Thursday, July 30, 2009

First Week of Classes- Big update!

Monday was our first day of classes. As of Monday (the significance of this will be made clear soon), my week officially started on Tuesdays. However, my friend Brigid is taking intensive Xhosa (a local language common among Black South Africans), and I figured I’d tag along for the first class. It was a lot of international students, which was to be expected for two reasons. First, most people who grow up in South Africa have friends who speak Xhosa, and almost no one would start at beginners’ level if they were to study it. Also, it is a ‘beginners A’ course, and, since it is the second semester, most languages are offered only in part B. Xhosa is offered in part A both semesters mostly because it is so popular with study abroad students. However, there were also several people who spoke other African languages (I’m quite embarrassed to say that even in a full two years of African based coursework, I hadn’t heard of ANY of their languages) and wanted to use their knowledge of the structure to learn Xhosa as well. The professor was adorable, and, interestingly, she did not learn Xhosa growing up, but had studied it in school. I was surprised that though many professors at UCT are native Xhosa speakers, they use a non-native professor for beginners Xhosa (not to say she isn’t qualified, she’s been teaching for ages and described things perfectly).

I also chose to attend the Philosophy of the Mind course that I had already decided I had to drop (it conflicted with Gender and Violence), just to give it a once-over (and also because everyone else was in class anyway). But before I even headed to philosophy, I found that my Gender and Violence had been moved from Weds 2-4 to Thurs 9-11. It’s a post-graduate class, so it’s quite small and most of the students are taking only 1 class (or 2) since they’re doing their honors or masters thesis. But still. How many classes back home would change meeting times during the first week of class? Huzzah! I thought. Philosophy lives again! Once I managed to find Philosophy in the electrical engineering building (bizarrely assigned classrooms? There’s something similar to home! Minus the having engineers bit), I saw that there is indeed a universal Philosophy Majors Look. Really. Any Philosophy class anywhere in the world, I wager, would look essentially identical. Only the accents are different.

Monday night began a lovely trend of having pot-luck dinners at my apartment with some other US students in our program. The apartments here don’t have common spaces or a kitchen table, but that’s compensated for by huge rooms, and we eat picnic style on a big blanket with a Moroccan table on my floor. We did this last night too, and are getting better and better at it.

Tuesday I began my most anticipated course: History of Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa. It’s about 20 people, and, quite unfortunately, about 16 Americans. I hoped that the real all-US classes would be more general (ie. History of South Africa in the 20th Century), but alas, we all seem to have very similar taste. I was very disappointed by this Tuesday (lecture day, officially), but Wednesday (tutorial day), in getting to hear a bit more from the professor, I was again feeling excited about the content of the class. It seems that it will even include field trips to medical museums, including the site of the first ever heart transplant (which occurred conveniently just down the street). Philosophy ran again, and I embarrassed myself in my efforts to buy the book. It rang up for $180, not too different from GU prices, and I grumbled considerably. It wasn’t until I got home that I remembered that’s about $20USD. Oops.

Also, Wednesday night I started with the Hip Hop group on campus. Very pop/lock based, which is not my forte, but I was assured that it was new to most of the group and they try to vary styles every semester. People love US hip hop here, and we’re learning choreography to It’s Tricky by Bloodhound Gang. I was also excited about meeting people in dance, since this is the only thing I’m doing where I’m without other US students to turn to in down time/awkward moments. The ‘real’ UCT students in hip hop were really welcoming, and even told me about some cool dance things going on in the city for Women’s Day (a real holiday here!).


Here I am heading to Upper Campus- it was so cloudy Weds that it looks like the mountain is wearing a hat!


Today was a bit more chaotic (‘hectic’). My Gender and Violence class, officially 9-11, met at 10 just to convene and do a get-to-know-you. Though the women in the class already know each other (all in the same masters program), they were very inclusive and really neat to talk to. Two of them are actually Americans who came to UCT to do their masters through the African Gender Institute (an appealing plan perhaps...). However, the class was being moved back to Weds 2-4 (actually, adding an hour to make it 2-5 and finishing in September). Philosophy, once resurrected, is now surely dead. Oh well. I didn’t come here to discuss Descartes.

But I did have a panic, since I’d already dropped African Dance I to make room to get back in Philosophy, and I would need another class to add to History of Medicine and Gender and Violence. I did a lap around Leslie (something like the ICC), just walking by all the departments, and decided to add into Religion in Africa. I got a reading packet, which I started this afternoon, and it seems really interesting.

Done by 11, Sara and I walked down to Observatory (3 towns over, we were originally going to stay closer but we just kept going) and had lunch at a wonderful cafe. To keep with the pattern of my eating, I had a ‘French kiss’ (French toast with chocolate and almonds) for 29R ($3.50USD). We caught a group taxi back. Even though I know they’re safe if they aren’t empty and it’s during the day, those taxis always make me a bit nervous. They just go up and down the main road, and they cram a ton of people in (there’s probably an equivalent everywhere in the developing world). They’re only R5 (less than a dollar), and they can save you half an hour’s walk, but I always bang my knee and feel a little claustrophobic.

Finally, wrapping it up, tonight a group of us went back up to campus to see the Historical and Current Affairs Society’s showing of Milk (with free pizza! Like a whole pizza for each person). After seeing the awesome movie (twice), it was strange to watch with a different audience. There was definitely a lot more nervous laughter at gay mannerisms or intimacy. One of the women I talked to in Gender and Violence (who was originally American) is doing her thesis on the impact of the Civil Unions Act here and is interviewing gay couples who have since received the unions. She said that, in terms of legal debate, the question asked regarding gay issues is always “could this be discrimination?” Everything is based on the importance of civil rights, since the memory of mass disenfranchisement is very recent. However, people don’t seem very comfortable with homosexuality and cultural tolerance for homosexuality seems to lag a bit, even in urban areas. Next Friday, there is a march in the city for a woman who was killed three years ago in Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s largest township, for being a lesbian. The trial of her killers has been delayed 27 times, and they’re still free.

Tomorrow I’m finally going to see Robben Island, and Saturday we’re going to the Stellenbosch Wine Festival- hopefully I’ll keep up blogging better and will be able to avoid these huge ramble-y updates!

2 comments:

  1. Your classes sound AWESOME. Re: the one with the Americans in it, at least you are still getting a lot out of the subject and professor, which you couldn't do at home. And it's super awesome that you're doing hip hop! Maybe you can teach me some moves later? (Though you are a much better dancer than me as it is, obviously).
    New Zealand is, I'm sure, very different from South Africa, but the people here are also noticeably more homophobic than in the US (or at least, the parts of the US I'm usually in, with the people I'm usually with)--- for example, absolutely everyone says "gay" as a negative adjective, much more than they do at home. And just in general they seem pretty uncomfortable with homosexuality. Not everyone, of course, but I'm more aware of it than usual. I knew this is a big problem in Australia, but NZ is more liberal and I wasn't expecting it.
    Was this a rambling comment? Eh well, I like your blog!!

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  2. That's so interesting! Here it's subtle, but it seems stranger and stranger. Cape Town is actually supposed to be the 'rainbow city' or something like that, but, though straight couples are MUCH more PDA-y than at home, I haven't seen one clearly gay couple in three weeks of bouncing all over the place. Though also, UCT has a lot of students from Eastern Cape and Zimbabwe, which are perhaps less renound as rainbow-y. I'm going to check out that march next week, and I'll let you know how it goes!

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