Massive update

Ursula and I have a friend who let us use her password for internet so that we could update you! Tell Melody thanks. Anyway, here is an update from the past week and under this post is one that I wrote in Paris and hadn't been able to post until now.

I am told that my internet will be working “hopefully sometime next week.” Faculty says it’s Oracle (the new system)’s fault, Oracle says it’s the faculty’s fault. I say I really don’t care as long as it gets fixed. SOON! Regardless, I plugged my laptop up in my room, charged it, and wrote this in Word to transfer it to the internet and avoid paying another R30 for internet time. So, since we’ve lost a lot of time, let me do one marathon update and then we’ll consider ourselves caught up.

MY BIRTHDAY: On last Monday (more than a week ago now—I’m really old), my friend Katy who works for EBSCO in their SA office here in Jo’burg picked me up for dinner and took me to a restaurant called Moyo in the Zoo Lake area. Those of you who are really quick have realized that this restaurant is likely by the Zoo and the lake. Moyo serves traditional African cuisine and includes African entertainment such as dancing, singing, and face-painting in the tradition of some African tribes. The restaurant itself is really cool with lots of African sculptures and carvings. As you walk in, there are what appear to be unlit large Christmas lights hanging in arches, but as you approach further, you realize are rocks. Very cool. I had a chicken tagine (a West African dish), a glass of African wine, and we shared the African cheese platter. It was a lovely birthday and I felt well-loved.

Also on my birthday, we picked up Ursula, one of the other Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars studying here at Wits. She is a really fun girl who attended Wellesley and has spent the past year in Jordan. We’re enjoying getting to know each other and figuring out this crazy campus.

THE ENSUING WEEK: Since I had already jumped through all of the Wits hurdles, I helped Ursula to find her way around registration, etc. On Wednesday, we realized that if she was going to stay in res any longer, we would both need to go shopping, so we called up a Rotarian friend of mine named Pat. Pat is a wonderful lady who works for the Democratic Alliance (look this up on Wikipedia if you’re not up on your South African politics) and often has odd hours. Luckily, she had almost the entire day free, so we shopped for about 5 hours! What fun.

By Thursday, I hadn’t checked my email in five days due to this crazy email situation. When I finally broke down and went to check it, I found that I had 147 new messages! Lesson learned: check your email on your birthday!! Luckily, I skimmed through the mail and found a message from Jon David titled HUGE FAVOR. I wondered what huge favor I could possibly do for someone who was now in Cape Town, and then was informed that he had not yet made it to Cape Town, but instead had spent an extra night in Addis Ababa, courtesy of Ethiopian Airlines and now had to switch airlines in Jo’burg, most likely resulting in huge baggage charges. He wanted to know if I could come to the airport and pick up a bag—he would arrive around 1pm. This was fine, I thought. I’d arrange it. I looked at my watch, and it was 12:20! So, I called Katy and she graciously offered to drive me to the airport. What luck! We arrived just as Jon David was exiting customs and then stood in the airport for yet another several hours while EA decided whether or not they really had booked him another flight to Cape Town. A few hours and several hundred dollars later, he was on his way and I on mine with baggage in hand which I’ll deliver next weekend when I go to the conference in Cape Town. It was not only a comedy of errors and quite enjoyable for that reason, but it was good to see a friend from home!

The real highlight of Thursday, though, was getting to talk with my mom for the first time in two weeks. You have to understand that though I NEVER live at home anymore, I do talk with my mom A LOT. So, this was a real treat.

On Friday, Katy and I loaded into the car for a trip to Pietermaritzburg/Durban for she and a friend to swim the Midmar Mile, a swim race across the Midmar Dam (lake—they don’t realize here that a dam is made of concrete, not water). We followed Colleen and her family through the Free State (grassland/farmland traditionally inhabited by the Afrikaaners) and then KwaZulu Natal (more mountainous and inhabited by the Zulus and Afrikaaners) provinces. The drive is absolutely beautiful and I couldn’t possibly have been happier to ride along. The views were astonishing with the Drakensburg mountains in the far background and huge valleys in the foreground. Pietermaritzburg is the home of Alan Paton, so if you’ve ever read Cry, the Beloved Country, this is the area he describes. If you haven’t read that book, then consider it Lisa-required reading.

We stayed between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, and on Saturday, Katy drove with me into Durban to show me the sights. We walked by the old town hall (which is beautiful and reminiscent of most of the European domed buildings I saw in Italy and France with ornate carvings and copper cupolas), walked through the downtown market, and walked out on the pier over the Indian Ocean. It was a nice adventure.

Sunday was the day of the race, so we rose early to drive to the Midmar Dam. We arrived just in time, Katy and Colleen swam, and then we departed. They both did pretty well considering the water was so choppy, it was as if they had been swimming in the ocean.

THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE MIDMAR EXCURSION:

KwaZulu Natal is lovingly called KZN (read KzedN)
Lakes are dams and so are dams. This gets confusing, in my opinion.
When you set the table, you always include a knife, whether you think it is necessary or not because people here eat with knives.
Little boys who say “can’t” in the traditional English way are very cute
A lightning storm in KZN can be really terrific, but also rough on the power supply
You wear a costume, not a swimsuit (this is disappointing if you should actually expect to see costumes in the American sense of the word)
Zebra can be seen on the way down (even if they are likely on a farm)
Ostrich biltong (jerky) is actually pretty good
I was incredibly close to Lesotho. The next time I make that drive, maybe I’ll go. (I mean, I now have two friends from Lesotho, and I am about to begin taking Sotho lessons.)
The old/new/traditional name for Durban is eThekwini. Look that up on Wikipedia!

CLASSES: Lecture started yesterday, and I am definitely going to like this course of study! Did you know that rape only became an official war crime according to the UN in 2004? Neither did I, but soon I will be able to tell you all about human rights, human rights education, and human rights in education. Today, my ed. Theory course begins, and I am also really excited about that. My Lesotho friend Isaac is in all of my classes, and though I am by far the youngest so far, I still feel very much at home.

So, all is well in South Africa. I will post pictures as soon as I can use the internet without paying for it—otherwise, you’ll all have to take up a collection. I have also moved the address to the sidebar soon so that you can always get to it. I also have a South African cell phone, so if you want to call, get an international calling card, and then it is cheap for you and free for me. I promise to get Skype up and running soon, but now is just not yet the time. If you do call, which I would love, remember that I am 8 hours ahead of you. So, your 8pm would NOT be the time to call.

Go well.