Since Durban is right on the Indian Ocean, it is quite conducive to doing water sports. Surfing championships are often held here, the water is warm for swimming, and the conditions are great for Scuba diving. I missed out on the first dive course through the school’s dive club, but I still really wanted to learn. Since my exams were scheduled early, I was able to book a private course on my days off to get my PADI certification.
My teacher was fantastic, so I was really comfortable with my pool sessions. I had to swim a few laps before I began, after which my first experience getting into a wetsuit was a bit challenging: note to self, always dry off first, otherwise your fingers will bleed from trying to pull the suit on wet.
We went to nearby UmKomaas, which has a fantastic site to dive at called Aliwal Shoal. It’s a marine protected area, and is very serene. I was worried about being motion sick on the boat, but it wasn’t much of an issue since we were driving so fast to get out to the site. It was so busy on the beach though - the sardine run hit this area that day, and the people came out in droves to come and see the water become thick with the silvery fish. Of course, people aren’t the only ones interested in these tasty morsels: dolphins and sharks were having a great time in the bay. We saw the dolphins swimming happily beside the boat on the way to my first open-water dive. I happily dove in, and was greeted by a colourful array of fish. It was hard to regulate my buoyancy at first, but I figured it out without too much trouble (or damage to the coral!). After doing the requisite mask clearing (filling the mask with water, and then emptying it underwater), we were able to enjoy water. There was a strong current, but I didn’t know that since I had never been diving before. We came upon two small Ragged-tooth sharks, who had a truly intense presence. When I say small, they weren’t when compared to me - at least 2m in length! What a great first dive! After we surfaced, we boated along the shore to see more sardines. I saw a Whale shark jump out of the water to get a big mouth full of fish. Cool! My second dive we also saw some sea turtles and some other cool fish.
My next dives allowed me to increase my time underwater because I was better at controlling my breath. My first dives were about 30 minutes long, and my third was 60 minutes! I stayed down for longer than most of the others on my boat, which is pretty sweet. I couldn’t believe that all of the sardines were gone already though! I guess I would be fast if I had sharks chasing me. On my fourth dive, my instructor found me a tooth from one of the ‘Raggies’ to keep as a souvenir. I’m now officially certified as an open-water diver, and I can’t wait to go again! Anyone care to join me?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Xenophobia
Some of you may have heard of the recent violence that has erupted in SA. Here is the basic primer: during Apartheid, the population was separated into 7 ethnic groups, based entirely on appearances. (Even if you had lighter skin than your parents, you could be classified as a different race than them. For example, the pencil test was used to determine if you were black or coloured - if a pencil stuck in your hair, you were black, if it slid through, you were coloured) People here are still (not surprisingly) obsessed with these distinctions, now with four main groups: White, Black, Indian, and Coloured, which is a non-derogatory term here for people of mixed race. These distinctions go further though - tribal differences are extremely important. It is said that the President of the governing party, who has been accused of rape and is currently being prosecuted for fraud, was chosen because he is Zulu and not Xhosa.
Poverty is a huge issue in this country, with a large proportion of the population living in crowded townships with high levels of unemployment. Daily life can be a struggle here, so it is understandable that resentments may arise when foreigners come and find work. They are happy to find any work in a country where employment is challenging to find, even if they get paid less than the worth of the position. This makes it harder for the locals to get the jobs, as well as results in lower wages because the employers know they can employ foreign workers for less.
Another reason that foreigners are getting the jobs is that they are better trained. Refugees from Mozambique and Zimbabwe have much higher levels of education than South Africans from similar backgrounds, and thus it is easier for them to get jobs. There is a shortage of skilled labourers in this country, the solution to which is either foreign labour or education, and the latter is much more expensive. Foreigners are fulfilling a need, which may be one of the reasons the government has not tried to keep track of the number of illegal immigrants that arrive in the country daily.
There are many reasons why there are tensions between people in this country, but it is unclear why violence against foreigners has erupted so violently lately. Xenophobia, which is defined in this context as the fear of foreigners, has calmed down lately, but is still a huge issue. The townships outside of Jo’burg were enflamed with hatred first, but this spread to other areas, including Durban. Foreigners fled from their homes with nothing because of the violence - threatened and real. The news coverage here is much more graphic, so stories and pictures of people being beaten with axe handles and cement posts, and then being burned alive, were plastered in the media. Police stations became refuges for people, many of whom are refugees from their own countries in the first place. Even though the violence has calmed down lately, there are still people who do not feel safe enough to go to their homes, camps were set up, with care taken to situate people of similar backgrounds together.
Xenophobic violence has not been directed at me, but my friends from Zambia and Zimbabwe have been harassed. One test that is performed to determine if a person is from SA is to ask them what the Zulu term for elbow is. Since it is such an uncommon term, a non-native would not easily respond, resulting in harassment. This has happened on campus, which is scary.
The situation has calmed down since the violence first arose, even though the government has chosen not to address this issue. With the Red Cross and community groups organizing aid for those affected by the violence, the perception is that foreigners are continuing to get better treatment, continuing the resentment between SA nationals and others. It has been eye-opening to be present for the development of this issue: at home I would sympathize, but feel separated from it. Now that I know people who have been touched, it is much harder to do that.
Poverty is a huge issue in this country, with a large proportion of the population living in crowded townships with high levels of unemployment. Daily life can be a struggle here, so it is understandable that resentments may arise when foreigners come and find work. They are happy to find any work in a country where employment is challenging to find, even if they get paid less than the worth of the position. This makes it harder for the locals to get the jobs, as well as results in lower wages because the employers know they can employ foreign workers for less.
Another reason that foreigners are getting the jobs is that they are better trained. Refugees from Mozambique and Zimbabwe have much higher levels of education than South Africans from similar backgrounds, and thus it is easier for them to get jobs. There is a shortage of skilled labourers in this country, the solution to which is either foreign labour or education, and the latter is much more expensive. Foreigners are fulfilling a need, which may be one of the reasons the government has not tried to keep track of the number of illegal immigrants that arrive in the country daily.
There are many reasons why there are tensions between people in this country, but it is unclear why violence against foreigners has erupted so violently lately. Xenophobia, which is defined in this context as the fear of foreigners, has calmed down lately, but is still a huge issue. The townships outside of Jo’burg were enflamed with hatred first, but this spread to other areas, including Durban. Foreigners fled from their homes with nothing because of the violence - threatened and real. The news coverage here is much more graphic, so stories and pictures of people being beaten with axe handles and cement posts, and then being burned alive, were plastered in the media. Police stations became refuges for people, many of whom are refugees from their own countries in the first place. Even though the violence has calmed down lately, there are still people who do not feel safe enough to go to their homes, camps were set up, with care taken to situate people of similar backgrounds together.
Xenophobic violence has not been directed at me, but my friends from Zambia and Zimbabwe have been harassed. One test that is performed to determine if a person is from SA is to ask them what the Zulu term for elbow is. Since it is such an uncommon term, a non-native would not easily respond, resulting in harassment. This has happened on campus, which is scary.
The situation has calmed down since the violence first arose, even though the government has chosen not to address this issue. With the Red Cross and community groups organizing aid for those affected by the violence, the perception is that foreigners are continuing to get better treatment, continuing the resentment between SA nationals and others. It has been eye-opening to be present for the development of this issue: at home I would sympathize, but feel separated from it. Now that I know people who have been touched, it is much harder to do that.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Township Tour
One of the guys in my rez, Tulas, is from a township north of Durban, and he wanted to give the international students a taste of what South Africa is really like. Many of the students who I have met are not actually South African, but from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana. It is still difficult for black students here to overcome the social barriers and go to post-secondary.
We all packed in to a minibus taxi, and started our tour driving on a road that we are quite familiar with – the way we travel to the mall. During apartheid, the distance between us and the mall was covered with sugarcane. This was a tool that was used to separate the racial groups: white areas had several kilometres of sugarcane between them and the Indian area, and then more sugarcane would follow to separate them from the coloureds (that’s the acceptable term here for mixed race), and then more sugarcane, followed by the black area. The idea behind this is that, if the blacks wanted to attack, there is a large distance to cover between them and the whites, so by the time they organized anything, the whites would know about it and be able to suppress it.
The sugarcane areas are now mostly taken over by illegal settlements, where people have moved from rural areas or townships closer to their work in the city. This is different than the government housing which is also being built on the former sugarcane areas. This housing is subsidized and is still rapidly being built. Unfortunately, the areas where this housing exists is not prime: the place that we visited is under a power line, where there is a higher likelihood of miscarriage, deformities, and cancer.
One of the flats we toured housed 9 people, who lived in a one-bedroom unit. The entire complex is provided with 200 litres of water, after which the tenants have to purchase more. The power here is prepaid via cards that are bought at gas stations. The codes on the cards are punched into the power machine in each flat, and power is supplied. However, during load shedding, these power customers are shut down just like the rest of us.
Load shedding is a colloquial term for scheduled blackouts, which affect the entire country. There is a power shortage in South Africa, and the current solution is to have rotating blackouts. You can imagine the affect no power can have on business, where companies are paying staff for many unproductive hours due to this lack of power. We were lucky not to be on the schedule, but our luck ran out last week when a new, more all encompassing schedule (now even hospitals and the biggest port in Africa are included) put us on the list. We now have class in dark rooms, and often larger lectures are cancelled because there are no windows. There was a new schedule this week because people complained that certain areas were being favoured with better blackout times. Now, we have blackouts at night, which sucks a lot. 6-8:30 pm Mondays with no power: no cooking, no light (it gets dark here earlier now), no nothing.
Our next stop was kwaMashu, which is one of the largest black townships in South Africa after Soweto. There is a train that connects this township to Durban, and I was shocked to see how many people live in shacks along the tracks. Besides the obvious noise concern, fire is a real danger for people who live in these areas. If one shack starts on fire, the entire area is gone is seconds. In Soweto there is a special orphanage for children who have been affected by fire.
There are also other houses in this settlement, and that is where we went to have lunch. Tulas’ mother (well, she is actually his stepmother, but Zulus aren’t concerned about these qualifications. We all called her Gogo, which is an endearing term that means grandmother) welcomed us. We all sat (separated by sex) in the front room, which shows respect to the ancestors. The furniture in their house was given to them by former employers. This was a common occurrence when employers were moving: they would give away their furniture to their staff instead of moving it.
Gogo’s son is a Sangoma, which is someone who mediates with spirits. He did some rituals to ensure the spirits were satisfied with us being in their house, and then did some dancing and drumming. One of the rituals that we had to take part in was drinking Zulu beer out of a shared container. Gogo then showed us some beadwork that she had made with other women in the area. Business innovation is very important here, where jobs are very difficult to come by. We were then served a traditional Zulu meal, which included tripe, sweet potatoes, yams, steamed bread, creamed spinach, chicken… the list goes on. It is customary to have the men be served first, which was challenging to observe. Zulu culture is still very misogynistic: the men are served hand and foot while the women do all the work. It is still quite common for Zulu men to have several wives, but that can get expensive because the families set bride prices that the men must pay, in terms of a number of cattle, in order to ‘earn’ the bride.
Before we left, we noticed a gathering down the hill of people dressed conservatively in all white. We ventured down to find out it was a celebration of the 12th Apostolic Church of the Pentecost. We were observing from afar, until someone noticed us and brought us to the front to have a better view. I’m sure we were pretty easy to notice, being a bunch of white kids. We made our way up to the front, with the entire congregation singing and waving to us, welcoming us to the party. Once we were at the front, we witnessed several people who were overcome by the Holy Spirit come forward and prophesize. Tulas translated some of it for us after: anyone who wasn’t a follower would burn in hell at the Second Coming. I’m sure it had nothing to do with us.
We all packed in to a minibus taxi, and started our tour driving on a road that we are quite familiar with – the way we travel to the mall. During apartheid, the distance between us and the mall was covered with sugarcane. This was a tool that was used to separate the racial groups: white areas had several kilometres of sugarcane between them and the Indian area, and then more sugarcane would follow to separate them from the coloureds (that’s the acceptable term here for mixed race), and then more sugarcane, followed by the black area. The idea behind this is that, if the blacks wanted to attack, there is a large distance to cover between them and the whites, so by the time they organized anything, the whites would know about it and be able to suppress it.
The sugarcane areas are now mostly taken over by illegal settlements, where people have moved from rural areas or townships closer to their work in the city. This is different than the government housing which is also being built on the former sugarcane areas. This housing is subsidized and is still rapidly being built. Unfortunately, the areas where this housing exists is not prime: the place that we visited is under a power line, where there is a higher likelihood of miscarriage, deformities, and cancer.
One of the flats we toured housed 9 people, who lived in a one-bedroom unit. The entire complex is provided with 200 litres of water, after which the tenants have to purchase more. The power here is prepaid via cards that are bought at gas stations. The codes on the cards are punched into the power machine in each flat, and power is supplied. However, during load shedding, these power customers are shut down just like the rest of us.
Load shedding is a colloquial term for scheduled blackouts, which affect the entire country. There is a power shortage in South Africa, and the current solution is to have rotating blackouts. You can imagine the affect no power can have on business, where companies are paying staff for many unproductive hours due to this lack of power. We were lucky not to be on the schedule, but our luck ran out last week when a new, more all encompassing schedule (now even hospitals and the biggest port in Africa are included) put us on the list. We now have class in dark rooms, and often larger lectures are cancelled because there are no windows. There was a new schedule this week because people complained that certain areas were being favoured with better blackout times. Now, we have blackouts at night, which sucks a lot. 6-8:30 pm Mondays with no power: no cooking, no light (it gets dark here earlier now), no nothing.
Our next stop was kwaMashu, which is one of the largest black townships in South Africa after Soweto. There is a train that connects this township to Durban, and I was shocked to see how many people live in shacks along the tracks. Besides the obvious noise concern, fire is a real danger for people who live in these areas. If one shack starts on fire, the entire area is gone is seconds. In Soweto there is a special orphanage for children who have been affected by fire.
There are also other houses in this settlement, and that is where we went to have lunch. Tulas’ mother (well, she is actually his stepmother, but Zulus aren’t concerned about these qualifications. We all called her Gogo, which is an endearing term that means grandmother) welcomed us. We all sat (separated by sex) in the front room, which shows respect to the ancestors. The furniture in their house was given to them by former employers. This was a common occurrence when employers were moving: they would give away their furniture to their staff instead of moving it.
Gogo’s son is a Sangoma, which is someone who mediates with spirits. He did some rituals to ensure the spirits were satisfied with us being in their house, and then did some dancing and drumming. One of the rituals that we had to take part in was drinking Zulu beer out of a shared container. Gogo then showed us some beadwork that she had made with other women in the area. Business innovation is very important here, where jobs are very difficult to come by. We were then served a traditional Zulu meal, which included tripe, sweet potatoes, yams, steamed bread, creamed spinach, chicken… the list goes on. It is customary to have the men be served first, which was challenging to observe. Zulu culture is still very misogynistic: the men are served hand and foot while the women do all the work. It is still quite common for Zulu men to have several wives, but that can get expensive because the families set bride prices that the men must pay, in terms of a number of cattle, in order to ‘earn’ the bride.
Before we left, we noticed a gathering down the hill of people dressed conservatively in all white. We ventured down to find out it was a celebration of the 12th Apostolic Church of the Pentecost. We were observing from afar, until someone noticed us and brought us to the front to have a better view. I’m sure we were pretty easy to notice, being a bunch of white kids. We made our way up to the front, with the entire congregation singing and waving to us, welcoming us to the party. Once we were at the front, we witnessed several people who were overcome by the Holy Spirit come forward and prophesize. Tulas translated some of it for us after: anyone who wasn’t a follower would burn in hell at the Second Coming. I’m sure it had nothing to do with us.
Easter Break 2008
Many people had planned their spring break trips for weeks, and some of us were blissfully ignorant that flights, buses, and backpackers (hostels) were booking up. A couple weeks before Easter, I had only a few choices left: Mozambique via a flight with only one seat left; Cape Town, which I would like to give more than a week of travel time to; and the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg mountains, which was going to house the biggest music festival in the country. Splashy Fen music festival and the mountains won out, and were my destinations for Easter weekend.
We came to the realization that buying camping equipment for just one weekend is not the most economical or environmental decision. Instead, the festival had a ‘tent hotel’: they set up tents, beds with linens, hot showers and breakfasts, and all we had to do was show up. I was sold! I rented a car, filled it with four of my friends, and we were off.
I was excited to drive again. Being so dependant on my car at home, it has been strange to wait for cabs, mini-bus taxis, or friends to drive me around Durban. I was nervous about doing the whole driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road thing though. My mantra during driving was “left, left, left”, which I think helped, since my passengers didn’t ever have to remind me to switch lanes.
We departed from Durban later than expected on Thursday. We picked up some groceries and visited the liquor store before we left town, only the essentials. The problem was that no glass bottles were allowed, so we filled plastic bottles and got a good selection of boxed wine.
Our first stop was the Hilton hotel for a pit stop. It didn’t quite meet our expectations though – apparently there is a town called Hilton, and it has a hotel there.
Our next stop was further into the mountains in Bulwer, where they served us tea (it’s cold in the mountains here, too!), tasty homemade soup, and sandwiches. The cool kind of sandwiches here are bacon and banana, which I hear are pretty tasty. I can’t complain about the food here at all, it’s just the desserts that need some work. Perhaps because ovens aren’t very common here, so people don’t know how easy it is to make wicked cakes and cookies, and are satisfied with mediocrity. (In an exciting side note, one of the guys in rez has a toaster oven that we have used with great success to bake cookies!)
By this time, it was very dark, and the clouds had moved in. Since it is so mountainous in this area, when it is cloudy, you are IN the cloud. Let me tell you, it’s not so fun to drive when you can see about a metre in front of you due to the rain and fog, and you must be careful to avoid livestock. By the time we made it onto the dirt road, my nerves were shot. The setting for the festival is on a farm, which is lovely in prime weather conditions, but gets really muddy really fast when it rains. In fact, the road out of the festival was closed the following day because cars were sliding down the hills.
None of us were really prepared for the rain. I was told that everyone comes back from Splashy burnt, so I was ready for the sun: shorts, tanks, and sunscreen. Unfortunately, no one sent us the memo about the torrential downpours and knee-deep mud that are the norm at the festival. Perhaps the name ‘Splashy’ should have tipped us off. Everyone was modelling the latest varieties of gum boots (rubber boots), skinny jeans, sweaters, scarves, and vests. The winter displays at the mall made more sense after I experienced this weather! I have never been so cold in my life – flip flops, capris, and thin shirts just didn’t cut it when I had to walk through massive red puddles of mud in the rain. The hot showers alone were worth the cost of the hotel at this point.
The music was fantastic – it was all South African artists, ranging from yodelling to emo to metal to folk to house; something for everyone. The food was worth the trip in itself though: mulled wine, hot mini-donuts covered in chocolate (this might be the only exception to the dessert limitations here), falafels, crepes, curries, homemade pasta… the list goes on! Next time, we won’t need to make a grocery store stop before coming here.
It dried up a bit by the time we were ready to leave, and we made our way to our next stop, the Sani Pass. Potholes were created from the rain on the weekend, so we often bottomed out. Our mantra this time was “Rental!” after every scrape; I’m glad we didn’t have to worry about ruining someone’s car under those horrific conditions!
We met up with some other friends at the backpackers, making our group 8-strong. It was nice to be in the country to chillax. The crime rate appears to be much lower where we were staying, since there wasn’t and barbed wire or security guards to protect the property. In this province, farmers are often killed in land disputes, so it apparently this was not one of those areas.
The following day we did a day-trip to Lesotho, the country that is entirely surrounded by South Africa. We accessed this ‘country in the sky’ through the Sani pass, which is the only border crossing to Lesotho from this province. The road is unlike any I have seen before. It seemed bad even by bike trail standards – hairpin turns, boulders, and waterfalls going over the road. I was glad to have the front seat, since it was such a bumpy ride.
It was so gorgeous making our way up the pass. Halfway up we arrived at the South African passport office, and then at the top of the pass, we made it to Lesotho. The passport control is a little different here than what I’m used to: you get both entry and exit stamps when you get there, so you don’t have to tell them when you leave the country.
Lesotho is quite different than South Africa. The people still wear traditional clothing, and maintain their roles from many years ago. The shepards are usually teenage boys, who enjoyed talking to us on our lunch break. One of them tried to impress us with his limited English “What’s up motherfuckers?” which we thought was pretty hilarious. The next entertainment during lunch was watching some drug smugglers trek up the pass – TIA.
The next day we had a lovely time going horseback riding in the lowlands of the Sani pass. Of course, I got the dud horse that wouldn’t go anywhere. They told me that I had to be forceful, but I can only kick so hard. Every once in awhile my horse would look at me like “Yes, I’m going to eat these flowers, and then stop in the middle of the river, and you better be grateful that I haven’t kicked you off already.” The beauty of the surroundings made up for it though!
The next day we drove back to the Durbs on the speedy N3. The highways here are amazing! They are toll roads, but it is totally worth it to travel on the ridiculously fast, nicely paved roads. People are cautious to stay to the left here (that is the slow lane here), which might have something to do with the inordinate number of road rage incidents here. It worked well for me though!
We arrived safe and sound back in Durban, ready for the next term of school to start.
We came to the realization that buying camping equipment for just one weekend is not the most economical or environmental decision. Instead, the festival had a ‘tent hotel’: they set up tents, beds with linens, hot showers and breakfasts, and all we had to do was show up. I was sold! I rented a car, filled it with four of my friends, and we were off.
I was excited to drive again. Being so dependant on my car at home, it has been strange to wait for cabs, mini-bus taxis, or friends to drive me around Durban. I was nervous about doing the whole driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road thing though. My mantra during driving was “left, left, left”, which I think helped, since my passengers didn’t ever have to remind me to switch lanes.
We departed from Durban later than expected on Thursday. We picked up some groceries and visited the liquor store before we left town, only the essentials. The problem was that no glass bottles were allowed, so we filled plastic bottles and got a good selection of boxed wine.
Our first stop was the Hilton hotel for a pit stop. It didn’t quite meet our expectations though – apparently there is a town called Hilton, and it has a hotel there.
Our next stop was further into the mountains in Bulwer, where they served us tea (it’s cold in the mountains here, too!), tasty homemade soup, and sandwiches. The cool kind of sandwiches here are bacon and banana, which I hear are pretty tasty. I can’t complain about the food here at all, it’s just the desserts that need some work. Perhaps because ovens aren’t very common here, so people don’t know how easy it is to make wicked cakes and cookies, and are satisfied with mediocrity. (In an exciting side note, one of the guys in rez has a toaster oven that we have used with great success to bake cookies!)
By this time, it was very dark, and the clouds had moved in. Since it is so mountainous in this area, when it is cloudy, you are IN the cloud. Let me tell you, it’s not so fun to drive when you can see about a metre in front of you due to the rain and fog, and you must be careful to avoid livestock. By the time we made it onto the dirt road, my nerves were shot. The setting for the festival is on a farm, which is lovely in prime weather conditions, but gets really muddy really fast when it rains. In fact, the road out of the festival was closed the following day because cars were sliding down the hills.
None of us were really prepared for the rain. I was told that everyone comes back from Splashy burnt, so I was ready for the sun: shorts, tanks, and sunscreen. Unfortunately, no one sent us the memo about the torrential downpours and knee-deep mud that are the norm at the festival. Perhaps the name ‘Splashy’ should have tipped us off. Everyone was modelling the latest varieties of gum boots (rubber boots), skinny jeans, sweaters, scarves, and vests. The winter displays at the mall made more sense after I experienced this weather! I have never been so cold in my life – flip flops, capris, and thin shirts just didn’t cut it when I had to walk through massive red puddles of mud in the rain. The hot showers alone were worth the cost of the hotel at this point.
The music was fantastic – it was all South African artists, ranging from yodelling to emo to metal to folk to house; something for everyone. The food was worth the trip in itself though: mulled wine, hot mini-donuts covered in chocolate (this might be the only exception to the dessert limitations here), falafels, crepes, curries, homemade pasta… the list goes on! Next time, we won’t need to make a grocery store stop before coming here.
It dried up a bit by the time we were ready to leave, and we made our way to our next stop, the Sani Pass. Potholes were created from the rain on the weekend, so we often bottomed out. Our mantra this time was “Rental!” after every scrape; I’m glad we didn’t have to worry about ruining someone’s car under those horrific conditions!
We met up with some other friends at the backpackers, making our group 8-strong. It was nice to be in the country to chillax. The crime rate appears to be much lower where we were staying, since there wasn’t and barbed wire or security guards to protect the property. In this province, farmers are often killed in land disputes, so it apparently this was not one of those areas.
The following day we did a day-trip to Lesotho, the country that is entirely surrounded by South Africa. We accessed this ‘country in the sky’ through the Sani pass, which is the only border crossing to Lesotho from this province. The road is unlike any I have seen before. It seemed bad even by bike trail standards – hairpin turns, boulders, and waterfalls going over the road. I was glad to have the front seat, since it was such a bumpy ride.
It was so gorgeous making our way up the pass. Halfway up we arrived at the South African passport office, and then at the top of the pass, we made it to Lesotho. The passport control is a little different here than what I’m used to: you get both entry and exit stamps when you get there, so you don’t have to tell them when you leave the country.
Lesotho is quite different than South Africa. The people still wear traditional clothing, and maintain their roles from many years ago. The shepards are usually teenage boys, who enjoyed talking to us on our lunch break. One of them tried to impress us with his limited English “What’s up motherfuckers?” which we thought was pretty hilarious. The next entertainment during lunch was watching some drug smugglers trek up the pass – TIA.
The next day we had a lovely time going horseback riding in the lowlands of the Sani pass. Of course, I got the dud horse that wouldn’t go anywhere. They told me that I had to be forceful, but I can only kick so hard. Every once in awhile my horse would look at me like “Yes, I’m going to eat these flowers, and then stop in the middle of the river, and you better be grateful that I haven’t kicked you off already.” The beauty of the surroundings made up for it though!
The next day we drove back to the Durbs on the speedy N3. The highways here are amazing! They are toll roads, but it is totally worth it to travel on the ridiculously fast, nicely paved roads. People are cautious to stay to the left here (that is the slow lane here), which might have something to do with the inordinate number of road rage incidents here. It worked well for me though!
We arrived safe and sound back in Durban, ready for the next term of school to start.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Life at UKZN
I was warned ahead of time about the dorms here – no wireless, questionable security, etc. So far (other than the internet issue), life has been great in residence. A 5-minute walk up the (many) steps sure beats the hour commute at home. And there are so many international students in my dorm!
The first week of actual classes was pretty hectic, and no one seems to know quite what is going on. The lecture schedule is pretty crazy here – some classes start at 7:45! So you can imagine that it might be frustrating if you got ready for class at that time on a Monday, and found out your class was cancelled (for the day, or in some cases, the whole semester!). I was lucky – my first class was at a decent hour. I was confused when I arrived to my African psychology class though – our lecturer started with “Welcome to Abnormal Psychology”…huh? Apparently, some classes are divided even further into terms. So, my class won’t begin until the second term this semester. MORE BEACH TIME! And, we needed groceries, which took longer than expected to buy, so I accidentally missed the first lecture of my other class (oops!).
The second day of class was about as successful as the first – the students organized a strike over housing problems (Many students who confirmed housing arrived, only to find out that they had nowhere to stay. Some rooms are housing 7-8 students in them until they sort things out.). The rooms aren’t so big, but they suit my needs well: a bed, a sink, a desk, a wardrobe, and some shelves. Okay, at times, my room smells a little off, but I have adapted and bought an aromatherapy oil burner, so now it just smells like mango or coconut! Well, that’s when it doesn’t smell like propane from the stuff they sprayed in my room to control the cockroach and ant population (which luckily, I haven’t seen any signs of!). They came around at about 10am, and I happened to still be sleeping, so when they knocked, I sleepily opened the door. The guy seemed surprised that I was around, but even more surprised that I was still sleeping. Sleeping in (as in, after 5:30am) seems to be a faux pas. One of my professors was describing his lazy neighbour who smokes pot all day and sleeps in until 9am! So, the pest control guys told me to open my windows and they proceeded to spray around the edges of my room with some toxic chemical, and left. Since I had just woken up, I didn’t have anywhere I could go, so hopefully the chemicals that detract cockroaches (which can survive a nuclear holocaust) haven’t killed too many brain cells!
I have had some other cool visitors in my room though! And this isn’t the time when my mom needs to stop reading the blog – I’m talking about moths, bee-like creatures that don’t buzz, praying mantises and FROGS! Luckily, no monkeys yet – they are really messy when they get in your room. The moths here are gigantic. Like 8-10cms long. That’s what was in my room on one of the first nights and I thought was a bat. And they make noises here. The frog was the coolest – a bit shocking when I grabbed onto the curtain and my hand wrapped around its little body, but fine once I convinced myself that I didn’t just touch a poisonous dart frog. (You know the arrows that have poison on them in Indiana Jones-esque movies? That’s from a dart frog, which I had just seen the day before at Sea World. Yeah.). I didn’t realize that Praying Mantises don’t bite, so I might have ‘accidentally’ squished it in my curtain. What? I get random bug bites all the time, and I have no idea where they are from! The main bug that I’m not a fan of is gnats. Why gnats, you might ask? Well, they’re in my fridge, which doesn’t actually work, we just pretend it does. The freezer works great! Until a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t have a food cupboard, so we kept all of our dishes in there, too. I did get some strange looks when we washed dishes and then put them into the freezer. The main drawback of using the freezer as a cupboard is that you actually have to dry the dishes.
Anyway, back to class. So, I’m only taking two classes right now until my third one starts some time after Easter (no one actually knows when, they just say “after Easter.” It’s strange when you talk to people who you think have somewhere in their job description “know how to do this,” and they have no idea what you’re even asking them. Like, when I wanted to know what the address of the school is so that I can receive mail: the international student support office, which is the location to pick up said mail, could not tell me what the address is. Seriously. I just found out the address from a friend of mine who finally got his mail…just in case anyone wants to send me anything??).
I’m taking criminology, which is a first year course, and literature and journalism, which is a third year course. The bachelor degrees are three years long here, so when I tell people that I’m in my 5th year, they look at me with respect and think that I’m almost done my Master’s, which is quite a change from at home, where people just wonder why I’m so slow!
My first impression of classes is that it’s like high school. They actually take attendance, and if you don’t attend a certain percentage of class, you don’t get your ‘duly performed’ certificate, and can’t write the final. This is a challenge in lecture halls that contain 300 giddy 18-year-olds. That’s another aside: everyone is young here. No one takes time off between high school and college to get a job because jobs are so hard to get. If you found a job, you wouldn’t quit it to go to school, because the aim of school here is to get a job; if you have one, what’s the point in school? So, at 21 people graduate and try to get good jobs, get married and have children. When my friend was doing a survey at a shoe store, she told her age (25), and the lady told her to go back home to Sweden and find a man to marry – she’s getting old!
My favourite class so far is English. We started the semester off discussing a magazine from the 50s that was geared towards the black population: Drum magazine. It was so interesting to learn more about what life was like before and during apartheid. I felt out of place when people were discussing particular uprisings and events, but my professor assured me that just because the other students are from this country doesn’t mean they know any more about what was going on in the 50s here than I do. It would be unfortunate it that were true.
Studying here is an issue. And, I can’t always blame it on my lack of motivation (these grades don’t count towards my GPA, I just get a completion mark): there are no places to study! With the exception of this chilly weekend (it went down to a bone-chilling 23C in my room last night! I was seriously cold and it woke me up. Tomorrow I will buy a duvet.), normally air conditioning is necessary. So, my room isn’t the place to get anything done – the rez can get a little loud anyways. The café only stays open from 9-4, which is shocking. With classes that start so early, I would think that caffeine would be necessary at an earlier hour for those addicts among us. I’m told that the coffee here is gross, so I guess it’s not surprising that you have to look hard to find a coffee shop – it’s not good enough to get addicted to. No Starbucks to get cozy and study at. And the library? You can’t bring bags into it – not even purses! So, that’s a bit of a hassle. It does have a/c though, so when I’m done dripping sweat in the computer lab (they turn the a/c off at the same time as they unblock Facebook every night), I can chill in the library. I’m lucky I haven’t had a research paper yet – people actually use books here to research! Imagine! I have never taken a book out at home; everything is online.
I had my first test on Friday, and it took me back to high school finals. It was only a midterm, but apparently it was a pretty serious one because it was in a different venue: an auditorium filled with desks from an era gone by. It was only 45 minutes long (just like the classes here – it’s amazing! At home, most of my classes are 3 hour lectures. Here, if you’re late, there is really no point in coming at all. Well, except that you have to sign the register!), and it was super easy (had I studied).
Shockingly, I have just completed my 5th week of classes here! Time has gone by so fast. We always seem to be on the go during the week, and the weekends are full of parties and clubs (and sometimes even laundry and homework). I feel like it’s my duty to explore the culture here, which includes going to (CHEAP!) movies, shopping to excess, eating copious amounts of foreign candy (which is sooo good! It’s a good thing there are lots of stairs and hills here!), and going to new clubs every week.
Alcohol deserves a new paragraph. The cider is sweet and tastes like fresh apples, unlike the dry stuff we have at home. The wine is fantastic! I haven’t had any white, just because South Africa is known for its reds, and I now know why. I can’t wait to tour some wineries when I visit the Western Cape. At home I have seen Amarula at liquor stores, but I hadn’t tried it until I got here. Every time we go to a movie (which is every week!) there are commercials for it, which makes us all salivate. It’s made from Marula fruit that, according to the commercial, elephants like to eat only at its supreme ripeness, which is when it is harvested. I’m sure the elephant helps with that part, too. The classic SA shot is Amarula mixed with Springbok, a minty liqueur that is named after the SA soccer team.
The currency here, the rand, is losing its value compared to foreign currency due to some problems in the SA economy. This is very GOOD news for me though! When I arrived, one Canadian dollar could buy 6 rand, and now I can buy 8! So, when I pay 7 ZAR for a cider, I’m a pretty happy lady. Still, I have managed to learn how to barter, if only with the cabs. It’s a lot easier now that I know what everything should actually be costing us. We avoid metered taxis at all costs, unless we want a tour of Durban before we get to our destination. Flat-rate cabs are usually pretty decent, except for the time that we agreed on a decent price and got in, only to find out that it was just some guy’s car, and not a real cabs. Sketchy!
Without a car, we depend on cabs a lot. Luckily we have found a grocery store within walking distance, which is good because food here goes bad really fast, so we have to go to the store every few days to restock. Groceries here are a bit of a hassle, especially with a broken fridge! Also, the stoves work on a rotating basis – they seem to rotate every time we try to use them. What I have found here to survive is Woolworth’s food, which does amazing prepared salads. We also have lots of food stands on campus, and with the large Indian population, vegetarian food is really easy to find. Also, the fruit here is spectacular, it almost makes up for the lame vegetables. They don’t know anything about bakery items though. Perhaps because ovens aren’t the norm, so people don’t know just how easy it is to bake things that are a hundred times better. I miss baking, especially on a cold day like today! I suppose I should be savouring the cold weather though – it should be sweltering for the music festival that I am going to over Easter weekend!
Love to all!
The first week of actual classes was pretty hectic, and no one seems to know quite what is going on. The lecture schedule is pretty crazy here – some classes start at 7:45! So you can imagine that it might be frustrating if you got ready for class at that time on a Monday, and found out your class was cancelled (for the day, or in some cases, the whole semester!). I was lucky – my first class was at a decent hour. I was confused when I arrived to my African psychology class though – our lecturer started with “Welcome to Abnormal Psychology”…huh? Apparently, some classes are divided even further into terms. So, my class won’t begin until the second term this semester. MORE BEACH TIME! And, we needed groceries, which took longer than expected to buy, so I accidentally missed the first lecture of my other class (oops!).
The second day of class was about as successful as the first – the students organized a strike over housing problems (Many students who confirmed housing arrived, only to find out that they had nowhere to stay. Some rooms are housing 7-8 students in them until they sort things out.). The rooms aren’t so big, but they suit my needs well: a bed, a sink, a desk, a wardrobe, and some shelves. Okay, at times, my room smells a little off, but I have adapted and bought an aromatherapy oil burner, so now it just smells like mango or coconut! Well, that’s when it doesn’t smell like propane from the stuff they sprayed in my room to control the cockroach and ant population (which luckily, I haven’t seen any signs of!). They came around at about 10am, and I happened to still be sleeping, so when they knocked, I sleepily opened the door. The guy seemed surprised that I was around, but even more surprised that I was still sleeping. Sleeping in (as in, after 5:30am) seems to be a faux pas. One of my professors was describing his lazy neighbour who smokes pot all day and sleeps in until 9am! So, the pest control guys told me to open my windows and they proceeded to spray around the edges of my room with some toxic chemical, and left. Since I had just woken up, I didn’t have anywhere I could go, so hopefully the chemicals that detract cockroaches (which can survive a nuclear holocaust) haven’t killed too many brain cells!
I have had some other cool visitors in my room though! And this isn’t the time when my mom needs to stop reading the blog – I’m talking about moths, bee-like creatures that don’t buzz, praying mantises and FROGS! Luckily, no monkeys yet – they are really messy when they get in your room. The moths here are gigantic. Like 8-10cms long. That’s what was in my room on one of the first nights and I thought was a bat. And they make noises here. The frog was the coolest – a bit shocking when I grabbed onto the curtain and my hand wrapped around its little body, but fine once I convinced myself that I didn’t just touch a poisonous dart frog. (You know the arrows that have poison on them in Indiana Jones-esque movies? That’s from a dart frog, which I had just seen the day before at Sea World. Yeah.). I didn’t realize that Praying Mantises don’t bite, so I might have ‘accidentally’ squished it in my curtain. What? I get random bug bites all the time, and I have no idea where they are from! The main bug that I’m not a fan of is gnats. Why gnats, you might ask? Well, they’re in my fridge, which doesn’t actually work, we just pretend it does. The freezer works great! Until a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t have a food cupboard, so we kept all of our dishes in there, too. I did get some strange looks when we washed dishes and then put them into the freezer. The main drawback of using the freezer as a cupboard is that you actually have to dry the dishes.
Anyway, back to class. So, I’m only taking two classes right now until my third one starts some time after Easter (no one actually knows when, they just say “after Easter.” It’s strange when you talk to people who you think have somewhere in their job description “know how to do this,” and they have no idea what you’re even asking them. Like, when I wanted to know what the address of the school is so that I can receive mail: the international student support office, which is the location to pick up said mail, could not tell me what the address is. Seriously. I just found out the address from a friend of mine who finally got his mail…just in case anyone wants to send me anything??).
I’m taking criminology, which is a first year course, and literature and journalism, which is a third year course. The bachelor degrees are three years long here, so when I tell people that I’m in my 5th year, they look at me with respect and think that I’m almost done my Master’s, which is quite a change from at home, where people just wonder why I’m so slow!
My first impression of classes is that it’s like high school. They actually take attendance, and if you don’t attend a certain percentage of class, you don’t get your ‘duly performed’ certificate, and can’t write the final. This is a challenge in lecture halls that contain 300 giddy 18-year-olds. That’s another aside: everyone is young here. No one takes time off between high school and college to get a job because jobs are so hard to get. If you found a job, you wouldn’t quit it to go to school, because the aim of school here is to get a job; if you have one, what’s the point in school? So, at 21 people graduate and try to get good jobs, get married and have children. When my friend was doing a survey at a shoe store, she told her age (25), and the lady told her to go back home to Sweden and find a man to marry – she’s getting old!
My favourite class so far is English. We started the semester off discussing a magazine from the 50s that was geared towards the black population: Drum magazine. It was so interesting to learn more about what life was like before and during apartheid. I felt out of place when people were discussing particular uprisings and events, but my professor assured me that just because the other students are from this country doesn’t mean they know any more about what was going on in the 50s here than I do. It would be unfortunate it that were true.
Studying here is an issue. And, I can’t always blame it on my lack of motivation (these grades don’t count towards my GPA, I just get a completion mark): there are no places to study! With the exception of this chilly weekend (it went down to a bone-chilling 23C in my room last night! I was seriously cold and it woke me up. Tomorrow I will buy a duvet.), normally air conditioning is necessary. So, my room isn’t the place to get anything done – the rez can get a little loud anyways. The café only stays open from 9-4, which is shocking. With classes that start so early, I would think that caffeine would be necessary at an earlier hour for those addicts among us. I’m told that the coffee here is gross, so I guess it’s not surprising that you have to look hard to find a coffee shop – it’s not good enough to get addicted to. No Starbucks to get cozy and study at. And the library? You can’t bring bags into it – not even purses! So, that’s a bit of a hassle. It does have a/c though, so when I’m done dripping sweat in the computer lab (they turn the a/c off at the same time as they unblock Facebook every night), I can chill in the library. I’m lucky I haven’t had a research paper yet – people actually use books here to research! Imagine! I have never taken a book out at home; everything is online.
I had my first test on Friday, and it took me back to high school finals. It was only a midterm, but apparently it was a pretty serious one because it was in a different venue: an auditorium filled with desks from an era gone by. It was only 45 minutes long (just like the classes here – it’s amazing! At home, most of my classes are 3 hour lectures. Here, if you’re late, there is really no point in coming at all. Well, except that you have to sign the register!), and it was super easy (had I studied).
Shockingly, I have just completed my 5th week of classes here! Time has gone by so fast. We always seem to be on the go during the week, and the weekends are full of parties and clubs (and sometimes even laundry and homework). I feel like it’s my duty to explore the culture here, which includes going to (CHEAP!) movies, shopping to excess, eating copious amounts of foreign candy (which is sooo good! It’s a good thing there are lots of stairs and hills here!), and going to new clubs every week.
Alcohol deserves a new paragraph. The cider is sweet and tastes like fresh apples, unlike the dry stuff we have at home. The wine is fantastic! I haven’t had any white, just because South Africa is known for its reds, and I now know why. I can’t wait to tour some wineries when I visit the Western Cape. At home I have seen Amarula at liquor stores, but I hadn’t tried it until I got here. Every time we go to a movie (which is every week!) there are commercials for it, which makes us all salivate. It’s made from Marula fruit that, according to the commercial, elephants like to eat only at its supreme ripeness, which is when it is harvested. I’m sure the elephant helps with that part, too. The classic SA shot is Amarula mixed with Springbok, a minty liqueur that is named after the SA soccer team.
The currency here, the rand, is losing its value compared to foreign currency due to some problems in the SA economy. This is very GOOD news for me though! When I arrived, one Canadian dollar could buy 6 rand, and now I can buy 8! So, when I pay 7 ZAR for a cider, I’m a pretty happy lady. Still, I have managed to learn how to barter, if only with the cabs. It’s a lot easier now that I know what everything should actually be costing us. We avoid metered taxis at all costs, unless we want a tour of Durban before we get to our destination. Flat-rate cabs are usually pretty decent, except for the time that we agreed on a decent price and got in, only to find out that it was just some guy’s car, and not a real cabs. Sketchy!
Without a car, we depend on cabs a lot. Luckily we have found a grocery store within walking distance, which is good because food here goes bad really fast, so we have to go to the store every few days to restock. Groceries here are a bit of a hassle, especially with a broken fridge! Also, the stoves work on a rotating basis – they seem to rotate every time we try to use them. What I have found here to survive is Woolworth’s food, which does amazing prepared salads. We also have lots of food stands on campus, and with the large Indian population, vegetarian food is really easy to find. Also, the fruit here is spectacular, it almost makes up for the lame vegetables. They don’t know anything about bakery items though. Perhaps because ovens aren’t the norm, so people don’t know just how easy it is to bake things that are a hundred times better. I miss baking, especially on a cold day like today! I suppose I should be savouring the cold weather though – it should be sweltering for the music festival that I am going to over Easter weekend!
Love to all!
Pietermaritzburg
We wanted to get out of town for the weekend, and Pietermaritzburg is so close that it would be unforgivable if we didn’t see it. Also, it’s such a small town that it’s a perfect weekend getaway. We left really early on Saturday morning (some of us regretting attending the campus party the night before. They had pretty weak security standards though, considering we just drew stamps on our arms with a pen, and they let us in free). Our favourite cab driver A. Kay, who some of us consider our SA dad, picked us up and brought us to the minibus taxi stand downtown. It’s the kind of place that you don’t stand in one spot for too long so that you keep the items in your bag and pockets safe. Luckily, our minibus left really quickly. You always have to double check where they are going, because they are never labelled.
The 45 minute trip cost 35 ZAR, which we passed up in the usual manner, telling the person in front of us how many people the amount was supposed to cover, and having them pass the money up to the driver to count. All the conversations were in Zulu, but it was pretty clear that something wasn’t right when the drive passed everyone’s money back, except mine, Zane’s and Taylor’s. And then the driver pulled over on the freeway and started ranting in Zulu. It was at this point that I wasn’t as glad that I agreed to this transportation option over the higher class Greyhound. Apparently, he was 5ZAR short, which it was pretty clear that one of the guys in the taxi pocketed. He later ‘found’ the amount, and we were on our way again.
Once we arrived in the town, we got off the taxi at an early stop. That wasn’t as important as the fact that the person booking the Backpackers didn’t bring the address. Once that was sorted out, we used my map to figure out how to get there. Unfortunately, all the streets have been renamed since my map was printed, so it was more challenging than expected to get there. Renaming the streets has been controversial, but despite protests and questions over cost, it has gone through. The point is to get rid of all the street names that have connections to the harsh past, and move on with names that have more positive associations.
We were able to find our hostel, drop our things, and with surprising amounts of energy, venture off in search of a good meal. My guide had suggested a place, which was tricky to find because it, too, had been renamed. It was situated in the top floor of the Tatham Art Gallery, which was filled with art through the ages. It wasn’t until 1990 that Zulu art was featured in the building, which is itself a relic. PMB is known for its late-Victorian architecture, which was gorgeous to see. The whole downtown is filled with red brick buildings, including the city hall, which we gave ourselves a tour of.
After our full day, we decided we deserved ice cream, so we headed to the nearest KFC. I was glad to see that there were bars that separated the lines so that we wouldn’t get pushed out of the way like we always do at school. Unfortunately, they were out of ice cream, so it didn’t matter anyway.
We headed back to the Backpackers to relax, and ended up staying in the entire night! Apparently, since PMB is a small town, they don’t have much going on in the evenings, so we just had a party at the hostel instead.
The next day I was excited to use a gas stove again - omelettes for breakfast! We hired a cab to take us to the sights in the town – the biggest horse statue in the country, and then the botanical gardens. The horse was actually a pegasus, and it was as tacky as expected. The botanical gardens were breathtaking. It was the perfect place for a picnic, but we ate at the café, that served the best soup ever! Soup still tastes surprisingly good when it’s over 30C.
We headed back to the hostel early the chill by the pool, and then we walked over to wait for our bus. I was glad that we took the Greyhound home. Even though it was late, it was comforting to be on a vehicle that I could rely on, and where they spoke a language that I could understand. It was much classier than the Greyhounds at home – they served tea, coffee, and cookies, and they made announcements like airplane attendants do: “please remain seated until we come to a full and complete stop.”
Pietermaritzburg was a lovely break from the hectic pace of Durban. (Pictures to follow when the internet is faster)
The 45 minute trip cost 35 ZAR, which we passed up in the usual manner, telling the person in front of us how many people the amount was supposed to cover, and having them pass the money up to the driver to count. All the conversations were in Zulu, but it was pretty clear that something wasn’t right when the drive passed everyone’s money back, except mine, Zane’s and Taylor’s. And then the driver pulled over on the freeway and started ranting in Zulu. It was at this point that I wasn’t as glad that I agreed to this transportation option over the higher class Greyhound. Apparently, he was 5ZAR short, which it was pretty clear that one of the guys in the taxi pocketed. He later ‘found’ the amount, and we were on our way again.
Once we arrived in the town, we got off the taxi at an early stop. That wasn’t as important as the fact that the person booking the Backpackers didn’t bring the address. Once that was sorted out, we used my map to figure out how to get there. Unfortunately, all the streets have been renamed since my map was printed, so it was more challenging than expected to get there. Renaming the streets has been controversial, but despite protests and questions over cost, it has gone through. The point is to get rid of all the street names that have connections to the harsh past, and move on with names that have more positive associations.
We were able to find our hostel, drop our things, and with surprising amounts of energy, venture off in search of a good meal. My guide had suggested a place, which was tricky to find because it, too, had been renamed. It was situated in the top floor of the Tatham Art Gallery, which was filled with art through the ages. It wasn’t until 1990 that Zulu art was featured in the building, which is itself a relic. PMB is known for its late-Victorian architecture, which was gorgeous to see. The whole downtown is filled with red brick buildings, including the city hall, which we gave ourselves a tour of.
After our full day, we decided we deserved ice cream, so we headed to the nearest KFC. I was glad to see that there were bars that separated the lines so that we wouldn’t get pushed out of the way like we always do at school. Unfortunately, they were out of ice cream, so it didn’t matter anyway.
We headed back to the Backpackers to relax, and ended up staying in the entire night! Apparently, since PMB is a small town, they don’t have much going on in the evenings, so we just had a party at the hostel instead.
The next day I was excited to use a gas stove again - omelettes for breakfast! We hired a cab to take us to the sights in the town – the biggest horse statue in the country, and then the botanical gardens. The horse was actually a pegasus, and it was as tacky as expected. The botanical gardens were breathtaking. It was the perfect place for a picnic, but we ate at the café, that served the best soup ever! Soup still tastes surprisingly good when it’s over 30C.
We headed back to the hostel early the chill by the pool, and then we walked over to wait for our bus. I was glad that we took the Greyhound home. Even though it was late, it was comforting to be on a vehicle that I could rely on, and where they spoke a language that I could understand. It was much classier than the Greyhounds at home – they served tea, coffee, and cookies, and they made announcements like airplane attendants do: “please remain seated until we come to a full and complete stop.”
Pietermaritzburg was a lovely break from the hectic pace of Durban. (Pictures to follow when the internet is faster)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Zululand
The trip was fantastic. On the weekend, we went on an excursion organized by one of the professors who wanted us to have a more varied experience in this province. We took a bus
for a couple hours north of Durban (stopping at a gas station to stock up on candy, which is AMAZING here. I’ve done my best to get a full South African experience, and thus have tried many varieties.), finally arriving at our destination, the Veyane Cultural Village. We weren’t given many details about the trip, so it was a great surprise when we turned up, and we were in a Zulu village full of little huts for us to sleep in. Before we could unpack much, 
we were invited to get dressed up in traditional Zulu attire (which are in photos that you will never see!) and 
watch/participate in Zulu dancing. The dancing is super intense – they kick their leg way up above their head, and then abruptly hit their foot down on the ground. Quite moving to see.
Then we were provided with a traditional Zulu mean, which was really good! It kind of felt like Thanksgiving dinner, because all I am able to eat on both occasions are the carbohydrates, which worked out well for me! They made different kinds of sweet potatoes (white with black skin), cassava, spinach mixture… the list goes on. And, Rooibos tea to finish it off! It’s so nice to be in a place where Earl Grey is not the standard kind of tea. Rooibos is only grown in South Africa, so we were truly getting the full experience.
After watching an interesting film about the land rights situation in the country (in this province alone, one white farmer is killed every month), we went to bed early. Upon arrival in our hut,
there was a massive bug greeting us. With nothing to squish it with, we sprayed it with bug spray, which I presumed made it angry, but it hid somewhere, so all night I could just hear it clicking away while I stayed packed into my many blankets in the 30C hut to avoid its plotting. I seem to have developed a rash this week – no sure if the two events are related.The reason we had an early bed time is that we were up at 4am to get on the bus and see the Hluhluwe Game reserve. We saw WAY more
animals than I expected – zebras, giraffes, lions, monkeys (which are old news, since I often see them on campus), rhinos, wart hogs, the list goes on! Totally impressive how they have managed to keep that many animals safe on the reserve.
Next we went to see a project that the professor, Blessing, was working on at an AIDS drop-in centre for children. We had a benefit lunch there, where they sang, danced, and read us poetry. It’s difficult to be a spectator at an event like that. I wanted to have fun and just play with the children, but in the back of my mind I was questioning what their future would hold. The number of people infected in South Africa is 34%, but in this province, KwaZulu Natal, the numbers are the highest in the country at 42%. Heavy stuff.
Then we visited the St Lucia wetlands park, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we boarded a cruise boat and slowly went down the large stream to see crocodiles and hippopotamuses. So cool to be cruising down a stream in the African sun.
That evening, we decided to stop at a hotel bar and I’m still struggling to figure out Africa time. Everything that we have attended so far has been at least 15 minutes late, and people tend to be late to show up, too. But whenever I try to be late, everyone else is always early! According to my South African friends, my trip to Zululand was a prime example of how timing works here. We left about an hour late, but everything during the trip kept to schedule. Except when it came time to leave, and our coordinator was the one that kept on saying ‘5 more minutes’.
The next day we visited a rural town, which has been relocated several times due to conflicts with the gum trees that are evident everywhere we went. They remind me of eucalyptus trees
in Brazil, in that they are both huge monocultures that allow no other growth on the ground, and take extreme amounts of water, that then create droughts for the people, who are without jobs because they can’t afford cars to get into town where they work has migrated. Big problems here, too. I didn’t have any suggestions for them, it was just too overwhelming. We did play a great game of soccer with the local youth, though. The girls won their game for the first time in the 7 years that Blessing has run this trip (all due to my mad skills, I’m sure).
I
came back from the trip appreciating the beauty that the culture and the country has to offer, while at the same time uncertain about the future here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
