When I woke up Sunday morning, it was raining, and it rained steadily till Tuesday afternoon. I had gotten the time and location of the Presbyterian church in town from some distant contact of Jill’s, but since I didn’t have any appropriate shoes and didn’t feel like exploring with my map in the rain, I postponed that adventure for next week. I probably would have stayed holed up in my res all day, listening to past Focus talks or something if there were no silly necessities like eating. We weren’t supposed to start eating at our res dining hall until dinner Sunday night, and there wasn’t enough motivation for me to trek over to the vacation dining hall when I had half of a perfectly good scone and some bread (we are allowed to take exactly two pieced of bread from dinner, which counts as part of out 4 slices of bread per meal limit. At first, this limit sounded a bit silly; what would one do with 4 whole slices of bread per meal? Turns out, I at least would like to eat two pieces of warm toast with jam on days when the meal is not appealing, and take two more with me). However, I had made plans with some of the girls the day before to go to the movie theater in town and watch Bridesmaids (the movie theater only has movies that have been out a few months, some of us had already seen Adjustment Bureau, and The Hangover 2 was not happening, so chick flick by process of elimination) Sunday afternoon.
I put on my running shoes (they dry the fastest of my 2 pairs of shoes that can be worn with socks) and met Britta, Eva and M.E. under the overhang at the library, then we waited for Kristen under the roof at the pizza place. The movie theater is a pleasant 10-15 minute walk in good weather, but we were pretty wet by the time we got there, and I was missing my rain boots, which I might be forced to replace while I am here. The movie was decent, worth the 27 rand we paid per ticket (that’s about US$4), and it was fun to hang out with people, although it reminded me of the girls I normally watch chick flicks with (or do we only watch man movies?) and I missed Gettysburg a bit. Of course, Gettysburg is essentially plastered all over my walls, which doesn’t let me forget easily. Anyway, I made myself go to dinner afterwards (although, really, the contest between my stomach and my cold, wet feet wasn’t very suspenseful) and I managed to get dinner at my new dinning hall, despite the fact that my fingerprint wasn’t in the system.
Monday, contrary to my wishful thinking, the rain was as steady as the night before, and I was soaked from the knees down all morning. Don’t worry, I ate 2 cough drops, so I got 200% of my recommended vitamin C! Although I had a bit of trouble finding my first class (doesn’t the International Library of African Music sound like a building that should have a path straight to it or at least well marked signs pointing the way?) it was so much fun that I didn’t mind the wet. When our professor got there, we each went to his truck and pulled out a djembe, and we played drums for an hour. Mondays is my practical for Ethnomusicology—prac is the term they use here instead of lab, although I think the music department at home might call it a studio—so no notes or lecture, just playing… for today, drumming. It was incredibly fun, although most of the kids in my class are continuing from the first semester, so I am a bit behind them. Still, our professor was talking about drumming as a healing process and the way that muscle memory affects us as we accumulate memories. It was all really interesting, and I enjoyed the class a lot.
My other classes were much similar to my prior college experiences. Marine zoology could have been any other bio class I have ever taken (with the exception of evolution) except that at one point, he clarified that the graph we were looking at must have been recorded in the northern hemisphere, because the temperature increased from March through August. Philosophy should be interesting; although we will be focusing on the Greco-European tradition, our teacher told us that near the end of the term (I will essentially have two different philosophy classes this semester, for the current term we are focusing on ethics, which I am looking forward to) we will be looking at an essay by Samantha Vice. She is a philosopher in the department who has started a big controversy by publishing her piece last year about moral luck and being white in South Africa. I am really looking forward to it since I am missing out on African philosophical tradition, which isn’t taught at the introductory level. History is… a history class. Both my philosophy and history professors this term are Americans, which I find interesting (actually, the philosophy professor is a Texan who did his undergraduate in Cali, then went to the UK for his post grad and doctorate, and has lived in South Africa for 12 years now… he admitted to having a screwed up accent). My history for this term is looking at South Africa from the beginning of European/African coexistence up to the discovery of precious minerals (gold and diamonds) that marked a shift towards more thorough dominance by the Europeans. I am hoping that next term will be more modern SA history, but I won’t find out any time soon, and for now I will just enjoy learning plenty of history that I don’t know yet.
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