The Adventure of Yesterday

I heard from Nora (from Ohio) that the House of JC LeRoux was within biking distance from Stellenbosch. I knew Sander really likes champagne. I learned that JC LeRoux was a good sparkling wine farm. (Champagne isn't allowed to be champagne if its not from a specific region of France, so they call it sparkling wine here). So, Sander, Carly, Karen, and I, decided to go to JC LeRoux. Its definitely doable on the map, and although the website says that tours and tastings are only from 10 to 12 on Saturdays, if we leave early enough, we'll get there in plenty of time.
The night before this, I had gone out with my roommate Laura and a few other people. We went to Aanklas which was having an "oldies night", so they played 60s and 70s American music... and 80s and 90s too. and then The Killers got thrown into the mix too. Whatever. Some songs from high school can be sort of considered old now, I guess. The point of this sidenote is that we didn't get back until late, which made the 9:30 starting time a little unrealistic for me.
I was out the door by like 9:45 maybe. Showered and wearing a nice skirt and nice shirt (to make up for the fact that we showed up on bicycles to a nice wine tasting). The sky was overcast, and it had been raining. We set off on our little jaunt, along the small roads of stellenbosch, out to the main highway. We go for a ways, looking for the sign for the turnoff. Cycling Cycling Cycling. Up some slight hills, slightly coast on the downhills. Lovely day for a bike ride. After a ways, we think that we've gone too far, so we decide to ride to the top of the next "hill"/roll/slightly high point. We look down and see the wine estate Asara. We find it on our wine tour map and realize that we've gone twice as far on the highway than we needed to. So we turn around and go back. Of course, coming from the other direction we notice a HUGE billboard for JC LeRoux at the turnoff that was barely visible when you came from the other direction. We jovially cross the highway and get on the right road. We've gone about 200 meters when Sander looks down at his tire as it rapidly goes flat.
We stop and assess our options. We look at the map and think that we are closer to JC LeRoux than home. Some nice German bikers stop and offer to help, but their tubes are for road bikes and we have mountain-y bikes. It is decided that Sander will lock his bike up on the side of the road (with two locks), take his front tire with him (using a third lock to loop it onto his back) as he rides Karen's bike to a shop in town where he can get the tire fixed. The three girls will walk on without him, with the remaining two bikes.
So we walk.
And we walk.
And we keep on walking.
We meet some kids who live on one of the wine farms (children of the workers). They have tires with sticks that they are playing with, and really like our bicycles. I want to let them ride it, but I don't. I guess I don't want them to steal it, but I don't think they would have. They didn't have anywhere to go with it. We were kind of in the middle of nowhere. We take pictures with them and talk to them a bit. Karen is Dutch, so she can speak Afrikaans with them, and they tell us we have a looooong way to walk, and ask why anyone would want to walk that far. We don't really believe them, so we keep walking. The scenery is breathtakingly beautiful. The cloudy sky means that we don't get sunburned or too warm or anything. I grab a bunch of grapes off an inviting vine along the way. Maybe we walked a lot slower because we had the two bikes, or maybe the distance was longer than posted... But it took us two hours to get to the champagne tasting.
Along the way, we hear back from Sander a few times. He got to the bike shop and was told to wait 30-45 minutes. After another hour, we call him, and he tells us that he had gotten the first tire fixed, had gotten back to the broken bike, had started riding both of them, only to have Karen's bike get a flat tire. So then he was on his way back to the bike shop with Karen's tire. Then we got a text that the bike shop was so busy that he was fixing the tire himself.
Somewhere around this time, we start getting tired of just walking, so we decide to try to get 2 people on one bike, to make it go faster. it was hilarious. Guys bikes have a straight bar between the handles and the seat, and usually if someone doesn't have a bike, they sit there sidesaddle, and the guy pedals like normal. But we were stuck with 2 girls bikes which have a slant, so you can't sit on it. So we did the thing where someone sits on the seat and the person pedalling stands. It was exhausting!!! So we would do that for 50-100 meters, stop and untangle ourselves from our bikes while laughing hysterically and then walk a while longer. We got better at doing it on top of a hill in order to roll down faster.
We walked and walked, and kept asking directions from random people along the road. They kept telling us just to keep going.
We finally get there around 1. We order a nice lunch, and Sander arrives around the time that we finish. So he cleans up everyone's plates, and the food ended up working out perfectly. We head downstairs to do the long-awaited champagne tasting.
It is quite good. The couch is also quite comfortable. We had a good talk and also switched seats with every glass so that people could take turns sitting on the couch that had a back as opposed to the cushion-y chair things. We didn't really pay enough attention though, when she was telling us the names of each of them, we just remembered what color the label was. My favorite was the last one, with the darkest label. The actual sparkling wine was red, it was fruity and yummy. i also really liked the first one that was extra dry champagne. it had a normal label.
After our tasting, we went to the gift shop and bought wine and candies. We also remembered to pay the 20 rand ($2) for the tasting.
We walked outside planning to lie and take a nap in some grass somewhere. Then Carly discovers that her tire is flat....
yeah.
THREE flat tires in one day. And we'd been mostly riding on the street, we'd just ridden on dirt or grass or gravel in just a few sections....
so.
(sander had ridden with both bikes for most of the way to jc leroux but had gotten tired and locked karen's bike to something random on the side of the road a little ways away)
we walk the two good bikes and 1 flat tire bike a km or two to karen's bike. then we get her bike, and walk with all four bikes for a ways. We pass some plum trees. I help myself. (and share too). Sander and I talk about how satisfying it is to pick something off a tree or bush and then eat it. its also still amazingly beautiful weather and surroundings.
We eventually work it out that carly can sit on sander's bike, and i can bike with my hand on the other bike. it turns out that i can do it, which is good because it was the first time i'd ever tried it and i was about 15 feet (5 m) from the top of a big hill when i started. so then i went down the big hill really fast, but it worked out fine, and i didn't crash it or anything. Karen and i switched off for a while, and then carly tried on my bike while i rode with sander.
we made it back fine to the big highway. then carly fell when we went over this pothole thing in the sidewalk (i screamed when sander went over it, but carly screamed and then fell). then we walked bikes for a while. then when we were crossing the highway, i tried to bike through a curb that i didn't see. then i fell on my face (and my nice skirt flew up). and that was pretty funny too.
Then we get to a gas station and karen and carly get these two nice men to fill carly's tire (cuz we assume its a slow leak since it was only flat when we came out)
Then one of then men turns out to be the owner of the shop where I had bought my bicycle (but the others had got their elsewhere). Then the bike shop owner fixed the flat on carly's bike.
It really worked out well, actually. Sander and I sat on our butts on the grass as Carly who is super friendly and open and Karen who speaks Dutch and thus sort of Afrikaans made new friends of these two men. Sander was a little upset that no one had helped him with any of his flat tires, but I assured him that it was because he wasn't wearing a short dress like Carly. (this morning Carly's tire was flat again, and then Sander felt a little better)
So we finally made it back to our dorm by six or so.
We ordered pizza
ate it.
and i showered and then fell asleep.
and slept for like 10 hours.
it was a truly beautiful day.

Yesterday

After a morning of waiting for a phone call which didn't come until we left the message with our phone numbers
i went to meet with mike to talk kayamundi
what does it mean to have an existing structure in my head for an afterschool program?
how do I react to situations where i think discipline is necessary?
how do I determine who to talk to? who to sit with?
then met with leah and joelle
watched cnn for a blissful 10 minutes
left to sit on the pedestal of cecil rhodes
where jesus and his disciples, local soapie stars, went to temple in a cheesy American movie of the book of Matthew. I think we watched it in Terry McGonigal's Shalom claass.

what does it mean to have preconcieved notions of poverty
what does it mean to be haunted by visions of home that i didn't understand then
and applying to this context still can't properly process
people just want to be heard.
kids need the same meaning giving context that adults do,
where do i fit? why does it matter so much?
what are the capacities of grade 7 students and why do we give them folders to color for 40 minutes?
where was the hw help?
where was the setting of expectations?
what about the volunteers? where is the structure for them?
how do I fit into this structure?
who are the people who dreamed this up in the first place? where is the learner imput for the current structure?
why don't I want to deal with KP right now?
why is it so complicated to live here and know when you need, for emotional stability purposes, to back off calm down, close your bedroom door and process? and when do you know that you need to calm down, let go, and not worry and go out and be social? how do you know what to accept and what to tear apart?
there's too much happening to process everything
and when are you supposed to do your homework?

"what's your favorite subject"
"English"
"why?"
"because it sounds prettier"
"you don't like speaking xhosa?"
"no."

"I have to go now. I have to leave the creche[preschool] with all these people. i'm going to put you down now...no, you can't come with me...no, you have to stay here...no, its gonna be okay...will you hold him while i leave?"
[run away and try not to look back at wide-eyed toddler straining against nine-year old girl]

"is it hard, leaving your mother and family behind here?" (while you live the good life going to college and living with a Brit)
"yes, i won't be able to not think about them tonight, i won't sleep"

"She [odey] doesn't have a home. She's been here since a child. She's half Angolan. Her mother is somewhere in Congo, you know how impossible it would be to find her in that mess. we've tried...All she wants to do is play football...She's good enough to play for the national team... but she doesn't have papers. Her father brought her here as a child... but it was too much to handle. he left her at the ark and went back to angola...I think she misses him a lot... she's without a country now... i can't adopt her legally without papers... she's been with me since she was fourteen.. it would take ten years to track down birth certificates from the hospital in kinshasa. it doesn't have a telephone number on the internet. they won't even have paper records probably...you can't adopt a thirty year old."

I didn't have the 15-30 seconds where i wondered whether i was going to die or not, so I didn't have the trauma of being shot in a hi-jacking. we all just thought it was glass in my face in the aftermath...it was only in the x-ray that they realized i had a bullet lodged in my tongue... Miraculously a police car drove by as it was happening so they caught the boys...it was their first hijacking...it was for a gang initiation
...when i realized what was happening, i yelled for the 6 girls to get out of the car. they all did but odey (her foster daughter) who was paralyzed in the corner.
the gun was in his hand..i think he was quite nervous actually. it went off as he approached the car. so the window took most of the impact, then it went into my cheek and down. that's why i have these two monstrosities of false teeth now. i always tell people, if they want money for their support, they need to adopt foster daughters and get shot in the face in a hijacking... i used to be quite naive really.

"leah, whats the hardest thing for you to see? you see a lot of hard stuff"
"i think i'm pretty desensitized to it by now but i guess the hardest is the young mothers. the ones that don't have anything to live for, they are carrying these children in their arms that they have no hope for."

what does it mean to be human?
what does it mean to have a meaning-giving context?
how do you help other people find that when you find it for yourself by helping them with mundane things like math homework?
how do you assist english language learning while encouraging pride in their native tongue which is too complex for most volunteers to learn?
how much does language affect individual identity?
how do you encourage capacity and listen to and encourage middle-schoolers?
how much of a difference does Kayamundi Project make in the long run?
how could that much well-meaning quality ISOS time be utilized differently? more effectively?
in such a structured/top-down environment, how do i make the change i learn about in Community Development class?
how much of this is reinforcing stereotypes? preconceived notions? how much is allowing for paradigm shifts?

Triumph!

I've got about an hour before my next class, and I'm feeling especially content and happy here. The bureaucracy relating to anything remotely-school is ridiculously difficult to navigate, so I've been learning patience and how to make plans A-E, instead of just A B C. Today though, I had a triumph!
I woke up at 7:30, showered, went to get coffee and a croissant for breakfast. It was about 8:30 when I realized that I knew what building the class I wanted to get into today was in, but had no idea which room number. AT ALL. Its a six story building with around 60 classrooms/offices on each floor. So I went to the Department office on the 4th floor, only to find out that the teacher had been thinking about changing the venue, but no one knew whether or not it had moved yet. It turns out it was in the original classroom that was on the ground floor (the 200 wing... cuz that makes sense), but I was first sent to a building 5 minutes biking away that is actually an administration building. I couldn't lock my bike anywhere there, and no other students were walking in (it was right as class should have been starting), so I went to the International Office. I spent 20-30 minutes waiting while the secretary called everyone who might have known about the class, about the venue change, or the teachers cell number. It was finally discovered that it was in the same building as the IO, but the room was yet unknown. Also, it still wasn't clear if that was where the class was moving, or that is where it was. I asked for the teachers office hours (which technically don't exist if you don't have an appointment, but I was bound and determined to get into this class). I got them, went to the library, got some poetry for my soul, and read some papers for my homework. Once the duration of the class had finished, I walked to the building where her office is. I asked in 3 wrong office complexes for her, and finally found the right one. She was out at the moment, so I sat and waited.
I read about some Community Service work that Stellenbosch is doing, including a Saturday school. Finally, Vuyo, the elusive Xhosa teacher, walked through the door. She asked me to follow her, I misunderstood, and stayed sitting. Then I heard her say, come here my dear. So I went around the corner I had seen her go through.
Here comes the triumph part:
I walked in, she asked if I was an international student (also triumph- I am tan enough to be SAn), asked how I was, I asked how she was. She asked if I wanted into the class. i said yes. She asked me to write my name and student number on a sheet of paper. She asked if I knew people in the class that I could get notes from. I said yes. She said, I will give you a Xhosa name. It will be... hmm... ah.. no... yes. this. it will be Nomahle. Which means power. She said she will e-mail me the notes, there is no textbook and I will see her in class on Thursday. Another woman in the office asked me if I knew Amandla! and I said yes, the revolutionary cry. She said yes, the two words are related. I grinned and said thank you to both of them.
It took all of 2 minutes. It was the most gratifying feeling to walk out of that office and have everything feel like it was taken care of. It was only 11:30!

I climbed to the top of a mountain today.
I feel so accomplished.
please view photos here:
www.picasaweb.google.com/neenydidit.

I went to Kayamundi, the closest township, for class on Tuesday.
I'm sure that it looks the same as all the pictures you've seen. The corrugated metal shacks, the dirt roads, the people walking everywhere, the women with the bags of laundry on their heads, the roadside vegetable stands. There are minibus taxis that have seats for 8, that carry at least 15. There were stray dogs sleeping in the shadows of the trees. There were many smiling people everywhere.
Some unexpected things that I saw:
cell phone shacks. Vodacom is the biggest brand, but MTN competes with it too. But scattered throughout the township of tiny shacks were the occasional shack that said "Authorized Vodacom Community Telephone" or something to that effect. I need to ask what they are next time I'm in Kayamundi, but I think it could either be a) a really cool social entrepreneurship program that gives an income to someone with a cell phone or two that the entire community can use. or b) evidence of commsumerism taking over the world and infiltrating this area of extreme poverty trying to get people to spend nonexistant money on a new necessity.
I've also learned that Kayamundi is the meth capital of the country, which makes me feel like I'm right at home again, aww Fresno.
. . .
So the reason that I was in Kayamundi in the first place, was for my first session of my Service Learning/Community Development class. We met our lecturers, we had a nice lunch in the botanical garden. Then, we were told that we were going to do the following activity.
We were led silently to vans, and split up into three grooups. We were given notebooks and pens and told to observe the entire journey.
We drove past a prison with gardening convicts in the yard. We drove maybe five minutes until we entered Kayamundi. We drove a bit, dropped two people off. Kept driving and winding through the township, dropping pairs off at seemingly random places. Each pair was told to be silent for the first 15 minutes, just to observe. Then we were allowed to walk around and talk to people and see what was happening at the 'random' site where they were placed. But if we were approached, we could talk back. The van would return in 30 minutes. We were also told of a 'safe place' where we could go if we felt threatened. There were only four of us left at the top of this hill. There was a construction site across the street for a nonprofit named Legacy. It was gorgeous standing there. The mountains and green hills in the distance, the hope of a new building. I dunno. It was good.
It was around 2:30 when we were dropped off, which is also right about when the kids get out of school. So no sooner had I settled myself in the shade under a tree, some kids came by and were curious. They stood at a distance, and slowly got closer, and once they were pretty close, I said Hi. This encouraged them, and they came over right up next to me, and were chatting away. I think my silence lasted maybe 2 minutes. The girls were really sweet, i think they were around seven. I haven't figured out how to judge age yet here; all the kids are so small. We played hand games, and one girl had two little sisters with her. One could speak and one was too young. I played high five with them.
Then some boys walked by in their crisp new uniforms (the new school year started a few weeks ago), and they wanted to know what was going on, so I talked with them for a while too.
highlights:

baby peeing in the middle of the road. Just walked away from the group, down into the road, pulled her pants to her ankles and popped a squat
the girls started playing with my hair. They discovered that my scalp has been peeling from a sunburn. Like huge chucks of skin. So they started picking it all out.... that was probably the most awkward part for me. The rest felt perfectly natural and exactly right
a boy pulled out a kitchen knife to chop a palm frond off a nearby tree. whatever. no big deal.
the same boy took his belt off and then rehooked it with his front loops of his pants, and the top of the belt around his head. It looked like he was an old man with his overalls/pants pulled WAY too high. Of course all the other boys did it too.
They wanted to write in my book too. One girl wrote the alphabet. They all wrote their names. Another wrote out the vowels followed by Sa Se Si So Su. A girl named Precious wrote a sentence for me "I like you. you are the best.thank you?" She was at least nine.

When the van pulled up again, they all clamored to give me the last hug, and then some of the boys tried to get in the van, just for kicks. and i went home with so much more peace than I'd had for a while.
We still don't know our exact placements, and we don't know what we'll do at the place. But I know that my place speaks Xhosa, so thats the language that I'm going to take.
Its going to be good.
Much love from christine

Two and a half weeks in...

I have been delaying posting a more thorough analysis of Stellenbosch until I knew more. I realize that I have to start somewhere though, so here goes.
Stellenbosch is an Afrikaaner town. It is one of the last strongholds of Afrikaaner culture in the country. Afrikaans is a language that developed out of the Dutch spoken by the first settlers who came to develop a half-way point on the long trip to India (think Dutch-East Indies Trading Co). Jan Van Riebeck and his wife Maria are celebrated both in Stellenbosch and Cape Town with roads, statues and buildings. Stellenbosch was one of the first settlements in the 1600’s. Its cute. Its quaint. It has beautiful oak lined streets with brick sidewalks. The shops are a bit touristy, but very fashionable and cute. The University itself is a little over a century old, with huge Dutch-colonial buildings, and immaculately managed gardens. Its gorgeous.
The climate is perfect here. Its safe as any college town in the States (don’t walk around by yourself at night, and don’t carry valuables). The only real proof that I’m in a non-western, middle-income country is that the prices are very cheap. The cheapness of eating out and going out serve to contribute further to the paradisical qualities of this bubble. We also do the European thing of buying groceries daily or every other day, which makes it nice as well.
My friends here are mostly from Europe and the States, because we stay in really nice lodgings with extra security, alongside all the other international students. Its hard to get to know South Africans who aren’t on staff, because we hardly ever meet them, and when we do, they’re hardly ever sober. The Afrikaaner boys of Stellenbosch are especially disappointing. They’re perpetually drunk, and fighting. I have met one English (still South African) guy, but after knowing him maybe 5 minutes, he spent the next half hour telling his romantic past, including the part where he walked in on his fiancee and another man.
Another important distinction to note is between the English and the Afrikaaners. They really do not like each other due to a long past of legitimate mistrust. The biggest contention is that during the Boer war (turn of the 20th century), the English invented concentration camps where they put the Afrikaaners (men women elderly children) and tens of thousands of them died. Living in Stellenbosch, I hear a lot more about that sort of drama than the war/struggle at the end of apartheid which happened less than 20 years ago. Interesting side note, Afrikaaners when speaking English say “is it?” where Americans would say “really?”
Classes start tomorrow, which will give some longed for structure to my life. I am taking Afrikaaans, 9 credits of Community Engagement/Theory of Service Learning, and an additional class that I haven’t yet decided on. One option is an amazing class on Societies in Transition (between Violence and Peace). Unfortunately it will be taught on Saturdays, which puts a damper on any adventure plans. The profs are amazing people who I’ve heard talk, and who have LEGIT experience with conflict resolution, mediation, human rights, society building, law, and international organizations. Downside, all the ISOS-arranged activities are on Saturdays. (International Students of Stellenbosch). I could also take a class on economic development which has Bottom Billion, The End of Poverty, and White Man’s Burden as its required texts. It could be good. It could be REALLY good. Or it could be material that I could learn on my own, or have already learned. I haven’t met the professor for it yet. I haven’t heard his/her perspective on development yet.
All in all, my life here moves pretty slow. It takes forever for any paperwork to go through. It takes a lot of patience to wait in queues. It takes a long time for a large group of people to decide anything, including where to go next. If you meet up with people, you spend most of your time standing around and waiting. I get less lost every day, and I have discovered a divine place for gelato.
Average meal: 35 Rand = $3.50
Average drink: 12 Rand = $1.20
Average trip to the grocery store (good food for 2ish days): 80 Rand = $8.00
Life is good.
Much love to you all.
Check out my picasa:
www.picasaweb.google.com/neenydidit