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!

Safari- Day 2, Sprained Ankles and Large Giraffes

Day 2 in the 4x4!

The next day, after a ‘continental’ breakfast that thoroughly excited Sean, we got a better view of the lions

Then we got out of the 4x4 and tracked giraffes on foot-we got SUPER CLOSE to this one (Sean got the closest). Unfortunately, there was some leaping over small rivers involved.

The first one we tracked

We did see herds of buffalo but they were very hard to track!

Finally, we got a much better look at the cheetahs and even got to see them eat some chickens!

Safari Day 1

They fed us a buffet lunch, and then we hung out by the pool for about an hour. The Reserve also runs a cheetah rehabilitation program, so they brought out on of the cheetahs that had recently had surgery and his sister. They were really playful and loved big piles of sand. Fun fact- never look at a cheetah with sunglasses on. They’ll see their own reflection and attack your face. Or something like that.

We left on safari in a big 4x4 with about 10 other people. Our guide was really great and handed out blankets which we thoroughly enjoyed. Sean really developed an eye for spotting big game, so I think he was particularly appreciated by the van.


The first stop was the cheetahs, who are in a separate area of the reserve (so are the lions, but everything else was together). Here they are lounging:



The lions were the ones we had to stay the farthest from. There was one male and two females:


We saw a lot of zebra (zeh-bra) who were pretty friendly and didn’t seem very intimidated by us.



The guide made fun of us for taking pictures of Springbok, since they were eeeeeverywhere, but this one was very sneaky and adorable:

We also saw giraffes, but we got a much better few of them on Day 2 , so I'll save those pictures.

Our final sighting of the first day was the white rhino (even though both the white and the black rhino are pretty much grey). He came so close to us and was eating grass right on the side of road. I think he liked the attention, since he seemed to be making a point to give us good photo angles.



That night they fed us a big dinner, after which we thoroughly collapsed.

Visit 4- Cape Point

We also went out to Cape Point to see where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet-we even took the cable car to the top! Woo hoo!

There were many, many ostriches hanging out around the car-plus a few troupes of baboons!

Friday we went shopping at Greenmarket Square and went through Company’s Gardens, which is in full bloom.

Visit 3- Boulders Beach

Thursday we had the rental car-the freedom!-so we went out to Boulders Beach to see the penguins:

We also went out to Cape Point to see where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet-we even took the cable car to the top! Woo hoo!

Visit 2

Monday we road the train out to Simons Town and seals swam under us (in Simons Town, not on the train). We ate at a great deck cafe by the harbor:


Tuesday we hit our local favorite coffee shops for some cooperative paper writing and did some exciting grocery stopping. Then we went to a great restaurant called 5 Flies- no insects of any kind, though.






Wednesday afternoon I was stuck in class until five, so Sean took out my mom for a lovely walk and lunch at the Rhodes Memorial. I’ve enlisted him as a guest blogger for this event.

After eagerly watching Liz eat her lunch before heading off to class, her mom and I headed up the short yet steep pathway up to the Rhodes Memorial. Tucked just a little away from Upper Campus, the memorial turned out to be a beautiful sanctuary – lovely old classical building, surrounded by pristine nature and luckily just far enough from highways and main roads that the noise didn’t travel up there even in the slightest. Hopefully Liz and I will be back there as the weather gets nicer for some outdoor studying. Anyway... there’s a single outdoor restaurant up behind the memorial, featuring a seriously overpriced dinner menu but a rather reasonable lunch menu. We sat, chatted, and enjoyed some excellent and highly recommended food while scanning the surroundings for some elusive zebra. Unfortunately all we found were some very noisy birds. After lunch we decided to walk around the very beginnings of a few trails – we had some time to kill before picking up a rental car for the next day, but certainly weren’t up for too much physical exertion. All in all, they were some ok paths.

Full from lunch and tired from the walking, Liz’s mom and I bused over to Rondebosch to pick up the rental car (a success) and subsequently picked up Liz from her class on Middle Campus. As Liz now rejoins the story, my tour of duty as guest blogger is now at an end.

Visit from Mom!: 1

My mom got here safely around midnight last Tuesday, and-after an awkward fib-based fight with the security guard involving mild paperwork-we settled in Liesbeeck! Weds we did a campus tour (see lovely photographic evidence) and a trip down to Long Street for lunch. Thursday, since I had LEAP, we just managed down to Obz for some pizzas at Obz cafe. Then the true sightseeing began!

Friday we went to V&A for some falafel, touring Robben Island, sushi, and District 9 (which scarred me for a week). It was neat seeing Robben Island again with a different guide- a totally different experience. Here we are on the scenic end:

Saturday we went up to Table Mountain-ooooh, ahhhh.

And then out to dinner with Becca and Charles- my mom and I had ostrich and Sean had warthog ribs. Both of them: AWESOME. Then Becca and Charles drove us up to look over Sea Point. The night view was completely beautiful.

Namibia- The Climax and End of the Adventure

The next morning Michael cooked us all scrambled eggs, and we headed off to drive through the Namib Nauklaft Park (above) to Keetmanshoop. We didn’t make it to Keetmanshoop. We had an amazing drive- families of warthogs, baboons, ostriches (all with babies!) wandered along the car and a herd of springbok raced us down the road. Then, five km’s from the main road, a giant rock stopped us in our tracks. We pulled over and a pick up truck behind us (conveniently filled with BP employees) pulled over to help. They spoke Afrikaans mostly, but managed to tell us our petrol tank was leaking. We began to follow them up the road to a service station and got a message that the engine was overheating. We were having a breakdown in many ways. Our BP friends said they would go and get a tow truck for us, and we waited on the side of the road. We were all in a panic, stranded on the side of a Namibian road now covered in petrol with an overheated engine. The police came by, and I felt a bit relieved. Our conversation went something like this:

Police: You have to move it to the side of the road. Big trucks come down here.(I won’t insult them by putting broken English down, but communication was far from entirely clear)
Us: We can’t turn it on, the engine is overheating and it’s leaking fuel.
Police: You must push it to the side of the road
(efforts ensue to put car in neutral, which is not possible in this model without turning on the ignition, which we assumed may make the car blow up)
Police: What are you going to do?
Us: Some fellows said they’d bring back a tow truck.
Police: I think the only tow trucks come from Windhoek.
Us: They said Rehoboth.
Police: Oh, well.
Us: Maybe you could call someone for us? Our cell phones are South African and don’t work here
Police: Oh. I hope someone comes.
Us: (Look aghast- as if to say: HOPE?! WHAT?!)
Police: I’m sure someone will come.
They drive off.

The relief was unwarranted. Shortly after, a single fellow (white and English speaking) pulls over in a pick up truck hauling timber. He consecutively tried to fix our gas tank with bar soap, drove us to town in the bed of his pick up (the three of us who were most afraid of the car exploding while the other two followed in the time-bomb car), called the BMW dealership, and offered to house us at his farm (we refused). The engine started to heat up again on the main road so we pulled over, but just in time to meet up with the Afrikaans fellows from before and a tow truck they’d brought. They couldn’t take us all the way up to Windhoek because the tow truck didn’t have lights on the back and couldn’t legally drive main roads, so the goal was to repair it enough for us to drive up to the BMW dealership there. It started to get dark, and we knew we couldn’t drive up that night, so we made reservations at a local B&B (what I mean by that is a nice guy at the garage-didn’t even work there, friend of the owner-called and made reservations for us). We were still really afraid in the situation, but by this point we had gotten in touch with Quinton (our program director) and the rental car company. The mechanics and their friends took our meat and drink orders and had an enormous braii for us in the parking lot of the shop. The guys loved hearing about the US (especially George, who had an obsession with old American westerns and Native American history) and telling us about their background. There were coloured (‘basters’ in Namibia-not an offensive term, they took pride in it), black, and white men working there, and they told us all about racial dynamics and language use. Finally, they took us to our B&B (Budget dropped off a replacement rental and picked up Simba, our prior car), where we stayed the night. We drove to Windhoek in the morning, worked things out with Budget, and Brigid, Sara, and I flew back to Cape Town while Michael and Sean drove back. To close with a cliché- it was a trip I’ll never forget.

Namibia Adventure- Days 3 and 4 in Swakop

An important fact about our house in Port Nolloth-it had ghosts. WE’RE SURE. After seeing several baboon, horses, falling rock warning signs, we made our own for the next occupants.

This is on the long, long drive up to Swakopmund- the city in Namibia other than Windhoek. The town was great, and the couple whose guest house we stayed in was so sweet. The fellow had worked for a US company in Saudi Arabia, and then retired to run a guest house in a costal Namibian town. Not a bad situation! We explored and shopped through the town the next day, finding great coffee shops and jewelry stores. Then we drove out to the dunes...

Here’s a picture of (or around) Dune 7, one of Africa’s two largest sand dunes. Things aren’t very clear because we got caught in a MASSIVE sandstorm that wrecked havoc on us...

(if only the sand in the air showed up on film). Sand was in our hair, clothes, teeth, eyelids, and Michael and Brigid’s cameras.

Here we are in silhouette on the (sand!) road. At first we thought that it was a typical result in a windy Namibian town, but on the way home we saw a TRAIN derailed by the sandstorm, with support rushing out to help it get back on the tracks. Looks like we were there at an awesome/wrong time! It prevented us from being able to paraglide, but I think we decided it was worth the experience.