The Freshman

What a difference 800 km makes. The roads have turned to dirt, the language has switched to Afrikaans, the mountains and the sea have been replaced by sheep farms and a desert climate.

I’m being treated to a very good life in little Philippolis, a town 60 km away from any other settlements in the south-western Free State. I have my own 19th century home, stacked to the ceilings with books, one block from the main street. The property neighbours my professor’s office and her family’s home. There are no security fences here, and the three properties share extensive gardens with olive, apricot, lemon, and fig trees, grape vines, flowers, a hammock, a wooden swing, trellises, and terraces. Wandering about are the family’s cats, dogs, roosters, chickens, ducks, and turkeys.



In these idyllic conditions, I’m working on a research paper on reverse urbanization in South Africa. Although many papers have been published on this subject in other countries, Doreen, my professor, tells me this is the first study to be done on the phenomenon in South Africa. I’m moving along with it quite quickly. I spent one day reading background papers, designed a questionnaire, and am now interviewing 2-3 locals every day about their motivations for leaving the city and their experiences with rural life. The project ties in nicely with my undergraduate thesis, which was on the development potential of South Africa’s small towns, about which I was optimistic. Now I’m investigating how to attract migrants to build those potentially productive towns. Its working title is: The Ruralisation Crusade: I Like it Here and So Should You. Ha.

The days are passing quickly, and they are sprinkled with amusing anecdotes. Very generally speaking, South Africa’s cities are English-speaking whereas the countryside is predominantly Afrikaans. Yesterday, I was most thankful that I had taken an Afrikaans language course while at UCT. Out on my bike, searching for the home of the man I was scheduled to interview, I mistakenly entered his neighbour’s yard. I called out “Hello?” and an older white man, partially hidden as he sat beneath a thick leafy tree, responded. I started towards him, but stopped short, seeing that he was dressed in neutral colours and holding a hunting riffle! What might wander into his yard that was worth shooting, I don’t know, but a common joke around these parts is that the Anglo-Boer War is still being fought – i.e. the war between the British and the Afrikaners of 1899-1902. I hastily greeted him again, this time in Afrikaans, as he certainly fit the stereotypical mould of a rugged Afrikaner. I explained who I was and who I was looking for, and then he laid the gun down and cheerfully pointed the correct way to his neighbour’s. I left unscathed, marvelling at the re-enforced stereotype, and he returned to his hunting, bemused by the Afrikaans-speaking Canadian.

In addition to working, I’ve had a few social outings, which is exciting. On my first day here, I was invited to assist with an end-of-the-year party being thrown for the remedial kids at the primary school in the Coloured township. Treats and new toys were organized for them, and it was painfully obvious from their wide eyes that these luxuries were new experiences for them. Later that day, I went to a colonial-style afternoon tea party in honour of a lady’s birthday at the family’s sheep and cattle farm. The proximity of third- and first-world living still throws me for a loop. In fact, there has been some contention this week right on my street amongst the white neighbours over the lone black neighbour who slaughtered a sheep and a goat in her backyard as part of her religious customs to keep her grandfather’s spirit at peace.

I spend most evenings with Doreen’s family – husband Mark and daughters Emily (14) and Dodi (11). In the late afternoon, we girls set off for the 5:30 pm aerobics class that one lady runs out of her home. My one-through-ten counting in Afrikaans is quite good at this point. Afterwards, we all eat dinner together on the back porch, and usually watch a movie as well. I’m relishing the time with a South African family and community at large. It’s nice and warm and I’m easily settling into small-town life.

Graduation Day (Part I)

I’m done! Exams and my undergraduate career are behind me. I’ve been on holiday in the Cape Town area for the past couple of weeks, indulging in touring, clubs, the beach, cafés, the mall, and the video store. Now I’m only two days away from my flight to Bloemfontein. My professor will pick me up in the city and take me to my new home in Philippolis – where I won’t have access to any of the aforementioned Cape Town luxuries. I’ve been preparing myself for this transition, and am looking forward to it.

I expect to miss my friends, my window’s view of Table Mountain, and the plethora of activities to keep a person busy here. Below are some pictures from the past couple weeks of post-graduation bliss:

Testing out the water at Camps Bay - on Hallowe'en!


Me in front of the Welcome sign at the B&B my friend Hilary and I stayed at as part of a weekend in Khayelitsha, the township where I taught during the school year.


Hilary (and the camera) attract a crowd.


Hilary, our host, and a friend at a shebeen (tavern) in Khayelitsha.


Hilary and me in the front row of the musical Rent, which just came to Cape Town.

Much fun has been had, but I’ve enjoyed enough vacation time now. I’m ready for something new, ready to immerse myself in a small South African community and engage in serious research work. It will be fantastic to leave behind Cape Town’s crime rate and listen to country music in the actual country, where it sounds best.

Of course, I do have some concerns about my next home – whether there is an ATM and a place to buy toiletries, how I’ll be received by the locals and what I’ll find to eat, how hot it’s going to get during the day and what I’ll be able to do for exercise. But the challenges are part of the fun, and I’m confident that I’ll be able to make it work. I’m interested to see how deeper involvement in development projects will affect me, how much progress I’ll make in Afrikaans, and whether or not it will be a struggle to maintain my Canadian accent.

I’m all set to go find out…well, nearly…some packing, goodbyeing, and mailing off of grad school applications must be attended to first.

Spiral

The slower pace of life in South Africa is, generally speaking, quite nice. Minutes are never used to describe time here. South Africans use now, just now, or now-now to estimate how long something might take. I still haven’t figured out exactly how to interpret these phrases, but I know never to think “This will just take 5 minutes” anymore. It won’t.

But as the end of the school year approaches, this relaxed pace is no longer suitable. Many of my international friends are attempting to jam-pack their final weeks; I have a million things to do to prepare for the next two phases of my life here.

It has all been escalating since South Africa’s spectacular victory at the Rugby World Cup last Saturday night. Since that eruption of national pride and wild celebration, I’ve attended my last day of classes at UCT, aced my Afrikaans oral exam, and took up kickboxing. I’ve hiked up Lion’s Head by moonlight with my housemates, went on a daytrip to the winelands to get to know the interns that I will be living with downtown, and dressed up for an American Hallowe’en party as Angelina Jolie’s identity crisis.

Jenna as a cat; me with Maddox.

Most significantly, I’ve reversed the order of my post-graduation plans. I now expect to leave for Philippolis, the tiny town in the Karoo where I will be researching rural development, in about three weeks. I’ll return to Cape Town for the months of February and March to intern with the Treatment Action Campaign. In order to legally stay here longer, I’m applying for a visa extension. One requirement is showing intention to return to my native land – so I’m even in the process of booking a flight home for early April.

There are several reasons why this last-minute reversal makes more sense. For one, I’m ready to be shaken out of my Cape Town comfort zone, and change the scenery, the company. The beach would have been a nice place to spend Christmas, but they are swamped with tourists in the summer anyway, and the Karoo offers me Christmas with my professor’s family. Finally, I was offered a fantastic internship with the hugely successful Treatment Action Campaign, an HIV/AIDS NGO whose work I greatly admire, and they advised me that there would be more work for me in the New Year. I immediately agreed, and began the great switch.

Just as much is happening here, I’m becoming more and more aware of how life goes on without me at home. I don’t recognize any of the songs – not even some of the artists – on Billboard’s Top 100 Songs anymore. I try to keep abreast of political developments, like the Liberal landslide in the Ontario election, but most of the jokes and references are beyond me.

My dad even changed careers over the course of my Afrikaans oral exam. Unable to tell my professor that my father was the owner of a company which rents and sells construction equipment (How do you say that in Afrikaans? You don’t!) I turned him into ‘n dokter (a doctor), a vocabulary term that I did have.

As much as I’ve enjoyed my classes here, I won’t be heartbroken to leave UCT. I have mixed feelings about the school. I haven’t always been impressed with the student body. In my sociology class, the professor showed a video on the second-last day. It was a short documentary, made for TV, showing life in the townships through the eyes of an 11-year-old resident. It was a great piece, but the reaction of my classmates was slightly troubling. Very well-intentioned, I’m sure, they thanked the professor at the end for “opening our eyes as to what living conditions still persist in South Africa 13 years after democracy.” This astonished me. You can’t drive from the airport to downtown Cape Town without seeing what living conditions still persist in South Africa. There are ample opportunities to go into the townships, with school activities or for special events. They are not inherently dangerous places and residents are largely welcoming. Why don’t South Africans know what is going on in South Africa? I asked my professor about it after class, and he tried to explain that when you grow up in the midst of poverty, it is normalized, and disregarded as a fact of life. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.

To end on a more positive note: When I attended a church service in one of the townships last Sunday, I was encouraged by the presence of quite a few white people in the congregation. The church, between Mitchell’s Plain and Guguletu, would only be the local church for black and coloured people. The white people present undoubtedly drove out to the township from the city or a suburb in a conscious effort to cross the racial barrier. Christianity is so pervasive in South Africa; I think it could make for common ground between all South Africans.

The brand-new Khanysa Church Centre building, built between the black Guguletu area and the coloured Mitchell's Plain area to bridge the communities.

The victory parade for the Rugby World Cup is another place for common ground, which I’m going to head out to just now.

Family

“This one time, when we got stopped by the police in Zimbabwe,” is just one of the many anecdotes that my family’s visit has given me to share at parties for the rest of my life. “Ten minutes later, when we were stopped by the police in Zambia,” is how I’ll follow it up.

I was well-fed, well-dressed, and spectacularly entertained for the past two weeks by visitors from home – my Mom, Dad, Uncle Boyd, and Aunt Lynn. I wanted to make sure that their first trip to the African continent was a positive one; I hadn’t even thought about how much I would get out of their visit.

(Honestly, most of what I’d thought about was how quickly my dad was going to whisk me out of the country if anyone mugged us….thankfully, the only thievery we experienced was this one time, when my mom tried to shoplift in Zambia.)

Sure, there were some close calls. When our frightened driver in Zambia tore down the road away from a wild elephant, he was missing the passenger who had jumped out with his camera - my dad. We nearly lost my aunt to a fight that she seemed to think she could win with a woman four times her size at the Waterfront. And we all nearly became permanent residents in Zambia, when my uncle ran out of money and the airport ran out of fuel.

View of my dad as we drove away from the wild elephant.

But largely, everyone was kept safe and happy, as I had planned. And it was truly rewarding to share the country I love with people that I love. Their travels started out with me in Cape Town, took them out along the Garden Route while I spent a week at school, and then reunited us at Victoria Falls for two nights before returning to Cape Town. I enjoyed my role as a quasi-tourist, quasi-guide.

The biggest reward was a return trip to Victoria Falls, which is in such a different part of Africa, and one that feels all open and country-ish as compared to Cape Town. There were several tour highlights – a river cruise where we saw hippos, a visit to a village, Victoria Falls itself. The social highlight was meeting a white couple from Zimbabwe, who were more than happy to share everything they know and have experienced under Robert Mugabe’s brutal dictatorship. We monopolized them for at least five hours, and soaked up more information than any newspaper could have given us about the history of the country and daily life as it currently stands.

Bell Family Reunion at Victoria Falls.

It was fun to embrace a tourist role back at home in Cape Town, and see some things that were still on my to-do list – touring Robben Island, climbing Table Mountain, seeing the gardens at Kirstenbosch. Our tour of the infamous Robben Island prison was led by a former political prisoner. It was surreal to hear someone speak in the first person about the brutality experienced at the hands of the guards, the secret means of communication between the prisoners and the outside world, and the advice that Nelson Mandela offered to fellow prisoners. I will personally never tire of South African history and politics, and it was wonderful to have four brand new people interested in learning about them.

Our breakfast spot at the Waterfront in Cape Town.

Cape Town, I’ve come to see, is a fantastic city. But I’m the only Bell here now, and it’s a bit lonely.

Older and Far Away

It’s my 23^rd birthday, and it’s Spring! I ate strawberries with breakfast and wore a skirt to school in celebration. I do of course miss my cowgirl hat terribly on this special day, but, as birthday luck would have it, when my friend Sara and I stopped at a clothing store on our way home from school, I found (and purchased) a t-shirt that reads “I (Heart) Cowboys.” Fair compensation.

My friends Kate, Leo, and I were all born within 24 hours of each other and so threw a massive joint birthday celebration on Saturday night. We hosted our friends in Kate’s backyard for an appropriately South African and springtime activity – the braai. Not to be confused with a mere barbeque, a braai features exotic meats (or tofu dogs, as you like) slow cooked over a grill or fire. To emphasize how seriously the braai is taken here – there is actually a National Braai Day. Lots of people came out on Saturday to wish us well and a good time was had by all.

The birthday kids!

In a season of new beginnings, it seems appropriate to unveil the plans that I have worked out for my post-graduate life in South Africa.

On December 1^st, I will leave behind the nice little life that I have cultivated in the University of Cape Town suburb and move into an apartment downtown. I am in the process of finalizing a journalism internship with a human rights organization, with more details to come. I am really looking forward to moving downtown, which I imagine will be more like the city life I enjoyed in Montreal. The apartment building even has a pool, which will be a relief when Cape Town is weighed down in summer heat. And the work, of course, is a perfect blend of journalism and international development, my two academic interests.

On February 1^st, I will do an about-turn and re-locate to small-town South Africa, to begin my first post-graduation someone-thinks- my-skills-merit-remuneration job! A wonderful professor that I met through Rhodes University in July is hiring me as a research assistant on three development-related projects that she has underway. More details to come on those as well. There will also be lots of volunteer projects, such as HIV/AIDS work in the townships, to occupy my free time. I can’t wait to begin storytelling about my inevitable (mis)adventures in this tiny Afrikaans-speaking town.

I haven’t booked a flight home yet, but I approximately plan to trade in a South African winter in favour of a Canadian summer, and start grad school in September.

My oh my, look how the time flies

Look how the world changes in the blink of an eye

My oh my, look how the years have flown.

Turning around, before you know it, up and gone.

The birthday celebrations will continue presently, as we head out for Mexican food...and then some more when my parents arrive in Cape Town on Friday. Yay! It will be nice to be taken care of for a little while. I see myself as something like an adult now - but in other ways, I'm not aging at all.

Touched

I love travelling in Africa. I used to think that it would be difficult, or scary, but it’s just fantastic. I used to think that my interests didn’t extend beyond South Africa’s borders, and that it alone was fascinating, but I’ve been enriched by exposure to its very different neighbours. Africa’s people are wonderful, the pace is relaxed, and the land is untouched. I’m hooked.

I’m going to illustrate my trip through Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe with photos. Otherwise I would hardly believe any of this had happened either.

Here are Katy and Jocelyn, dancing in the front of our bus-like vehicle, which took 19 students and 4 guides all the way from the Johannesburg Airport to our furthest point in Victoria Falls.

This is my tent-mate, Jenna. Some nights, we didn't even set up the tent, and just slept underneath the stars. I fell in love with the camping lifestyle and resent being forced to wear a watch and matching clothing since arriving back in Cape Town.


Here we are playing with the canoes and swimming in the water-hole that served as our bath water during the two days we spent in the Delta without any bathroom facilities.

I had already seen amazing wildlife in the Eastern Cape in June, but our sightings in Botswana were even better! We took a boat cruise through - essentially - the set of The Lion King. It was difficult to know where to turn your attention. Hippos, crocodiles, elephants, and buffalo were all around us. These hippos surfacing in the water were my favourites, though.


We were able to do on-foot safaris, led by local guides, as well. Unbelievably, we saw a lion and a leopard - rare finds! But check out this elephant and note his extended ears. This was the last picture I took before the guide warned us to freeze...and then screamed at us to "RUN AND SHOUT! RUN AND SHOUT!" because the elephant decided we were a threat and was charging us. As I was running, I turned and saw the guide preparing to throw a match on the dry grass to light a fire and create a barrier between us and the elephant. Luckily the elephant ceased his pursuit before we lit Botswana on fire.

This is me at Victoria Falls. I'm sitting on the Zambian side, looking across at the Zimbabwean side. Only aerial photos can actually capture the entirety of the Falls, which extend for miles. I'm a proud Canadian, but will concede that Niagara Falls has nothing on these ones.


There is an old school steam train passing across the bridge that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe in this picture. Below, the Zambezi River is where we spent a full day white water rafting. 22 rapids, including level fives - not to mention the crocodiles - not for the faint of heart!



This is, to me, the coolest picture ever. Of all the African countries I never thought I'd visit, Zim was definitely high on the list. But here I am! Sadly, yes, it is in a true state of economic disaster. I brought simple goods like shoe laces, boxer shorts, and Asprin to barter for bracelets and necklaces at the local market and really enjoyed talking to the local people. They were totally open to talking about the old Rhodesia, Robert Mugabe, and how they survive under his regime.


Instead of listing the price of gas, the sign outside this gas station in Zimbabwe simply read "NO". There is no gas available for sale in the country. Similarly, 75% of the shelves in the grocery store were empty. People in Victoria Falls largely rely on smuggling goods across the Zambian border in order to survive. My favourite line came after I asked one vendor whether the situation was getting better or worse. He replied, "Oh, it will get better. The old man has to die sometime!"


Also in Zimbabwe, we visited a lion conservation centre, similar to the tiger conservation project that I visited in July. But I was actually able to cuddle with the animals here! This cub that I'm petting is about one year old, and very tame. His grandchildren, however, will have been trained to survive in the wild and released.



I am very restless back here in Cape Town and can't wait to set out again...perhaps for Namibia.

Revelations

The University of Cape Town unveiled this semester’s exam schedule, and now I know. The last exam of my undergraduate career is two months away, on November 6. This means that as of November 7, I am in South Africa – the world, really – without any defined purpose, until I enter grad school in September 2008.

One thing is certain. Any secret dream I may have been harbouring of becoming a dancer is off the table. At my roommate Alberta’s insistence, I went to check out her African dance class on Tuesday night, intending to have fun trying out the moves from the back row. As luck would have it, this was the week that the dance instructor decided to run a more focused class and he had everyone dance across the room in tiny groups of only four people for each sequence. Instead of learning the moves, I was demonstrating them, and to a rather large audience of 40 dance students. I had a riot, but I don’t think that Alberta is going to invite me back anytime soon.

As I hunt down internship and employment opportunities more suited to my field, in preparation for November 7^th, it seems fitting that Workers, Trade Unions, and Rights has emerged as my favourite course at UCT. This does not mean that I’m ready to trade in my Liberal membership card back home. But I can’t ignore how real the labour struggle is here in South Africa, where the right to strike and minimum wages are newly won – and still contested – battles. The material ignites great debates in class and has proved to be a very useful tool in my understanding of contemporary issues in South Africa. And the professor, Jonathan, is pretty outstanding.

I was early for class the other day, and as I passed the time reading ads on the bulletin board, he sauntered down the hall, deep in conversation with a custodian pushing along her cleaning cart. I was impressed, and asked myself: When was the last time I initiated a casual chat with someone who wasn’t a fellow student? How likely am I to even notice the cleaning staff, unless it’s because they’ve sealed off the washroom that I want to use? They say that class is replacing race as the qualifying factor in South Africa’s stratified society. I don’t think it’s a problem specific to this country.

There are whole parts of Jonathan’s lectures that I turn over for days in my head.

“In Xhosa and Zulu (the two dominant black African languages in South Africa), there is one word that expresses “want” and “need” – they are not separate.”

“Doesn’t it seem that those workers whom we realize we most rely on (when they strike) – say, waste collectors – are the very same people who we never showed respect in the first place?”

“Workers in essential services such as the emergency room at a hospital are denied the right to strike, and for reasons that seem evident…but given that the majority of South Africa’s population cannot ever realistically access these services, isn’t it a double-standard to say that they are essential for the minority?”

Egged on by Leo and Neil, I approached Jonathan after class this week and asked him why he refers to himself in the third person. I was expecting a profound answer. This is, after all, the man who makes the biggest impact on my interpretation of South Africa. He told me that he does it to make fun of himself, or the image that is associated with a title, and to remain humble. That satisfied me. It seems like we would take ourselves less seriously, would be more objective, more cognizant of our position as a single person in a world of six billion, if we spoke without using “I”. But then we might not take responsibility for our actions, either, which is equally problematic.

Tearing myself away from school...(oh, there's going to be some serious withdrawal in November)...

I set off in the wee morning hours of tomorrow for my Spring Break adventure! I’m doing a tour of three neighbouring countries with a group of international students: Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. We will be camping under the big African sky the whole way. I’m really interested to see how the level of development in these countries compares to South Africa’s. Will share many stories upon my return in 10 days!

Alberta and me, pre-dance class fiasco.