First Week in the Durbs

Last week was still full of orientation-related activities. They started us early on Monday morning with a campus tour. Since I am in South Africa, I expect it to be warm, even hot at times. So, you can imagine my surprise when I walked out of my residence building and was cold! It was 22C, which is freezing here! Not only that, but it was the first time since I got here that it rained, so I think we got the abbreviated version of the tour (“See that building over there? That’s the library; and that big one beside it – that’s a lecture hall. Have a good day!”). We did learn that the lecture halls will be hard to find. The maps are useless, and no one seems to know where anything is, AND there are no clues as to which building on campus the rooms are. So, if you have a class in Lecture 3, your room could be in several buildings.

Once we were done that enlightening experience, I went to the bank to get some cash out. Carrying large amounts is not recommended in South Africa (or anywhere, I suppose), but after BOTH of my cards didn’t work during my shopping trip, I have taken to carrying some with me, just in case. However, this can get expensive, since the bank charges $5 for every transaction, and it won’t allow more than 1000 Rand per withdrawal (about $130).

We were still dealing with the school administration at this point, which is not a fun experience. Everyone sends you to someone else, and won’t do anything for you until you are able to tell them that someone else told you it was their job. This process was made especially difficult by the fact that this day was the first that everyone else at the school could register. The line-up to pay fees was more than 4 hours long.

Cooking is not my favourite thing to do here. There is no oven, and our pots are too small (as in, the size of a cereal bowl), and we don’t have a cupboard, so everything is stored in the freezer. Now, I have to defrost my veggies and my dishes! I think I’m going to be eating a lot of salads here.

The next day we had was free of school commitments. Still, we were troopers and got up really early, all in the name of fashion. The malls here are pretty outrageously large, and they close at 5 or 6pm, so to make sure that we weren’t stressed with closing time, we made a day of shopping! And, all of us were serious about it – Taylor and I made it for 6 hours! The prices are great, but taking a taxi everywhere can get expensive. Well, if I priced out how much it took (RIP) to keep my car running, it might be on par, but it’s different when the cash is upfront!

Bugs: they’re bigger here. A lot bigger. I found a spider camouflaged in my cup one night, which wasn’t my favourite surprise after I had already drank from the cup! Luckily, mosquitoes haven’t been such a big challenge. They do have moths here, though. And, they’re the size of birds. One night when I fell asleep with my light on, I woke up to a bat-like creature squeaking around my light fixture. I wasn’t taking my malaria medication yet, so sadly, I wasn’t hallucinating. It hid somewhere in my room, so I woke up periodically to the twitching of an unknown creature somewhere in my room (illogically or not, I closed my windows so that no more would come in). There are some pretty nasty looking cockroaches, too, but I haven’t seen them anywhere near my residence, so that’s a bonus.

The next day we went on a double-decker bus tour of the city. It sounds glamorous, but it was a city bus with cracked windows, and every once in awhile, our guide would yell a fact about an area we passed (“This is north beach…this is south beach…”etc.). More interesting, I think, would have been a tour where the guide told us what was a good place to visit (“This is an area that you should never go in; this is an area that is only safe in groups over 10 people during the hours of 10 and 2…”etc.). It was nice to have a better idea of what the town looks like, though. It is a beautiful, historic downtown. We also drove on some of the Grand Prix route – it’s happening on Feb 24th, I believe.

Then, I signed up for the diving club! They have lots of clubs here, including fencing, sailing, and yoga (although this yoga club is some kind of religion, so I avoided eye contact as I walked past their table). Anyhow, I’m pretty excited about the diving. They take us up the coast to do our training, as well as arrange dive trips to Mozambique and other cool places. To get my dive certification with so many amazing places to go at my fingertips is pretty sweet. That, and they had a free ‘wine tasting’ to accompany their weekly braai (traditional barbeque) this week. That went over well, considering the wine here is some of the best in the world!

Our next activity was a tour of community outreach sites. We took a bus through the beautiful Valley of 1000 Hills and visited one of the few rural AIDS orphanages. For some reason, the government won’t fund the rural orphanages, only the urban ones. Unfortunately, the kids were all at school, so it was an odd tour through the rooms of some African children who weren’t there to connect with. Next on the tour, we tried to visit a community library that is just down the hill from my school. It’s in the centre of a ‘settlement’, which is similar to the shantytowns on the outskirts of the city (where 2 of the 3 million people in Durban reside), but it’s unsanctioned, and it’s in the middle of town. Unfortunately, due to the load shedding (which is another way of saying blackout. They are having an energy crisis, so often lights will be off for about 2 hours at a time) the gates wouldn’t work to let us in, so our tour ended rather abruptly. This was our last activity organized by the school for the exchange students, so we are free to arrange our own events now.

Actually, I should clarify what an international student is. We had an (emergency) residents meeting last night, because they were organizing the students strike due to housing problems, and they wanted some input. I found out that there are many international students here, but “some are considered more international than others.” So, for the students, like myself, that have schools with partnerships with the University of KwaZulu Natal, there are activities, transportation from the airport arranged, etc. But for those who are not from South Africa, but are not on an exchange, they are on their own.

We had another braai this week at the dive club, but this time, it was combined with a FREE South African wine and cheese! Oh man. That is the best club ever.