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.