Bragging to Mama and Dad

I got my first two assignments back yesterday, both of which I was scared to pick up all break. Disclaimer: here, an 80 is the high mark in the class.

Anyways, on my two papers, I got a 75 and an 80 :)

And then I walked out of class talking to my American friend who is in both classes with me, and he started complaining about how Princeton kids set the curve on everything. I didn't tell him my scores, but felt pretty badass.

Also, Nicole, if you're reading this...I worked just as hard on these as I always do. Here, it just finally paid off. And there wasn't anyone as good at last-minute papers as you.

Going Abroad While Abroad...

If I had known how many amazing photo ops I would see during my Easter (not spring, since it’s fall here) Break, I would have bought one of those fancy SLR cameras before coming. Lucky for me that two of my travel buddies brought fancy-cams and are going to give me all of their pictures before I go home. My vacation was amazing. It had 3 stages: rafting through Blyde River Canyon, safari-ing in Kruger National Park, and lounging on the beaches of Tofo, Mozambique. I was most excited about part three—mostly because I would get to see my friend Anna, who is in the Peace Corps nearby, but also for the passport stamp. Our group consisted of Carolyn (housemate, goes to Cal but I didn’t know her there, one of my best friends here), Maurie (Princeton, roommate, other best friend here), Kai (Carolyn’s South African boyfriend who she dumped the first day of the trip), Pat (Wisconsin, kind of ADD, very friendly, lives down the street), and Ryan (UCSB, housemate, really nice but all of us were excited to get to know him more), and me. We split into 2 sedan rental cars, which Carolyn, Pat, and Kai took turns driving (I don’t know stick, Ryan’s license is expired, and Maurie isn’t old enough to rent).

We started out flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg, where we stayed just long enough to eat a pizza, sleep, and rent cars for the rest of our trip. Then, we drove to Blyde River Canyon, where we first spent a day looking at waterfalls, cliffs, and amazing views.

Since we didn’t know if the water here was drinkable, we decided to boil some to fill up out waterbottles for the next day. When I was pouring the water into a pitcher to freeze overnight, however, the pitcher shattered, covering my stomach and leg with 2nd degree burns. The night before rafting. I woke up with 2-inch blisters all over my stomach, and just hoped that my tank-top and life jacket would be enough to kind of protect myself. In actuality, my stomach was skinned the first time I fell overboard. If we weren’t in the most beautiful place I had ever seen, I might have cared. I had the raft-guide bandage me, but that also fell off quickly.

We were split into 3 2-person rafts, and my partner was Ryan. The guides wouldn’t let the Carolyn and Maurie raft together, and made them each pair with a guy. In addition, there was one main guide, who was in a small canoe thing, and four other assistants. Later, we found out that normally a group of 6 would only have 2-3 guides, but that a few of ours were in training that day. It ended up being great for us, because if one of our rafts tipped, one of the guides picked us up within 30 seconds. This was especially nice because Blyde River has Class 3 and 4 rapids (we walked around the 5’s), and several of us didn’t have rafting experience. We spent all day rafting, with two breaks to eat and relax. Then, the owner of the company met us all at the end of the river with a big, flat, motorboat (pretty much a wooden board with a motor) that had a cooler full of drinks and all of our sweatshirts. On the peaceful ride home, we stopped to watch a herd of hippos in the water. I had know idea just how dangerous hippos are—they kill more people than lions, buffalo, leopard, rhino, and elephant combined. So it was actually quite scary being on an open raft in rhino waters, but it was very cool to hear them calling to each other.

The owner saw my burn, and became very worried that it was the result of the rafting trip. That night, he came to my room, bandaged me, and offered to make me a list of supplies to take to the pharmacy. We stayed in a row of 2-person bedrooms in our own private building, that had a fire outside and a patio with a dining room table, sink, and refrigerator stocked with drinks. It was great! The owner sat with us around the fire and cooked us a feast of chicken and lamb. When we woke up in the morning, the table was set with fruit, eggs, bacon, cereal, and yogurt for breakfast. The tourguide hung out with us late into the night, and then helped us take out our broken car headlight in the morning. He and his girlfriend live very close to the camp, and were some of the nicest people I have ever met. He also took photos of us rafting, and loaded them onto a flash drive for us.

That day, we pretty much just ran errands. We went to the grocery store, found the pharmacy, and had the headlight changed. I ended up spending $60 on medical supplies (antibiotics, tape, bandages, ointment) for the burn, which was looking worse than ever. This filled a grocery bag, that I carried with me the rest of the trip. The pharmacist said she was really nervous about me going to Kruger and Mozambique.

That night, we stayed in a cute backpackers lodge on the way to Kruger, where each room was its own little hut. We split into girls and boys, and the girl room didn’t have any lights. Halfway through cooking our dinner of potatoes and beans, the only other guests popped in the kitchen and invited us to a local bar. We said we might meet them, but they were back with friends before we got the chance. I started chatting with one of the friends while everyone else was outside. He is a native who worked at the local rehabilitation center, and invited us to come the next day. He said he would give us a discount and take us on a special tour after the regular tour, offering to let us pet lion cubs. I spent most of the time talking to him about the center and Kruger, which he said has become overpopulated since South Africa outlawed killing animals to maintain the population levels. Soon, he said, there will be too many elephants, and they will all die because there will be nothing left to eat. He also said that local farmers hate wild animals and kill them right away, and that the center is working to spread awareness so that farmers will call the center instead of killing them on their own.

So we went to the center, and there was no discount. But after my friend, Oscar, saw us sitting in the audience, he went and told the door guy to give us ½ the money back, which he did. The tour was great, and we got to see lots of animals up close, and even pet baby rhinos. Some of us also got to feed some of the big birds (I don’t know bird names), and play with the honey badger, which was almost every guide’s favorite animal. After the tour, Oscar took us to the lions cage. He said that if there wasn’t a special event going on, he would have also taken us into the cheetah cage.

We walked to the lion cub cage, and the animals were soooo much bigger than we had imagined. There were not cute little hold-in-your-arms baby cats. They were 250-lbs, bigger than golden retrievers. When we got to the lion cage, Carolyn took off her jacket and put it on the ground. Quickly, the two lions pounced on it, wrestling with it. By the time Oscar got it back from them (10 minutes later), the $120 LuluLemon jacket had rips all over it. But Carolyn was stoked, saying that made it cooler. I was scared to play with them after they had been riled up in the jacket fight, but it ended up being okay. They really liked me, and really liked my hair (which, by the end, was covered in lion drool…how cool does that sound?). I sat on the ground and the two climbed all over me, playing with my hair and letting me hug/wrestle/pet them. This was the highlight of the trip, by far.

Then we drove to Kruger, which wasn’t too far. The first camp we went to was called Olifance. We drove around the first afternoon, trying to find any animals. We were really excited to see a couple of impala, which it turns out are the most ubiquitous animal in the park. Then, we saw an elephant, and thought we struck gold. That night, we went on a late night drive, and saw a couple of hippos walking down the side of the road. The driver/guide told us they do this because the road is warm, and that hippos will only attack you if you are in between them and the water. Otherwise, they’ll leave you alone. We also saw a million impala and a couple of birds. Then we got home at midnight, freezing and tired, and set our alarms for the 5 am morning walk.

The walk was also awesome. On the drive there, we saw a herd of lions. Then, as the son rose, we saw several giraffes and more elephant. Then we got out of the car and started walking. The two guides each had a huge gun strapped to his back, and told us to walk in a perfectly straight line behind them and to not talk. Soon, the guide looked down to the ground: “Rhino tracks. These are fresh. Let’s follow them. Everyone stay quiet.” So we followed, and he continued to point out clues: “Here is a stick where the rhino scratches itself, see how it’s smoothed down?;” “Here, the rhino poops to mark its territory. If someone wants to take the territory from him, he stamps in it and tracks it all over, and the rhino follows the tracks until he meets the challenger;” “Ahhh, you can see that here, another rhino met our friend. They are both headed in this direction.” It felt like a detective show. Sure enough, we found the two rhino after about 30 minutes. He told us to all to stand behind the tree, because they might try to attack us but can’t see very well. We all got really really close, and could see them smell us.

Later that afternoon, we drove a couple of hours to Skukuza, the home of YouTube’s “Battle at Kruger.” We saw wildebeests and buffalo, a million zebras, elephants, impala, giraffes, etc. It was to the point that we saw so many they weren't even exciting anymore. We also passed a bilbao tree, which is too hard to describe but very cool. I slept in a tent with the boys, and Carolyn and Maurie slept in a bungalow (the only 2 housing options they had left). The next day, we drove to Lower Sabie, still wanting to see a leopard (the only animal in the Big 5 that we hadn’t seen yet). We passed a couple of lakes where we got really close to crocodiles, and saw a lot more animals on the way. At Lower Sabie, we had a morning drive scheduled for the next day. We also knew that we had a 12-hour drive ahead of us to Tofo, Mozambique, including crossing the border. We went on the morning drive, wondering if it would cost us a night in Tofo. It did.

We were at the border for several hours, and hit traffic in Maputo. We tried to speed to gain distance, but quickly got a speeding ticket in one of many speed traps. It was for Mts1000 or R300 (about $30…everywhere in Mozambique accepted SA or Mozambique currency), and if we didn’t have the money, we would all go to prison. We had it, and drove the (way too slow) speed limit the rest of the way. It became dark before we were halfway to Tofo, and knew that we should stop because of all the potholes in the road. Plus, there were no street lights, and people walked home along the dark road. It was honestly scary how many people we could have easily hit. We decided to stop in Xai-xai, a beach town in between Maputo and Tofo.

We finally found a big hotel on the beach, that looked great from the outside. They only had two rooms left, and each one was really expensive. We figured we could sneak/cram 3 people into each room, even when the front desk lady warned me several times not to do that. This hotel is the creepiest place ive ever been. Besides having holes in the sheets and rats in the halls, the front desk lady and one of the maids watched us constantly. The maid literally stayed in the hall outside our room during out entire stay, making up reasons to come into our rooms and sticking her head in each time the door was cracked open. I asked for towels, which the room didn’t have out, and she only brought one. And the shower leaked from the bathroom into the middle of our floor, creating a 2-inch puddle. By the time we were all inside (and she knew it, too), a weird, loud music started blasting outside our room, as if our window looked out into a disco.

We were so happy to leave in the morning, and I was so nervous they would call the police on us or do something else crazy. We finally got to Tofo later that afternoon, and it was paradise. The beach was sooo warm and completely empty, and the hostel was great. Also, some of our friends from CT were staying in the same place, so it was nice to have more people around (especially after the drama-filled breakup). We went to a local market, where all of us bought clothes and crafts for much cheaper than in South Africa. Then, we watched the moon rise over the ocean, and went for a late-night swim.

The next day, we went for an ocean safari, where we snorkeled with a shark whale and a herd of 4 dolphin. It was so much un, even though the waves made me queezy and I was that awkward girl who couldn’t get into the boat without help. Still, it was really fun. We spent the rest of the day napping on the beach and went back to the market. The next morning (our last day in Moz), we woke up early to watch the sun rise over the ocean (I had only seen it set on the ocean before). Then, we headed out. The trip home went much faster, even though we still spent a couple of hours at the border. We stayed in a guesthouse in Nelspruit, arguably the friendliest town I’ve ever visited. Then in the morning, we went to the airport and flew home.

The trip was definitely amazing, and I wouldn’t have chosen to go anywhere else. We saw so many different kinds of climate: lush and green in Blyde River, dry in Kruger, and beachy in Moz. It was also interesting seeing how people lived in each place. There were rura huts sprinkled throughout the hills our entire trip, but Mozambique brought poverty to a whole new level. Everyone lived completely on subsistence, mostly by selling food on the side of the rode. People walked everywhere, and we saw the same people in the same places when we drove home. We also saw two albino people, which was really interesting. Children kept running up to us asking for sweets, and people in each town looked at us as we passé through. Also, small shacks everywhere were painted with the Vodacom logo, probably because Voda did it for free. The whole place was so simple, peaceful, and weirdly beautiful. It also gave me an appreciation for a new kind of poverty, making CT’s townships look far from bad. The urban poverty of Cape Town was nothing compared to the huts everywhere in Mozambique. Sometimes we would also pass really nice buildings from when Portugal controlled the country, but they were blanketed in filth from being neglected after Portugal left. I wish we got to spend a day in Maputo, because friends say this is most clear here.

Going to Mozambique definitely makes me excited to travel more. Hopefully I find the time before I go home this summer!

Tess comes to visit!

First off, I know that this happened almost a month ago, but in the midst of finishing 3 essays in time for my own spring break, I haven’t had time to write about it. Plus, there’s something to say about experiencing Africa, rather than writing about experiencing Africa.

I had been excited for Tess to come visit since the first week I arrived in CT. My excitement for her to come, however, kind of evolved the longer I was here. First, it was excitement to show off my know home. Not to brag, but it really felt and still feels like Cape Town is giving me by far the best abroad experience possible. And since it is not located in Europe, none of my fellow abroadians would be able to visit/become jealous. I wanted a testament to exactly how special of a place I had lucked into. After about a month, I was more excited to see Tess because I missed her. It is hard being on the other side of the world. My roommate, who flew from JFK, said the flight to Johannesburg is the second longest one-way flight in the world, and that she isn’t able to fly straight back because of wind currents. The flight from Cape Town to SF is about 7 hours longer than that. Plus, I think at the time I was discouraged by the number of Americans here, and the realization that most of my “abroad friends” would be American. If I was going to hang out with Americans for a semester, I would rather they have been my best friends from home. Tess, in visiting, made that possible for a week.

But a month after that, a few weeks before Tess’s arrival, I really began to love it in a “this is home” sort of way. Still excited to see one of my best friends again, I was also stoked for the excuse to finish my list of touristy must-do’s. By this time I felt like a Cape Town resident, and it would feel weird for me to take a tour of Robben Island or hike Table Mountain, the activities that fill every tour book (ironically, I still haven’t done either, and am writing this on the day I had planned to do a make-up hike…it’s raining). Really though, I was just excited for a change of pace and a taste from home. Everyone else in my house receives a package every other week, so it was definitely time to remember the other side of the world still remembered me.

So Tess arrived on a Saturday afternoon, bearing a million American goods that I had been missing: Febreese, makeup, ballpoint pens, chocolate covered coffee beans and Rolos (her surprises for me!), and a frat’s supply of red cups and ping pong balls (a surprise for the boys in my house). The house was kind of surprised that the “little sister” who I had been so excited to see actually looked and acted older than me. Anyways, we went out that night to Long Street and ended up spending most of the night dancing at a trashy Irish pub, our drinking sponsored by a 30 year old bald guy with metal spikes in his mouth and no class, and his 7 foot tall friend. By the end of the night, we were handing the drinks off to our guy friends, but the drinks kept coming. That said, they really financed the fun for most of our 10-person entourage.

I had been excited for the next day since I planned it two weeks ago. Nonki, one of my friends from doing volunteer work (and probably the most stylish person I have ever been friends with), offered to give us a township tour. Her dad is a preacher in Gugulethu (I know this is spelled wrong), the second biggest township in Cape Town, and she lived with her family in a nice house behind the church (still, in the township). She and her brother drove us through the township, stopping to talk about the history and small, superficial changes that were made after Apartheid (for example, the street names have been changed from the names of Apartheid leaders to numbers).

We also got to walk inside a couple of homes and meet some friends of her church. The church had built one of them a home after her parents died, and she takes care of her younger brother there as she works and goes to school; she showed off her faded prom photos to us with a huge smile, and seemed tickled when I complimented her bright blue comforter. Then, we went inside a worker’s hostel, where a company houses about 8 workers in bunkbeds in as small a room as they would fit. Then, the workers each wedge in their families (wife, sometimes up to 7 kids), who also sleep in the room or pile onto their beds.

Nonki told us stories about how so many people are starving in townships that some just wait for the weekends to eat, since they know there will be a couple of funerals that will have free food. We also went to her home where I met her father, the first preacher in CT to address AIDS. When he started preaching about AIDS awareness and support, the area knew him as the AIDS Preacher; now, every church has copied him. I asked him if life has actually changed for many people since Apartheid, and he said very few. There are some, like Nonki, who have had the privilege to attend strong schools and rise above, and some black businessmen who have been able to thrive, but these are rarities and for most, life is just as horrible as it was before.


Nonki also took us to a giant braii (South African for barbecue) called Mzoli’s. This restaurant is famous around CT, and is listed in most tour books. It’s the only time I saw any white people that day (and the only place everyone we drove by didn’t stare at me…in the neighborhoods, people would tap each other to draw attention to Tess and me, and then they would start talking to us in Xhosa and Nonki would translate and tell us how to reply). When we first arrived at Mzoli’s, Nonki ran into one of her dad’s friends from church, and started talking to him. As Tess and I were waiting for her, this big black smiling man in a pressed white shirt (striped in rainbow colors) walked up and stuck out his hand. I didn’t know what to do, thinking he was some creepy stranger. After I extended my hand (after an awkwardly long pause), he enveloped me in a huge hug. I felt like I was drowning, with no idea what was going on. When he finally released me, Nonki turned around: “Oh, you met Mzoli!” Apparently Nonki was also church friends with him. Mzoli, known as a “black diamond” (black person who became very very successful after Apartheid), is a Cape Town celebrity, especially in the black community. He struck it rich by starting Mzoli’s, which works something like this: you walk into a glad-covered meat counter, which features about 10 bowls of raw meat (lamb, sausage, chicken, beef, etc.). You tell her the kinds of meat you want, like you’re ordering toppings for a salad, and she throws them all into a bowl. Then, you take the bowl to the cash register, where they weight your meat and charge you strikingly low prices for it (for the 4 of us, it was R9 (about $9.50). Then you walk your bowl back to the kitchen, where there are bowls of raw meat all over the table/ground, and a couple of chefs cooking a bowl at a time on the grill. Then you go outside, sit down, and wait several hours for your meat to cook (you have to go back and check on it every hour or so, since they don’t tell you when its done). Outside is totally crowded, and local DJ’s come and play music so loud that it’s hard to hear people speak. So our conversation was limited, but the vibe was great. Some people were dancing, some playing cards, some smoking hubbly bubbly (hookah…seriously). Tess and I were just people watching like crazy. Oh, and then Nonki and her brother started oogling over a guy sitting a couple of tables to our left. “He’s a huge South African actor!” said Nonki. I recognized him from Jerusalema (like the South African American Gangster; watch it, it’s great). Then the meat came. It was delicious. They just set the bowl in the middle of the table, and everyone sits around and eats it with their fingers, or with pap (a sticky mix between corn meal and mashed potatoes, but made of rice). All of us were filled, and Nonki was able to take home a box of leftovers. This ended up being my favorite day in Cape Town to date.

The next day Tess went to the winelands and I went to school. Not too exciting. We did, however, get to eat at Hussar Grille afterwards. It’s a fancy restaurant where I ordered a lifetime’s supply of warthog ribs and Tess got a trio of game meat (antelope, buffalo, I don’t know what else). It was delicious, and we ate leftovers for dinner the next night.

The day after that, we went to Kalksbaii (pronounced “Kalk Bay” hehehe), where we did a lot of vintage/craft shopping, and sat on the beach for a while. Then we took a taxi to Noordhoek, where we rode horses along the beach. It was surreal, by far the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The sky was clear, there were no footprints on the sand, and the white sun bounced off of the light blue water. We tried for photos, but I knew there was know way we could capture it.

The next day we went shopping on Long Street, and then for massages at Mount Nelson, a bougie spa downtown (the South African Claremont, but at ¼ the price). We each got a 80-minute hot stone massage (and they put us in the couples room, so we were next to each other). It was the best massage I’ve ever gotten. One funny thing though: instead of playing soft massagy music, they played a playlist of the masseuse’s favorite songs, including Jason Mraz and Mariah Carey. And every once and again he would leave my table to go change the song on his iPod. Later that night, we went to watch Spoken Word downtown, since one of my housemates was going to perform (he was the only white performer all night, and the whole place was stunned). Before that, we ate at Africa Café, where for R200 each we ate a 10-course meal that featured dishes from all over Africa. I loved it, until it made me sick at the slam poetry.

Thursday we went to a political debate for the election, which featured leaders from each of the main parties. It was really really interesting for both of us, but probably in different ways. Here’s a rundown of the parties:
- ANC: The incumbent, which has been the ruling party since Mandela. Because all the black diamonds support this party, because it made it possible for them to become rich, most of the black population support this party no matter what. Which is too bad, since the party is becoming corrupt, and their presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma, is a sex offender who is famous for political favors, and didn’t even graduate from high school.
- DA: The “rich white party.” They control CT politics, and Helen Zille, their presidential candidate, has been voted the best mayor in the world for her work in Cape Town.
- COPE: Congress of the People… they split off of the ANC this year, so they aren’t very big. Still, they're the party I would vote for if I could.
- ID: The South African Green Party. That’s all I know about them.

The debate consisted of Trevor Manuel, the Finance Minister (representing the ANC), shit-talking the other parties, with the other parties trying to team up and talk trash about his party’s corruption. After the debate finished, groups of ANC and DA supporters congregated on the steps outside of the event, and each started singing chants to support their parties. All of these students were black, but the black DA supporters were all female.

Friday we were planning to hike Table Mountain because I didn’t have class, but it was rainy. We went to the mall instead. Then, we went home and Tess packed (her stuff and some of mine to take home, and a box for her to mail domestically for one of my roommates), and they we took her to the airport and she flew away. And then I went home and did more homework.

Back to school

At first I was reeeeeeeeeeeeally let down that the school where I am mentoring is far from the shanty that I imagined (and was really excited to help out in). One of the girls has a cell phone and an ipod that are each much more expensive than my own. And because Kensington, the neighborhood/township (part of it is really dumpy) where I work, is so economically divided, the better off kids love to show off their gadgets to make the poorer kids feel bad. They all wear uniforms, so without the showing off, the only way anyone would know how rich anybody else is would be through guessing based on skin color (sad but often true). And they are all in 8th and 9th grade, probably the two meanest years in most early teenage lives.

But this is beside the major point: I was disappointed that the township wasn’t poor enough, the circumstances weren't bad enough, and that I would be spending the semester helping out children better off than many who live in Oakland. One interesting thing about working with South African students is that many of them are not originally from South Africa, and English is a second language for most of them. Every kid in the class knows at least 3 languages, and some know 6 or 7. I asked one what he likes to read today, and he responded, “I don’t really like just reading books, I’d rather study language.” Seriously. Because they all know so many languages, however, their accents are kind of a weird conglomeration of different tones, making it really hard to understand. Also, because they are always speaking with other students who have really intense, confusing accents, the students don’t know the proper way to pronounce many words. That means, they aren’t able to sound out words phonetically, and they are especially prone to using e’s instead of i’s. Their spelling is awful. Again, these are 8th and 9th graders. They wrote words like cuzzen, woreld, phisecs, etc. None of the African mentors correct these mistakes, so to avoid standing out, I haven’t either. After I get to know the group better, I think I’ll start.

Today, each student was given a questionnaire to fill out about themselves, which asked questions like “Who inspires you? What are your talents? If you could meet anyone in history, who would you meet and why?” Some of the boys just listed off how much they like to hit on girls and smoke weed and drink; I have no sense of whether they were being honest or acting cool for the American girl (today, they all started telling me I had pretty eyes and asking if I had a boyfriend). Most of the answers were expected: “I am inspired by God because he is so amazing” blah blah blah. The one shocking answer of the day, however, belonged to the boy sitting next to me: “I’d like to meet Adolf Hitler.” I told him that was an interesting answer, and asked him to write why he’d choose Hitler. “…because he was the most powerful man in the world during WW2, and I bet he could tell me what really happened during the war.” I asked if he thought Hitler would give an accurate description, and he said yes. I asked if he knew anything about Hitler, and he said no. My answer: “You know how during Apartheid a lot of people were moved into townships? Well, during WW2, Hitler moved a lot of people into these camps, where he would kill them for no reason and also starve them to death. Millions of people. He tried to destroy an entire race…Are you sure he could give an accurate depiction?” The kid was scared shitless.

"Oh, here we call it Megan."

It kind of feels like I’m living a double life here: it feels pretty American. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it, but there’s something weird about making new friends – friends who are very similar to your friends at home – when you know your friends at home will always be the better version. That’s where I am now: friend-flirting with the girls that sit next to me in class and the friends of any African friends I already have. Still, all of my close friends here are American. Two live in my house. Welcome back to sorority land, I guess.

Ever since school started, life here has been less exciting. My schedule is kind of like high school in that Monday through Friday, I have class until about 3 pm, with a few random periods off during the day. Every class is 45 minutes long (they end at the :45 so you can make it to your next class on time). Most of my classes are daily, so I have reading to do every night. Thank goodness the reading here is light. For example, on the first day of my History of Antisemitism class, the professor said there is a required textbook. “Great,” I thought, “there goes $100.” Then he passed out the book, which is about the size of a Dover classic and is paid for by the school because he wrote it. The syllabus literally assigns about 6 pages a week. My politics class has a lot more reading, with required articles that can only be found in the library. We aren’t allowed to check these books out, so we have to sit inside and read them (or in my case, skip them). Anthony Butler, my professor for this course, is a world famous political scientist, and a very boring lecturer. And the class of 100 is half American, and the South Africans seem kind of spiteful that we are invading their department. It turns out that because this is the continent’s best university, everyone here is very career-focused, and therefore uninterested in pursuing an education in the liberal arts. Political Science, one of the largest departments at Berkeley, is on the smaller side here, and has a huge emphasis on government structure and public policy (I assume because most political careers are focused on these).

My sex class (Sex from Sappho to Cyber…seriously), is the best course I have ever taken in my life. The professor is amazing and sunny and dynamic, and I actually look forward to going each day even though it’s my first class of the day. Right now we are learning about the role of sex in ancient Greece, basically learning Greek mythology through how it relates to Eros, God of “love.”

Oh, and I started volunteering with a group of 8th and 9th graders. The on-campus volunteering is monopolized by a program called SHAWCO, which runs on study abroad students looking to help cute African children. Working with the older students, there aren't as many Americans at my site. The school is made of a combination of classes, from townships to middle class. They all wear uniforms, you you can't tell who is from where. Except that it's obvious that the Colored (that word is an actual race name here, it means Brown) students are better off than the black students, and have nice pencil bags full of markers and stuff like that. Frankly, it didn't seem like the kids needed us to be there, but it was still nice to do anyway. I am going again on Thursday, and still need to decide if it's worth the time.

Beyond school, there isn’t really anything new to say. Here are some cultural differences worth knowing about Cape Town:
- Instead of “What’s up?” everyone says “How’s it?” And anytime you say anything, they reply with “Is it?”
- Stores don’t sell red cups or liquid laundry detergent.
- My yard has guinea fowl in it all the time, they keep up a lot of people in my house.
- Smoking is allowed inside, so every night I hang my clothes from my bedroom window to de-smoke them.
- It’s weird for girls to drink beer.
- The cans are a thicker metal, so shot-gunning beer is very difficult. And when you drink soda, you think there’s more left than there actually is. And sodas are called “cool drinks.”
- The fashion magazines here feature affordable clothes rather than the obscenely expensive items in American magazines.
- The big trend is for boys to wear t-shirts with tacky phrases written on them like “I <3 Chicks and beer” or “1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila, FLOOR!” The girls dress really stylish and it’s hard to keep up.
- There are no water fountains ANYWHERE.
- Fruit is amazingly cheap ($.75 for 5 bananas, $89 for a carton of grapes).
- You get sunburned from walking to class.
- Hookah is called Hubbly Bubbly (hubbly or hub for short).

Sax on Thursdays

02.09

After about 7 straight nights of going out and taking advantage of dollar beers and $3 cover charges, my whole house slowed down this week and started thinking about adding classes. Here, nothing is online. Before arriving, we each submitted a list of 6 classes that we would like to take, and then at orientation we are told the 3 or so that we were actually pre-approved for (mostly based on major). If we are not pre-approved for a class we would like to take, we have to find the head of that department and convince him/her that we are qualified. That said, many people spent this past week on campus trying to get approved for classes (I was lucky enough to finish that stuff in a couple of hours).

 
 
 The first night of this week, we decided to hike this mountain called Lion's Tail to watch the sun set. It was a full moon night, so it was supposed to be AMAZING. I heard that it was an easy 45-minute hike. I was harder than most of half-dome, with parts where you have to climb a 20 foot chain without barely anything to grip. From one side of the top, we could see all of CT, from the other, we faced the Atlantic Ocean and the setting sun. At the top, there was a huge crowd, but we got the best spot! Not only were we in prime sunset-viewing position, we were also next to this near-naked German who had no idea how much entertainment he was giving us. The way down was probably more dangerous that the way up, but it was like a huge migration because everyone left at once and shared flashlight light. I brought a flashlight (thanks Dad!), and probably every 40+ year old man there (which was about 30 of them by the end...the peak got really crowded) had a headpiece flashlight.

This week I also went to a flea market, where I learned how to barter with the sales people. Most of the booths at the market sold the same stuff: paintings on large pieces of canvas, jewelry, and bowls/decorations. All of it starts wayyy overpriced, and I heard that you'red supposed to open with something as little as 10% their original price. I ended up getting 2 pieces of art, each originally R55, for a total of R25. At the beginning of the day, I was giggly, almost flirty, and got nowhere. By the end, I was stonefaced and seemed uninterested, and they just kept throwing lower prices at me.

As part of Orientation Week, I went to the school's a 3-day club day of sorts, where the Societies and sports clubs each have tables on the main plaza and convince students to sign up. Instead of letting the student go to a meeting or two before deciding to become involved, everyone must turn in a form by the end of the week that declared which societies they would like to enter. Everyone pays upfront. Foreign students get 3 clubs for free, and gym membership counts as one. I signed up for 5, and paid for the two cheapest (totaling about $20). So now, I am officially a member of the Mountain and Ski club (hikes and camps), the Wine and Culture club, Habitat for Humanity (builds township houses), and SHAWCO, the big community service program that EVERYONE here does.

Frankly, that’s the only reason I joined SHAWCO. That, and the people seemed a lot more fun than the members of its underdog competitor that’s a quarter of the size. I interviewed to mentor 7-8th grade students, mostly because it was the only project that fir my schedule. During the interview, they scared the heck out of me, describing how difficult the students are to control, and saying not many people can handle it. I pretended it would be no big deal, but am already thinking about dropping out.

O-Week has big events at local bars/clubs each night, and a Sax Appeal fundraiser during one day. This is the only event I attended. This fundraiser, which supports SHAWCO, involves dressing up in a sexy/tacky/funny/raunchy way, and selling Sax Appeal magazine to cars as they pass by your assigned intersection. The magazine is written by professional columnists and humor writers, and is probably the funniest publication I’ve ever read. This is the 76th year of this event, which raises more than R700,000 each year.  
 
So this morning, I woke up at 3:30 AM, dressed up in costume, and met up with hundreds of other students on campus (we do it so early to beat traffic). Then, they bus us to different sites, dropping off about 30 students on main intersections throughout CT. I sold 20 magazines, and made friends with our site leader, who plays rugby for UCT. By 9:30 AM, they drive us all back to school and we nap the rest of the day.

It was really fun, except that this was the first time I was able to see the racial dynamic of CT at work. Our group was about half white and half black: the white students stood on half of the intersection, the black students stood on the other half. It all happened so quickly, so naturally. My Asian friend and I didn’t notice what was happening, and started selling magazines on the “black” side. And even though they were screaming much louder, jumping around, going up to people’s windows, we sold more. Eventually, I figured out that a lot of racist drivers passed our fellow volunteers and bought from us instead. At first I thought that they were being competitive and cliquish, but once they saw that I was colorblind, the whole weird racial divide seemed to break on our side of the street and we spent all day laughing. On the flip side, I finished the project without talking to a single white student at our site.

For the first half of O-Week, 16 of us rented a van and a car and drove to Stellenbosch, a wine country that is about 45 minutes outside Capetown. Unfortunately, the van broke own in between the two cities, and we had to drive home for it to be fixed. The car rental people were jerks, so in protest we called Al, our driver, and asked him to drive us instead of renting. We left at 11AM, and barely made it to our 7 o’clock dinner reservation. We ate at Moyo, this really fancy chain restaurant here that is high-class buffet, costing R35 a person plus drinks (luckily, we received a group discount).  
 Here, I ate antelope, oxtail, 2 kinds of gazelle, and lamb. This was the best meal of my life, hands down. They also painted our faces at the restaurant, and performed African dancing on the stage right next to our table. 3 people from our group were pulled on stage, and Carolyn fell of the stage (it was also her 21st birthday)!. The next day, we had Al drive us around to go wine tasting (it was my first time). We only went to two wineries. The first, Neethlingshof, seemed pretty fancy. The Sommelier (I think that’s the right use of this word) was great, and took us into a big room where she could face all of us and teach us how to taste wine and the differences between each kind of wine. I ended up buying a bottle of Pinotage for R100. The next winery, Skilpadvlei, was not nearly as nice. We all crowded into a family room-sized room, and sat on the floor, steps, counches, stools, whatever, as the bartenderish woman kept filling our drinks. At least there was good cheese. Then we went to lunch at Spier, home to Moyo, and looked at the cheetah farm. Then we went home, satisfied with the trip but already ready to go back again.

Oh, and something interesting I learned today: 911 is used only for medical emergencies. For crime related emergencies, you use a different number so that an operator doesn’t have to field the call.

The Beginning

To see bigger versions of each picture, click the link in the bottom left-hand corner and it will take you to the Picasa website.

Sooo, I've been in Africa since Saturday night (it's Wednesday now), and still can't get over the fact that I'm here. On the surface, Cape Town reminds me of what I imagine Australia would be like: attractive people, beachy, stylish, really relaxed... The school it the most idyllic image imaginable. It's set on Table Mountain, which John Rhodes donated to the city under the condition that it never be sold as housing property. That means that it's pretty much a national park with my school in the middle of it. It also means that my house is the closest residence to the school in all of Cape Town, and my walk to school is a 5-minute stroll through the woods.

There are 11 of us in my house: 4 American girls, 6 American boys, and a South African girl who is far from the dorky RA-type I imagined she would be. She's a trendy fashion designer who goes to UCT and is really fun to hang out with. She also has a car, which is nice (even though we haven't taken advantage yet). Most of our house is doubles, which makes our physical house much smaller than many of the other foreign student houses, in which the residents all have their own rooms. But none of us even mind since it makes our house seem more comfortable and cute. Plus, we have the best backyard, a DVD player, and a washer/dryer. And electricity is included in our rent.

Because school doesn't start for a couple of weeks, this part of the city is pretty much dominated by the 500 international students. We are starting to all become friends with each other because of orientation (explained below), so it's kind of like freshman year with everyone inviting strangers to hang out all of the time. It's nice, but seeing as my main goal is to make friends with Africans, I can't wait for school to start.

The first night, we went out to a bar/dance club, where the cover charge was 10 rand. That's about a dollar. Drinks at the clubs are also much cheaper, so a lot of Americans get trashy drunk here...I am mostly enjoying the fact that a $20 rand bottle of wine is better quality than a $10 bottle at home. It's awkward going out with a 100 rand bill, which equals $10, because paying with it is socially about the same as paying with a fifty. Paying with a 200 rand (which is mostly what I have, since I ordered mixed bills from the bank) is even more awkward.

My first full day here, we took a day-long bus tour throughout a lot of the Cape, driving by a lot of beaches and several vinyards, and stopping to walk around at the Cape of Good Hope. It was all gorgeous and not even worth trying to describe. The pictures don't nearly cut it either.

This week, we've been going through an orientation for international students, much like CalSO but a week long and a large focus on cultural transitions and their antiquated registration system. It's boring, and the registration is frustrating. I spent a couple of hours today exploring campus and finding Department chairs, so that they can approve my enrollment in their classes. But as of now, I think I'll be enrolled in a Public Policy course, Sex: from Sappho to Cyber (on the history of erotica), World Music, and either the History of Antisemitism or Religion and Society. By the way, campus is just as beautiful as everything else. It's by far prettier than any school I've ever seen, and surely prettier than any school in the US. Since it's on a hill, the center of campus overlooks all of Cape Town and the whole this is surrounded by trees.

Yesterday, we skipped half of orientation to go to the beach. We decided to save the 1 rand (10 cents) by taking the third class train instead of first class. This is when the Cape Town I imagined kind of entered my experience. The 10 of us (mostly American and white) loaded into the train boxcar, which was full of black workers going home to their townships. It was really sad. And they all just stared at us as we laughed about going to the beach. The way home was ever worse, because it was rush hour, so there was barely room to breath in the car. The left the train car open so that everyone could fit, and some men were hanging out of the train as it drove. I'd also heard stories of people riding the top of the train since the car was too crowded, or having to jump out of the moving car since it was too crowded to get out in time.

Today, the experience continued when we visited a township to learn more about service learning opportunities. These townships are indescribable. Literally, picture an 8x8 piece of sheet metal. Now picture three of these sheets leaning against each other, jammed together with nails, and a fourth sheet on top. This is the kind of house 1.5 million people live in. In one of the (I think) 4 townships. These townships are the kind of thing you don't want to believe exist anywhere in the world, literally shack after shack for miles and miles. They were built during Apartheid when the government kicked all of the non-whites out of different areas, and moved them into these areas. The one cool thing about the townships is the amount of pride they have, and that a lot of blacks seem able to overcome their horrible hardships.

Anyways, there's nothing really else to describe yet. I've been dancing a few times, and the night scene seems like it will be really great. I still need to go to the town center, because I haven't even seen the main areas of Cape Town yet (the university is in Rondebosch, a suberb that's about 30 minutes away). Tomorrow we have the day off, so I'm going to take a surfing lesson ($8.50 for a 90 minute lesson, including wet-suit and board).

Since the Internet is absolutely horrible here -- I tried calling mom on Skype and it took her 30 seconds to recognize my voice at all -- it seems like this will be my main form of communication this semester. Hopefully I don't get as bored with it as I did with my eurotrip travel journal.