating for a few days due to wind but it was operating on Thursday which also happened to be a gorgeous sunny day. The top of Table Mountain is over 1000 meters above sea level so it was much colder up there (about 45F). After walking around and taking pictures we went into the cafe at the top to get hot chocolate. I was shocked to see that they had Stella Artois on tap at the top of the mountain, so I felt obligated to get a pint (I was thinking of you Zanny). After exploring Table Mountain we returned to the backpackers to rest for a bit. We then headed out to Long Street, the party/club street of Cape Town, for dinner with Emily and Bridget from Rutgers who happened to be staying in the room next to us in the backpackers. We had a good dinner with good service (a true novelty in SA) at Cafe Mojito, where they had real limes and real tortilla chips! However most of us didn't party/go clubbing on Long Street because the Jessis, Amir, and I had another very early day scheduled the next morning.

The next day we got up at 5:30am since we had booked a big five safari at a game reserve about 1.5 hours from Cape Town. On the way we got to see a glorious sunrise over the mountains. After breakfast we set out on the "safari." We saw four of the big five: cape buffalo, elephants, rhinos, and lions. Leopards rarely come out during the day so we didn't see them. In addition to the big five animals, we saw giraffes, springbok (the national animal of SA), and wildebeest. During the safari Amir demonstrated to the crowd just how crazy he is by eating termites, smelling rhino dung, and challenging the game driver to a giraffe-dung-spitting-contest. After lunch we headed back to Cape Town to see the waterfront. Rather than peruse the over-priced shops we decided to go on a sunset cruise around Table Bay Harbour. It was well worth it because there were only about 12 people on the 100-ft sail boat besides the crew, and we got to see a spectacular sunset. After the cruise we headed over to Mitchell's Brewery--that's right, a brewery in SA--for dinner. Jessi from UCSD and I happily ordered the locally brewed Ferryman's Ale and Raven Stout. Jessi from Germany was disappointed that they were out of Beck's on tap. Exhausted from the long day we headed back to the backpackers. The next morning, the Jessis and I went to Melissa's Food Shop (a full-blown foodie shop) down the street for breakfast. I was very pleased to get fresh-squeezed orange juice, not that nectar junk, and would have spent a lot of money at the shop had my suitcase not been full already. It was then time to head to the airport and get back to real life. When we returned the car, the tripometer indicated that we drove 2600km (~1600 miles).

I have never taken a road trip across the US, but I have now road tripped across South Africa! I feel very privileged to have completed a trip that most South Africans will never have a chance to take. I can safely say that a majority of the students in PMB have never been to Cape Town, let alone road tripped there. I am now looking forward to a trip to Mozambique and Swaziland in a couple weeks when we have a couple public holidays back to back. On Sunday I got a hair cut, and as it turns out my hair stylist just spent a lot of time in Mozambique and Swaziland and knows a lot of people up there that she can hook us up with. I am meeting with her later this week to see her photos and get the details. I am frequently impressed with the friendliness of random South Africans. That is definitely one of the things I will miss the most when I return home.

Keeping Busy (Not with School)

2007-04-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

As usual, the last week has been filled with interesting and varied experiences, most of which have been outside of the classroom. I am now getting ready for a week-long trip down the coast to Cape Town (about 1800km) with seven other international students. We will drive there in about four days and spend four days around Cape Town before flying back. Should be a fun trip. Anyway, this will probably be my last post before I get back and I won’t have much internet access from April 6 to April 15, just so you know.

This weekend I finally had a chance to go to the Trustfeed School outside PMB with Sibambisene, the student group recently founded by international students here. Due to a lack of existing reliable non-profits that do community work, we decided to form our own student group for doing community work (I really can't take credit for it because I have been unable to commit to the administrative functions thus far). This was the third visit that the group has made to the rural community center, about 45 minutes from PMB. How it works is a bunch of kids of all ages come to the community center every Saturday, so we bring volunteers and supplies to facilitate activities with them. For the younger kids (ages 3-10) we made paper masks, read books, and made paper airplanes. The community center has a few computers, so the older kids were learning basic word processing tools. The goal of the organization is to encourage kids to stay in school and motivate them to go to college. Like in most rural communities in South Africa, these kids are very poor. Most of them do not have shoes, many have tattered clothes, and it is statistically likely that some of them don't have parents. At the school and community center they get one meal a day, but for some that is all the food they have. The kids start learning English at school around age 7 or 8, so most of the younger kids only speak Zulu. This was my first experience around non-American, non-Israeli kids of this age, and I was incredibly impressed with how well-behaved and enthusiastic they were. As soon as we got there, they pulled up chairs and waited patiently as we set up the activities. When we started the mask making they were, for the most part, very good about sharing glue, paper, and markers. Some of the international students borrowed some English and Zulu books from the library to read to them. Even when we butchered their language by trying to read the Zulu books to them, they still gathered up chairs around us and listened attentively. I was pretty surprised by this since I'm sure the older kids could have read the story better, but I have a feeling that they don't get stories read to them by adults very often, so even when the reader is an American destroying the Zulu language, it is still special. I was also impressed at how helpful some of the kids were without us even asking. For instance, the ones who knew English would help translate for us and even tried to teach us some Zulu. The kids are incredibly cute and love having their picture taken. After taking a picture of Mani with about 10 kids, they all swarmed around my camera to get a glimpse of the picture--it was adorable. Many of us are in agreement that we wish we could steal a kid or two and take them home with us. Overall it was a great day.

Monday evening was the first night of Passover, so Emily from Rutgers, Jacob, and I went to a seder at the only Chabad in KwaZulu-Natal in Umhlanga Rocks which is just up the coast from Durban about 100km away from PMB. Emily arranged a ride there with a woman who lives in PMB, but we hadn't figured out a way to get back until Sunday night because hiring a cab would be very expensive and possibly unreliable. Jessi, in her awesomeness, offered to rent a car and drive to Umhlanga to pick us up at 11:30pm, when the seder was supposed to be over. So Monday morning we were able to get her directions and a map. We got to the Chabad by 4pm which was plenty early, so we just hung out around the place for a couple hours. This Chabad must have one of the nicest locations in the world. The Chabad house has a view of the ocean which is just a few blocks away, it also has a swimming pool and a flat screen tv--I'm not sure why. All homes in South Africa that are middle class or nicer have fences and security systems with signs that say something like "Chubb Armed Response," so on the Chabad's fence they had a sign that said "Protected by Mezuzah Security" (a mezuzah is a torah scroll that you place on doorways). It was also nice to see that the Chabad didn't see it necessary to have electric fences unlike their neighbors. Only in South Africa do Jewish community centers have less security than ordinary homes. Surprisingly, we were not the only Americans at the seder. There was a girl from Portland and a handful of American yeshiva bacherim studying in Jo'burg of all places, but that's Chabad for you. The girl from Portland is actually still in high school and doing a year-long exchange in Chatsworth, an Indian suburb of Durban. Her experience has been so different from ours and I think is a good example of why high school students should not go abroad for a year. Apparently she applied to be an exchange student, but not necessarily to go to South Africa, and this is where her school sent her without any orientation. She is the only American at her school and since Chatsworth isn't very safe she can never leave her host family's home alone--day or night. So she only goes back and forth to school where she feels she can't trust her fellow students and they don't trust her, and where she was mugged on Thursday. She hasn't done any travelling besides going to Umhlanga, and she doesn't have internet access at school or where she lives so she has very limited communication with family and friends back home. To me that sounds like a horrible experience and I would be begging my parents to let me come back home. I have a feeling she is going to be very jaded about South Africa and living abroad after this experience. After everyone davened, the seder finally started around 7pm. Since there were almost 100 people there, everything took long, such as hand-washing, passing around food, etc. I lost track due to hunger, but I think the meal started some time around 9pm. I nearly finished my portion of shmurrah matzo before we had a chance to say the blessing over the maror (horseradish, or bitter herbs). Once the food started coming out I was disappointed not to see any matzo ball soup. I have a feeling that matzo balls are not considered kosher for Pesach amongst the more observant Jews because they were very particular about eating the shmurrah matzo away from the table so as not to expose any crumbs to moisture (i.e. wine). There was also no kugel or Pesadik pastries, which may also have something to do with the limited availability of matzo meal type products. The only special kosher for Pesach product I have seen in Checkers is matzo. Anyway, when Jessi and Lauren got there at 11:30pm we were just finishing the meal (two glasses of wine still to go), so like most of the other seder guests, we left early. At the rate it was going, the seder probably continued until 1 or 2am. Leaving when we did, we didn't get back to PMB until 1am.

Class is becoming less and less of a priority for me here. I think that the name "Education Abroad Program" is more accurate than the term "studying abroad." I am definitely getting an education while abroad, but I'm not doing much studying and most of what I learn is outside the classroom. Lately Mani, Lauren, Jessi, and I have been good at motivating each other to do anything but study or go to class. For instance, last Tuesday we were hanging around my flat after dinner, and someone (probably me) made a comment about craving ice cream. Someone then made a comment about wishing that the restaurants could deliver ice cream since it was kind of rainy. Then someone said that they'd be willing to take a taxi into town to get waffles and ice cream, which we all readily agreed upon (I love these people). So my little comment about wanting some ice cream turned into a three-hour outing. On Wednesday, I showed up five minutes late to my Zulu practical, which was fine because the tutor showed up 10 minutes late (as always) with sheets of paper, tabloids, glue, and scissors. I mean honestly, I haven't had to do that sort of crafty busy work junk since I was a sophomore in high school, and even then it was pushing it. Even after arriving late, the tutor didn't have enough scissors and went back upstairs to find more. Pushed to our wits end with this class, Lauren, Jessi, and I got up and boldly walked out. I should note that back home the three of us are the type of students that NEVER miss class, even in classes that don't take attendance. That sort of activity was nothing out of the order for Zulu class. To give you an idea, in previous practicals and tutorials (what we call labs and sections in the US) we have played bingo and memory games. In lecture earlier in the week, the tutor came in 10 minutes late, and put on a tape of a poorly recorded dialogue. Most of us couldn't understand a word (except for the ones who already know some Zulu) and we told her this, but she ignored us because a small handful of students knew what was going on. That class is one big frustration and insult to my intelligence and abilities. Fortunately, my other classes (Labour Economics, Politics of SA, and Ceramics) are much less frustrating, but I still have trouble motivating myself to do work and go to class. This probably won't change while I'm here, but frankly I'm not here to do work. If I were allocating my time like I do back in Berkeley (work, work, eat, and work some more), I would be learning so much less than I am, and because of that I am not going to make a big effort to make school work a bigger priority.

Mom & Dad's Visit

2007-03-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

Seeing as Mom & Dad left last week this post is overdue, and I have newer things to report on, but those will have to wait a few more days as life dictates.

Mom & Dad are now back in the US after a jam-packed six-day stay in South Africa. They arrived two weeks ago on Monday. They were very lucky to rent a car with not only an automatic transmission (very uncommon here) but also with the blinker on the left side of the steering wheel--on trips I've taken the American/European drivers repeatedly turn on the windshield wipers when they want to signal. It was a little nerve wracking getting Mom & Dad to adjust to driving on the other side of the road. We were all in agreement that we would prefer to have me drive because I'm used to the roads, and simply a better driver, but the minimum age to rent a car here is 21 and I'm just a few months shy. As soon as we left the airport, Dad started pointing out almost every plant on the side of the road. When we got to my dorm this continued, but with picture taking. Every 20 feet or so he would stop because, "That is the tallest [insert Latin plant name] I have ever seen!" After sorting out the stuff they brought for me from home, I took them to lunch at my favorite place--Kara Nichha's. They were quite impressed with the $.50 roti rolls and now understand how I could live on that place. I think many of Mom & Dad's misconceptions about South Africa were quickly dispelled within a few hours of stepping off the plane. They saw that, unlike Israel (another middle-income country), buildings are well-constructed, roads are well-paved and drivers are polite, vegetation is impeccably maintained, and public spaces are incredibly clean--definitely more so than in the US. Sadly, I think that many of these "good things" can be attributed to severe inequalities that exist here. For instance, South Africa has 30-40% unemployment, so you see three or four people doing the job that you would see one person doing in the US. So here you have many more gardeners, cleaning staff, road workers, etc. Additionally, the cost of low-skilled labor is relatively inexpensive for the more advantaged segments of the population (i.e. even middle class families have full-time domestic servants). After lunch, Mom & Dad checked into the B&B that luckily turned out to be very nice. They stayed in a cottage behind a large Victorian house built in the late 1800s on about 5 acres of land (well maintained of course)--right in the middle of Scottsville. We then went back to the Scottsville Mall to meet Mani, Lauren, and Jessi at Checkers. Mom & Dad were once again shocked by the familiarity of the selection in the grocery store. The way they put it, South Africa is kind of like a parallel universe. It's sort of like looking in a mirror because many things are similar but they are flipped, like driving on the opposite side of the road, water draining clockwise, and flipping switches down to turn things on. The South African mirror also gives you a different perspective on your own life, and how much of an effect American culture has on the world. In the evening I took Mom & Dad to Ocean Basket at Liberty Mall, one of the few places around with sushi although we didn't get any, but the big news is I tried fish for the first time in 10 years! I ate it, but still prefer non-meaty, non-fishy things.

On Tuesday we drove down to Durban to go to the botanic gardens. As we were getting close, an accident shut down the N3 so we had to get off and try to navigate side streets with limited help from maps. The detour took us past the Howard College campus of UKZN where I initially applied to study. Seeing the surroundings I'm very glad I chose PMB instead. With some luck we made it to the botanic gardens. Dad was hoping for more indigenous plants and better labeling, but it was still a very relaxing place to be considering we were in the middle of the city--there were even vervet monkeys climbing around in the trees. Surprisingly, the curio shop at the gardens had the best selection and prices that we saw the whole time they were here. They even had real Magwaza pots, the clan I visited the week before, for only about double what I paid. After getting some African crafts, we went on to the African Art Centre on Florida Road, one of the happening streets in Durban. For lunch we decided to try a Thai restaurant down the street because I hadn't had anything resembling Asian food for months. We had to be buzzed into the restaurant--a reminder that Durban is more urban and probably has more crime than PMB. I didn't have high expectations since this was the first (and only) Thai restaurant I had seen in SA, and sure enough, it wasn't like California Thai, but it was pretty decent. The important thing was that I finally had some tofu! I even asked the waiter where they get their tofu, but it's from some distributor in Jo'burg, so I guess I won't be seeing any more for a while. After lunch we drove up the coast which had been devastated just the day before by the worst storm surges in 80 years. This was the first time I had driven up the coast, so I don't know what it's supposed to look like as a comparison. There were lots of locals out taking pictures, so clearly what we saw is not normal. When we drove by there were still 8-10 ft wind swells crashing against the heavily eroded beaches. We got off the highway to take a closer look in Ballito, which took us past some very fancy developments. The electric fence for the beach villas was seriously more fortified than the Israel-Palestine wall, no joke. Upper class whites in South Africa have a very high quality of life--it's like living in paradise--but the problem I have is that it is at the expense of so many who are forced to remain impoverished to support the posh lifestyle of the wealthy. For every few cars along the roads in Ballito is a kombi packed with 15 people--likely domestic workers or otherwise employed in the area. And just as many people as were in the kombis were waiting along the side of the road for one with space to stop and catch a ride home. Even in Palos Verdes, where there is a large concentration of wealthy people, I don't know a single family with full-time domestic servants. If you want to live a luxurious lifestyle, fine, but don't do it at the expense of other human beings who can't afford to send their children to school. More than anything else, I think the weak social conscience of privileged South Africans (of all races) would make it difficult for me to live here in the long term.

On Wednesday we went to Tala Game Reserve, where I had gone with a school group in February. Unlike my first visit when it was rainy and cold, this time it was warm and sunny. It was also a public holiday, Human Rights Day, so there were a lot more cars around. We went for a game drive and luckily there were also a lot more animals out than on my previous visit. We saw impala, ostriches, zebras, white rhinos, wildebeests, hippos, warthogs, eland, giraffes, and cape buffalo--all close up. It was very cool and there were even baby giraffes that weren't born when I was there last--they still had the umbilical cord attached. After having a nice lunch at the exceptionally crowded restaurant--one of the few places I have been to that was understaffed (due to the holiday), we went to Howick Falls. On the way back we stopped at Liberty Mall so that Mom could pick up some capris because she felt out of place wearing shorts since other women either wear capris or skirts.

After my Zulu test on Thursday morning, we left for Monk's Cowl in the Central Drakensberg. I took Mom & Dad to the backpackers I had stayed in the month before, Inkosana. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you're going to the Central Drak, that is the place to stay. This time we got to try the dinner that they serve which was very good. One of the advantages of staying in backpackers is getting to meet friendly people from allover the world, something you miss out on when staying at a hotel.

After a relaxed morning by the pool, we continued on to the Northern Drakensberg. On the way we stopped at Tower of Pizza, a restaurant/accommodation located in the middle of corn fields on the way to the Royal Natal National Park, where they happen to have excellent wood-fired pizza baked in a silo-shaped structure--hence the name. A few more kilometers down a side road was our hotel, the Cavern. I'm not sure why I didn't anticipate it, but staying at the Cavern was like staying at a resort during apartheid. With the exception of our interracial neighbors from Durban and one Asian family, all of the guests at the Cavern were white South Africans. In addition, besides the administrative staff, all of the staff were black. After checking in, we went to the Royal Natal National Park, home of the Amphitheatre and Tugela Falls, the second tallest waterfall in the world (the first being Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border...probably not going there). The park was stunning, but we arrived at 4pm and the gate closed at 6pm so we didn't have much time. On the way back to our hotel there was a large flat-bed truck going the other direction on the road that must have been packed with 30-40 people who are probably workers at the resorts--very disturbing. Meals at the Cavern were quite formal (we sat at the same table and had the same waiter the whole time) which was nice, but really unnecessary. It was also much less of a communal dining experience than at the backpackers. On our second day there we took a long hike in the morning during which we saw a herd of eland (the largest species of antelope weighing about a ton), baboons, and had a stop at a stream where we had tea and "crunchies" (granola bars). Mom wanted to rest after the hike, so Dad and I went horse riding in the afternoon. This was the first time I had been on a horse in almost 15 years, and my first time riding English saddle, so I might as well have never been on one. Luckily the horses were well behaved and knew where to go, but every time they started to trot I held on for dear life worried that I would fall off. After a shorter hike the next morning we headed back to PMB so that Mom & Dad could catch their flight. Although the Cavern was very nice, I don't think I could stay there again because I just can't support a place like that. For instance, since it is so out of the way the staff stay on-site away from their families. If you didn't know better you'd think it was pre-1994. Despite the comfort of the resort, I am happier staying at backpackers with their diverse clientele and lower reliance on low-skilled workers.

Overall, I would consider Mom & Dad's visit a big success. In the months leading up to my departure and their visit you could euphemistically say that they were apprehensive. The media and travel books make it sound like one has to live in constant fear of being mugged, carjacked, etc. In reality this is very far from the truth, and I am glad that Mom & Dad were able to realize that during their six-day stay. They went from having virtually no desire to travel to South Africa (besides visiting me of course) to wanting to recommend it everyone they know. If that's not a dramatic turn around, I don't know what is.

From Magwaza to Guinness

2007-03-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, my fun and awesome Ceramics professor, Juliet, took a few American students and some honours/post-grad students on a trip of a lifetime. We went to visit the Magwaza clan potters at their homestead in the interior of rural KwaZulu-Natal. To get there, it is a three-hour drive, about half of which is on dirt roads. I was sitting in the back with a couple girls doing their honours in Ceramics who had studied abroad in Japan last year. In general, because there are very few Asian people here, most South Africans know next to nothing about Asian culture, so it was a breath of fresh air talking to these girls. They could understand how I am missing tofu and told me that it actually is possible to find some locally. It was an interesting experience talking about common experiences in Japan while driving through sugar cane fields in South Africa. I have an idea where we went, but the roads that we went on for the last stretch do not show up on the map of KwaZulu-Natal up in my room. As Juliet put it as we passed through Kranskop (about the last point on my map before the road "ends") we were about to fall off the edge of the planet. It definitely got a lot more rural after that point, but compared to being in Lesotho just a few days earlier I didn't get quite the same "time machine" feeling. Along the roads there were lots of children dressed in uniforms walking home from school (the sight of the herdsmen in their wool blankets with feathers and what not stood out a bit more). The odd thing was that all of these children were out of school at noon, and Juliet explained that it's no secret that rural school children receive 100 hours less instruction than kids in urban schools. Along the way, we passed the home of Jacob Zuma, the extremely controversial former deputy prime minister. One of the more notable controversies surrounding him is that he said he took a shower after having sex with a woman who is HIV+, so he would be all right. The scary thing is that many people believed him because he is a prominent public figure. Around KwaZulu-Natal there are quite a few supporters of Zuma who want him to be the next prime minister, but I think most of the country thinks he is a crooked nut job.

After almost burning out the clutch and ruining the shocks of the minibus borrowed from the Geography department, we finally made it to the homestead. The homestead is situated on a slope with the highest ranking woman's rondavel located at the top. In the middle there is a chicken coop, which women are forbidden from entering because it is a man's work to care for the animals. As soon as we got there, women were coming from all directions bringing out their pots for us. We shook hands with the women and said our simple greetings since the Magwazas do not speak English and only a couple people in our group speak Zulu. We walked down to the bottom of the homestead where a few of the women demonstrated a small firing for us. Every step of the pot-making process is done with resources that can be found locally. The clay is dug out of nearby hills (so we think, they are a little secretive about where they get their clay), and the firing is done with wood and aloe leaves. Apparently the techniques have been refined and passed down over centuries and millennia. Juliet explained that if we tried firing our pots in that way they would just burst--although seemingly simple, the methods and clay used are very sophisticated. Just as taking care of animals is the domain of the men in this culture, pot-making and firing is strictly done by women. If a woman marries into the clan, she is taught the techniques by the other women and becomes an artisan as well. Certain things about the culture reminded me of Chassidish culture. For instance, I noticed that the married women wore a head covering of the same style worn by many Breslov Chassidish women. Also, when eating, men and women sit on opposite sides of the room. After the firing, which took about 30 minutes, we were privileged with getting to have a meal in the traditional style (which is how they always eat). Before we entered the dwelling we took off our shoes. Walking in the door, the men go to the right and the women go to the left. We sat down on mats on the floor, legs together straight out in front with our backs on the wall. At first I didn't have my back against the wall because there was a spider about an inch in diameter right there--finally someone else had the courage to shoo it out the window. The meal consisted of homemade beer made from millet and sorghum (similar to what I had in Lesotho), corn and bean dishes, a dish made from indigenous watermelon, maize meal dishes, and meat. There has been a drought this year, so apparently most of the fresh vegetable crops such as spinach have died, so there were many corn and bean dishes (that were quite tasty). We ate in the traditional style--no dishes or utensils. First a basin of water is passed around in which you clean your hands. The highest ranking woman then walks around the room presenting the dish to each person who scoops the food with their hand and then eats it--very efficient but very messy. I was worried I wouldn't be able to eat anything, but everything except for the meat served at the end was completely vegetarian so I had plenty. After lunch we went back outside to buy pots. By this time there were dozens of pots on display for us, ranging in size from a baseball to a beach ball. All were hand made using a coil technique with beautiful designs, and pain-stakingly hand burnished. Realizing I would probably never have an opportunity like this to buy hand made pots directly from some of the best artisans in South Africa I went crazy and bought four pots that I now am not completely sure how I am getting back to the US. Even though I "splurged" on these four pots, all together they cost less than $40--no bargaining. The largest one cost R120, or about $16. I honestly don't think I could buy that pot for less than $500 in the US--and here the money is going straight to the artist with no middle man. I am pretty sure that Juliet brought the American students along because she knew that we would buy a ton of stuff and promote the Magwazas' work to our "rich" American friends and families as I am doing now. After making our purchases we carefully packed the pots in newspaper and loaded them into the minibus--we must have bought at least 30. The pots survived the long bumpy ride back to "civilization" and the long walk back to my room. Mom & Dad will be here on Monday, so I'm hoping that they can take back a couple next week and I will probably ship the other ones. I have to admit that international students at this university get some incredible privileges--and I am perfectly happy to take advantage of every one.

The rest of the week was quite hectic since I had been gone pretty much all day Wednesday and had two papers due Friday. After getting less sleep than I would have liked on Thursday, I got my papers done. Friday afternoon I went to my Ceramics practical. I was the only American in the studio with about five South Africans. Somehow the guys got into a conversation about how men are supposed to be the head of household. I countered that in my culture the women usually call the shots, plus women are better managers than men. One guy (who isn't even in the class, but was visiting his friend) was trying to sound smart by using all this theoretical rhetoric, saying that in "traditional religious" culture the women always listen to the men--I think he was trying to write off America as being secular and devoid of morals. Having a brother who lives in a "traditional religious" culture outside of the US, I argued that in his culture the women definitely play an important role in leading the household, and in disagreements the woman is usually right. I kept myself from flying off the handle, although it was tempting, because these guys were just speaking from their own experiences. For instance, the one trying to sound all theoretical grew up in a household where his father never stepped foot in the kitchen or did laundry, not because he didn't know how to cook or clean, but because that is the woman's responsibility. I've noticed that guys here get away with saying a lot of chauvinistic things, and I think that is because it goes largely unchecked by the female population.

This weekend I gave myself a chance to decompress from the previous weeks in which I have been constantly running around. I am also trying to get all my work done since Mom & Dad get here tomorrow and I will pretty much be skipping class all week. Last night the Denison crew went out for St. Patrick's Day to Firkin, a pub/restaurant in town. We went there mainly because they had Guinness on tap--Jessi's prerequisite. It is definitely the "whitest" place I have been in PMB. Most restaurants or other establishments have a diverse clientele. Although usually an individual group will be of the same race, you will see different races at the same place. Not at Firkin. And when we got there it was packed with people watching rugby--a white sport. It's not like the food or drinks were even more expensive than other restaurants of the same type, it was just simply a white restaurant...very weird. Also something interesting about the streets of PMB after dark--at 8pm it looks how I would expect it to look at 3am--there is hardly anyone walking around and there aren't even many cars. The cars that are out drive fast and try to avoid stopping at traffic lights. I have to admit it's a little bit eerie, although not scary. I have very much gotten used to "being more aware of the surroundings" as they put it in the travel warnings. I do not live in fear, or anything close to it, but I have gotten used to being more watchful of my belongings (i.e. what I take with me where so that I am less of a target). Mom & Dad, if you read this before you get here, really, don't worry. South Africa is a lovely place with lovely people and I know you will enjoy it as much as I am.

Drakensberg Weekend 2

2007-03-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

This weekend eight of us went up to Sani Pass in the Southern Drakensberg on the border of Lesotho (pronounced le-su-tu). We drove up Friday after class so that we could be there early Saturday for our tour. We drove almost entirely in the dark (and fog at some points) so we had no idea what the scenery was like until the next morning. Many people walk along the roads and highways in South Africa even at night, so we had to drive especially carefully because every so often it seemed like a person would just pop up at side of the road. When we got to Underberg (the last town before Sani Pass) at about 8pm everything was closed except for the gas station so we made a dinner out of chips and ice cream. Finally we made it to the backpackers, Sani Lodge, which is definitely much more like a hostel than Inkosana Lodge, the last place we stayed which is more resort-y. In the morning we had breakfast with five other American girls in our EAP/Rutgers program who incidentally came to the same backpackers on the same weekend.

After breakfast we started our tour by 4x4 up to Sani Pass and over the South Africa-Lesotho border. The lodge we stayed at is located about 20km from the border. The pass is only accessible by 4x4 on a dirt road, so we got to ride in one of those crazy Indiana Jones-ish Land Rovers. Into the Land Rover we squeezed the eight of us, our guide, and Sarah from Sweden who is traveling in South Africa for five weeks on her own. Since Sani Pass is the only border crossing for hundreds of kilometers, there are even special 4x4 minibus taxis that make the journey a few times a day. Lesotho is an independent kingdom situated on a high plateau entirely surrounded by South Africa, so it is very dependent on South Africa for resources not available within its own borders, which is a lot. We stopped at a now abandoned trading post built by some British in the early 20th century. At that time, and up through the 1970s, Basotho shepherds would come down the pass (a journey that took between five days and three weeks) with wool or mohair (primary exports of Lesotho) to trade for just about anything. Now the pass is accessible to certain kinds of big trucks, so the shepherds no longer have to come down the mountain by foot with their animals. Along the way we took a drink at the "Fountain of Youth," saw some baboons, and made some other random stops because it didn't take long for our guide to realize that Amir is crazy and has lots of schpilkus (for example, we stopped so that Amir could get out and break an invasive tree). We were lucky to have a clear sunny day, so the scenery was stunning. In that area, South Africa and Lesotho are separated by a watershed boundary. Basically, whatever rain falls in Lesotho eventually flows to the Orange River which flows to the Atlantic Ocean, and the rain that flows to the Indian Ocean is in South Africa. Or as our guide put it, if you pee off the cliff, you are peeing into South Africa. After many hairpin turns and a stop at the border post, where Lauren got hit on by the border police, probably because few black women come through that border as tourists, we made it to Lesotho (I now have stamps from three continents on one page of my passport!). Besides the schnazzy Sani Top Chalet with its "Highest Pub in Africa," entering Lesotho was like stepping into a time machine. The difficult border crossing has left Lesotho very much isolated from the western world, unlike the cities of South Africa. The part of Lesotho that we saw is very rural and looks more like what many people imagine when they think of Africa. Most Basothos (in the rural area, I should point out--there is an urban city on the other side of the country) live in rondavels (thatched-roof huts) with no electricity or running water. It is above timber line, so there are no trees growing up there. Instead, people use a type of weed and cow dung for fuel. Almost all boys become shepherds around the age of 13 (sometimes as young as 9). They all dress similarly with a wool blanket and some sort of cap--sometimes from animal skin or embellished with feathers. As we rode along, some small children would run up to the vehicle asking for sweets. Because most people use horses for transportation, most of the vehicles that go by are filled with tourists. Our guide discouraged us from giving them things unless we took a picture of them (in which case there would be an exchange) because just giving aid when a person can help themself creates a culture of expectation. So we didn't give away any money or cookies, but we did exchange some apples for pictures. After another stop in which Amir got out to run uphill alongside the car at over 10,000-foot altitude (crazy), we stopped for lunch and a few of us hiked up the hill so that we could view the highest point south of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was maybe only a quarter-mile walk with a gentle incline, but at the top my lungs felt like I had just sprinted a mile. While stopped for lunch, Lauren received marriage proposals from two shepherds (she was very popular that day). One of them even thought that she was Zulu and was trying to speak to her in Zulu. On the way back we stopped at the home of a woman who runs a little shop out of her rondavel. There we got to try some bread baked in a pot over a cow dung fire (very good actually) and some beer made from maize and sorghum that is fermented for a couple days. The woman has a cute two-year-old daughter who is used to having tourists around so she is very photogenic. Her other five children are away at boarding school, the youngest of which is five. As we were getting back in the vehicle there were some shepherds nearby trying to sell us fish. Instead, Lauren bought a crazy woven hat right off the head of one of them. Apparently the grass used is readily available so they can go home and make another one easily enough. We then had a quick stop at the "Highest [Commercial] Pub in Africa" before heading back down the hill so that we would make it back into South Africa before the border closed at 4pm (we made it with about two minutes to spare). On the way back we saw some more baboons and some cool eagles and vultures. Even though we weren't walking around much we were all exhausted from the day and had a relaxed evening at the lodge.

The next morning after breakfast, I went on a hike up to a nearby ridge with Jacob, Amir, and Stina from Norway. The rest of the girls went straight to a waterfall down the road. The hike was pretty short (about an hour) but had a good bit of elevation change so it was a good workout. It was also very steep coming back down so my thighs are quite sore right now. From there we walked onto the property of the Sani Pass Hotel which provides access to the waterfall. We all agreed that the hotel reminded us of stereotypical images of apartheid: a bunch of white people lounging by a nice pool, hotel rooms with thatched roofs to remind you you're in Africa, and black workers in the background taking care of the grounds. I'm happy to say that most of South Africa does not provide this image anymore. We finally got to the waterfall, which was about 25 feet high and gushed into a deep pool below. The rest of our group were relaxing on the rocks to the side of the pool when we got there. To get down to those rocks we had to walk a few hundred feet downstream and climb down the hill a bit. I then took off my shoes and left my pack at the edge of the stream (which I'm glad I did because I slipped a couple times). To get back to the waterfall I had to walk barefoot along the slippery, rocky stream, climb over some boulders, and finally swim about 20 feet. A couple people tried swimming under the waterfall, but it was very powerful. Amir stayed in the water too long and got, what seemed to be, some hypothermia because he had trouble getting back. Luckily he quickly recovered after a few minutes out of the water. Climbing over the rocks was definitely more challenging for me than the steep hike earlier in the morning. Aside from lingering worries of contracting schistosomiasis, swimming to the waterfall was overall a great experience and once again tested my strengths. After walking back to the lodge, five of us headed back to PMB, while the other three and Sarah stayed back to go horse riding. This trip to the Drakensberg was very different from the one taken two weeks earlier, so it is impossible to compare the two. Both have been amazing experiences that I would recommend to anyone looking for some adventure.

Living with Lizards

2007-03-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

Although it is very easy to forget that I am on the other side of the planet, there are some situations that slap you in the face with the realization, "You're in Africa." One example, for the last two nights in a row I have encountered lizards...inside my apartment. Americans in other residences have complained about cockroaches in their rooms, but I have only encountered one or two. Then, Wednesday night, I was coming back into my room after watching Scrubs with Mani, about to get ready to go to sleep when I see a lizard on the wall in the corner of my room. I call Mani to come look, and then the lizard runs down the wall into the corner behind my bed. I send a message to Jessi (who has no problem with spiders, so I was hoping the same was true for lizards) to come help us get it out. Although it wasn't moving much with the lights on, I feared that when I turned off the lights to go to sleep it would start running allover the room and allover me. Jessi messaged back the she was in the computer lab waiting for Wakeem and Amir to walk back with her. So Mani and I are standing in the door, hoping that they will show up and come to the rescue. After waiting for 20 minutes it becomes clear it will be a while longer so we decide to take action. First we scope out the lizard's location: right in the corner behind my bed. Then we come up with a plan: one of us will slide the bed out while the other tries to capture the lizard in a tennis ball canister. There is a ton of stuff under my bed that I was worrying it would hide in, so I slowly pull out all the contents while Mani watches to make sure it isn't moving. Finally we are ready to implement our plan--I quickly pull the bed away from the wall and Mani moves the canister toward the lizard which makes a run for it. First it runs up the wall, then towards the window (which I was hoping it would go out of), then down under my desk. Finally, after some more chasing and shrieking it drops into the canister (although we weren't sure at the time because we couldn't see it), and we successfully release it outside. My room was in shambles after the ordeal, but I was able to sleep knowing that my room was lizard-free.

The next night I am taking a shower when I look up and see a lizard (same type as the one that was in my room--maybe even the same darn lizard) looking down at me from the ceiling. Before I know it the lizard loses its footing on the damp wall and drops to the floor of the shower and starts scurrying around, finally making its way to the side. I quickly wash the soap out of my hair and cut my shower short, all the while keeping my eye on the lizard in case it makes any sudden moves. I grab my stuff and shut the door behind me, leaving the lizard in the shower stall. I'm not sure if it made its way back out the window, but I'm going away for the weekend so hopefully it will be gone by Sunday. I have become tolerant of living with more insects than I am used to, but lizards...I'm just not there yet.

Peer Educator Training and Classes

2007-03-06T00:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend I attended training for the HIV/AIDS Peer Educator Programme. The sessions on the first day focused on the psychology side of our duties--how to counsel without giving advice, being aware of our own emotional state, etc. In the second day of the workshop we went over the basics of HIV/AIDS--what causes it, the myths, the facts, and treatment. Of the 40-50 people at the training, there were nine American students, so we definitely stuck out. At the beginning of one of the sessions we played a name game where you go around the circle introducing yourself, but you have to repeat the name of each person who has introduced themself before you. I was about two-thirds of the way through a group of about 20 people, so that was about eight Zulu names to remember/pronounce. I think I offended about eight people. In general, the South Africans were open to our input and dumb questions, but I could also tell that at moments we didn't quite mesh and they saw us as outsiders. For instance, on the first day we did a role playing activity in groups of three where we alternated different roles--a peer, a peer educator, and an observer to critique. After we finished the activity, my group had some extra time, so the girl flatly asked me, "So why are Americans so arrogant and ignorant?" She went on to explain that she had met Americans who were surprised that they weren't living in the bush, that people don't wear traditional garb, and that there aren't lions wandering around. Her response to such thoughts is, "When you board a jumbo jet in New York, where do you think your plane is going to land?" She definitely had some valid points, and her frustration is somewhat justified, although overgeneralized. Both her and the guy in our group (who was less outspoken) seemed annoyed that when some black Americans (who they prefer to classify as "coloureds" or mixed-race people) come to South Africa they consider it the "motherland." They contend that African-Americans do not have ancestors from South Africa, rather their ancestors would have been from West Africa such as Ghana. I explained that the education we get in the US tends to be very Euro-centric, so the little that we are taught about Africa has to be generalized. African culture is incredibly complex because it is made up of hundreds of individual tribes, each with its own language and culture, not to mention the added diversity from colonial influences. There is no way that a survey course of African history, or a world history class for that matter, can do justice to the complexities of modern Africa. This girl pointed out that westerners tend to view Africa as one country, with one culture, and just a handful of languages, which I think is sometimes true. She also asked me if white people in America think they are immune to HIV/AIDS. I quickly dispelled this impression, which supposedly exists amongst some white South Africans (although I'm not sure who). I'm not sure why she was putting me on the spot like that--whether it was a test to see if I was another one of those ignorant Americans, or because she is frustrated with westerners and I was a captive audience--I don't know. I appreciate that they were open and up-front with me, which I tried to be in return. This was a good reminder that we are ambassadors and need to act in such a way because we are constantly being watched, judged, and criticized. On the second day during the tea break, all of the international students in my group were standing together in a circle talking amongst themselves while the South Africans were sitting down on the other side of the room. I could tell that the South Africans were looking at us in a somewhat scornful way because the body language of our group was very closed off. I casually walked away from the Americans to sit down with the rest of the group because it seemed like we were inadvertently sending the wrong message--especially since most of the Americans at the training were white and all of the South Africans were black.

Earlier in the week, Jacob and Erica--a couple other Jewish kids from California in Denison, reminded me that Purim was on Saturday night, so we decided to throw a Purim party (for those who don't know, Purim is basically the Jewish holiday equivalent of Halloween). So I dressed up as Queen Esther, using my bedsheet as a toga, and with a crown made out of scrap paper. Others put together makeshift costumes as well, and we set up a makeshift bar in my room since you're practically commanded to drink on Purim, and played some Yiddish music while playing Mafia--good times.

On an unrelated note, some people have been asking about my classes, which I have mentioned little about so far. For the most part, I feel like I am back in high school, which although boring and tedious at times is a nice relief from the pressures of more serious work. This is especially true in Zulu and Labour Economics. There's about 50 people in the Zulu lecture, so there is no way for the instructor to gage the progress of each student like they do at Berkeley where there is never more than 20 students in a language class. Also, we don't have daily assignments that force us to practice, and since I would rather do other things with my time, I feel like I am not learning much. In Labour Economics, although it is a third-year class (senior-level), it feels like high school because the lecturer puts the notes up on an overhead projector which we copy verbatim and the content is highly conceptual rather than theoretical/mathematical, so there are no problem sets which is a major change of pace. For the first couple weeks my Politics of SA class was very from-the-book, but the other lecturer started teaching last week and she makes the material much more engaging and college-y. I haven't taken anything like Ceramics at the college level, in fact I don't think it's even offered for credit at Berkeley, but my instructor here definitely has higher standards in terms of artistic quality compared to my high school Ceramics class which is good. The tough thing about it is that it is all Thursday afternoon and all day Friday--the time of the week when the last place I want to be is in class. But the professor is not strict about us being there during the scheduled times--rather that we put in the needed time and enjoy ourselves. We are going to start learning how to throw this week which I am looking forward to. The good thing about my classes is that thus far I don't have much homework, which is a good thing because I didn't come here to sit in my room and work on assignments and read boring articles. I am lucky though because not all of the international students have as little homework as me. But still, nobody takes their classes too seriously here, so I still have plenty of travel buddies.

Drakensberg Weekend

2007-02-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

On Friday I got home from class at 4:30pm to learn that our plans to go to Durban for the weekend had fallen through. A bunch of us Denison kids really wanted to get out of 'Maritzburg for the weekend (as I alluded in a previous post, there is next to nothing happening around here), so I whipped out my travel book and started looking for places to go in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN--the province I am in). It seemed like some of the people in the group were not up for/equipped for camping, so that eliminated some of the nature reserves up and down the coast and in the mountains, so I randomly found a listing for a backpackers (hostel) in the Drakensberg Mountains with dormitory and hut type of accommodation. So I called them at 6pm on Friday to see if they had space for eight people on Saturday night, which they did. I then made an online reservation for one five-passenger car because at the time we had one driver and there were no larger cars available. Finding drivers was not easy because one needs to be: a) able to drive manual; and b) willing to drive on the other side of the road. Over the next few hours our group shrunk and grew to a final total of 13 and we got our three needed drivers. Our group consisted of six Californians, one Rutgers guy, two girls from the East Coast, and four Germans. When I went to sleep on Friday night we only had one car reservation and no reservation for the hostel since they weren't picking up when I tried to call back with a final count. At 7am the next morning Mani called again to see if they had room for 13, which they did, but since we didn't want to give them our credit card number ahead of time, we had to get there by 1pm to claim our reservation. I called Avis at 8am when they opened to see if they had two more cars available--they had none. The clerk gave me the number of one of the other car rental places at the PMB airport, but they weren't answering. So before 9am I gathered the three drivers and we took a taxi to the airport, unsure if we would be able to get more than one car. When we got there two other car rental places were open--one of which also had no cars available. At first National/Alamo had one car available, so we were going to get the two and go into town to try to get a third, but then the clerk found another available car! The Grand Prix was going on in Durban this weekend so apparently that's why so few rental cars were available. Finally we got our three needed cars and went to pick up the rest of the group.

We were on our way to Monk's Cowl in the Central Drakensberg Mountains right on schedule by 10am, quite an impressive feat for a group as big as ours. Without a road map (just some basic directions), and after an almost close encounter with some unobservant sheep in the road and a stop for lunch, we made it to Inkosana Lodge by 1pm. And, let me tell you, this place is unlike any hostel I have ever seen or heard about. It is gorgeous!! It is super clean, with beautiful grounds, a freshwater pool, and friendly owners. A really nice change of pace was that it was safe--we didn't have to worry about locking up our stuff (in the dorms, you even lock your door when you go to the bathroom). Once we got settled, the owner advised us about a hike for that afternoon. A few more miles down the road was the trailhead where we picked up souvenir (but very useful) Drakensberg walking sticks. As we started the 5km hike there was thunder rumbling overhead and lightning flashing over the dramatic peaks in the distance. I was a bit worried that we were pushing our luck, but as it turned out, the clouds overhead and light rain made for perfect conditions. As we walked along I couldn't help but utter, "Wow...wow...wow..." This was without a doubt one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. To top it off, the trail was very well-maintained and provided a good workout without being exhausting. Along the way were beautiful creeks, and we were told that the water is safe to drink, so despite my better judgment I tried it. Now I know what water should taste like--it was so fresh and cool. So far none of us have gotten sick from it--I will give you an update in about a week. At the end of the trail we were rewarded by Nandi Falls, one of those beautiful misty falls with a rock pool at the bottom that you see in travel brochures--basically spectacular.

After taking pictures and playing in the falls, we had to make sure we got back to the cars by 6pm, when they close the gate. Since we didn't sign up in time for dinner at the hostel, we headed back down the road to the place we stopped for lunch--hoping it was still open. Luckily it was (although when we arrived we were the only people there), and we had a lovely dinner at a place that clearly caters to uppity tourists, although it was still inexpensive by our standards. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel to try to go swimming before "quiet time" started at 10pm. Most of us hadn't brought bathing suits, so I jumped in wearing my hiking clothes. Like everything else that day, it was absolutely amazing. The natural pool (no chlorine, etc.) was lit by the half moon and the constellations were vivid (although upside down from what we're used to seeing). The pool, although a bit slimy, was delightful (I will give you a schistosomiasis update soon too). After splashing around for a bit I retired to my hut (that's right, I stayed in a traditional thatched-roof hut). Jessika and I took some of the nicer digs available--a hut with its own bathroom, which was supposed to be about R200 per person (less than $30!), however in the end the owner charged us a flat rate of R110 (about $15!!). In the morning we had a yummy hearty breakfast at the hostel before heading out for another day of hiking. Even after checking out we were welcome to go back and use the facilities at no charge--what a place. Shameless plug: If anyone is going to the Central Drakensberg you should definitely stay at Inkosana Lodge.

Since we were to go on a longer hike than the day before (11km) a few of the girls stayed back. The map we got at the hostel was not drawn to scale and it did not indicate topography, so it was impossible to tell how long/difficult the hike would be besides what we heard from other hikers. This is what we heard: It's pretty steep in the beginning, then you get to the plateau, and it's pretty steep coming back down. That's quite true, but it was more difficult than I anticipated. It was very steep in the beginning (glad to have that walking stick) and had a lot of elevation change (we don't know exactly, but my guess is it was at least 2000 feet up). I was definitely the slow poke on this hike, and insisted on going at my own pace so that I wouldn't collapse. On Sunday it was a bit hotter than the day before and there were no clouds, so it was direct summer sun with little shade for the whole 5-6 hours. Within the first half an hour I was already hot and sweaty, so I hiked the duration in my sports bra and did a poor job of protecting the extra exposed skin which is now badly burned. The guys, or I should call them mountain goats, went ahead for most of the hike, and we all met up periodically. Luckily Jessika stayed back with me so I wasn't totally on my own. For me, the highlight of the hike was Crystal Falls which was perfectly placed in the middle of the difficult climb. I took a little shower under the cool water and refilled my water bottle--without the refreshing falls I might not have made it to the top. When we finally made it to the plateau there was a mound-shaped peak nearby. Considering what we had already climbed, it wasn't much more elevation, but it looked pretty steep and I knew if I tried it I would have difficulty finishing the hike. So I stayed back with Jessika and Debbie, and Kate took off with the guys up to the top. This gave us a chance to rest and get a head start on the next leg of the hike. Apparently the view up there was unbelievable and the highlight of the hike, but I still think that if I attempted it they would have been carrying me back out. On top of the plateau it looked like a scene from the Sound of Music, except with more dramatic mountains in the background. Only drawback was the flies that insisted on flying around my head. Even though the way up was steep and challenging, for me the most difficult part was the descent. It was steep and rocky, with sheer cliffs on one side. Already tired at this point and not trusting my legs, I took my time. The walking stick kept me from slipping at least three times (well worth the $7). Jessika stayed back with me and Jacob waited for us periodically as the others bounded down the mountain. There was virtually no shade on the descent (about two hours) and I forgot to sunscreen the back of my legs and neck which are now very red and in quite a bit of pain (I've taken six Tylenol since I got home--not for my muscles). With sore feet (I wore my Chacos which are essentially sandals all weekend) and burning skin I finally made it back. That hike definitely pushed me pretty close to my limit, which makes me proud for finishing it. I would like to think that in hiking boots I could have done it faster and more confidently, but it was difficult nonetheless. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died in the middle of the hike, but I still got some pretty good shots which I hope to post soon. After having lunch back at the entrance at 4pm, and waiting for the other girls who went up to Crystal Falls, not knowing it was one of the most difficult stretches of the hike, two of the cars went back to PMB and one stayed back to hang out at the hostel. Completely exhausted I went back in one of the cars to PMB. The other car got a flat tire on the way back, but luckily it was the one with three German guys who were confident about changing the tire. I know it's a sexist stereotype, but we four girls in the other car were glad our car didn't get a flat because we wouldn't have had a clue about how to change it properly. We got back to PMB around 7pm and I think I was in bed by 9:30pm. The group that stayed back at the hostel was clearly not so eager to be back in PMB because I got a message from Jessi at 11:30pm that they had just gotten back.

This was definitely the best trip I have been on so far, and I am sure that everyone else who went would agree. I am truly amazed at how well everything fell into place at the very last minute. I would love to go back to Monk's Cowl, but there are so many other places to see in the Drakensberg and in South Africa for that matter, and less than four months in which to see them.

A Few Differences

2007-02-19T03:45:00.000-08:00

As I seem to be forgetting to mention these nuances in my posts, here's a list of some of the societal differences I have picked up on thus far:

Men vs. women- odds are a random drunk guy will tell you that men are better than women, also along these lines, it is socially unacceptable for women to drink beer
Sexual harassment- when the residential life officer told the crowd at a meeting last week that whistling at women is sexual harassment, the room went into an uproar of "what?!"
Accomodation for disabilities- at the same meeting, it was announced that if a student has a chronic disability they will have to seek housing elsewhere because the university can't accomodate them
Retirement age- apparently staff are forced to retire from this university at age 60 (no wonder the lecturers seem so young)
Corporal punishment- although illegal in South Africa, when my Politics professor casually asked the students if their schools used corporal punishment, it seemed as though almost all of the South Africans responded "yes"
Domestic servants- my Zulu teacher specifically asked the white, Indian, and Coloured students how they address their domestic workers at home, thereby implying that almost all families from those racial groups have domestic workers and blacks do not
Greetings- in general, people are much friendlier and more talkative with strangers here than in most places in the US
Food- there are more KFCs than McDonald's, and you can find samosas just about anywhere

That's all I can think of at the moment, but of course there is much more. However, I must admit that overall I have experienced much less culture shock than I expected. In general, the food is agreeable to my American palate, South African popular culture mimics American pop culture, the plants are mostly familiar (thanks Dad), living accomodations are comfortable, and communication is relatively easy. I'm not even missing Mexican food as much as I thought I would, which I think can be attributed to the abundance of flavorful Indian food and other spicy foods, although I wish I could find some tofu in the grocery stores. In short, it's remarkably easy to forget that I am on the other side of planet.

Settling In

2007-02-18T04:28:00.000-08:00

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.

Vacation is Over

2007-02-12T03:24:00.000-08:00

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.

The Real South Africa

2007-02-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

Today we got our first taste of the real South Africa. On our way to a day at the beach in Durban, about eight of us were standing together outside the Scottsville shopping center waiting for the rest of our group to show up when a guy standing nearby tried to pickpocket Bridget from Rutgers (her backpack was hanging over one shoulder). Wakeem from Rutgers saw the guy doing it and took back the money (no more than a few bucks). A local standing nearby saw what happened and came over (on his own behalf really) to shake the guy up and scare him off. A few minutes later this guy returns with the would-be thief saying that he called the cops. So the cops are now there to figure out what happened. It turns out the would-be thief was supposed to be working there as a parking attendant, but he wasn't wearing his orange vest, and the local who was "defending" us had a six-inch knife in his pocket. The police took in the thief and confiscated the knife. Interesting detail: In South Africa, when you are dealing with the police, you deal with an officer of the same race as you. When the white female officer at the scene asked why the man was carrying a knife, apparently his response was, "Shut up, you don't speak Zulu." Crazy...there is clearly a lot of left over animosity from the apartheid era. I also felt bad that the would-be thief got arrested because I don't see how that is going to ease his desperation or even prevent him from trying to steal in the future. It is true that crime is a major issue here and the police need to set an example, but I don't see how going to jail solves anything. Once Bridget made her statement with the police and the rest of our group arrived we were off to Durban.

A friend of ours, Robert, who is originally from Rwanda arranged a ride for us (16 in all). We went to a nice little private beach that was part of a Miami art deco-style hotel. The water was quite warm and clear, but I didn't go in too far because the waves were very choppy (one person in our group got tired and needed a lifeguard to help them back to shore, but everything was ok). Also, blue bottle jellyfish are very common there, and poor Mani got stung less than a minute after stepping foot in the water. Stings are so common that the lifeguard stations are equipped with a vinegar/ammonia solution to ease the pain.

We had arranged for our driver to meet us where he dropped us off at 4pm. He had apparently just been at the spot, but when we got there he wasn't. We had his cell phone number and he had supposedly arranged for someone to pick us up a few minutes later. It all seemed sketchy, especially since we already paid him half of the fare. We also didn't want to hang out around there much longer because apparently Robert knew a guy who was killed for his cell phone in that area. Finally, an hour later when some people were getting ready to take a taxi into town to hire another ride, a driver showed up and we made it back without any further problems.

Lessons learned today:
1) Do not wait around on the street, even in broad daylight, even in big groups
2) Always swim with a buddy
3) Do not trust the word of a kombi (minibus taxi) driver or pay them ahead of time

Also, although the beaches are beautiful, the parts of Durban that I saw had an overall sketchy and hectic feel, making me glad that I chose to live in quaint little PMB. For a country that is seemingly "modern" in many many ways, I am astonished when I see huge crowds of people allover the sidewalks waiting for transport. In this region there are few to no city buses and no light rail to speak of, which seems pretty crazy because I'm sure that a large segment of the population (if not the majority) cannot afford a car. This means that people are left to walk, or the more popular option, take kombis. As I alluded to earlier, kombis are minibus taxis that carry about 16 passengers on set, but unofficial routes for a very low fare. Also, for a lack of bike lanes, almost no one rides bicycles for transit. It's different, but it seems to work. I'm still getting the hang of it.

Some Photos

2007-02-06T06:54:00.000-08:00

I'm having trouble uploading photos to the smugmug site at the moment, so here's a few for now.

Beautiful garden sanctuary outside my window.

Denison residence hall--look like little Dutch cottages to me

The Old Clock Tower building--oldest building on campus from around 1910

Overlooking Valley of 1000 Hills

PheZulu Cultural Village

Just before the crocodiles got fed

Making the long trek back to Denison in the rain

My First Week

2007-02-06T06:45:00.000-08:00

Things have been moving quickly, and yet the days have been quite long around here. On Thursday, Mani (my neighbor here from Berkeley) and I went shopping to get stuff for the flat. First we went to Clicks which is kind of like a Longs Drugs without the drugs (drugs are sold at a "Chemist"--what we would call a pharmacy), so it pretty much had a little bit of everything. Then we went to the grocery store Checkers in the same shopping center which has a LOT of everything. It is pretty similar to the setup of supermarkets in the US and fully stocked at very reasonable rates. There are of course some differences though--for instance, when I went to the checkout counter the clerk told me that I forgot to weigh my grapes. I was confused by this at first and then realized that all produce is weighed by a clerk back in the produce section. This seems to be one more way that this country has sought to create as many jobs as possible to keep its people busy.

Bit of a digression: Looking around I have noticed how there seems to be double if not triple the amount of workers doing a particular job compared to what I am used to seeing in the US. For instance, our little flat is cleaned six days a week. Back in Berkeley, I felt spoiled because someone came once a week to clean our kitchen and bathroom, but everyday is over the top! Also, the campus grounds are impeccably kept by what I can only imagine is a massive maintenance crew. The examples go on and on, but I will just give one more. I have noticed that in a nearby shopping center parking lot, there are five crime guards...for a parking lot that has no more than 50 spots. Many of the jobs around are not good ones, but they are jobs nonetheless.

Walking back with our stuff as it got hotter, we realized, "Oh, Denison is pretty far." It was sunny on Thursday so by noon it was HOT. I spent most of the afternoon settling into my room and watching my first African rain storm. Almost every afternoon, a thunderstorm rolls through during the summer. I also started reading Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, who was a student at this university back in the day so there's a bunch of stuff around named for him. I heard there was another EAP student living upstairs so I went up there to meet her, and it was a very good thing I did as you will later find out. Since most of the 20-30 EAP/Rutgers students arrived on Tuesday night (the day before me) they had already organized a trip into the main part of PMB that day.

On Friday morning, Mani and I went back to the shopping center to get some more stuff since we were limited by what we could carry. I got myself a cell phone (ask me if you want the number) and some staple food items to start cooking with. On the way back we ran into Lauren from UCLA (who I met the day before) and Jessi from UCSD who informed us that we were supposed to be registering right then! Apparently university people had come running after all the international students to inform them of this at the very last minute. Mani and I were away from our rooms and didn't get the message, so it was a very good thing we ran into these girls. We dropped our stuff, and went right back out to campus to register. I'm still quite confused about how things went down, but apparently I'm in enrolled in four classes. They were supposed to have timetables for us, which they didn't, so I still don't know if my classes conflict... Anyway, I was able to get my student ID card which is important because it provides access to all of the gates around campus. Hopefully things will work out.

The good thing about having to register on Friday was that I finally got a chance to meet most of the other international students. There's about 15 of us from UC's and 10-15 from Rutgers. All in all, everyone seems very friendly and enthusiastic to be here. After the registration madness, a bunch of us went to get lunch/ice cream. I tried the vegetarian fast food place which is amazing--I got a roti roll which is like an Indian tortilla filled with three kinds of curry--all of this for 3.50 rands, or 50 cents!! I'm sure I will be going there frequently. We chatted with Chris, a post-graduate (what we would call a grad student) who is one of our mentors. He has lived around PMB for about five years, but he actually grew up in the Congo and his parents are from Rwanda. Another post-graduate named Maibuye, who I met earlier in the registration office because he was held up in line behind all the frantic international students, came by and sat down to chat with us too. He gave us some good tips on what we absolutely have to see in SA, and how we should go about doing it. This guy grew up around PMB, but doesn't speak Zulu because it sounds like he was raised by a white woman. The Zulu students here (which appears to be the majority) seem to always speak with each other in Zulu rather than English. After that, we headed back to campus, and Chris took a bunch of us to the career office to find out about local community service opportunities. We were then directed to the HIV/AIDS Support Unit who apparently do a lot of direct service projects which many of us are interested in. They were closed by the time we got there, so hopefully we'll find out more this week. A couple of the girls decided that they want Zulu names while they are here, so Chris--not knowing Zulu himself--stopped a few Zulu girls walking up the road to ask for help with picking names for us. For me, they picked the name Senthemba (pronounced Sentemba) which means "promise." Pretty nice, but I'm not sure I'm going to go around introducing myself as Senthemba yet...

Later that evening our host professor took us out to dinner at a nearby steakhouse (I was able to find a veggie burger). Prices are definitely lower here--a steak dinner was less than $10 and my veggie burger with onion rings and fries was about $5--tax included. Service was incredibly slow, but this gave us a chance to get to know each other a bit better. Unfortunately, by this time I was losing my voice. After dinner, about half of the group went off to a nearby casino, and the rest of us went back to get some SLEEP. I was in a group of four girls making the long trek back to Denison, so we decided to stop in the security office along the way to ask for an escort. We had two guards for different stretches of the walk. Each of them spoke some English, but their primary language was Zulu, and apparently neither of them had ever heard of California!

On Saturday, a bunch of the UC/Rutgers students took a kombi (minibus taxi) to the beach in Durban, but the rest of us needed a day to rest. Mani and I went into town where we ran into Jessi. We decided to see Blood Diamond (a ticket costs about $2!), which was a nice break from the heat of the day. Seeing a movie set in Africa (albeit not SA) with an African audience was an interesting experience. There was a strong reaction from the racial slurs that I don't think most Americans would pick up on, and I could've sworn that people were chuckling during some of the violent scenes--perhaps it doesn't seem realistic? The moment we got to the campus gate, a kombi with all the UC/Rutgers people who went to Durban pulled up--crazy timing! We were able to bum a ride back up to Denison because all the girls that live at Lodge got out there. Apparently everyone got stung by jellyfish a few times--ouch!

Sunday we had our first excursion out of PMB sponsored by our home universities. We went to PheZulu Cultural Village where they had a re-creation of a traditional Zulu village. There was a show with some dancing and singing, and they showed us some traditional huts. It was all pretty hoaky (think Colonial Williamsburg) and was clearly catering to non-black tourists. They also had a crocodile farm there which was sort of like going to a zoo, except the only animals there are crocodiles. We were "lucky" enough to be there for the weekly feeding which consisted of chicken carnage (I took a video if you're morbidly interested). They also had some of the deadliest snakes in SA there such as green and black mambas--hopefully I will only encounter these snakes when they are behind glass. We had a nice Sunday brunch buffet type of thing down the road overlooking the Valley of 1000 Hills (I didn't try counting, but it was a very nice view) before heading back to PMB.

Sunday evening I went to a culture show at the playhouse on campus. For the first half, they had a panel of students from different cultures (i.e. different tribes, countries, lifestyles, etc.). After the theatrical numbers, they opened it up for a Q&A session between the audience and the panel. The discussion got very heated over issues such as who you should be able to date/marry and being true to your culture/traditions. I learned a new term that I had never heard: coconut. Apparently this is used (in a not nice way) to refer to a black person who appears to have lost touch with their tribal traditions and embraced Western culture. One of the arguments against such labeling was that an African who comes to this region from another country is sometimes mislabeled a coconut because they don't understand Zulu even though they are fully in touch with their own heritage. The crowd was very open and vocal which was nice to see because I think a similar conversation in the US would be much more reserved for fear of not being PC. This felt like a much more authentic African experience than the trip to the cultural village earlier in the day.

Monday was the start of orientation--a long day of sitting and getting campus information thrown at us, hoping some of the useful tidbits would stick. Highlight of the day was "tea time"--no joke. For the first break they had tea and muffins (or perhaps you could say crumpets) waiting for us. I have now walked home in the evening thunderstorms two days in a row--maybe I will learn to carry an umbrella...or not. The second day, I realized I was basically walking across a golf course (New Campus is a converted golf course and there are large swaths of open field) holding a binder over my head as thunder rumbled nearby--a comically stupid thing to do in a thunderstorm. Oh well, obviously I didn't get struck by lightning...this time.

Arrival in Pietermaritzburg (PMB)

2007-01-31T22:57:00.000-08:00

Woohoo!! I finally made it, and let me tell you, so far it seems like the long journey was worth it. People are not kidding when they say South Africa is the most beautiful place on Earth. It is so lush and the air is thick with a sweet smell of vegetation (although this also means it is quite warm and humid...but so far I'm dealing with it). I have been placed in the Denison dorms which are on the "New Campus" which means it is down the road a bit from the old campus and the Scottsville shopping center, but so far I am very happy with it. I have my own room with beautiful flowering plants right outside the window that provide a perfect privacy screen from the walkway outside. In my apartment (or suite, whatever you want to call it) there are six single rooms, a kitchen, living room, and two bathrooms--a very nice set-up. Most people haven't moved in yet because registration doesn't start for a while (orientation doesn't even start until Monday), but luckily there is a girl from Berkeley living next door to me, so right now we are running errands around town.

It took a little while yesterday getting to campus because it turns out the International Student Office wasn't expecting me until today or tomorrow (not sure how they got that idea), but luckily there were two other girls from my program on the same plane, so the professor who's supposed to pick us up was there--just a bit surprised to see me. He first took the other two girls to their dorm because it is in a different location from mine, and we couldn't fit all three of us and our luggage in the little car. So I wound up having to wait at the airport for him to get back. Oh, and by the way, that is the smallest passenger airport I have ever seen and the plane was the smallest I have ever been on. On the same plane there was a girl from Zimbabwe who was also supposed to be picked up from the Int'l Student Office, but there was no one there when we got in so I talked to her while we waited. I had a good conversation with her and she explained that the situation in Zimbabwe is not as bad as the western media makes it sound. She said that perhaps about half of the population is currently suffering, and they are in an economic crisis, but the other half of the population is doing all right (I imagine she is part of the latter half since she has the means to come to university in SA and she speaks that way about the situation). I actually just ran into her on the street, but I feel really bad because she was calling after us and I was told to be aware of people following you so I was ignoring her at first then I finally turned around and recognized her. I hope she doesn't think I'm some paranoid American now...

Anyway, better get going so I can pick up dishes and other essentials. As I wrote before, the common fast food in Israel is falafel. Well, around here it is Indian food!! I already saw a vegetarian fast food place...how awesome is that? Going to go do some more exploring now!

Goodbye Winter, Hello Summer

2007-01-30T23:49:00.000-08:00

I am now in the Johannesburg airport waiting for my connecting flight to Pietermaritzburg (PMB) which is in a few hours. My last couple of days in Israel were pretty laid back, mostly spent hanging around the apartment and eating falafel. Saying goodbye to the family was not as hard this time knowing that I will be back in less than five months.

Getting to the airport was a bit of an adventure because the Nesher was running late and drove slower than usual because there was heavy rain and very heavy fog in some parts--little scary. I got to the airport with enough time, but when I went to check my baggage, I found out that El Al Airlines only allows 20kg of checked baggage total for flights not going to North America. So for my 9 hour, $1400 flight to Johannesburg they made me pay an extra $166 for 34 kg (~70 lbs) of luggage. Boy did I get ripped off. To give you an idea, a round trip flight to here from the US should be about $1700. I also now found out that I need to pay extra for the flight to PMB, but that makes sense because it's a small airplane and the flight was only $40. Moral of the story: don't fly El Al if you don't have to.

I am quite anxious to get to my final destination so that I can see where I will be living for the next 4.5 months and get settled in. I will give you an update from there as soon as I can.

Kiddush Craziness and More

2007-01-28T23:39:00.000-08:00

This past Shabbos was way more hectic than the one before it. On Thursday night I did some last minute shopping with Aaron at a nearby market. It was crazy busy and cramped as the whole market was pretty much one aisle that wrapped the inside corner of a building. Israelis are well known for being pushy--a fact made clear as one women was trying to push her cart
through me. One other interesting thing about this market is that it had separate checkout lines for men and women. I felt a little uncomfortable standing in line with Aaron in the shorter men's line, so I waited outside while he paid.

As always, Friday was filled with cooking and cleaning. This time we also had to put a mehitza (a barrier--in this case shower curtains--separating the men and women) for the kiddush, and all day long neighbors brought by cookies, cakes, and kugels. In addition, Calanitte's cousin and a friend, who are studying at the yeshiva Aaron first went to, came for Shabbos. Saturday morning was crunch time--setting up the tables, chairs, and food for the kiddush which started at 10:45. The way these things go is people drop by, have some kugel/cake/juice, say mazel tov, and go home for the second meal of Shabbos. In the end, about 10 women, 10 men, and 10 kids dropped by and we had a TON of leftovers. It didn't help that the women who came didn't eat a bite--something we were not expecting. Interestingly enough, Avital and the little girls there seemed to eat more than the men and women combined. After about an hour of open house, we cleared up for the second meal. I was seriously tired from all the preparations, so after lunch I had a nice Shabbos shluf (you're supposed to nap on Shabbos so there's even a special name for it). The ladies (me, Calanitte, Avital, and Calanitte's sister Keren) had the third meal on our own because the guys were at shul. As soon as Shabbos was over the serious clean-up began.

Sunday morning I went with Calanitte into town to run some errands. I finally took care of my business with Bank Leumi. It was nice having Calanitte there because the bankers' English wasn't very good and my Hebrew is even worse. We searched allover for a falafel place with a hecscher (Kosher certification) that she accepts, but didn't find one. I got myself a falafel and Calanitte stopped at Sbarro. When she was paying at Sbarro, they asked if she wanted to contribute a shekel (about $.25) for security. This seemed odd, and is odd even in Israel where security is always heightened and having your bag searched is routine for entering any restaurant or store. Then I remembered that Sbarro had been blown up a few years back and was relocated to this spot a few hundred feet down the street from its previous location. When I got back to Ramot, I had my falafel (in laffa this time rather than pita), and then Aaron and I went back out to the Old City to go to the Kottel (the Western Wall--the holiest site in Judaism). The first bus we took was a Mahedrin bus which caters especially to the Chareidi (ultra-orthodox) community, so men ride in the front and women enter and ride in the back. This was my first experience on one of these buses--on most buses in Israel men and women can sit wherever they want, but usually women sit next to women and vice versa. It just so happened that on this bus there were more men than women, so there were men standing in the front while there were open seats in the women's section.

The second bus took us right to the Kottel. The Kottel was not too crowded which was nice because I could actually pray along the wall (last time I was there was the last night of Channukah and it was packed). After praying, I met back up with Aaron and we walked down the hill to the City of David (Ir David). According to Aaron, this is where the Cohens (priests) lived in the time of the first temple. Now it is right on the edge of a huge Arab neighborhood (probably the West Bank, but I'm not sure). We walked down a bunch of stairs that seemed to be leading to the Arab neighborhood. Aaron explained that there is a very holy mikveh (natural water source used for ritual baths) nearby, but you have to walk through the Arab
neighborhood to get there, and it's a bit sketchy (apparently someone he knows had his tires slashed when he went there). We were just about the only ones there, and I'm not sure if that's because they're still redoing the place or because it's not so safe. Hmmm...

Anyway, we made it back to Ramot without incident. On the way back, I saw a guy on the bus wearing a Berkeley shirt so I asked him if he goes there, but it turned out to be his friend's shirt--oh well, would have been pretty crazy if there was another Berkeley student on the bus to Ramot.

Now I'm beginning to pack up my stuff and get ready for the next leg of my journey. My flight to Johannesburg leaves tomorrow night, so I will be in South Afrcia by Wednesday morning!

Preparing for the Kiddush

2007-01-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

The last couple days we have mostly been busy preparing for Feyga's kiddush this Shabbos. A kiddush is an event where family and friends come together to honor the birth of a baby girl (the equivalent for boys is a bris or circumcision). Today I baked challahs (braided egg bread for Shabbos) and Calanitte baked the third and final cake to serve at the kiddush. Yesterday we went on a massive shopping spree at the supermarket. I was worried about how we'd get everything in the overflowing shopping cart to a taxi with just three arms (my two and one of Calanitte's since the other was holding the baby), then Calanitte told me that the supermarkets deliver to your door for a flat price no matter how much you buy. Earlier that morning we had taken Feyga to the government-run baby clinic in a neighboring building. The clinic was in what seemed to be a converted apartment, and there Feyga received a shot, and got weighed and measured. Not only was this conveniently located, all of the services are completely free for Israeli citizens.

Aside from preparing for the kiddush, I've taken some small trips around. On Tuesday evening we went to the wedding of the daughter of one of the rabbis from Aaron's old yeshiva. The way that Chassidish weddings go, as do all other Chassidish get-togethers, the men are separated from the women as you walk in the door because men cannot see women dancing, etc. So I was with Calanitte, Avital, and Feyga on the women's side of the wedding hall. There the bride is sitting in a chair, giving blessings to women as they come up to her. The chuppah (wedding canopy) ceremony was supposed to be at 5:30 but it didn't start until 7:45. When it does begin the groom is brought over to the women's side, the fathers (his and the bride's) holding each arm. When he reaches the bride, he places a veil over her head. Then everyone makes their way outside to the chuppah, the bride escorted by the mothers. At this time Calanitte was busy feeding and Avital wanted to stay with her, so I stayed with them. We had a couple courses of the meal, but they were still serving food at 9pm when we decided to leave because Avital had school in the morning and we were getting tired. I couldn't believe the wedding went so late because practically all of the women there (and there was well over 100) had small children and had to leave before the bride even came back from her first meal with her husband. This was the second Chassidish wedding I have been to (the first being Aaron and Calanitte's of course). I later found out that the bride and groom were 18...oy! I knew that they were young because it seemed like the groom still had acne...

Yesterday afternoon, after the major supermarket trip, I went with Aaron up the Kever Shmuel Hanavi (the tomb of Samuel). It's a pretty short taxi ride away, but you have to pass a checkpoint to get there. It is the located on the highest spot in Jerusalem and you can even climb up on the roof, so the view was amazing. After praying there, we bummed a ride back down the hill to Ramot--a very Israeli thing to do.

Between baking and cleaning today, I went downstairs to play on the mini merry-go-round after much pleading for Avital to join me. After getting some weird looks from little kids, I decided to go back up. Now, Calanitte's parents justed stopped by to drop off her younger sister Keren who will be here for Shabbos.

By the way, I'm planning on posting pictures just before I leave on Tuesday.

Shabbos in Jerusalem

2007-01-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

Since I last wrote, I have spent most of my time around the apartment. Later on Thursday when Avital got home from gan, she really wanted to play with me which was wonderful but I was dead tired. Jetlag hit me really hard this time and by late afternoon I could hardly keep my eyes open. Even with Avital jumping all over me, my body wanted nothing more than a nap. When I told her this, her response was, [cue the puppy eyes] "But Mommy told me that when I got home from gan that Jenn would play with me..." so I persevered until later that evening. Then by about 3am I was wide awake and stayed that way for a few hours. This continued for the next couple days.

Friday was spent preparing for Shabbos. Aaron and Calanitte prepared the vegetable soup, turkey stew (I left that for them), potato kugel, and apple-strawberry pie that we were to have for dinner that night. I relieved Aaron of some of his regular duties by doing the dishes, vacuuming and mopping the floor (Israelis have their own way of doing everything so I had to learn), and helping with grocery shopping. Shabbos was quite relaxed as it is supposed to be, and Avital was with her father, so it was also pretty quiet. Since I hadn't really ventured beyond a few hundred feet of the apartment by this time I was still unsure exactly where we are. Early Saturday morning this thought was brought mind as I heard what sounded like recorded chanting and music. Being that it was Shabbos, there was no way that this sound was coming from within the Jewish neighborhood--it had to be from a nearby Muslim neighborhood. In the Jewish neighborhood the only regular loudspeaker alert is the Shabbos siren which is sounded just before sundown when it is time to light candles on Friday evening (it is an actual siren so if you don't know what it is it could be quite disconcerting). For 2nd meal (lunch on Saturday), we went to the home of a family in a neighboring building. From my count, they had seven children ranging in age from six to twenty. Both of the parents were born in the US, so everyone in the family spoke English as well as Hebrew which was nice since most of the families around here speak only Hebrew (for example, a few minutes ago a girl came to the door asking something that I didn't understand and Calanitte is busy feeding so I had to ask her to come back later--after Calanitte told me what to say). The family that hosted us loves babies so much that they were practically ripping Feyga out of Calanitte's arms, but luckily Feyga didn't make a fuss while we were there.

By Saturday night the weather became very windy and rainy. The pouring rain and howling winds lasted through to Sunday morning, so I postponed my plans to go into the main part of Jerusalem. (FYI: Sunday is a regular work/school day in Israel.) Aaron came home from work early so that we could have lunch together. Every time I visit Israel I make a point to have falafel, so we got some from the place down the street (ironically, I eat more falafel than my brother who lives here). Falafel is a fluffy pita (not like most of the stuff of the same name in the US) stuffed with falafel balls (a ground garbanzo bean mixture that is fried), salat (cucumber and tomato), hummus (pronounced choomoos), tehinah (seasoned sesame seed paste), spicy sauce, eggplant, pickles, and topped with french fries. One of those costs a little over $2.

Today I finally ventured beyond the apartment into the city. Aaron had to go into the office of his work which is located across town. I went along with him because we needed to pick up a baby swing from a store across the street from his work. After we bought the swing and he went to work, I realized there really wasn't much to see over there (as Aaron had been telling me) because it is mostly an industrial/commercial area, and it was getting to be quite stressful crossing the street (or walking around for that matter) because there were cars all over the place. So I made my way back to the shouk which is the big outdoor produce market. I am semi-familiar with this area of Jerusalem because I have been around there a lot on previous visits, so I got off the very crowded city bus a few blocks before the shouk. I spent the next couple hours literally walking in circles so that I would not get myself lost. One of my goals today was to get some old bonds cashed at Bank Leumi. Seeing as this is one of the biggest banks in Israel I thought this would be no problem...think again. I must have passed five other banks before seeing a single one. Finally, I found what I thought was a Bank Leumi (the sign said Bnei Leumi in Hebrew so I assumed it was the same thing) so I waited awhile to talk to the right person who then told me that I need to go to the main branch, but by this time it was 12:20 and in Israel banks close at 12:30. Having failed that mission I started walking around the shouk aimlessly. I got a big cup of freshly squeezed pomegranate juice as I was quite thirsty from the hurrying around. The shouk was not all that exciting since I didn't need to buy any produce and I had been there a few times before. Having been to this area on all prior trips here, nothing seemed all that new or exciting, but it was still interesting experiencing it on my own for the first time. My proudest moment of the day was when I realized that I gave correct directions to an American couple that had approached me earlier asking how to get to a restaurant I happened to have gone to once a few years ago. I also found a nice cheap sling purse at a shop off Ben Yehuda street where they were selling almost nothing but these purses--this was a nice reward after spending hours looking for one in LA with no success. Just before meeting Aaron back by the shouk, I gave in to getting another falafel after passing dozens of shops and being tempted by the yummy smells.

Aaron and I made our way back to Ramot by late afternoon. (Another proud moment: I told someone the correct time when they asked in Hebrew!) The bus rides around town gave me a better idea of where we are in relation to the rest of Jerusalem. Ramot really is on the outskirts, with Arab villages just beyond to the northwest.

As I realized today, this particular trip is really about family because I've seen the touristy sites and they're not so exciting the fourth time around (especially by myself). So I'm going to continue enjoying the priceless moments with Aaron and his wonderful family.

Arrival in Israel

2007-01-18T01:35:00.000-08:00

I have completed the first leg of my long journey and now get to spend two weeks with my brother and his family in Jerusalem, Israel. Getting here involved a 14-hour nonstop flight from LAX and catching a ride on the "Nesher Sheirut" or shuttle service for Jerusalem. That in itself was a bit of an ordeal since the driver kept saying we were ready to go, and would then walk off for 20 minutes trying to fill up the shuttle with more people. At one point, me and some other women unloaded all of our stuff and were going to split a taxi, but then the driver came back and said we were ready to go (NOT!). The scenery on the drive over was just as I have become accustomed to. There's the rocky rolling hillsides covered in scrub brush and the pine tree that has been planted all over the country. The shuttle came the "back" route to Jerusalem, which to my surprise seemed to run in between Palestinian areas (note to self: look up route 443 on a map). Once you know what to look for, it's very easy to tell the difference between Israeli and Palestinian housing. Palestinian housing is usually cinder block construction with no windows (so it seems from a few hundred feet away), and ALWAYS has a satellite dish on the roof, which I find very fascinating. Another strong clue is the sight of minnerets used for the Muslim call to prayer. On the other hand, Israeli housing usually has a facade of Jerusalem stone and bars on the windows, and no satellite dishes (this is especially true in religious communities--they all look the same). And if you haven't picked up on those differences, there's always the infamous wall along certain parts of the road and checkpoints. Highlight of the ride was definitely when we turned a corner and there was a herd of sheep in the highway! Thus far I survived the standard crazy Israeli driving that includes speeding and driving over the lines rather than between them, and luckily mine was the first stop and I had no trouble finding my brother's place.

Once here, I was rewarded by getting to hold my baby niece Feyga. She is smaller than I imagined by this age, so I can't imagine how tiny she must have been two months ago when she was born. She is a very cute, animated little baby. Three times I waved at her and she waved right back!! Now, it's possible that she just moves her arm around periodically, but it was amazingly well-timed, so I interpreted the gestures as waves. My sister-in-law, Calanitte, is busy most of the day feeding her, but in between feedings I get glimpses of baby cuteness. Shortly after I got here, my other niece Avital (although not related by blood, just as loveable) who is five came home from school. I have been talking with her online regularly for the last year, helping to build a relationship which is good because she was a lot less shy when I got here this time. She even wanted me to sleep in the pull-out bed next to her's in her room, which I did although she fell asleep in another room. Apparently lice is really common amongst school-aged children here, so lice checks and shampooing are a way of life--I'm really hoping I don't get any! This morning Avital helped me pick out my clothes and advised me on which whould be better to wear for Shabbos since you're supposed to dress nicer for Shabbos, and apparently one of my sweaters has some "not so Shabbos-y buttons" whatever that means. I then got to walk her to gan (preschool).

Interesting note: This neighborhood has a bunch of specialized markets rather than one big supermarket. So there is the shop where they just sell produce, and one where they just sell fish, etc... I'm already enjoying the ridiculously cheap and delicious produce. For instance, the avocados are gorgeous and about $1 per kilo.

I can also tell that this is a very close-knit community. Susanne and Doug mentioned when they got back from their visit here last month that they felt like the little kids were staring at them when they first came. I definitely know what they mean now. I assume it's a combination of them not knowing us and us dressing differently. Whatever the reason, it's a little weird. But I figure I better get used to it because the fact is that I am going to stand out for the next six months. And so my adventures begin. Pictures to come soon!

Greetings

2007-01-09T14:59:00.000-08:00

I am new to the world of blogging, but I hope this will serve as a way for me to keep you updated on my upcoming world travels. I will be in Israel from Jan 17-Jan 30, and in South Africa from Jan 31 through the middle of June. I plan to use this site to share my experiences as well as photos of my adventures. Remember to update me over the coming months on what is happening in your life too!