Tuesday, I had a really interesting history lecture about the Cattle Killings, which I had seen referenced a few times but didn’t really know anything about. The actual story was intense, and it sounds like half a fairy tale without the Disney ending. Basically, a young girl was visited by two strangers in 1856, who brought a prophecy that the Xhosa people needed to kill all of their cattle. The cattle were apparently unclean from being tended by ‘dirty hands’ (witchcraft). Once all the cattle were killed and all the crops destroyed, the people were to build bigger kraals (holding areas for their cattle) and dig bigger grain pits, because bounty would be brought to all of the people, and everyone would have abundance, and the dead (their ancestors) would rise. This message got the Xhosa King, who believed prophetess girl for some reason, and he told the people to follow through with it. Some didn’t, but the majority did, and since the dead didn’t rise and the new cattle didn’t come (technically, they never killed all of the cattle—about 10% of the people refused—thus not fulfilling their part of the prophecy) the people had no food, and either starved (around 75,000 people died) or were forced to sign agreements with the British colonial government to sell themselves as labor in exchange for food supplies. I mean, it was way more complicated than that, but that is the main idea. There is still a ton of controversy and conspiracy theories about who the strangers were, if they really existed, who is to blame for the cattle killings, the socio-historical factors involved... I won’t go into any more detail, but it was intense. I really like my history class, even if taking it means an exam on November 30th.
Thursday, I went to volunteer at the Rafael Centre for the first time, and had an awesome experience. There is a program there for high school students from the township who are infected or affected by HIV. It is similar to the idea of a support group; they get resources and information about AIDS (the stigma here is huge, and there are still lots of people who don’t have accurate information about the virus) as well as incentives and support to live a better life (if they attend all of the events, they each get a cell phone that was donated to the centre, which is a big deal because, according to Gillian, guys will sell drugs and girls will sell themselves to get a cell phone) and a chance to be with other people their age going through similar experiences. One part of Gillian’s job is finding out what else these kids need, and trying to get it for them. In some cases, they have asked for extra help with schoolwork, and this is where I came in! I am going to be mentoring one afternoon a week, tutoring someone that wants the help. Although I have always felt unprepared to be a tutor (I swear it requires more than just being a good student, especially because if you are a good student, you don't have the experience of ever being tutored) my experiences volunteering for Elle’s LIU migrant education program at Gettysburg has prepared me at least a bit. In fact, I think it was good training, as the two main differences here are a Xhosa accent instead of a Spanish one, and the desire to learn, the second of which I am totally down with. (To clarify, it isn't that none the LIU kids want to learn, but since only the Rafael Centre kids who have asked for extra help are getting tutored, they actually want to be there, which is awesome.)
I don’t know if we will be paired with the same kids for the semester, but I got to work with a Senior (they call senior year matric year in SA) guy named Aya. If I get to work with him again, my goal is to learn to say his full name, but that wasn’t attainable this week. He wanted help with life sciences and geography, which was terrifying for a minute because I had no idea what earth sciences was and I am terrible at geography (especially African geography, can you label just the 54 official countries on a map? I can do like 10). However, it turns out that life sciences is biology! When he opened his textbook to Mendel and Darwin, I was so happy I could have sung. Discussing genes and loci and meiosis was like a dream for me, although we had some awkward times reviewing the female reproductive cycle, complete with hormonal patterns and every form of birth control that exists. While this is a great thing for teenage boys to know about, I would love it if someone other than myself was transmitting the knowledge…
This week mostly has been a blur of paper writing. On the bright side, I am pleased to note that I managed to keep my library total down to three, which was a nice average of one library per paper (I still don’t know where the Ichthyology Library is). I did get to go to a braai on Friday afternoon after I finished my papers... It was a res bonding thing, so we had it right next to Beit. Can you imagine having a barbecue area next to every res on campus? It’s all about priorities. Anyway, we had yummy food, although the weather had gotten colder and threatening. We have been having a weird weather pattern where the day starts out beautiful, then it gets really windy, and storm clouds roll in around dinnertime. At least it hasn’t been raining! In fact, compared to the weather at home, I would say that we have it pretty nice. And when it is nice, it is amazing…the sky is so blue that it is almost painful.
It's really blue... just sayin
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