First Post!

Molo everyone! Thanks for reading!

As this is my first entry, I’ll begin by explaining a little bit about what this journal is about. I am Susan, a native New Yorker and a junior at GW in Washington DC. I am spending the semester abroad, 3.5 months, in Cape Town, South Africa, studying Multiculturalism and Social Change with SIT. By May 15^th 2009, I will have lived with four different families from different cities, different races, different economic backgrounds, different religions, speaking different languages, and I will have traveled to and lived in Johannesburg, Soweto, Cape Town, Langa, Stellenbosch, East London, Durban, and more. Here is a little bit about my story!

I haven’t been able to update for awhile, so bear with me during the enormous entry. After a 17 hour flight which stopped for an hour in Dakar, we arrived in Jo-Burg on Friday, January 30^th, 2009. The first few days were filled with icebreakers where I got to know the 18 other students and the faculty members in charge of the program. Basically, it is 16 credits of experiential learning. Over the course of the semester, myself and the 19 students take three classes together:

The first is a seminar on multiculturalism and social change. The seminars are often taught by guest speakers from universities in South Africa as well as government officials, NGO workers, teachers, etc. Additionally, we get credit when we go together on tours and to museums.

The second is an introductory Xhosa class, an indigenous language spoken in parts of South Africa, mostly in the Eastern Cape. (Click your tongue when you say the X, almost like Kosa. Almost.) This is taught by Nomawethu, one of our professors at SIT. She is basically our mama.

The third is a field study seminar, which teaches us how to conduct interviews, observe Cape Town, and think critically about how to obtain information from the field. This will prepare us for the fourth portion of the program which is:

The independent study project. A four week portion at the end of the program where we will use our language skills, our field study skills, and the knowledge gained during the seminar to examine a topic of our choice, interview local people, do independent research, and write a 30 to 40 page paper of our findings. Most students use this as the basis for their thesis when they arrive back in the US for senior year.

Other important faculty members: Shane, our academic director. Picture a short Irish man, buzz-cut, grey-haired, wearing sunglasses on his head and regular glasses on his face, at all times. He talks in a roundabout way, has lived and taught in Zimbabwe for 10 years and South Africa for 15.

Tabisa: Basically, Shane and Nomawethu’s bitch. She does everything, including telling us she’ll take us out dancing one of these days. But she’s young and supercool and hangs out with us when they’re not looking, and even when they are.

So, Jo-burg. We spent about 4 days there, stayed in a group hostel, took some introductory Xhosa lessons, and our first seminars on South African history, Bantustans (African “homelands” created as a means to segregate during apartheid), and the constitutional court, took a tour of downtown Jo-Burg, and saw most of it from the top of a very high building.

Sidenote: A mouse just ran in and out of my room. Cool times.

We also drove past Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu’s homes in Soweto, a township outside Jo-Burg. Basically townships are towns outside cities where Blacks were moved to during apartheid. Despite the end of apartheid in 1994, they are still majority black and range from really poor or really violent to humble homes all the way to huge mansions. They are deliberately far from the city’s center as a way to keep blacks from congregating in the city and taking it over. Mandela and Tutu actually lived on the same street and it is the only street in the world where two Nobel Prize winners lived at some point.

We also visited the Hector Pieterson Memorial, a memorial for a young boy who was killed in the Soweto uprising of 1976, an uprising by black students against making it mandatory for subjects in schools to be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the white, Dutch South Africans. The uprising occurred because Blacks in the townships felt that by being taught in Afrikaans rather than English, they were being made into incapable workers unable to speak English and forced to live in poverty in the townships rather than make a life for themselves.

Lastly, we visited the apartheid museum. For anyone who doesn’t know, apartheid means “separateness” in Afrikaans. It was a political policy established in 1948 which basically declared that whites and blacks should live their lives on a completely separate trajectory. It remained this way until 1994, when Blacks were given the right to vote and the ANC (led by Mandela) was voted into power.

We left for Cape Town on Wednesday, February 4^th, stayed in an amazing hostel, near Long Street, the Adams Morgan/Georgetown of Cape Town for three nights. We went out, continued to bond, and had really cheap food and drinks every night. We continued to learn Xhosa, saw our classrooms and the town of Rondebosch where they are, basically right alongside the University of Cape Town. There are lots of internet cafes and shopping in that area, so if you want to skype/facebook me in real time, I’ll be there during weekdays at South African time 1:00pm-1:30pm. Eastern time is 7 hours behind here. Skype me at sedemartino.

As I write this, it is Sunday, February 8^th, my second night in my homestay in Langa, a township outside of Cape Town. My homestay family is really sweet. My mama is Grace (funny, because my real mom is also Grace). She is a great grandmother and lives with her granddaughter, Ncisiwadi (This is probably a failed spelling, but the c is pronounced sort of like a kissing noise mixed with a tut-tut noise of disapproval), who is 28 and six months pregnant, and her great-grandaughter, Sine, who is 12. Her great-grandson Lia who is 3 months old and basically the most adorable baby I have ever seen is staying with us for a few days until his mom gets settled at the job she took in Pretoria. There are like a million little kids on the block and they are all so sweet and fun and love to play, so I had a really good first weekend with my homestay family. I plan to post pictures really soon.

Highlights of the homestay family so far:

1) Lots of bugs. It’s so hot here that the door needs to be open at all times except at night, so I understand why, but Jesus Christ, I have never seen so many bugs. On the bright side, there are much fewer spiders than bugs, so I can handle the situation.

2) I put salt in my coffee this morning. Mama and sisi (sister Ncisiwadi) said to just help myself to things, so I did. I figured the Tupperware next to the instant coffee (Shoutout to Meg, NESCAFE!) filled with white crystals would be sugar and proceeded to add it liberally to my coffee. Then I failed to understand what I had done, and wondered these two really stupid things:

1. Maybe the sink is not working and salt water comes out.

2. Did Sisi add salt to the water boiler for the baby?

Seriously? I can’t even believe these thoughts popped into my head. They’re so stupid it’s probably wasting my time to pick them apart and insult myself more. Salt fail.

3) We don’t have a shower, only a tub. This was unexpected, but it’s not a bad situation, only a surprise. I bathed tonight (and it wasn’t saltwater, OMG NO WAY) and it was actually pretty nice, and I feel really clean. Yay to cleanliness.

Last few things. It is REALLY, REALLY, INSANELY, HOT HERE. Every pore on my entire body is sweating. And each bead of sweat from each of those pores is sweating. It’s a good time.

The group is really nice and a lot of fun. I was really nervous about getting to know 18 other people but I’m really happy that everyone turned out to be really nice.

I went to church earlier today and really enjoyed it. There is a lot of singing and dancing and harmonizing and it lasted for 3 hours. My little sisi wanted to get out of there so we left early, but it was really interesting and I might go back next weekend with Mama.

Other things I’ve noticed:

1) Everyone calls texting SMSing here.

2) Nobody uses teapots here, just electric water boilers. Basically an electric pitcher that boilers water.

3) Napkins are called diapers. This is kind of funny, but also has caused me to reevaluate a sentence in Love Actually. When Hugh Grant says “No nappies, no teengagers, no crazy ex-wife,” he means no diapers.

Well, I’m getting tired now, so goodnight all. Stay tuned for more entertainment, possibly in the form of saltwater and diapers.