Week Eighteen: Only one more left

Molo!!

Well... I turned it in. My 26 page (single spaced) independent research project. I still can't believe I wrote that much... I just feel so relieved! Only one more final exam to go and only one week and one day before I'm on a plane headed back to America. But I'm not ready to reflect yet, so let me share what I did this week that didn't involve writing 13 thousand words:

So last Sunday I went to a concert in Observatory, a suburb not far from where I live. It was a lot of fun. Cape Town has it's own little music scene apparently. Local dj's and song writers came out and performed some of their work. Hip hop artists and r&b singers. It's amazing how much American pop influences music all over the world. The artists didn't have their own vibe per se... they didn't sound all that different from one another or from some of the music you can hear on the radio in America, and that's what was weird about it. I don't mean to imply I didn't like it because I did; it was like being at home.

On Wednesday I went to a reggae concert also in Observatory. Really nice. The lead guitarist thought he was amazing. He was alright. Some drunk guy was really feeling one of the Bob Marley covers and he danced right out of his shoes and his shirt on the stage! Everyone fell out laughing. It was hilarious. The theater where they were performing was tiny and quaint. The accoustics weren't great and there was a little feedback, but it was still fun. And I had great company.

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with my academic advisor from GW, Dan. That's right. My academic advisor from GW is here in Cape Town. He and his wife come up nearly every year I believe and spend a few months here. He's great. We talked about my project and life. I told him how inspired I've been by this place. Dan doesn't know it yet, but I'm going to be in his office like every day next semester. Running my mouth, listening, and trying to get advice about my academic and career pursuits. I'm looking for a Masters or Ph.D program now: anthropology.

Cape Town, a little metropole of "somewhere else" right at the tip of Africa. It's amazing and it has definitely challenged me and inspired me academically, spiritually, mentally, just in every way. It's made my whole world look different. I want to see the rest of it.

Friends are always asking if I'm looking forward to being back and to be honest... I'm looking forward to the familiar. I'm looking forward to my Mommy. My family and my friends. And all the Love that's waiting for me at home. Of course I'm looking forward to most things; some things I could do without. But no point in looking backward.

Thought of the week: So, Life... what's next!?

One Love

(p.s. if you've missed any weeks, I keep a blog!! http://www.ndeep.blogspot.com/)

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"For there are no new ideas. Just new ways of making them felt..." Audre Lorde

Week Seventeen: I can't believe it...

Molo.

There are so many things I simply can't believe. For one, I'm on week seventeen... I only have two more full weeks here. One paper due and one more final exam. The one I had today I think went rather well. I had to turn in two papers earlier this week. One on Monday and one on Wednesday. Thank you Jesus their done and off my plate. Only 3k words left!

I guess the second thing that I can believe, but wish just wasn't really happening is all the violence that has broken out here in South Africa, attributed to xenophobia.

I feel like I've heard more police sirens over the past few weeks than I have in my whole stay here. More accounts of muggings and overall violence. The police have made themselves very visible in the city as well. People have been displaced by the pure threat of violence. I won't go into horrific details but the types of things that people are doing to other human bodies is absolutely unbelievable. I really don't even want to picture it in my mind. Zimbabwe is in so much trouble and South Africa is too. Refugees from Zimbabwe are being attacked in the streets, in the city of Johannesburg I heard from a friend this weekend, people were attacking Indian and Chinese people who were presumably South African by nationality. Cape Town is no where near as bad as that but there are more people living in the park a block away from my house.

I was listening to a young South African woman talking about the violence and what she offered was that "people are simply fed up. They are tired of being poor, of being destitute especially after putting a black government in power. They were promised change and it hasn't come. They're trying and working and then the government seemingly gives all the help to these people who aren't even citizens. They feel cheated." She certainly wasn't implying that any of it was right but just trying to provide some rationale. Often people easily just attribute acts like this, especially on the Continent, to the "brutal, backward, barbaric nature" of African people. As if African people are just more prone to these types of acts because they're African. If you've found yourself having those thoughts, you should probably check yourself. A friend of mine, a coloured South African woman expressed to me how embarrasing these attacks were for her. "The whole world is looking at us. What are people thinking. These people are other Africans." I have a few friends from Zimbabwe and I can only imagine the fear and contempt they feel. You can read the news reports yourself (http://iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3069).

Know that I'm fine. Nice and cozy in my big house in the southern suburbs with concrete and barbed wire fence and security guards... truth is prayers are always appreciated because anything can happen to anyone at anytime. But I don't do things that make me feel unsafe and I'm a smart girl.

Besides, with this hair cut I look South African anyway.

One Love

p.s. To answer the question I get most frequently, I return to the States on June 15th! I'll be in Atlanta for a week and a half before returning to DC to work and intern on June 24th.

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"For there are no new ideas. Just new ways of making them felt..." Audre Lorde

Week Sixteen: Only a few more thousand words to go

Molo!! Family and Friends!!

I would write more, but I don't have time as you can tell from the subject line I'm pushing through this mountain of work. It's going well though! I got some extensions for my papers. What a relief!

Yes, it's super short but keep sending those prayers my way!!

Love

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"For there are no new ideas. Just new ways of making them felt..." Audre Lorde

Week Fifteen: Oh my GOD a MONKEY!!

Molo! Family, Friends! Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes!!

School is almost over! Yay! I know it is over for some of you. And some of you are preparing for graduations... Congratulations. I wish I could be there to share in those moments with you. But since I can't I want to continue to share some of my moments with you. Over the weekend I took a road trip to Knysna, a little town east of Cape Town, right down the Western Cape.

I asked the guy who picked us up from the car rental place how long it took to get to Knysna. He said, "Uuhh, about 5-6 hours. For me. Oh, you, womans soooo ummm 10 hours." To which I replied, "Why is it going to take twice as long for us to get there just because we're women? Does the distance magically double because we're women? Are we going to be driving 60km an hour when the speed limit is 120km?" He didn't have much to say, but chuckled a bit and said, "About 6 or 7 hours."

The drive there was a little stressful because Julie, who is here visiting, had to drive on the wrong side (that's right, not different, not the other, the wrong side) of the car on the wrong side of the road. It took her about five hours to really get the hang of it. It took us 7 hours and we stopped twice for gas and once for a meal. Julie was concentrating oh so hard as we drove up and down the sides of mountains. What fascinates me about the geography is that there were times that we were driving on these emmense stretches of road. Wineyards on one side. Monkeys, I mean donkeys on the other. And there were mountains on every side of us. It was breath taking. Julie even pointed out that the trees that grew on the sides of the mountains didn't grow on a slant like you'd imagine they would, but they grew straight up into the sky. And there were other trees whose leaves sparkled in the sun light like they were wet, but weren't.

We arrived in Knysna right as the sun had begun to set. It was one of the most beautiful places I think I've ever had the pleasure of being. Knysna is situated in a lagoon. There were mountains on both sides and homes built what appeared to be right into the mountains. There was a single bridge that connected both sides of the lagoon and as we drove into the tiny vacation town all of the lights in Knysna were lit up. It looked like we were driving inside a postcard. It was wonderful.

We went to dinner that night and had some really nice cuisine. I had chicken stuffed with spinach and feta in some kind of Morrocaan inspired seasonings. I forgot what Julie had, but I tried it and it was equally delicious. For dessert she ordered the Mulva pudding (a South African delight) and ice cream and I had grilled bannanas and ice cream. Really good by the way.

The next day we went to MONKEY LAND!!! Oh my god. So it's this park and they have 300 monkeys just roaming around. The monkeys are free to go where ever they want within the park even the picnic tables near the reception area where you can snack before going on the tours. Then a tour guide, who knows way too much about monkeys, takes you to different areas and you get to see all kinds of monkeys just hanging out (literally) together. All of the monkeys are from captivity. They are former aids to blind people, or former pets. Some come from zoos. They're all really domesticated, but the smallest one is still twice as strong as a human and twice as smart as some humans too. Apparently they frequently steal keys and cameras from tourist. No one in our group got anything stolen, but I still had a nice time. I got some great pictures I'll share with you soon.

On our way back from Monkey Land we stopped in Plettenburg Bay and took in the Indian Ocean. It was really beautiful. For lunch we went to the Cruise Cafe which we had been hearing great things about. Had the fish and chips. Very fresh fish. It was amazing in fact and then for dessert we had a vanilla creame broule with shortcake, rasberry saucy stuff, and rooibos fruit. Rooibos has been my new favorite tea since the first time I had it so to be able to taste it's fruit was really cool. It tasted like the little berries that grow on the side of the house that you try when you're a kid and pray that they won't kill you or make you sick. Anywho, all the flavors of the dessert, the shortcake with the creme stuff and the rasberry with the rooibos fruit stuff. Oh my god! So good! Those flavors were made for each other.

After a nap we had Cafe Mario in the waterfront complex for dinner. Pretty uneventful.

Sunday we woke up, had our complementary breakfast and rolled out. We were planning on taking a scenic drive through Wilderness National Park but it turned out not to be so scenic. The woman who gave us directions at the reception area gave us all kind of wrong directions and an unhelpful map so we had no idea where we were going but we ended up in this obscenely nice housing neighborhood. These homes were immaculate. They were like private little getaways for the insanely rich. But it was so not a national park.

We headed back to Cape Town a little bitter, but on the way back guess what we saw? Now people had been telling us we were going to see them, and we were looking hard and on our way up a mountain we saw no not one, but two MONKEYS!! With their little hands swinging through the guard rails. They had clearly mastered the art of crossing the trecherous highway! It was so cool! MONKEYS!!

Yep. Monkeys. They were the highlight of my trip to Knysna.

I'm sending everyone of you some love and I hope you'll send me the same. I've got a lot of work due within the next couple days and I could use some prayers.

One Love

Week Fourteen: Yay! It's My Birthday!

Molo! Family! Friends!

So, today is my birthday! 21 years on Mother Earth. I am so blessed if I do say so myself. I'll be celebrating it tonight with a special friend from home who came to visit for two weeks, Julie, as well as friends I've made here in Cape Town. One of my housemates, Michelle, treated me to my first horseback riding experience on Saturday for my birthday. I have to tell you the story:

Imagine waking up and having to get presentable at 6:00 on a Saturday morning after a night out dancing. The thought of it still makes me a little uncomfortable. Well we did it. I did it anyway, Michelle stayed in and knocked gently on my door at 6:15 to remind me that we needed to leave in 15 minutes. I scrambled up trying to get myself together. In the hurry, I couldn't find my camera (but Michelle got good pictures of me) but we scrammed out of the door to catch the first train out of Mowbray station. One of Michelle's friends went with us. She was a little late and we had to physically hold the doors apart so she could jump on the moving train to Vish Hoek (pronounced Fish Hook).

We get there. Catch a mini-bus to Ocean View. Ocean View is a predominately "coloured" community and directly adjacent Ocean View is the Imhoff Horse Ranch. That was our destination but we got a little mixed up so we got off our mini bus prematurely at an equestrian center a couple miles away from where we were supposed to. So we had to hop onto another one. We ran across the street to try to catch one going farther up. A few pass by but going the wrong direction. Finally, one stops for us but we noticed it was empty. I was a bit uneasy at first, but it was only the driver who looked small and there were three of us. The driver turns around and that's when we realize it's a woman.

I had never been on a minibus driven by a woman before. "Interesting" I thought to myself. We tell her where we're going and pull out our change to pay her. The minibus this far was R4 and that's when she said, "It's ten rand." I thought, "Ten rand, oh that's not bad for the three of us." And then she says, "For each of you." "WHAT?!!?" all three of us said in a resounding note of disbelief. "You're taking us 2 km! How can you charge us R10 a piece?" I asked. "In America, they do things their way, but here in South Africa we work differently, so..." she said. I looked at her in the rear view like she had completely lost her mind."I've been here for 4 months!" I know how public transportation works. "How come no minibus I have ever rode in has cost me more than R5?" "Well, the drivers must get mesmerized by your beauty. You all are very pretty girls. They like you so they charge you less." "That is the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life." I said to her. I was thinking, "How in the world could the drivers even recognize me when there are 14 people sitting on my lap." "I'm not paying you that much. I can walk. You can let me off right here." I said. She kept on driving. She was fishing for a better explanation I suppose, "I am trying to look out for you girls. I'm a woman, and it can be dangerous for young girls to walk around here.." By the way, it was 8 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday on a major road. Gangsters don't do their best work around that time. Not to say it couldn't happen, but "I don't want you looking out for me." By that time we'd reached our destination. I gave Michelle the R4 I was going to pay her with. Total I think we gave her about R15 which was still too much in my opinion, but on our way out she said, "I'm not stopping for you three anymore." "Please... don't."

I was extremely vexed by this woman who was supposedly "looking out for us young girls." She was trying to take advantage of us because she recognized our accents. That might have worked had I not been here for 4 months, but I wasn't going to let her get over on me. I didn't let it bother me too much though. I was looking forward to riding this horse. We get there right on time. Paid and signed the if you die, you can't sue us release form. Afterwards we got fitted with our horses.

My horse's name was Echo. An older girl with a little bit of an attitude I was informed. She and Oscar, one of the older male horses, "got along well" I was also told. It seemed like they had some tension in their relationship because Echo tried to headbutt Oscar. I didn't want to seem like I was all in her business so I didn't ask. As we started off on the trail down to the beach, I realized that Echo was a professional who did not need my help. She knew the trail better than I did so me pulling on the reigns we pointless. The only time I pulled on them was when she tried to stop and eat the trees. We had a little caravan going so if one horse stopped, all those behind had to stop until we was done chewing on that particular tree branch.

When we got on the beach, Echo got a little antsy. And then the guide asked if we wanted to trot. Without me asking, Echo takes off in a trot and my butt is getting beating. My whole inner thighs were feeling the pain as Echo did her thing. When I pulled back and asked her to stop she did but she still had an attitude about it. She didn't like how I was holding on to the squeaky reigns. I apologized. She started to warm up to me as we headed back. Actually started to do what I was telling her to, but by that time it was a little too late we were back in the holding area. I climbed off and pet her nose. She nuzzled me a bit to show some affection. It felt like a "thanks, see you around" pat you'd get from someone you just met.

My butt was hurting the next day but it was a lot of fun and the view from the beach was absolutely amazing. What a beautiful country this is; in spite of the crazy female taxi driver. I'm thankful that I took the opportunity to come here and that I have the pleasure of spending a special day in my life on the Continent. It feels wonderful.

I'm thankful for each and everyone of you, Family and Friends, alike.

I'll see you soon

Week Thirteen: The Black Intelligencia of South Africa

Molo Family! Friends!

What a week! Not much has changed in the way of my work load. I'm equally as busy if not more, but I had such a nice ending to my week. Let me tell you about it:

I'm undertaking this independent research project and the woman supervising me, Jane, is the head of the department of the African Gender Institute at UCT. I went to visit with her, check in and give her a progress report. Because I e-mailed her and hadn't heard back from her regarding her availability, I just went by her office in the AGI on Thursday since she's usually available in the morning that day. She's not in her office. I go upstairs where the reception desk is to leave a message for her and that's where I run into Elaine, my professor for my AGI course on feminist theory on the continent. She's meeting with a student but I ask her if she'd seen Jane. She told me that Jane was speaking at a conference that she was on her way to and that I should definitely go. I had no desire to go to my religion class (the topic was Hinduism) so when she offered to give me a ride, I said absolutely.

We get there a bit late, but Jane has just begun. We sneak in and take a seat. Elaine is listening oh so critically. I get a little lost at some points because some of the words she's using I've never heard of before. Generally though she was talking about the woman who brought Jacob Zuma up on rape charges and the trial that insued. Talking specifically about how the scripts people have of their heads about how a rape is supposed to go prevented them from viewing her or her story as credible and plausable, respectively.

Her paper wasn't the most interesting at all, but what I thought was more interesting was the conversation that I was privvy to during lunch between Angelo, Desiree, Elaine, and Bianca (who works with Elaine at the AGI). They are apart of 'the' Black intellectuals of Cape Town. While they don't brand themselves as such it was quite obvious. They were all early to mid 40s with the exception of Bianca a recent Master's grad in anthropology who works with Elaine. All of them academics or in the case of Angelo, a former academic working on a novel. I had such a great time at the conference on Thursday so Elaine offered to take me again on Friday. During this two day conference I observed all of them:

Angelo was watching Boondocks (an anime tv show) on his laptop during some parts of the conference. Desiree sat mostly attentitive giving her opinions only when she clearly felt moved. The paper she presented was brilliant. I'm actually reading some of her work for my project. Elaine brought up questions about cultural constructions of masculinities and sexuality on the continent specifically in relation to Jane's work. At lunch, they critiqued Jane's from beginning to end. What they found most problematic was her inability to talk about race and sexuality critically as apart of these "scripts" that people had in their heads.

They also talked about all the books they'd been reading. One called "Coconut" by Kopana Matlwa. Think brown on the outside, white on the inside which is equatable to an 'Oreo' in Afro-American lingo. Desiree loaned me her copy of "Coconut" and also told me that I should make time to come by the University of the Western Cape where she is based. Angelo invited me to raid his book collection and we'll be exchanging illegal downloads of our favorite television shows via the internet. And Elaine invited me over for dinner with her family.

On the way home Friday, I told her that I was a little upset that I hadn't asked her to sponsor my research since she was an anthropologist by trade and my work was ethnographic. She told me I was welcome to come to her anytime for help.

Anywho, I've made some great connections with the "older crowd" (not saying that 40 is old or anything). I just enjoy being around Black people who are older than me and successful and doing what they love to do. I always have. They have so much wisdom that can rub off on you. I can always use some more wisdom.

One Love

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"For there are no new ideas. Just new ways of making them felt..." Audre Lorde

Week Twelve: About 20k words in four weeks....

Fam! Friends!

I know I'm a little late with this... truth is... HOMEWORK is no joke!. I'm really clamping down. I have 4 huge papers due within the next four weeks, average 5k words a piece. This Includes the final draft of my independent research project and the literature review I'm working on with Rape Crisis. I'm finalizing the plan on how I'm going to get it all done, but the key is working non-stop during the day all next week since we have a few national holidays: next Monday, Thursday and Friday. Most people are taking the opportunity to travel, but I'm going to be working on these papers. Knocking them out.

Oh, I've been successful in getting some internship applications out there for this upcoming summer in DC. I even got some 'call backs.' I'll keep you posted!

Only a few weeks left! Oh my God... I can't believe how quickly my time here is flying by!

That's all I got (time for).



One Love

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"For there are no new ideas. Just new ways of making them felt..." Audre Lorde