ZA ZA South Africa

At this moment, I am sitting in my dorm, having just woken up, and listening to some girls in the hall laughing and speaking Afrikaans. The language is completely unintelligible to me, as its origins lie in both Dutch (from South Africa's former colonists) and indigenous African tongues.

I have so far attended two days of my Development Anthropology class. In this session, there are about 40+ students. I am one of three students that originated in North America, and one of those is French Canadian. My roommate is American, but she has spent the last several years as a hospital chaplain in Ethiopia. Other students hail from such far flung places as Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Bolivia, Australia, Ukraine, and, ah! yes, Africa. There are a few students from South Africa (which I have been told a few times is not ACTUALLY Africa, I would have to go to a less modernized country to experience the "real" Africa), but many students also come from the Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, etc...I love listening to all of the different accents, it is like a fluid mosaic, always changing, never staying static.

It is a real humbling experience to be the only person in this session who has spent most of her life in America. I feel guilty, almost inherently, to have been raised in a moderately privileged environment, with two parents, not really wanting for anything. At the same time, I smile to myself when I hear the student from Zimbabwe remark on how much she misses watching television at her house.

Everyone knows that I am the "resident anthropologist" in the group, and they continuously ask me what I think of our class, and if it is all review to me. I answer yes, but that I am not at all looking forward to our Statistics class as the end of the session, where I will be an expert by nobody's standards.

This past Saturday, we took a mini-trip to the beach, which was sunny, windy, and beautiful. There were plenty of daring kite-surfers, as well as youthful socc-um-FOOTBALL players. I am excited to take pictures of my campus as well, which is just unreal. This coming Thursday we will be taking a scenic drive around Cape Point, to which I am looking forward.

Until then, school school school! Anyone have any ideas for an ethnography that I could do in the Detroit area? :]

Chels

South Africa One

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Cape Town, South Africa. I am excited and anxious because this is the first place I have been where I know virtually nothing, and nobody. All I know about are vuvuzelas. There, I readily admitted my ignorance. I will be staying in a town called Somerset West, in the Helderberg region. According to the Wiki, Helderberg used to be called "Hottentots-Holland", but was renamed due to supposed racist connotations. I think I prefer Hottentots-Holland to Helderberg because it sounds more fun, but I don't want to be labeled a racist, so there you go.

This trip will mark my second session out of the required four for my Master's program in International Development. So I guess if you add in all of my requirements I am about 3/8ths (or some other made-up number) done with my program. I will be taking three classes, Development Anthropology, Concepts of International Development (a Sociology course), and Statistics and Research (not overjoyed).

My plane leaves tomorrow at 7pm, I change planes in Amsterdam and land in Cape Town around 11pm local time on Thursday night. A quick jaunt to my dorm room, some sleep, and then up bright and early for class on Friday morning.

I hope to update this blog throughout my stay in ZA. Keep following for interesting baboon-attack stories!

Oh, P.S. this is the link to the college I will be staying at: http://www.hbc.ac.za . Vineyards and oceans and mountains here I come!

First Post - Travel Quotes

I've decided to start a travel blog, due to forthcoming copious amounts of wanderings. Right now I am in beautiful-yet-isolated Berrien Springs, Michigan finishing up my first session of grad school.

To kick this bloghito off right, quotes:


I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Oscar Wilde

When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.
Neil Gaiman

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.
Neil Gaiman

The Road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.
J.R.R. Tolkien



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