Howdy

Hi Everyone,
Sorry for not updating in the past month. Time is flying here. I leave on Thursday. Things are coming to a close, yesterday we had a final braai and slideshow night. Quite a good time. We also saw an Indian Premeir Leauge Cricket match. That was a ton of fun, it was like Bollywood on the cricket pitch. Otherwise I am studying for finals and trying to wrap my head around what this trip has meant. I'm going to cop out of an original blogpost and post an essay I wrote for literature. The prompt was basically to reflect on South Africa through the themes we learned in class. I wrote about Disgrace, a novel by South African author J.M. Coetezee. It was about a college prof who has an affair with a student and then moves in with his daughter on her farm in the eastern cape. The crux of the story happens when they are robbed one evening on their farm. It's quite a deep book and I would highly reccomend it.

South Africa has provided the 2009 CSB/SJU study abroad group with countless new experiences, questions and memories. We have all taken something different from them and we will all have a new aspect to our lives back home. However, each of us has had a unique angle in which to view these experiences. We may view some of the social things we see on a regular basis as unjust, unfair or just plain wrong. However, that is the way the culture has been here for hundreds of years and it natural here. The beauty we see may be ugly; the truths we see may be lies, or maybe the hate we think we see is truly love. The question I pose to the class is: Can we cast judgment the true nature of this country through our own limited experience?

This question was perhaps best posed in the book Disgrace. On Page 160 of the book, J.M. Coetzee writes about how the protagonist David Laurie is trying to come to terms with his daughter’s rape, “You don’t understand, you weren’t there, says Bev Shaw. Well, she is mistaken. Lucy’s intuition is right after all: he does understand; he can, if he concentrates, if he loses himself, be there, be the men, inabit them, full them with the ghost of himself. The question is, does he have it in him to be the woman?” While Laurie can come to grips with his own personal disgraces, he believes he can understand his daughter’s experience as well. Fortunately, our South African experience has had nowhere near as traumatic an event. However, many of us have tried to do the same thing as Laurie. For example, many of us have seen or personally experienced the underlying tension that still remains between the racial groups here in South Africa. Being from an ‘enlightened’ and educated background we thought we could immediately denigrate those who still carried on racist mindsets in the post-Apartheid South Africa. When we arrived here many of us were upset and confused by how race plays a role in nearly every issue here in the country. Even though many of us were extremely upset by these mindsets, few of us openly criticized those who we perceived as racist. We also unknowingly immediately placed ourselves into the socio-economic system that is still seeped with Apartheid undertones. We allowed ourselves to be picked up after by black maids and we gave food to black children begging in the streets. Coming to South Africa many of us believed that we would be able to understand and be impervious to the racist stereotypes that still allude this country, but as J.M. Coetzee so described in Disgrace, we are ultimately unable to really understand those experiences that we are unable to fully take part in.

The lens in which we view South Africa is shaped by our own personal experiences. During his hearing about an affair with a student, Laurie merely pleads his guilt without remorse. As a professor who has little to hide, he thought that a mere admittance of guilt would be acceptable to the committee. On page 48, he pleads for the committee to just accept his guilt and move on, “I am sure the members of this committee have better things to do with their time than rehash a story over which there will be no dispute. I plead guilty to both charges. Pass sentence, and let us get on with our lives.” As I have learned, nothing in South Africa is ever that simple. Sometimes our intentions are misconstrued by what we do or what we do not do. In the US we are not used to tipping except for at restaurants. In this country you are expected to give a little extra something to anyone who gives you the tiniest bit of help.

Even though we may make cultural mistakes, sometimes our actions may cut deeper. The other weekend I was volunteering at a high school, helping tutor some students in the area of geography. Another student my age also helped out. We only had one student in our first session and I started to take over the teaching because I have a bit of a background in the subject. I was able to incorporate some hands on learning into the teaching by using the water in my mug. After the first session we both talked and he said that he liked my experiment. I asked him if he wanted to do more talking during the next session, but he encouraged me to continue during this lecture. We had to move classrooms and I wanted to get started, so I asked him if he could fill up my coffee mug with water so we could use it in the experiment again. He gave me a nasty look, but then got up and did it. I did not realize the racial implications of what I had perceived as a mere favor until after he excused himself halfway through the session. I viewed my college as an equal and I thought nothing of asking for a favor to help get the class going. However, my ignorance had a much greater effect then I would like to think about.

With our inability to perceive the true South African experience and the still prevalent gaps in our cultural awareness, how can we do justice in describing and analyzing our own views on South Africa? Do we continue to seek out and learn what we can about the contradictions and confusion of this country, or do we go the way of David Laurie and metaphorically ‘give up’ the dog that we have become attached to? For me, this contradiction is shown in the election of Jacob Zuma. Before I came here I thought of Zuma as a violent populist who was on par with Robert Mugabe. We would not be safe, nor would we be accepted here. My views began to change after we attended the ANC rally in Uitenhage. People came up to us and told us about how happy they were to see us and how the ANC needed more white people. I asked people questions about Zuma and some said he was ‘our Obama’. I didn’t quite understand the comparison until I learned more about him. He is an uneducated man who rose up out of poverty to become president. He may not be the most intelligent man to ever run a country, but his rapport with the people of this country is inspiring. He may not be the most ethical or trustworthy man, but you cannot deny his love for South Africa and its people. There are problems, but there is hope

So now I stand at a crossroads. I have grown a love and a passion for the beauty and inspiration of this country, but I have been disgusted by the hate and anger that still pervades this country. My experience is not the perfect vehicle in which to judge South Africa, but it has planted a seed in which I can grow into a better and more understanding person. However, I will not be able to see this until many years down the road. Just like in Disgrace, Laurie will not be able to see the fruits of his labor with his play until many years down the road.
“He sighs. It would have been nice to be returned triumphant to society as the author of an eccentric little chamber opera. But that will not be. He hopes must be more temperate: that somewhere from amidst the welter of sound there will dart up, like a bird, a single authentic note of immortal longing. As for recognizing it, he will leave that to the scholars of the future.”
Only time will tell on how South Africa has truly affected me and how I will grow from it in the future.


I'll be writing my last post on the plane ride home...it will take me a while to say all that I want to say.

E-Day

Hey everyone,
Few things have happened since coming back from Spring Break. Here's the run down

1. Last weekend we stayed on the frontier with two Afrikanner farm families. Let's just say it was definitley not a Professor Gary Prevost organized excursion (it was planned by NMMU). We basically spent the weekend on a farm. We got there mid day Friday and we all got to ride horses, and milk cows...we may well have been in Stearns county. We also went for a few game drives in their bakkies (basically a suped up pickup). We all got to ride in the back, which was outfitted with bars to hold on to and stand up. It was a lot of fun.

The families were the stereotypical rich, white farmer families, but they were extremely good hosts. We ate well (we had steak) and they were very welcoming. We also saw the main guy's trophy room. It was CRAZY. He had a head mount of a giraffe. It basically went from the floor to the ceiling. This as well as every other game mammal in SA and Africa. It was cool to experience a different culture for a weekend.

2. ELECTION DAY! We didn't see much election stuff happening because we weren't on campus during the day, but reading about the voting was cool. They had close to 80% turnout. Even though Jacob Zuma won, its good to see that this country can still have peaceful elections.

3. I'm going deep sea fishing this weekend. It's basically all the guys heading out on Saturday. We get to keep whatever we catch and the guy cleans it for us. We'll see if the spirit of Uncle John can help me out. I'll post a pic of whatever I get...

4. I have a 16 page paper due Monday!

Oh well, I have less than a month and I going to take in every moment I can.
Stay Lekka,
Nick

Spring break: Best or Bestest ever?

There are very few things in my life that I have described as epic. This spring break trip is one of those things. This past week was a mixture of everything adventurous, educational, and exciting about South Africa. The forces above combined to make my road trip a complete and utter success.

First, I must give props to my partner on the road, Sean. He was a perfect road trip partner. Always up for anything, good conversationalist, and always willing to take the wheel when needed. He made the trip.

Sunday : Stellenbosch
Sean and I headed out from Mountain Manor backpackers at 8:00 am and we got a head start from everyone else. I love my group dearly, but we were both ready for a break. Everything is gravy when we get the car, a Nissan Tiida. (very nice car). We have a few mix CD’s, a map and a pioneering spirit.

We drive about 45 minutes to the town of Stellenbosch. It is town built on the vineyards industry. Absolutely gorgeous, the Cape Dutch architecture was fascinating (that’s for you Paul). We went on an Easy Rider Wine Tour. There were about 12 of us on the tour and at first we didn’t really talk. But after a few wine tastings, friendships started to form.
We met a couple from London, two girls from Australia, another couple from Italy, and two girls from Brazil and Germany who were traveling together. By the end of the day we were enjoying each others company and we all fancied ourselves as Wine connoisseurs. The wineries had spectacular views and if the stock market goes the way it is going, I may pull my money out and put it into a South African Winery…

After the tour our new friends and I went to a pub and talked about anything and everything for the next few hours. I felt so mature talking with people who were at least 10 years older than us.

Monday and Tuesday: CederbergOn Monday we decided to walk around the town for a bit before we made the two hour drive to the Cederberg. We also checked out the campus of the U of Stellenbosch and picked up a few applications…they do have an environmental planning graduate degree…

We headed out at about noon. The drive was beautiful as it changed from wine country to the Karoo (desert). We drove for about two hours before we turned on a dirt road into the Cederberg area. It was beautiful scenery. We arrived in the late afternoon after driving sixty k on the dirt road (where we also lost a hubcap). The backpacker we stayed at was a little place in the middle of nowhere run by an Afrikanns couple. We also met a group of four people from Belgium who were a few years older than us. We were doing the same hike as them the next day, so we decided to do it together. One of the owners, Garrit drew us a map of the route we were to take. Seriously, this guy was thurough.

We woke up at 6:15 the next morning and headed out at about 7. It was to be an eight hour hike, so we were pretty pumped at the thought of a full day hike. The first few k was a nice easy uphill climb, but then we got to a point where we had to climb up a wall about 10 feet up and inch along a sheer face with about 2 feet of leg room. We basically went though a jungle gym for the next two hours. We had to follow the map and crawl over and under boulders and climb up rocks. It was sweet. We got to the top and hiked another hour to get to the arch. We had lunch there and looking out, you couldn’t see a single other sign of human life. It was beautiful. We made our way back to the lodge and got there around six. Sean and I didn’t feel like cooking, so we ordered they lodge’s specialty…T bone steak. It was the best steak I’ve ever had. We sat a conversed with our new friends for the next few hours under the stars. Amazing

Wednesday and Thursday: Augrabies Falls
We left the Cederberg early and headed out north on the N7 towards Augrabies Falls. There was nothing there. Seriously. It was beautiful. We were literally the only car on the road for hours at a time. We got to our backpacker around 5 and we were greeted by a herd of English sheep dogs. The owner was Andrew, an English South African bachelor. The only other people there were Maggie and Allison, two women who were self-proclaimed “women of leisure”. Maggie was from Ireland and Allison was from Zimbabwe. Allison had a really interesting story, she lived in Zim on her fathers farm and ended up running the place, but it was taken over in the farm raids of Robert Mugabe. Crazy.

We all ended up chatting and we decided to go rafting down the Orange River the next day. You needed four to go, so us four decided to go together. Being the nice gentleman that Sean and I are we drove Maggie and Allison to the park the next day. We walked around for the day and went rafting at two. Strangely enough, we met up with our Belgium friends. The rafting wasn’t too intense, but Sean and I took a swim on one of them (he was the one who steered us into a rock). It was a beautiful was to see the area with great company. We came back to the backpacker and there were a few other people there. There was a couple who were traveling around Africa for like two years and a Frenchman who was also traveling. Andrew said it was the first time Americans outnumbered all other nationalities there. I felt strangely patriotic.

Friday: Kimberly
We left around nine and said bye to our friends. We spent most of the day on the road and got to Kimberly around 2. Except the backpacker we stayed at was full, so we got the number of a guesthouse. We literally drove around the town for an hour looking for the road to it. It ended up being on the outskirts of town in the midst of an industrial area. We got there and saw the sign that said “Pro-Chirsto Missions”. Now I know most of you know my religious convictions, but I am not a huge fan of the religious right. The guy who owned the place gave us weird vibes and we were going to be the only ones there for the night. The whole thing screamed of the movie Jesus Camp. We literally got our key and then headed back into town.

Except, everything was closed. Good Friday is a national holiday, so every place we tried to visit was closed. We really didn’t want to head back to bible camp, so we ended up going to the mall. The only thing that was open was the movie theater. Except Sean and I couldn’t agree on a movie, so he saw She’s Just not that into you and I saw Monsters vs. Aliens. I made the better choice. Seriously, if you haven’t seen the movie go. It is hilarious. We got some grub and went back to the place. I sat in my room reading for the next few hours. That’s all I wanted to do.

Saturday: Pretoria
We got out of Kim as soon as possible. We were going to go see “The Big Hole”, which is the largest hand dug mine in the world, but it was seventy rand and it smelled of a tourist trap and Sean and I made a solemn pact to avoid those at all costs. We decided to go straight towards Pretoria. On our way we tried to see The Cradle of Humankind, a world heritage site where the first Austrolopithicus fossil was found (or some human type fossil) except we couldn’t find the museum. We drove for about 40 k before we realized we were low on gas and we had to get petrol ASAP. We had a few hours to kill, so we went into the city. We tried to go the Voortrekker monument, except it was closed as well. We walked around church square. It had cool buildings, but not much else.

After our foray into the town we went to Marie Mcleod’s house (sister of the infamous Conserve teacher, Paul). We had a great meal and chatted about everything South Africa. Great accommodations and laundry! It was a nice change from the normal backpacker fare.

Sunday: Joburg
Our rental car was due at four, so we really only had time for either a Soweto tour or the Apartheid museum. We decided on Soweto because we found a cool company that does bike tours of the township.

If you don’t know anything about Soweto, its basically the Harlem of South Africa. It is the largest township in SA and it is the only place that shares two Nobel Peace Prize winners on the same block (Mandela and Desmond Tutu). It has an extremely rich history.

The tour left from the Soweto backpacker at ten and we headed out on our bikes. It was myself, Sean, three other people and our guide. It was cool because the guide was our age and did a really good job. It was really cool because we were really in the middle of everything. We saw some pretty impoverished areas, but I didn’t feel like we were treating them like they were in a zoo (which is how I felt on our township tour in Red Locations in PE on our double decker bus). Everyone I met was extremely friendly and tons of kids came out and said hi to us. I was also glad to see that no one was begging or asking for candy. It painted a much different perspective of township life.

But the highlight of the day (and possibly the trip) came at lunch. We went to a little café for a Koto burger, which was basically a big slice of bread with fries and a type of relish on it. It was really good. But we were there for about five minutes when a large SUV pulled up. A bunch of guys in black suits got out and there were a few people in church clothes who got out as well, one was an older woman. They went in and sat down at the table next to us, which was set with nice silverware and wine glasses. There was also a huge spread of food set out. Sean and I kind of looked at each other confused. And then our guide said “That’s Winnie Mandela”. It was crazy. No, I didn’t get my picture taken with her because she was eating her lunch with her family and her guards had really big pistols on them. It was cool, but I didn’t think I needed a pic. The tour was cool because you really experienced the culture for the day. Top three in things I’ve done so far in SA.

We headed to the airport to return our rental car. Sean and I didn’t feel like staying another night, so we checked if we could get on an earlier flight. Suprinsingly, we did. It only cost 100rand to change our flight, which it what we would have paid for a backpacker anyway, so we made it back around 8 and here I am now typing this….
Epic.

It’s nice to be back, but I will miss the road a bit. I am proud to say that we avoided the tourist traps and that we did something different with different people every single day. We also didn’t run into any Americans. We experienced the natural beauty as well as the cultural. I need to travel more. Every person we met was traveling for an extended period of time. Like 2 to 24 months…The world is much bigger than central Minnesota and I need to experience it….

But I am going to enjoy this last stretch…..
Life is good.

Cape Town

The mother city is...amazing.

We arrived on Tuesday after about an 11 hour bus ride. We were all pretty tired, so we crashed. Since I've been trying to budget money, a friend of mine and I made Chicken Alfredo in the backpacker while everyone else went out. Wednesday we visited the District Six Museum. It is a museum dedicated to the area of District Six that was destroyed under Apartheid. Basically it was once a mixed area with people of all different races, but it was declared a white area and everyone was forced out to the townships. Its saddening how much life and culture was destroyed with a single government act.

That afternoon we climbed Table Mountain. It was quite a hike, but the 20 of us that did it felt great. It was about two hours of going straight up. The views on top were fantastic though. Quite amazing and quite humbling.

Yesterday we spent the whole day at the Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. I got my pic taken with the sign at the Southern most tip of Africa. The wind was absolutely crazy, we walked up to a light house and I thought I was going to blow over the side. Seriously. We also stopped at this beach called Boulders which is part of the South Africa National Parks. It is a protected beach where penguins come to rest. It really reminded me of Happy Feet. Really, they were all dancing and singing.

We also saw a play called Coming Home, by the South African playwright Athol Fugard. Let's just say the eyes were watering a bit near the end of the performance. It was about a woman and her son who are going back to their township in Graff Reient after her failed career as a singer in Cape Town. She meets up with an old friend who helps them out, and after a few years she learns she has Aids. She hatches a plan to marry her friend, so her son won't get taken away. The play is basically how she comes to terms with the illness and her son comes to terms with his new father. I really enjoyed it.

So the next few days....Today we tour Parliment, and then Robben Island. Then the next two nights are the jazz festival. I am really looking forward to it. Sunday we leave for spring break.

The rough itinerary is one night in Stellenbausch (the winelands), two nights in the Cederberg Wilderness Area, two nights near Augrabies Falls National Park, and then possibly a night in Kimberly and then Joburg and Pretoria. Woot.

Cheers,
Nick

ANother week

Another update…
I am fairly tired today. I just got done eating some fabulous homecooked lo mein. Last week at the haven I worked in the kitchen because Thando was at the doctor. I got to talking with one of the nurses, Geraldine and she said she would cook dinner for our flat for the next week if we brought the groceries. So yesterday I brought the grociers and today I got about five full meals. Lo Mein, Chicken curry, Mac and Cheese and some other stuff….yum. I think I am in a food coma right now.

This weekend was a lot of fun. My aunts Betsy and Martha came down from their volunteering in Cape Town to visit for the weekend. On Saturday Betsy joined our group to go to a human rights day rally. Winnie Mandela was supposed to speak, but there were some legal issues because COPE (new rival political party to the ANC) and the ANC both tried to reserve the rugby stadium in Utienhage. A midnight decision turned in favor of COPE, so the ANC set up in a farm field next to the stadium. We went the rally and…wow. Nothing like the Tinklenberg rallies I went to. Everyone was singing, dancing and marching. Our group was definitley in the minority. I wasn’t sure how we would be received, but a lot of people came up to us and said that they were happy to see us there (meaning white people). We just were polite because most of us are not too keen on Jacob Zuma. I’ll try and bring the dancing back to the College Dems meetings…

Otherwise we have one more week untill spring break. Woot. I have a 4000 word paper due in a week, yuk.

So after a computer glitch and a music test, we’ll try another blog update.

Two weekends ago was Durban, here is an unfinished email that I never got around to sending to update on activities…

We had an eventful weekend in Durban. I really liked the city. It has the largest Indian population outside of India (1.2 million people). When we got in on Thursday we went to the largest Hare Krishna temple in the southern hemisphere. It was an interesting look into the faith. We also saw a performance by an African-Indian fusion dance company. It was cool because the females all wore traditional Indian dress, while the males wore Zulu outfits. On Friday we got a walking tour of the city. It was so-so, but the coolest part was walking through the traditional healers market. There was basically anything for everything. It was one of those moments where you say to yourself, “Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore”. There were powders, dead animals, bones all written in Zulu. It was absolutely crazy. That night we saw the Russian Ballet in downtown Durban. I really liked it. It was a mixture of pieces from many different performances. I’ve come a long way since falling asleep at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. On Saturday we went to go see a cricket match between SA and Australia. It was a five day long match and we saw day two. Unfortunately, SA got smoked. Sunday we saw a one act play at a casino theater. It was a comedy, but nobody got any of the references to the SA culture. I also lost about 70 Rand on the slots, oh well.

This past weekend we had a tour of Grahmstown and King Williams Town. Our tour guide Bradly Levack (basically the South African equivalent of Paul Mcleod) was awesome. We got an overview of the battle of Grahmstown (a huge bloody affair between the Xhosa and Afrikanner in 1820). We also stopped at a really cool artists co-op. That was probably my favorite part of the day. There were a bunch of crazy old Xhosa ladies who did really cool prints. You never really think of art as being important to people who are struggling to get by, but that is totally false. I really enjoyed it because you could see the vivid expressions and emotions that went in to making the prints. They were all so happy to see us. We met with the mayor, a member of the ANC. He also brought about half the municipal government with him. It was sort of interesting to see how the bureaucracy works here. The mayor just about delegated all of his questions to the workers. The last stop was Steve Biko’s house in King William’s Town. I really liked that. He was the leader of the Black Conciousness movement in South Africa. I sort of thought BC was a racist organization because they accepted only coloured people. But it wasn’t like that at all. Their focus was on self-love and self-empowerment, basically getting the notion that Black people are inferior to whites out of people’s head. I asked how I as a white person could support the principles of BC without undermining it. He stopped and thought for a second and said that as long as I supported the principles of BC, I would be supporting the movement. Cool.

A group of us broke off at Grahmstown to go to Hogsback for the weekend. I loved it. It’s a little mountain town that was the inspiration for the Hobbit. It sort of reminded me of Land O’ Lakes, WI because it seemed sort of like a getaway for rich Afrikaans. We stayed at a hostel called Away With the Fairies, quite an amusing name. We did hiked on both days and it was nice and relaxing.

Ok, we’re somewhat up to speed. I apologize for not updating often, but I’ve hit that point where you’ve bonded with your group, you know your routine, the days meld together and it starts to feel like home, which is good but dangerous. Dangerous because I could possibly start to take this trip for granted. So here is my 4 step plan to keep that from happening.
1. Blog every Monday (I can hear my fans roaring)
2. Journal every day
3. Don’t worry about tomorrow and be open to anything
4. Remind myself that I am only in Africa once

Anyways, I hope you are all well. And I hope you Johnnies and Bennies enjoyed your days off of school. Lucky Ducks, oh wait…It’s 75 and sunny here today.

Peace,Nick

My apologies

I just finished typing up a large blog post and the file corrupted. Blah!
Don't worry, I am safe and sound and I will try and update tomorrow.

My apologies for not updating more often, but I'm experiencing Africa.

Stay warm.