Meant To Live-Switchfoot

For those of you college kids still labouring under the delusion that it is summer, I have unfortunate news for you: the tragedy that has befallen me is coming for you. Soon, you are going to have to write papers again.

I am sorry to be the bearer of such news, but the sad fact is that I am actually not on vacation, and thus have to attend lectures, practicals, seminars, and tutorials, and when I am done I have to do the work assigned from all of these places! To be fair, I actually like learning, and all of my classes are pretty good, so it isn’t exactly torture. In fact, the research that I had to do about the Khoisan people for my History paper was practically enjoyable, minus the whole part where I had to write a paper. While I won’t go into details about what we are doing in all of my classes, it is worth mentioning that  we spent our double history period last week watching The Gods Must Be Crazy, which I had seen several years ago with no idea that it was actually a South African movie. I also didn’t know at the time that it was made in 1980 (during apartheid), or how accurate—or inaccurate—the representations in it are. I still find it pretty entertaining, and the fact that I watched it for a university history class even more so.

Speaking of amusing things, Grahamstown is currently overrun with Americans. I am loosing my originality! I heard so many American accents when I went to town yesterday that I had to resist the simultaneous impulses to laugh aloud and talk to every single group of them. I’m not sure why I want to do this, since there are plenty of Americans to talk to on campus (I mean, the ratio of Americans to other international students is high at least) and it’s not like I have been here long enough to be particularly knowledgeable about the area. Actually, they have been here as long as I have; there are 400 US Marines from the 4th Light Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion that have been training outside of Grahamstown with the SA National Defence Force since July 18^th. I don’t know why suddenly they are all in the town, but the girls in my hall (at least, the ones I had dinner with last night) are quite pleased.

I, however, will be focusing on more mundane things like schoolwork and getting all of my classes straightened out. I am so close to my schedule being set, but I realized yesterday that I have a clash between two of my tutorials, and I missed my philosophy tut. Hopefully, I will be able to make up the work, because I wasn’t able to get things fixed yesterday. I went to the philosophy department, but the secretary was out somewhere (a repeating theme, I am finding… business hours seems to be more flexible in some departments than others) both times I went, so I went to town and bought water just so I could say I accomplished something. The water here is possibly safe to drink—depending on who you talk to—and it hasn’t made me sick the few times I have drunk it, but it has a high metal content, which has something to do with the water leeching metal from Grahamstown's pipe system, which is fairly old. Thus, it tastes metallic, and can sometimes be a weird colour at certain points of the day. There was a container of filtered water to fill water bottles at my vacation dining hall, but not in my current res hall. Luckily, when I forced myself to go buy water yesterday, I was able to get 5 litres of Tsitskkamma spring water for right around US$2 (that’s like a 1&1/3 gallons, for you non-metric users), and I was also amused to find that the label tells me the exact mineral concentrations and the pH of the water.

Besides being the proud owner of some water, I also got some Cadbury chocolate (because obviously when you go to the store for water you should get all the necessities). While I am sort of weird in the fact that I only really like Hershey’s chocolate (sad, since I have not seen Reese’s or any other Hershey’s products since I got here) this chocolate is so good that it will more than satisfy my chocolate cravings, and now the only challenge is not buying it constantly! I really need to start exercising—I admit that I haven’t gone for a run since I got here—but my knee is making a weird popping noise whenever I walk up stairs, and since I go up three flights of them several times a day, I hear it enough to think that probably it's not a good sign. Still, there are several hiking/outdoorsy groups in the area, so I am going to try to connect with them and at least go hiking, even if I am going at a pace too slow to be considered a workout.  I really want to find the rock-climbing society… there are actual rocks here, unlike in the pastures of Pennsylvania, and it would be nice to get access to the wall, but finding and joining societies in the middle of the year is quite a challenge. Still, I am just trusting that God will help lead me in the ways I spend my time here (even if its not GCC or DCF constantly, both of which I will miss) so that I can do His will in spreading God’s love to all his people. 

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.