Baby's A Red-House of Heroes

I promised that I would post some pictures of campus, and since I am in the KFC, using the wifi to skype Melissa (I don't want to use up my quota, and video chatting takes quite a bit) I figured I would use this opportunity to upload a few that I have taken since I got here...

This is the room that I was staying in during orientation... most of what you can see from the balcony (with the exception of the closest building) are parts of the private schools that surround Rhodes, specifically the Diocese School for Girls. Beyond that are private houses, where a lot of students have their 'digs' or apartments. 

This is the view from the library steps (well, some of the library steps, there are many) I am standing in the courtyard in front of the library, and you can see the Biological sciences building straight ahead, and the geology building to the right. 

A mural on campus! I am not entirely sure why thursdays are supposed to be purple; I think it is because purple is one of the school colors. Either way, the whole comrades thing makes me chuckle a bit... shouldn't Thursdays be red?

There are three courtyards in a row down the center of campus; this is from the stairs at the top of the third courtyard, looking into the second courtyard beyond the arch. 

This arch is looking into the first courtyard... you can see the fountain through the arch. It has a bunch of koi fish in it, which apparently are protected by those inclined to play with them by extremely strict punishments for messing with the koi. So there they happily swim. 

This entire building is the library (I took the first picture from the top of the stairs to the left). It is in the finishing stages of being renovated, so it is big and lovely inside. My current res, Beit House, is basically across the street that is behind the far end of the library. It is fantastic being so close the the center of campus, because I can get to my classes super fast, and its no trouble to go home during the course of the day or walk from the library after dark or something. 

Evening Rain-Moby

Rain rain rain! There is so much water coming out of the sky it is no wonder that it is apparently scorching in the States… we have taken all of the rainclouds, and you have nothing but the bright, hot sun. I would like the bright, hot sun back, please.

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.  

Tire Swing-Kimya Dawson

I am now officially living in my room, which is in a building that my fingerprint will get me into… you have no idea how happy these two things make me!

Friday, I was still in the vacation res, doing orientation activities (basically just going to a seminar on community engagement, which is their term for community service… It has something to do with implications for mutual gains from partnering with the community, as opposed to going in to fix all the poor people’s problems) and finishing registration for my classes, which are all set. Friday night, Jill somehow got invited to the dinner that an Economics professor was hosting for the students from Boston College (I actually have no idea how she did this) and invited me along with her. It ended up being a fun evening; I knew both of the BC girls because we had been attending orientation together, and there were some post grad students there, one of whom was a BC grad who has come back for a year to work in an AIDS community center. It’s not exactly a clinic, but a place for kids (and I think adults, too) who have been affected by AIDS to receive services. Jillian (the BC grad) is working on planning a camp for high school-aged kids, as well as mentoring services for school children. It was fun to hear her stories of attending Rhodes, as well as those of the other post-grads—including the professor’s son—who were with us, and the food was great.

Saturday morning we moved into our permanent housing… I am in Beit House, which is really central on campus (right across the street from the library, and I can get to the Biological Sciences building in under two minutes) and I love my new room. Although I no longer have a balcony, my room is really nice, and it is so clear that I am in a girl’s res now… there are shiny star stickers on my door, and everything this year is done in a 1920’s theme, so there are feathers and sequins on my door and in the hall. If that is not enough to persuade you, there are also full-length mirrors in every hall and in the landings of the stairs, and my curtains match the duvet on my bed.  All of the rooms are singles (the girls here are confused as to why anyone would ever live in a double) and I have never had so much closet space to myself in a dorm before. In fact, I have never had closet doors at all, which is an experience I enjoy very much. My room has a cute little sink in the corner, a vanity with a bunch of cubbyholes surrounding it, and an electric heater, which I appreciate very much (despite the fact that the general rule of “hot air rises” doesn’t seem to be considered when the placements of the heaters was determined… they are all higher than the tops of the doorframes). I have pushed the desk under the window and hung up all of the pictures I brought with me—just 68 or so—and with pictures on the walls and all of my stuff unpacked, I finally feel settled.

Saturday afternoon, I went on a tour of the townships with about half of the international students. It was an interesting experience; obviously, it felt weird to be going on a tour to the other side of the tracks or “under the bridge” which is the expression that people have used here, but our guide (who owns the tour company) lives in the township, and it was a good opportunity for me to get out and see them, since they aren’t places that I could just wander to on my own without someone who knew the area. We had lunch at a woman’s home restaurant that serves traditional Xhosa food, which was delicious. I particularly liked the bread, which she baked by putting the dough over the meat in the oven to steam. We walked around some, and went to an artists’ collective, which is housed in a building that the police used during apartheid for interrogations… it has more recently been given back to the community and put to better use. We also visited Home of Joy, which is an orphanage in a woman’s home; she just started taking in babies that were abandoned and left at the local hospital to build herself a family. She has (I think) 19 kids now from 6 weeks to 16 years old, and I got to play with the cutest little baby in a fuzzy onesie to keep him warm in the cold weather.

After getting back to campus (I managed to get into my res by pure luck, as my fingerprint hadn’t been taken yet) some of us decided to go out for some tea and coffee, which is harder than it sounds at 5pm on a Saturday. A lot of the shops in town close around 3pm on Saturday and stay closed through Sunday, although you can find some placed that are open if you hunt. We were successful in our hunt, and prepped for dinner with hot drinks and scones (I feel like I am becoming more British daily). On my afternoon visit to the res, I had run into one of the sub-wardens at Beit (they are similar to RAs; the actual warden is a professor, often someone with a family, although I don't think our warden and her husband have any young kids), and she gave me her number so I could get back in after dinner. I made it into the building three times in one day… quite a feat for someone who can’t unlock her own front door.

History is Falling for Science-This Day & Age

Freshman orientation strikes again. Actually, this is not nearly as bad as freshman orientation... I have not yet been forced to participate in any icebreakers or any sporting competitions with the other international students. And when I say international students, what I really mean is Americans. There are about 28 international students that are here studying for the coming semester (this doesn't include undergrad or post grad students who are studying for longer than a semester) and all are Americans except for three students from Muenster (in Germany). Orientation has been fine, and it has been nice to learn a little of the school history, as well as find out where things are in the library, and learn about this mysterious thing called a quota that tracks and limits internet usage. Not that I am super excited about the quota, which sounds a bit scary and restrictive, but all of the staff keep assuring us that it really isn't that bad and that we will get used to it just fine (I am not sure some of the other students have taken these assurances to heart). Everything has basically been pretty laid back; we go to some sessions, have a ton of free time and then spend half of our free time trying to figure out what to do with all of our free time. Exciting, yes? 

So far, my most exciting orientation-week adventures have been going out for tea and shopping. And you had best not scoff at either activity, because 1) I had never had such a strong urge to go out at night to drink tea before and 2) I was really proud of my solo shopping adventure. Tuesday night, after another dinner at the dining hall- I am starting to understand why other college students go out to eat so frequently when they don't have Gettysburg food- several of us decided that we really wanted some tea, and since there was a group of us (including 2 guys, which is a full 50% of the male international student population) we were safe to go out after dark. Woo! We went to this restaurant/bar, and the guys we brought with us conserved their manliness by ordering some kind of beer, rather than tea (although someone should have told them that to be "a real man", they needed to find a can to throw their bottle in...) Anyway, it was fun to get out and not end up dancing on tables at the Rat&Parrot, which is how some of my fellow internationals apparently amuse themselves.

Wednesday, I had vast amounts of free time again (we are working on registration, talking to department heads and signing up for classes, which is a pretty time-flexible process) so I decided to venture to High Street to get a few things that I forgot to pack, as well as envelopes in the event that I ever want to mail letters (I know it takes much longer than email, but there are cool stamps here) and some groceries. I didn't get lost exactly, since I generally knew where I was the whole time, but I did have a little trouble finding the pharmacy the first time around, and the success on my second go around the block was that much sweeter. I actually have the most fun in grocery stores here, where I can just wander around and see what food items I could technically buy. I got some dried mangoes when I first went shopping, which are quite tasty and are also much less dried than the ones that I usually get in the US. Since I have a bad habit of not getting up to go to breakfast (which is 7-8:15am, dreadfully early if you a)hate mornings b)are still on summer time and c)don't actually have anywhere to be till much later), I needed to replace all 4 of the Special K bars I brought with me and subsequently ate. I found some Jungle bars, which sound fun even though they have nothing in common with the juice, and I will update you on their tastiness when I break into them. I also got a box of crackers... what I really wanted most in the world was a pack of Saltines, but I couldn't find any. What I got instead look like Ritz crackers, except that they are not salty and are bacon-flavored instead. Now do you understand why grocery shopping is such an adventure? You never know what you are going to end up with. I was tempted to get a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette, but I will hold off on being the crazy American girl that brings her own dressing to the dining hall at least until I meet the people I will be living with permanently.

Course selection is going okay... I have just about nailed down my schedule, although I can't take everything that I wanted. I will definitely be taking Zoo302, which will be marine Zoology. Since I can't transfer any psych credits back for my major at home, and the Psych302 directly conflicts with the Zoo302 because there is little connection between the two departments (I had a nice chat with the department head about how psychology is considered to by a "soft" science here by the general scientific community and how that has something to do with the apartheid legacy and the tendency of psychologists here to approach things qualitatively instead of quantitatively) I won't be taking any psych. The department head told me I could sit in (they don't really use the term audit) on 202 lectures, but from our discussion, I think it will be a repeat of topics I have already covered. Its a shame, since the psych head has been by far my favorite professor encountered thus far. Anyway, Third Year courses are worth 8 credits, so I really only need two additional 4 credit classes to have a full schedule. I am going to take a Second Year course on South African history, an Introductory Philosophy course that I believe will cover ethics and free will, and an Ethnomusicology course. I really wanted to take this music course titled Music, Health and the Brain (doesn't that sound like a dream class?) but it conflicts with history and zoology, so I will be learning how to plan some african instrument from the International Library of African Music instead. I suppose that if I was ever going to take an ethnomusicology course-which I wasn't planning on-that I might as well take it here. If this all works out, I will be taking 20 credits, and can always cut back to three courses if the workload is too much.

I also talked to the department chair about volunteer opportunities through the psych department (I just missed a chance to work on a huge project they had that dealt with art and healing... so sad!) and he gave me a few professors to check with, so if there are any new projects going on, I will see if I can help out. Otherwise, there is a Centre for Community Engagement, so I can always volunteer with their reading program, if I can't do any psych. Soon I will probably lament fondly on the vast ammounts of free time I currently have, but for now, I am looking forward to everything starting!

Carry This Picture-Dashboard Confessional

So, I have gotten tired of waiting for my internet to get straightened out on campus, and decided to venture to the local KFC in order to use the internet. KFC is apparently the one fast food chain that you can find all over South Africa, although when Chris was here doing my Interstudy orientation, he lamented that the quality of the KFCs here have sharply decreased, and they are now more like the ones in the US. I will leave you to contemplate how hilarious this is. In the meantime, I will put up just a few pictures that I have taken in the past week or so (it has been a week now since I moved into the vacation housing on campus, and I can't wait to get into my permanent housing so I can take things out of my suitcase and put up the pictures that I brought of all you lovely people). 

These next few pictures are from Addo National Park, which is an elephant reserve that was established to protect the elephant population in the early 1900's, when there were just 11 elephants in the park. There are now over 500 elephants in the park, and as the park has expanded to the coastline, they boast that Addo has the "Big Seven" (the big five plus Great White Sharks and Killer Whales, neither of which I was anywhere close to when I visited)

I shot this from an overlook inside the park; everything you can see here is a part of the park or the private game reserves surrounding the park. 

A momma Elephant and her two babies at a watering hole (there were also some Kudu around the other side, but no crocodiles that we could see) 

A male elephant, which are generally solitary unless it is mating time, when they go find the herds of females. This guy is ready to mate... you can tell from the fluid running down between his eye and ear. 

These pictures are from Kenton-On-Sea, which sounds rather pretentious and a fun place to live. It is a little place that is essentially just a beach community, with a bunch of beach houses and some houses of year-round residents. Yeah, I could totally live here.

Chris and I in front of just one of the pretentious signs :)

A sign by the path to the beach, instructing us to "be a real man," which I have never equated with throwing away trash, but is nonetheless a rational argument. 

Our first view of the beach from on the cliffs. Happiest girl. 

A shot of the cove where we went down and played in the water, despite the fact that it is the middle of winter. Obviously, that should never get in the way of playing in the ocean. 

I am not sure how many pictures I can post before my internet throws a fit, so I will stop here for the time being and just leave you with the tempting information that I keep taking pictures of plants and flowers everywhere I go (they probably are more exciting to me than they are to you, unless you are particularly fond of aloe plants and/or blooming things) and I will try to post some pictures of the campus soon! 

Haight Street-Anberlin

Are things settling down? Haha... not really. I had a lazy weekend before my Rhodes University orientation started, but despite doing little-to-nothing, I still manage to do new things every other minute, which is totally fine. Sunday morning, I went to church with Jill to the Baptist church that she attends, and although I think the phrase "we have a visitor this morning" easily translates to "we have an outsider this morning," I didn't feel like a total foreigner during the service. Actually, I do legitimately qualify as a foreigner, a thought which is kind of funny, and is well-supported by the fact that I was distracted every other minute by the fantastic accent of the man who gave the sermon.

Have I mentioned the South African accents that I have encountered here? Delightful. I have experienced a nice variety so far, although I have decided that it is too complicated to give a full description before I observe for a longer period of time. To give you a taste, most of the white South Africans I have met so far tend to have accents that fall somewhere along a continuum between British and Australian. Some of the black South Africans I have met have a similar touch of Brit/Aussie, while others sound more like the Africans I know at home. Wherever of the South African continuum they fall, the people here are bound to pronounce some words in a way I am not familiar with yet, and it was a good thing that I recognized the passage in Isaiah that he read this morning, or I would have been baffled about which book in the bible he was directing us to. It was a good talk; he focused a lot scripturally to talk about hope in God (hence the Isaiah 40 reference, which I loved). At one point, he said that the Hebrew term qavah ("to wait/to hope in the Lord") used in Isaiah 40:31 also means to "bind together" or "gather together" and is used in Genesis when God is gathering the oceans. (I double checked this on BlueLetterBible.org, which is such a cool thing, but since I am not a Hebrew scholar, someone will have to correct me if its wrong... and I am way off on a tangent now, sorry)  The point was that he connected this concept of being bound together with God with the hope that we find in being close to Him. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think if he had included a C.S. Lewis quote somewhere, I would have felt like I was home in Gettysburg :)

Speaking of home in Gettysburg, the typically chilly interior of Hanover Valley has only partially prepared me for the lack of central air in the buildings here. They are definitely built for hot weather, which is good since it will eventually get hot. In the meantime, the cutest Grandma ever-mine notwithstanding-was singing praise songs with her hands in the air, the purple knit gloves on her hands (the stretchy kind that kids wear... or Elle and I when we are ice-skating) providing a fantastic accessory to her pink outfit and pink and purple zig-zaged crocheted hat. Do I sound jealous? Only sad that I didn't pack any knitting, and that by the time I make friends and need farewell gifts, it will be incredibly hot-not a good time to dispose of various knitted attire. Oh well, at least then I can stop drinking tea just to stay warm. I realized on my second of three cups in a day that what I am missing in caffeine, I am probably making up for with copious amount of sugar...

Last night, I went to Jill's house for dinner-she is really nice about making plans to include me-with Britta, one of the other international students (from Germany). Jill had her friends Pearl, Mary, and Breanne over, and she showed Britta and I how to make Bobotie, which is a South African dish that is related to shepard's pie... in a tangential sort of way. With Jill's direction, we were able to get everything together and make a pretty decent dinner, and while it was in the oven, Pearl arrived and Jill insisted that as the resident South African, she give Britta her tea/coffee lesson. Mary and Breanne got there "just now," which is less immediate than it sounds, and we had a lovely dinner. Actually, my favorite part was the company; Mary is Kenyan, Breanne Zimbabwean, Pearl is South African, Britta is German, and Jill and I are... American :) We had good times, and it was nice to be with a group of loud, raucous friends (like some I have been known to spend time with?) after spending a week with people that don't really know each other yet. I enjoyed listening to Jill's friends chat and disagree on everything from tv shows to how they felt about single guys who have children. Also, I can't help but mention that Mary (who is a journalist) got to interview Matt Daemon when he was in SA (turns out that people here love Invictus as much as I do, probably more, since they actually understand rugby) and that whether you are Masai like Mary or Caucasian like me, everyone can be in love with Matt Daemon.

Not Alone- A Very Potter Musical

So, I have been busy with business for the past few day now. I got my bank account open, which took several extra documents and three trips to the bank. Jill also took me around High Street and African Street, where most of the shops are that I will ever need. Grahamstown is bigger than Gettysburg, but it has a definite small-town feel to it... we run into someone that Jill knows practically every time we go anywhere.

Jill is a post-grad student that came here from the US a year and a half ago on a rotary scholarship (I think that is the real reason she knows everyone... they all seem to be in the Rotary Club). She loved it so much that she returned for this school year, where she has continued to work for the geography department doing research on water management. It is nice that she came here recently enough that she can remember how to do all of my entrance stuff, and she also can remember what things are different here. In fact, last night she took me to her house and gave me a tea lesson, since I am basically required by social norms to accept offers of tea or coffee. Now I know the most palatable way for me to take my tea, and have found that with milk and sugar to soften the tea taste, the rooibos tea is actually really good! Rooibos tea or "bush tea" is made from a plant in South Africa, and the people here are very proud of it (same with their wines, although I am far from wine country) and as an added bonus to me, it is naturally caffeine free, so I can down all the tea I want without becoming a caffeine addict. Woo!

I am living on campus now, in temporary housing until the other students come back from vacation, and the normal residence opens up. Right now, I am in a pretty cool room on the second floor of Matthews House with a balcony... very convenient for enjoying the nice weather. The word on the street is that we are currently enjoying a spell of unusually good weather... I am just getting spoiled. It is cool in the mornings and evenings, and actually cold at night, but the sun has been out every day, and I am comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt. Also, there are flowers blooming everywhere I look, so I could really forget that it is the middle of winter here except for the fact that it gets dark around 5:30pm.

I am starting to understand the layout of the campus... basically, I can get wherever I want during the daytime, and as soon as it starts to get dark everything gets confusing. This is becasue the style of a lot of the academic buildings is similar, and everything is really close together. The campus is bigger than Gettysburg's, but I am in a Res that is really close to everything, so it wont take me long to get to class. These older residences, the ones that are close, are also built to look very similar, but they are luckily also well labeled. On a side note, these signs are much classier than the blue ones that they just put on all of the buildings on campus at the Burg... just saying. I have not been here long enough to determine if they can maintain constant blooming plants without having the gardeners replant everything every few weeks. I will report on that sometime in the future.

In the meantime, I am taking a nice, easy weekend here before my official orientation starts. Chris and Jill have pretty much finished my Interstudy orientation, although there is an Interstudy mentor, Gillian, who is a professor in the geography department who will be around all year if I need anything. Technically, Jill isn't employed by Interstudy during the year, but she will obviously be around as well, and she is really nice, so I am sure if I need her she would be happy to help. In fact, we made a plan to meet tomorrow morning so I can go to church with her... I have no idea what kind of church she goes to, but I will find out! Also, she said that she is sure there will be people there who have contacts with people that attend the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, so I can figure out where they are and what time they meet. Ah, small town life! I have been taken good care of since I got here, and I am so appreciative of the people... although I know the one that is truely responsible for giving me every good thing. To God be the glory :)

Coffee Girl-Tragically Hip

Here I am, in South Africa! It has been a crazy six days, and I haven't had much time online, so I will just split some things into separate posts in an effort to keep things brief...

I left Monday, and got to Port Elizabeth Tuesday evening. The plane rides were fairly uneventful, and luckily I enjoy traveling enough that I didn't go crazy in the exact center of a plane for 17 hours. I found my luggage and was able to recheck it and go through security in the Joburg airport again (luckily, there was a nice couple on their way to Cape Town that I followed till I found useful signs again) and since security is much easier to go through, I was just able to make my connecting flight on time. When I got to the Port Elizabeth airport, Jill and Chris were both there from Interstudy (my study abroad program) and Jill took me back with her to Grahamstown. I am the only Interstudy student at Rhodes, but everyone I have talked to seems to think that I made the best choice of University :)

Wednesday, Jill and I met Chris and the four students who will be attending Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (in Port Elizabeth) at Addo National Elephant Park to go on a game drive. Just the drive to Addo was fantastic; I saw some ostriches and a monkey on the side of the road, as well as some killer scenery. I can finally see what the Eastern Cape looks like! Once we got to Addo, we went on a drive through the park and saw a ton of elephants (not surprising, since it is an elephant reserve) as well as a bunch of other animals. Unfortunately, there weren't any big cats out during the day, although Addo does contain the big five, which I though were the five biggest animals in Africa but are actually the most dangerous: lions, leopards, elephants, black rhino, and cape buffalo. According to out guide, the hippo doesn't make the cut because "he is a big coward... anyone can kill a hippo, and they are only really dangerous in the water, where they don't belong." Not sure how much I agreed with that, but...

Anyway, my favorite part of the drive was when we came up on a herd of 12 elephants, including four babies, who wandered across the road directly in front of our truck, but I was also thrilled to see... drumroll... ZEBRA! I didn't think that I would see any in the Eastern Cape, but I saw so many zebra within 24 hours of being in South Africa that it was hilarious. Unfortunately, I didn't get any great pictures of the zebra (or the herd of elephants, I was having camera issues), but since they are around, I am sure I will at some point. We also got to see some adorable meerkats, as well as warthogs (Timon and Pumba are crossed off my list of things to see, but Simba is still on there...) and a ton of birds, kudu and other bucks (aka various types of wild deer).

After the drive, Jill, Chris and I said goodbye to the NMSU students and headed back toward Grahamstown via Kenton-By-The-Sea. Jill convinced Chris that we should see the ocean while we had a car (the ocean is about a 45 minute drive from Grahamstown) so we stopped at Kenton and hiked this path over the sand dunes that went through a shrub-type forrest and eventually made it to the sea! It was fantastic... the water was surprisingly warm, and I had to wade in a bit, just so I could say that I have been in the Indian Ocean. We watched the sunset over the rocks there, and it was so beautiful. I took some great pictures, but I wont be able to post them until I get my computer connected to the network here, which could take awhile. You will see them eventually...

Anyway, we finished the day at the restaurant in the B&B where Chris and I stayed the night. I had a "venison hotpot" that included kudu, impala, and warthog (since I had seen them, I might as well eat them?) Its been an incredible 24 hours in South Africa...zebra, ocean and noms. It certainly wont be like this everyday; soon, I will be back to school and in my normal routine. But at least my normal routine shows signs of being a bit more unusual here. Can't wait!

Clearview-Tal & Acacia

Hey Loves!

The time has actually come for me to leave for South Africa. I can’t believe it! I will be leaving Monday (my plane leaves at 5:30pm) and landing in the Johannesburg airport at 5:40pm Tuesday, then catching a connecting flight to Port Elizabeth and traveling another hour and a half to get to Grahamstown, where I will be living. I thought that Jon Kentner and I would be waving to each other in the Johannesburg airport as he leaves to go home, but he has extended his trip by two days, so I can focus on making my connection. My travel time (with the 7 hour time difference) should work out to be just under 24 hours—hopefully—and I would like to keep it that way.

For those of you who don’t know, I will be attending Rhodes University for what is their spring semester, from July through November. Since they are in the southern hemisphere, their seasons are the opposite of ours, and I will be getting there in midwinter. Luckily, midwinter won’t actually be that wintery, and it means that I get to do the spring season change three times in a row without the inconvenience of fall. I will be living on the university campus, which is basically in downtown Grahamstown, although both the university and the city are a bit bigger than their Gettysburg counterparts. I won’t sign up for classes until I get there, so it can be a fun surprise to find out what I am taking thing semester. As long as I can get some bio classes and keep on track for graduation, I will be happy. It is strange to think that I am going to be in lectures, using my brain and learning things in the near future.

Not that I have been completely lazy this summer… in fact, I will now impart upon you some things I have learned that you may or may not know about South Africa. Feel free to skip ahead, but since I am not talking about biology or psychology, I am sure it will be (slightly more) brief and comprehensible:

-There are 11 official languages, although English is the unifying language, and is the language of instruction at the university. However, this is South African English, which contains a healthy dose of Afrikaans, as well as other words I don’t know that will probably lead to some fun and confusing episodes.

-South Africa was the only African country not colonized in the usual way by European countries. Dutch settlers from the East India Trading Company came in the 1600s, and later settled and claimed Africa as their county of origin, renouncing their European ties and calling themselves “Afrikaners”. They developed their own language (Afrikaans), fought the British for control of the country (in 1880 and again in 1899) and continued to be heavily involved in politics despite their defeat by the British. Their National Party eventually gained control of the country after the British relinquished control, continuing to subjugate the black Africans in the country and setting the stage for apartied in the 1900s.

-After years of struggling against aparteid, the first nonracial elections were held in 1993, and the African National Congress came to power, with Nelson Mandela serving as president. The ANC has been effectively running the country since then, although Mandela retired after one term, and Zuma is the current President.

-South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation! Archbishop Desmond Tutu originally used the phrase when describing race relations and his vision for reconciliation, and Mandela also called South Africa a rainbow nation in one of his speeches. I adore the layered symbolism of a rainbow, from a covenant promise to a motif in Ntzake Shange’s choreopoem. I love that it will be a motif in my coming adventure...

It is actually hard to imagine being in South Africa in the near future… its just so new to me, so exotic, and I know that I can’t accurately picture what it will look like where I will be going yet. I am super excited about going, and I can’t wait to finally see the country in person! Of course I am going to miss you all terribly, and it has been so hard saying goodbye to everyone over the past few weeks, but—surprise!—God is already in South Africa, so I wont be alone. As I have been preparing to leave, the talk that Mark Fodale gave on Hosea 2 has been repeating in my mind. God takes us to the wilderness to romance us, to teach us things that we can’t learn in the crowd, and the wilderness is most often a place of affection, not punishment. This is totally opposed to how we usually feel… that God has abandoned us in the middle of our loneliness or suffering, and that he no longer cares. I so often feel insecure and unloved when I am not surrounded by people I know and love, but I am really starting to look forward to what God is going to teach me in my upcoming wilderness.