Africa time

I have thought about posting several times this week but haven't done it because I feel as if I don’t have anything to talk about. It’s the first time that I’ve begun to feel not only settled, but even a little bored! But more than that, I’ve been frustrated. Then I realized that the whole reason I have a blog is to let you know what’s going on with me, and why not do that even when what’s going on with me is neither entertaining nor extremely upbeat? So, here goes.

As you know, I do not have internet in my room. Living in West Campus Village is lovely except for that. I have to go to the lab in order to get internet, and then it’s excruciatingly slow. For those of you who are interested, that’s because there’s a huge bandwidth monopoly here. The university ends up paying out the nose for internet and as a result makes it generally not fun for us to use. This would be fine if all I had to do was respond to you wonderful peoples’ emails. Unfortunately, I have to do some research at some point—shocking? So downloading pdf files or anything else becomes near to impossible. Thus, I have decided that it would be best to move to International House. Unfortunately, IH has few openings and the people in charge tend to “lose” your application (does this sound familiar—are you having flashbacks yet? I am). As a result, I have spent the last two weeks talking to 10 different housing directors and basically running in circles to no avail. I do, however, have one housing director (sadly the one for IH) who asks me for presents a lot. Gross.

In addition to this, I have been having trouble with my course set-up. As I’ve told you, I am not in the master’s program, which is where I should have been placed. Instead, I’m taking courses at the Honors level. This is not terrible except that two of the courses are entirely remedial for me. We’re talking about quantitative research—seriously? I’ve done this since Psych 101. So, I get bored. In the Hons. Program you take two mandatory courses and then get to choose two electives. I love the first elective, which is Human Rights—I’ve told you about how wonderful it is. The second course was supposed to be Democracy in Education, but it has been cancelled! This basically means that I’m wasting my time right now because if I can’t take that second course, then there’s no reason for me to complete the Hons. Degree which will be useless to me in the States. This all adds up to a lot of frustration. But I’m going through the “proper channels” and trying to arrange an independent study. I’ll keep you updated on that.

This may not seem to you to be a lot of frustration, and that’s probably because when you have a problem, you go to the source and you fix it. To help you understand my situation, let me give you a few examples of my interactions here:

Going to the bank to pay for my language course:

Lisa: Hi, I need to link my account for a transfer on the ATM.
Lady at desk: Well, we can’t do the transfer, but you can do it on the ATM.
Lisa: Right, good.
Lady: May I have your passport and debit card?
Lisa: I don’t carry my passport with me, but I have my ID card and my debit card and I can tell you my debit card number (thinking all the while that a North American passport could go for about R20.000 on the black market).
Lady: No, I need your passport.
Lisa: Well, I can give you my ID card and tell you my passport number.
Lady: No, I need your passport. I can’t do it without your passport number.
Lisa: Well, I can tell you that, I just don’t have the passport here.
Lady: Then we can’t complete the transfer.
Lisa: You absolutely have to have the passport?
Lady: Yes.
Lisa: Ok, well (really reluctantly) thank you.
Lady: Pleasure!

No. Not a pleasure. In fact, that’s the definition of NOT a pleasure.

Going to check on my course registration

Lisa: Hi, my second semester option didn’t show up on my registration and I was just wondering if this was a problem.
English faculty attendant: Umm…I don’t know…No, I’m sure it’s not a problem.
(TWO DAYS LATER)
Lisa: Nazir, I was just wondering…I already checked with the faculty office, but my Democracy course didn’t show up on my registration. Is this a problem?
Nazir: Oh, yes, definitely. In fact, I think they’ve cancelled that course. They didn’t let you know?

No, they didn’t.

So, you’re beginning to get an idea of what I’m dealing with. No one knows the answer, but they’ll gladly make things more difficult for you. Or, they’ll send you to someone else who doesn’t know and who doesn’t even have any idea what your situation is. It gets old.

This is not all to complain, it’s just to share with you some frustrations. I went to a very small college for undergrad, and frankly it was very student-centered. I worked in housing. I would rather DIE than work for housing here. I can’t even imagine! All I have to say is that between my dad, Dana Bekurs, Deb Sells, and Kathy Kano, we’d have this place ship-shape if I were in charge! Well, ok. If Daddy were in charge. As you can tell, this just isn’t what I’m used to, and it does get frustrating. I keep remembering Stewart and Terry reminding us of "Africa time" last year. I've found that for me, Africa time is not frustrating when you're in the country. But when you're in the city and still have to get things done, it's a killer. It’s the little stressors that get you, you know?!

Sorry that this week’s update isn’t more upbeat, but I knew that you’d be just as glad to share in my trials as in my exultations. I do have some exultations, though. Katy, some of Katy's English friends, and I went to a restaurant that serves all kinds of game meat on Sunday and it was a treat. Tomorrow I'm going out with some new friends (Americans, but with the goal to meet other people). This weekend should be a fun one spent with Lynne and Peter, so that should help a lot. All in all, life is still very good, just a little unnerving sometimes. Hope you are all having stress-free weeks. Love to you all.

Sala hantle (stay well).