Insane Email From UCT: "Crying wolf: student hoaxes that could have serious consequences"

Dear colleagues and students,

I wish to bring to your attention a matter that has caused some concern for UCT management and the campus protection services for some time now. This is the matter of students reporting crimes or incidents which, upon further investigation, are found not to have occurred. Last month a student who “disappeared” from her residence alleged that she had been kidnapped and taken halfway across the country to another city, where she claimed to have escaped. Acting on the ransom demand for her safe return at the time, campus agencies and the SAPS were mobilised and alarm spread through a campus community which was already traumatised by the recent shooting in Observatory.

It has turned out that this was a hoax. We are of course pleased that no kidnapping took place and that no one came to harm. But perpetrating a hoax of this kind is unacceptable. This incident is now likely to be the subject of a police inquiry which may well lead to criminal prosecution or the recovery from the perpetrator of the considerable public expenses incurred in trying to trace her, or both. University disciplinary action may also be considered.

The issue of crime and the security of our staff and students are of paramount importance at UCT. Over the years we have waged a relatively effective fight against crime on campus and are pursuing efforts to secure the areas at the periphery as well. When a member of our community raises the alarm, considerable internal and external resources are mobilised and levels of fear and anxiety are heightened as many people spend time and effort to solve the problem. I need hardly tell you how disruptive and costly all this turns out to be in the case of a false alarm.

While the circumstances of this incident are still to be determined, we are conscious of the fact that some of this behaviour might be the result of the pressures of student life, especially around examination time. It is thus important to emphasise that free counselling services are available through the Wellness Centre of the Department of Student Affairs (phone 021-650 1017/1020 during business hours) and that the wardens in the residences are there to lend an ear to any student who feels that things are getting on top of him or her.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo

Acting Vice-Chancellor

From Our Subwarden (RA)

"aight, guys i know i haven't been really responsive to all the maintenance requirements what with petitions, fighting 4 new washing machines and calling those shady elevator people for over a month now, but PLEASE GUYS, DO NOT BRING CHICKENS INTO LIESBEECK. Gosh guys, how are we ever going to explain that away to our guests? what exactly am I supposed to do with 1 of those brown african hens??? Is the SPCA even open on weekends??"

Yes. Apparently we have a hen problem.

Monday -Working at the TB Hospital

Since I'm coming up on my last week of volunteering here, I thought I'd show more of the Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital. There are three group rooms in pediatrics- one for infants, one for toddlers, and one for 4-8 year olds. Older kids have their own rooms that they share between 2-4 roommates.

Here are the toddlers in cribs:

When we first get there at about 3:20 it's usually dinner time, so we help the younger kids eat (a very messy process, especially since they insist on sitting in our laps). The older kids are self-sufficient, but still love getting some attention, evidenced by below mouthful of food:

Once we get all the bowls away, the greatest demand is usually for carrying. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the Brooklyn Hospital is a referral hospital, which means most families aren't from the area. The kids don't usually get to see their parents very often (only birth mothers are even allowed scheduled visits) unless their moms also have TB and are staying in an attached adult ward. This means they rarely get held or even taken out of cribs, so they are always elated to see us and run us ragged. Not to brag, but my carrying and piggy back rides are particularly in demand since I run in spuratic patterns and periodically spin around very fast (though this is immediately after they eat, this hasn't resulted in disaster. yet).

See how much fun I can be?:

Some of the children are actually very mellow and just want you to peacefully hold them for a while. Granted, most of them start out this way and then gradually accelerate to climbing. I think they receive medications not long before we come, and the more recent arrivals haven't adjusted well to side effects yet.

Here is a tickling fest:

After a few hours of play, we help get them all changed into PJ's with fresh nappies and put them to bed (4:30-5;30 for the whole process). This is a bit hectic because a lot of them have really awful diaper rashes and such since the nurses have to care for so many. It's really difficult to leave because they all scream and scream when you shut the door.

Sunday- Trip to Cape Flats

On Sunday, Ranbow, Chief, Sara, and I went to Mzoli’s Meat and to visit Chief’s granmama in Guguletu. At Mzoli’s, you go to a butcher counter and pick all the meat you want raw (my preference: a good cut of beef and lots of sausage). They put it in a bowl, and then you take it back to guys with a grill and wait in line for them to grill it up for you. The room gets SUPER smoky and crowded. When you get your bowl of meat, you bring it out to picnic tables where a DJ is playing lots of music.

Here’s Ranbow and I enjoying our meat cut-no forks and knives to be found!

Our bowl of meat

Here I am with Chief and Ranbow with Mzoli’s in the background

Then we headed over to Chief’s granmama’s house, but we couldn’t find her or Chief’s brother, so we picked up a few of his friend and walked through Guguletu to Nyanga. Every single person stared hardcore at Sara and I-there are typically never non-black people in these townships. A little boy (maybe 3-4?) came up to Sara and seemed to be trying to get her cell phone from her pocket, but he was easily distracted when she took his hands and spun him around in a circle.

Friends of Chief seemed really excited that we were there. The fellow in the orange shirt asked him how he managed to get girls like us to Nyanga and said he wanted to marry us.

Here’s a shot of the ‘informal housing’ there from when we were leaving.

Saturday- Muizenberg Kite Festival

Saturday, Sean and I went down to Muizenberg for the annual kite festival. The train ride down to the beach towns is always lovely, but it was weirdly crowded with white South African teenagers-very uncommon and we’re still not sure where they were headed. When we got there, we walked along the beach- the wind blew up a storm so we were covered in sand. There were a ton of wind surfers, and a lot of them were getting picked up off the water just flying in the air.

The Muizenberg bathhouses

After realizing the festival was on an inland park and not the beach, we headed to the entrance. The fee was R10 ($1.20) which all went to the Cape Mental Hospital. The kites were great! My favorite was a diver-the wind made her look like she was swimming underwater-with little fish kites attached. All the colors were gorgeous against the mountain backdrop. Plenty of booths were also set up to provide us with our much desired boerewors rolls.

The kites-the diver is near the bottom on the left!

Sunday- Pentecostal Church

Sunday, Sara and I went with her flatmate Rainbow to his Pentecostal church in Seapoint (it took two minibuses to get there!). Since Sara and I have Religion in Africa together, we were excited to see our readings in action. The thing that surprised us the most is that it seemed like, though the church was 95% Black, all the church leadership seemed to be white (and FEMALE, an even bigger peculiarity). I’m not sure if this is recent since, historically, most of African Pentecostalism was a response to limitations on Black leadership and African traditions in European churches. The church was PACKED like a minibus taxi, which, as a reminder, looks like this:

Everybody was in the pews shoulder-to-shoulder and when we stood up, we had to stagger slightly. Even before church, everyone was crowded around the doors waiting for them to open to storm in and get a good seat (think 9:30 Club on Girl Talk nights). Most of the songs were about celebration, which was nice and upbeat. Then they switched to singing/praying in tongues (which sounds like gobbleygook, but I think is supposed to be ancient languages), which admittedly through Sara and I off a bit. They also spoke a lot about praying in tongues, though I still don’t totally understand the concept. They said that the Bible says when ‘we’ speak in tongues we are speaking to God. I’m not sure if the Bible says that, or what that would mean for non-tongued prayer, which they also used plenty. When the pastor started the sermon, she asked everyone who didn’t have a job and wanted one to stand up...which was practically half the church. And not just the young recent-grad folks, there were plenty of couples with young children where both partners stood up. It was really staggering. She then promised them that today they would get their CV (resume) in order and tomorrow they would have a job. I’m not sure how I feel about that sort of promise, but the reaction was really striking. People were in tears and jumping up and down, and some even pulled their CVs out of their bags. The message was all prosperity gospel, and I found it a bit confusing theologically, but there was a big emphasis on ‘real’ Christians being rewarded immediately, in this life. The service was about three hours-pretty exhausting-but fascinating throughout.

Saturday- Kayaking with Whales

Saturday, we bussed down to Hermanus for some kayaking/whale watching. The bus ride is a bit short of two hours, but we left almost on time which was completely revolutionary. First, we had a chance to hang around the bay and town. I didn’t have NEARLY the super intense PI camera most people were using, so this is the only whale picture I managed from the shore, but the whole ocean was littered with whale-I mean everywhere. Unfortunately we failed to predict that it would be the slowest moving town ever and lunch became a bit of an ordeal, but we managed with a solid take away order. Then we went down to the kayaking beach and lay on the sand as the previous group returned. It was completely beautiful (we were sure summer had arrived, but as I speak/write it’s drizzling at 55 degrees F). We then hustled to assemble our life jackets and paddles (see accompanying documentation) and situated ourselves in kayaks. Sean and I seemed to alternate between being the fastest pair and the slowest pair-I’m not sure what accounted for that. Immediately, the whales came SO CLOSE. We were supposed to keep a certain distance from them, but they were very curious and followed us if we kayaked away. I wish I had pictures of those, but it was impossible to deal with in the kayak (aggravated by the fact that Sean and I realized eventually we were in it backwards, but opted to just stick it out). We got the closest to the first whale we saw, an albino (al-beeno here), and it came probably 4-5 meters out of the water so we got an amazing view.

Here we are on the shore when we first got there

Sightings from the shore (above) were pretty good, but couldn't compare to being out on the water

Kayaking!