Beach Weekend

This Friday Ashwin took us on the first of the four trips arranged by the international office around South Africa. We went to Cintsa, a town on what’s called the Wild Coast of the eastern cape. The area is known for its undeveloped land that holds lots of animals and hard to access beaches. We stayed at the Buccaneers backpacker lodge, about two and a half hours away (more if you get slightly lost as we did). Most of the route consisted of steep hills, some of it was on road that was hardly paved. Eventually we bumped and shook our way up into a compound of small bungalows. Our little bungalow had 4 rooms, a large main room with kitchen, two small bedrooms and a bathroom. Vines and flowers grew all over the walls and every morning we woke up to the noise of a monkey jumping on the roof.



There were things to do, we wanted to go to the game park and see elephants but there was a large group visiting and everything was booked. We’re still getting used to the South African laid back approach. Just because you say you’d like to book something to one person on staff tonight it doesn’t mean that he’ll automatically tell the person working tomorrow! So we just spent all our time that weekend, alternating our time between the beach, dinner, and the bar. Not a bad weekend.

In Pursuit of Peace and Reconciliation

Saturday morning we all managed to get up in time for the tour of the townships that the international office had arranged for us and any other international students. Our tour guide’s name was Mbuleli Mpokela. I remember this because I got his card- not really a card- just squares of paper with “Mbuleli Tours” printed on them. Mbuleli came from the townships himself and seemed to have worked his way up, creating this tour business by himself. Dressed in a leather jacket with a little engraved nametag, he had an obvious pride in his Xhosa heritage and history.

I purposefully didn’t bring camera, even though most people on the tour did. I was just a little uncomfortable taking pictures of poverty like it’s a tourist attraction. We already were on a tour though, so guess I was already treating the townships somewhat as a tourist attraction, so that might have been kind of hypocritical of me.

We started at a building called Settlers Monument. On top of a hill overlooking Grahamstown, we had already been inside the monument a few times for orientation events. The monument was built in the 70s to honor the achievements of the English speaking settlers in Grahamstown. We didn’t go in, instead Mbuleli pointed us to the remains of a fort still standing in front of the monument. In 1819, he told us, the Xhosa people gathered to fight the English who had settled on their land. Many English were killed but eventually many more Xhosa were. The remains of the fort, 3 cannons that were used to fire on the attacking Xhosa, had been left as a memorial to the English who died in what was called the battle of Grahamstown.

We drove into one of the townships only a little ways before we stopped at a hill again, this one overlooked the brightly colored tiny houses and shacks of the townships. In the center was a small circular monument, stairs going up the front and the back. This place, our guide told us is called Egazini, where most of the battle took place and most of the Xhosa lost their lives. We climbed the stairs to the top of the monument. It had been raining and a pool of water lay over most of the words etched into the stone on the floor, In Pursuit of Peace and Reconciliation the people of Grahamstown united to build this memorial to the warriors and soldiers who died on 22 April 1819. It looked sad all alone on the hill in the morning mist, especially compared to the huge building and “living” monument (as the settlers building is called) we had just left. I wondered how many people know what the monument commemorates or that it even exists.

We got back in the van and kept driving. We passed tiny houses and dirt roads. Cows and dogs eyed the van from the side of the road. A man in a suit, holding a briefcase in one hand and his tie in the other walked slowly along one of the paths, past the kids playing in the dirt, toward one of the tin roofed houses. Mbuleli says these tin roofed houses are much better than the old ones made much of mud but he points out many of the longer thinner houses that have been neatly divided in two by different colors of paint. Houses that are painted two different colors, he explains, are houses where the two families living there do not get along. Most people, seemed glad to see us waving as the van passed.

We passed the hospital, dedicated to the treatment of tuberculosis and AIDS. On one of its walls is painted, “We Care, Do You? United In The Fight Against AIDS and TB.” We passed piles of trash along the street. We passed a huge billboard that says “If You Don’t Register You Can’t Vote.” We pass churches, many of them full of people. Because everyone who can find a job only has time for work all week, Mbuleli explained, Saturdays have been dedicated as funeral days.

We drove up a hill on which many of the houses were built on top of old graves. We stopped for a moment and Mbuleli took us to the home of an old women who has lived there for a very long time. She spoke a little English, but we really only had to say one word to communicate- Obama.

We stopped at a building that used to be a prison and is now an art studio for local artists. The word Egazini is painted on the front above a mural showing the Xhosa and the Battle of Grahamstown. We walked around and looked at the works, many of which were prints made by cutting intricate designs into pieces of wood and using a large printing press to transfer the design to paper. While we were there Mbuleli also introduced us to two women from the ANC who had been holding a rally for the women of the township nearby There is a lot of talk about the elections in Grahamstown but after hearing Mbuleli and these women speak there seems to be a split between the poor and more wealthy parts of Grahamstown. Most of the people at the university are really disgusted by the corruption in the ANC and are planning to vote for COPE or “anything but the ANC.” The people in the townships don’t seem to see it quite that way though. Throughout our tour Mbuleli described how the ANC had built homes, and helped get water and electricity and indoor plumbing to a lot of the townships. There is still incredible poverty and the ANC may be corrupt but a lot of people still remember when it was worse.

Our last stop was at another house in the township, where we served a traditional Xhosa meal by a middle-aged lady with white dots painted around her eyes. The meal was simple and very good, and there was plenty of it, it must have taken her all day to prepare that much food. I don’t remember the Xhosa names of any of the foods, many of them pronounced with the impossible click sounds, but there were dumplings and a spinach/broccoli cheese thing and beans.

It was a strange, sad, warm place to visit. When we left for the twenty minute trip back to campus it was raining hard, but at Rhodes is was only cloudy.

I might not be in Chestertown Anymore

It was a long and hard struggle, but I am signed up for classes. I am –I hope- now taking journalism 2 History of SA media, which I pretty much managed to just force my way into. Wander around an academic department long enough looking lost and helpless and eventually someone will take pity on you. Also Political Science 3 which consists of one term course called Thinking Africa and the second term is International Relations. Along with those is our required course just for Washington College students, which gives me a full load, since the poli sci class is 3rd year which in SA counts as 8 credits. I had to drop the English courses, ironically the easiest ones to get because that was too heavy a course load.



But that was not the fun part of Friday.

Friday night was the last night of orientation week and there was a street party on one of the main streets in campus. It had started to rain by the time we got there and the huge crowd of people danced and shivered in front of a full concert size stage flashes lighting up dancers to the end of the street for moments. I could feel the street shake a little from the music and the dancers. It was too wet too stay for very long so we walked into town, trying to get into one of the local clubs, but as all of Rhode’s was out, the line was too long and we ended up at what has already become the usual, the Rat and Parrot.

Culture Shock

It rained yesterday. An unsteady, indecisive rain, that came and went and made everyone walk around with their eyes on the sky waiting for the next shower to raise their hoodies. At night the rain finally decided to become a downpour. The wind rattled outside and it got so chilly I closed my window for the first time all week. A little cold rain was worth it though, because today was beautiful, sunny warm and breezy. I walked into town and bought a muffin from a little coffee place, that is also an outdoor bar at night (I’m pretty sure almost any place that serves food in Grahamstown is also a bar) with a pretty open courtyard with wooden benches.

So far the culture shock has been less a shock and more of a creeping wave. There aren’t really any huge things so far, just a lot of little things to get used to. The 7 hour time difference, the 10 rands to a dollar, seeing a monkey run across the road as we drive in to town.

The biggest culture shock has come the past few days attempting to register for classes. I have been at it for two days now and so far the only class I’ve managed to sign up for is English. Since I am an international student, I have to go through the international office to sign up for classes. First I tell them what classes I’m interested in and they give me letters for the heads of those departments for them to sign to confirm I have met with them and we have agreed on a certain course. So I’ve spent the past two days walking from the English department to the Political Science department to the Journalism department trying to just find the people I’m supposed to talk to. At Poli Sci I was told the head of the department would not be in until Friday and apparently the expert on South Africa left so it would not be possible to take a course simply on South African politics (! How do you not have someone to teach about your own country?) At journalism I emailed the Head in charge of academics who referred me to the person in charge of their international students who referred me to their person in charge of third years and I still don’t know who to talk to! I do have English now though, two ‘papers’ or sub-courses which should make up one full course, Post colonialism and New Literature. Tomorrow I attempt poli sci and journalism again…

More creeping culture shock was this night. One of the orientation events was the screening of a movie and I found it rather illuminating. Not the movie itself really- a crime/action movie, called Jeruselema, locally produced and acted, very much like any action movie in the US- but the student audience’s reaction to it. Here, watching a move, the divisions between black and white seemed most apparent. The movie focused on an anti-hero who rises from hijacking cars to becoming the biggest slumlord in Hillbrow. The loud laughs and often cheers from the black members seemed to reveal an empathy for the life shown on the screen of poverty and crime that whites could not understand. There were loud laughs and nods when on screen the hero’s soon to be teacher tells him what he does for a living. The hero says “so you’re a hijacker?” the teacher replies “I like to think of it more as affirmative repossession.” There were cheers when the hero, money starting to come in from hijackings carries a tv into his tiny house for his family. We watch and we try to understand but we’re not in on the joke, not me, not any of the white faces in that audience.

Déjà vu

The next morning we walked into town. Like Chestertown, and perhaps every small town around the world, Grahamstown has pretty much one main street called High Street on which almost all the shops and restaurants are located. Everything seems more colorful, though, lots of light pink brick and white paint and green everything. Grahamstown is much busier too, especially at night. We stopped at the local supermarket chain called Checkers, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well stocked with American products it was, including shelves of American shampoo and conditioners and even Heinz ketchup! And of course everything is extremely cheap. At ten rands to a dollar a 300R cell phone costs 30 dollars. I have a feeling this could be dangerous. Even if everything always seems like a bargain, eventually those bargains add up! We ate lunch at another rather strangely decorated restaurant- this one had an, as Nouria described it “tastefully racist,” American cowboy and Indian theme. The burgers were great though.



Sunday night was, well… weird. A jazz night had been organized as one of the orientation events but before we went our RAs or ‘wardens’ as they’re called here told us to dress up and all meet in the common room early. Then all the boys from another residence came over and we randomly paired up. My ‘date’ was nice enough but a first year like all the students that aren’t international right now and more interested in talking with old highschool friends. It was a strange déjà vu like experience, like going through freshman orientation all over again except this time with alcohol. I went home early deciding that once was enough for awkward first year mingling, but of course most of this week is going to be these orientation type activities so I’ll just have to see how it goes…

Getting Here

Getting the internet to work is a rather lengthy process here so I decided to start writing anyway so I don’t forget anything in the meantime…

After about 19 hours of traveling from DC to Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth, our little group arrived at the hotel in Port Elizabeth around 10:00 at night on Friday. Too tired to walk over to the beach we sat in the little courtyard, dipped our feet in the pool, and tried to take in the fact that we were sitting under palm trees in 60 degree weather, in Africa. Saturday morning we walked across the street to the beach, which was absolutely beautiful. We played on the rocks and I had to agree with everyone, I could have just stayed there the whole five months. But instead we only had an hour and then Ashwin, the resident helper and guide for WAC students came to bring us to Grahamstown and Rhodes University.

South Africa is not a country of huge SUVs and minivans, mostly compact little white vans are seen on the roads and quite a few old style hippie VW vans. So when Ashwin came he came in a teeny tiny van with a teeny tiny cart/trailer thing hooked behind it. Now everyone had done a fairly good job of packing light (even me!) but 5 months is a long time and of course all our luggage did not fit in the teeny tiny cart Despite the awesome tetris like attempts of the hotel porters to make it all fit, one of my bag’s one of Katie’s and one of Scott’s had to stay behind. Everything was dropped off though, and I was impressed that not one piece of our luggage got lost.

We were quickly registered and placed in our separate residences. I am in Hobson Hall, room 38. It is a single and kind of adorable. There is a large desk, a bookshelf, a bedside table, a very roomy closet with shelves, and one side of the top of the dresser lifts up into a mirror making a little vanity. And in the corner across from the bed, a SINK! Whoever thought of putting sinks in dorm rooms was a genius. My large shuttered widow faces the front of the building and looks out onto one of the many streets running through campus, it’s a useful spot for friends still without cell phones to shout up at.

After getting settled a little we met Ashwin for dinner at a strange little restaurant decorated to look like an Italian bistro with huge black and white photos of mostly American movie icons on one wall. The food however, was buffet style and mostly South African, which from what I can tell consists of a lot of meat and cheese. It was Scott’s 21^st birthday so we stopped by the most popular student hangout called the Rat and Parrot, a constantly crowded English-style pub, to celebrate and get a feel for Grahamstown nightlife, which with the drinking age at 18 and alcohol incredibly cheap, is definitely a little livelier then Chestertown.

two and then fifteen hours

two hours till we leave for the airport. My bags are packed, but not quite closed- I have a feeling that will be the hard part. I am imagining the warm of the summer sun but having trouble believing it is really out there somewhere...