Midterms and Markets and Mayhem (oh my)

My embarrassingly touristy photo in greenmarket square- But seriously, I would have done this at home too.

Brigid with an awesome construction collage

This update will have to be hasty, as a pseudo midterm season has set in upon us, and my Adaptations of Family Structure in Traditional African Religions sorely needs attention. Friday I finally made it to Greenmarket Square- an awesome market where I got to practice my haggling to generally satisfactory means. Also on Friday, Sara came over and we painted on my floor (not on my floor but on paper while on my floor). I dig her ideas of a watercolor party and definitely intend to art myself up a bit. Saturday morning was Parents Day at Leap and the choir that a few of my mentees are in was performing, so Sean and I went down there to see our kids. All the other CIEE kids who were supposed to come totally bailed, but at least we had had enough to book a car the day before and thus managed to get there for free. Sidenote: I am so crazy about my LEAP girls already: Landiswa, Sinovuyo, Ziyanda, and ZiZipho. I get so excited talking to them, and I think they are so brilliant and fantastic. Plus the ones that were in the choir KILLED IT and I was glad we went. Saturday evening a bunch of us went to SushiZone for an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet-I only wish I’d been hungrier. After, Sean and I went and saw a South African comedy called David Newton (or Daniel Newberg or something like that). It was such a riot to here race and sports and politics jokes. He was talking about South Africa ‘tidying up’ or 2010. “Sweep violent crime under the rug, hide Zuma in the shower, and stick Julius in a school because nobody will think to look for him there.” Sunday was super mellow with just a little frozen yogurt (I love Marcel’s! I am craving some now), lots of paper work, and church at night. I’m so happy we found Christ Church here; it’s the one real South African environment that we always feel at home at. Yesterday was my day at the Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital, and I found out that Darren, one of my favorite kids, is going home on Friday. While I’m so happy he’s better, it kind of shocked me that I wasn’t going to get to see him anymore. Sadly, I guess I’ll need to really prepare for that on a grand scale come November. Today I met with my LEAP girls and worked on academic goals. They said they aren’t totally secure with English, which makes me hope that I can be helpful just be not knowing Xhosa. Apparently they never get to practice at home because if you speak English in Langa, you get uncle-Tom syndrome and people think you’re being stuck up (even though everyone knows at least some English!)

Watching Wildlife with White People

Awesome article on Krugar!: Watching Wildlife with White People

Ocean View - Weekend Homestay

Last weekend I had my homestay in Ocean View! You usually do a homestay with your partner, but my CIEE partner got violently ill the first night and had to go, so I was mostly on my own my family. They had a four year old girl, Cailtin, and a seven year old boy, Darren (see below).



Ocean View is a coloured township of families who were evicted from Simons Town (beachfront property with the cute penguin colony), Fish Hoek (beachfront property where we stayed the first week), and Noordhoek (the big beach with horses). Ironically, there is no ocean view from Ocean View- it’s about 45 minutes away from Cape Town and most work-centers, so transport is a huge pain for most citizens.


Housing isn’t so much a problem- all of us CIEE kids were in brick and mortar houses with our own rooms. They do however, have a major drug problem. A lot of people are on ‘tic’ which is meth, and meth addicts have often been breaking into houses to steal to support their habit. Ghadija and Donovon, my host mom and dad, explained that, since most people can’t really afford security systems, neighbors have started building a fire and gathering in the streets-some people staying all night-as a neighborhood watch.

The area has 2 middle schools and one high school...but 200 churches. So much spirit!




Here is Donovan grilling! Saturday night we went to a big braii (BBQ) in Mitchell’s Plain, another large coloured township where Ghadija’s sister lived, and Sunday they had a braii at hoe to see me off. I can not tell you how delicious this meat was!



Here is my host mom, Ghadija. I loved getting to talk with her- she had so much to tell me about her family background and her kids. I FINALLY got a more precise explanation of what ‘coloured’ entailed. It is a mixed race, but specifically mixed in the 16th century between whites (usually slave owners) and Khoi San (usually slaves). Though she wasn’t sure whether a mixed race child today would be thought of as coloured, and she agreed that it would be strange to separate a child from his/her parents by putting him or her in a totally separate category. Both her and Donovon’s family were evicted from Simons Town under the Group Areas Act. A couple years ago, the government paid reparations of about R20,000 to each family (split up between every one, covering multiple properties), but the property today would be worth well over R1,000,000.

It's hard to describe the whole thing overall, it was really wonderful to be welcomed into someone's home like that. There was a lot of playing and fun (so many neighborhood kids!), and the adults around asked me about Michael Jackson many times. I definitely think I will go back for a seafood braii-both of the grandfathers are fishermen!

Strike!

Cape Town is having a bus and taxi strike! More aptly, it's just a bus strike, but taxis refuse to run in solidarity (otherwise, there is just a flood of business for taxis and managers pit the groups against one another). Luckily, nobody cares about a taxi or two going down main road in Rondebosch (UCT's neighborhood), so we still have a 5R ride when we need one. However, they told us that if someone tried to drive a taxi in Langa, they would not get very far.

The train station by our house looks really weird and empty without mini buses...

Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital

Today was my first day working at the Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital! Today I worked in pediatrics, which so far has just been feeding and playing with the kids. Some of them are exclusively Afrikaans speaking, which is REALLY FRUSTRATING, but part of service abroad I suppose. Like most little kids, they love jewelry and electronics, which are hard to get back if you let them play with them. But there were definitely reminders of where we were. One girl had an audible rattling in her chest. The kids want to be picked up and held so badly, and they’ll refer to you as ‘mama’ right away. It’s a referral hospital, so their parents are usually far away and can’t afford to visit very much. Bizarrely, they like my singing. Anecdotes to come.

Sunday- Women's Day in Nyanga

Happy belated Women’s Day! My favorite of all South African holidays, the celebration of the role of women in SAfrican heritage gives way to awesome events all over the city. Brigid and I went with April’s dance class to see a Women’s Day arts performance in Nyanga, a Cape Town township. First we got a chance to look around at the art people had done, and then the performance began with older, traditional dancers. Here is a photo to see there face paint, and I’m going to try for a video as well.

After, there was a drama act that included a neat monologue about pride in South African womanhood as a gift from the mothers that fought apartheid. Then, a bunch of 8-9 year old girls did a RIDICULOUSLY salacious dance to ‘live your life.’ Finally, my favorite act was a group of young girls doing traditional dancing, which was actually quite similar to belly dancing but much grander motions.

Afterwards, we went to Mzoli’s meat, a township braai that serves huge piles of meat with sausage on top. It’s weirdly like a day club. Sunday at 3pm, everyone was drinking a lot and dancing in a packed space to a DJ. Very confusing. Sufficed to say, Brigid and I mostly chilled and played a bit with a baby.

Here we are in Nyanga posing as empowered women!

Saturday joining the rugby bandwagon

Saturday, after the usual market trip, we completely lucked out and got to go to the South Africa v. Australia rugby match (in which Australia was completely humiliated). I almost understand the rules! The stadium is about a 15-20 minute walk from the Res, so we strolled down with hundreds of other Springbok fans in forest green (this also included a lot of flags waving and honking). Admittedly, rugby is a very ‘white’ sport. It wasn’t integrated until after the 94 elections, but then it became an important part of uniting the country. They were world champions the year the integrated. Still now, though, you’re hard pressed to find a Black fan at a rugby match- it’s just about all white and coloured. We were the standing room only behind a goal post, which made the angle for watching a bit difficult (luckily though, games are only 100 minutes with halftime, so our shins made it through).

Brigid, April, and I in our Springbok green

Sean and I during the game (under an overhang)

Proud fans

Springboks in action!

Friday Afternoon- Halfway to Educational

Friday afternoon, after Brigid and I took a break at a coffee shop, we high tailed it to the South African Museum (5R entry, 75 cents ish, stellar) with Sean and Michael. One of my professors (History of Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa) recommended an exhibit there called ‘Subtle Thresholds’ on the history of human perceptions of disease. Completely fascinating. We also took this opportunity to play with the huge whale ribs (picture 2) and prehistoric models (picture 3).


This is what’s known as Cultural History of disease- more philosophical-mind-boggling than apply-twice-daily







Finally, while doing our usual picnic pot luck on my floor, we saw a gorgeous sunset. This is the view from my balcony.

Friday Morning -Marching in the Streets of Cape Town

In July 2007, a 19-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Khaylitsha, Cape Town’s biggest township, for being a lesbian. The trial has had 21 court dates and 20 postponements. On Friday, Brigid and I went to a march in her honor, against hate crimes. The local human rights and LGBTI groups are asking to have the case moved to the High Court. The march was scheduled for 9AM, and we arrived at 9:30 (luckily, as predicted, it didn’t start until 10:15) at Grand Parade. They had bussed people in from all the townships who wanted to participate, and-of every single environment I’ve been in here-the march was the most amazing cross section of South Africans. All races, genders, sexualities, ages-yes, that’s a priest on the right.

The march went from City Hall to the High Court building, with a ton of people on the streets in between. There were window washers 12 stories up that started banging on the metal scaffolding when we passed (in support- we were doing lots of noisemaking as well). There was also a man on a corner who read a sign and responded “come on, he was a Christian!”...about the murderer. That really took me aback, though that contingent exists in the US for sure (think pro-life groups after George Tiller’s murder), I’m not sure how likely you would be to run into them on the street. As though the murder of a 19 year old girl was a Christian act. Painfully absurd. After speeches and the presentation of a position at the government building, we went to St. George’s Cathedral nearby. There was a lot of singing and really powerful speeches. The pastor opened saying “I’ve heard that the brutal attacks on and raping of lesbians (an increasing act in some townships) has been called ‘curative.’ It’s not curative, it’s punitive. It’s punishing someone for who they are.”

Apparently, the church has played a major role in a lot of the city’s human rights movements, even before the resistance to apartheid strengthened. So far, churches here have seemed to play such a positive and powerful role- it’s been amazing to be a part of it.

Saturday Wine and Marimba

Among the many reasons that CIEE is a stellar program to do study abroad with is that they organize legitimately AWESOME day trips throughout the semester, the first of which was on Saturday. We went up to Nelsons’ Creek, a vineyard in Stellenbosch (a huge wine area right outside of Cape Town), for a tour. The vineyards were gorgeous (see below), and lunch and the wine tasting was great. Apparently, vineyards are one of the big employers of Zimbabwean migrant labor during picking season, since grapes picked by hand are much better than the ones picked by machines. Also, it seems that the global recession has been great for South African vineyards, since South African wines are cheaper to produce than the popular wines in Western Europe. Avid wine drinkers are apparently switching from French to South African wines to save some money, and Nelson’s creek is having its best year in a while.

A view of the vineyards- breathtaking

Sara, Sean, Brigid, and I tasting a rose. The black thing is a spit bucket but she told us we didn’t have to use it (thank goodness)

Grape Vines

Crate storage

Saturday night we went to Mama Africa, a completely amazing place for live African music. The marimba band, Marimba Vibrations, was amazing. The group I was with even bought a CD to share. There were 4 drummers and 2 xylophonists, as well as two singers, totally unmic-ed. People were switching between all the drums and singing and dancing on stage, and I was pulled on stage to dance- a ton of fun, but god help Brigid if she reveals those photos.

Friday Afternoon at Robben Island

Friday, since Brigid and I both finished class at 11AM, we decided to visit Robben Island- probably the number one must do for Cape Town. The tours leave on scheduled ferries, which you have to book in advance, and we scheduled one for 13:00. We began to regret that decision at 10AM, sprinting through torrential downpour on campus to make it to our respective only classes. (Apparently my study abroad advisor was right in telling us to bring gortex- when it rains it POURS). Luckily though, things began to clear up around 12:30. UCT runs various shuttles between it’s campuses (upper and lower are walking distance, but the medical school and the fine arts campuses are on the other side of town) and the res, so we managed to take the shuttle to the fine arts campus, cutting the cost of the cab down from R100 to R30. (Also worth noting, the greatest pancakes/crepes in Cape Town are at a restaurant by the Robben Island Ferry dock). The tour of the island itself was really surreal. The bus tour, which was first, drove us around the island, so we could see the medium-security prisons, manual labor sites, and the guards living area (a bizarrely picturesque town, sports courts and such built by the prisoners and enjoyed by guards and their families). The nature of the tour was a bit peculiar, and very careful not to exacerbate any ‘white guilt’ such a post-apartheid tour might bring about. The guide asked who was from the US, England, Holland, and Australia, and then told us that “all of our countries were instrumental in ending apartheid and ensuring that Robben Island would no longer be a prison,” and then had us all applaud ourselves. Well, if we’re talking about historical contribution, it seems strange to exclusively praise the English and Dutch for South Africa’s progress. But I suppose if these tours had an effect of any guilt or unpleasantness, nobody would come.

This is the lime quarry where all prisoners did their manual labor. Prior to its use for anti-apartheid political prisoners, the rock reached the grass.

The bus tour was followed by a tour of the maximum security prison by a former prisoner. This bit was really interesting, but was so much to absorb at once. Our tour guide had been arrested for ‘sabotage’ in the mid 1980s, after burning down a rent office to stop the ability of the government to arrest Blacks in townships who had refused to pay rent (on government shacks, after having their houses confiscated as part of the Group Areas Act). He spent time in six different political prisons in South Africa, and (I think) 6-8 years at Robben Island. He was really fascinating, and I wished I had been able to ask him more questions, but the experience itself was so hard to comprehend until after we had left.

This is number five, Nelson Mandela’s cell. (bathroom on left, bed on right)

The wall of the maximum security prison