1 Month Reflection...

19/08/2009

It’s been some time since I last wrote. Things have gotten challenging with my timetable and having a social life, that the computer doesn’t really seem to be that important any more. Or at least, I’m trying to stay away from it…

Either way, I have to update once in a while. Nothing too exciting lately, just straight lectures and studying. Last Wednesday was my friend from North Carolina’s birthday so we gathered up everyone that lives around us and went out for a nice dinner on Long St. Mama Africa was everything the name implies- full of African culture, dark romance, and mysterious sounds, it created an atmosphere I only dream of re-creating. 20 of us reserved a table and looked so foreign in such a home driven restaurant, but none of us cared. The walls were decorated with gigantic paper mache lamps in shapes of crocodiles and springboks. Dimly lit and very nicely heated, it gave us a sense of African cuisine. The menu: your arrangement of wild game e.g. crocodile, ostrich, springbok, calamari. Other dishes (aka the vegetarian dishes) were a vegetable bake which was the dish I got, full of beans, cheese, carrots, mushrooms all baked into one dish- very, very tasty. Another option was the stuffed butternut squash, which one of my friends had and was very tasty as well. I did figure that I was in Africa and that I need to try as many things as I can while I am here—so I sucked up my vegetarian morals and had some ostrich, a delicacy in Africa. Needless to say, it resembled the taste of steak and rumor has it, you can’t overcook ostrich because it’s so tender, apparently. I couldn’t get the nerve to try a reptile so I stuck to my sampling of ostrich, washed it down with my merlot and went about my way, deep into conversation.

Sunday, the 16th, marked my one-month anniversary of being in South Africa. As I walk to and fro school everyday, I think about what I have learned and what is different from home, what I miss and what I don’t miss,etc. My list always changes and very few things remain staple, but as I recall it goes as follows:

I MISS:
1. My bed. 2. My kitty. 3. My family, of course. && friends. 4. Uncommon Grounds bagels. 5. Bomber’s. 6. Grey Goose. 7. Gasp! NY heat. 8. The smell of my clothes after they get out of the dryer. 9. Being familiar with things.(this something that you take for granted when you’re home. You don’t know what you’re so accustomed to things that once you removed from everything you know, it’s habit to go back to what you do at home. In other countries, if you do that, you are more lost).


WHAT I’VE LEARNED, so far.
You have to ask for the cheque at restaurants, otherwise you sit there for an hour, looking lost and wondering. Saying bye is an insult. American is perceived as everything horrible but something everyone envies. Tabloids are called glossies. Magazines are called just Mags and men’s magazines are called Lad Mags. They love entertainment news, especially from the states. To go is called take away. You have to ask for tap water if you don’t want still, but most order still, not bottled. It rains in winter. And it rains an awful lot- and it’s horrible. Horrible is actually an understatement. When a shuttle bus sloshes you on your way home from lecture and from head to toe you are solid water, you begin to wonder what the desert fells like and how great it would be. For the rooibos capital of the world, that’s really the only tea they have. That and Ceylon and of course green. Bah, no oolong, no white and not very much herbal. My tea addiction is lacking. You press your coffee you don’t use automakers. If you ask for a large coffee, you get blank stares- let’s reiterate, long Americano or short Americano. Either way, you order anything with American in the name and you are one, which warrants the blank stare nonetheless. Most java drinkers like cappuccino or straight espresso. They drive on the other side of the road and I still after a month always ask, why are they on the wrong side of the road?! The only SUV car I’ve seen is the Land/Range Roover, no Escalades, Yukons, Navigators, etc. Tiny cars, usually Volkswagen or BMW. South Africa LOVES COCA-COLA. It’s almost as if they need it to survive. AIDS is a very, very, very real thing here, not just something you hear about if you are in school and learning how to use a condom in health class. A professor at UCT, who was supposed to be my production prof, died last week from HIV/AIDS. There is daily testing free on campus and throughout the town. It’s scary and realistic, something that America should start concentrating more on. Much more homelessness, very many people who literally curl up on the street side and snuggle with the cement wall with a tattered blanket, some have corrugated cardboard and if they are lucky, a knit hat. Whenever I go out to eat and don’t finish my meal, which is almost always—I give my leftovers to a lonely man on the street. You don’t know what happiness looks like until you see a face of a starving, cold man see food for the first time in weeks. You also understand the definition of being grateful and charity. The Internet isn’t as big here as it is home. Most people check the Internet on their phones than on laptops. Fancy electronics are not very popular because they are expensive. Cops carry rifles on the regular, in shopping malls, the grocery market, etc. Frightening, but scary for someone like myself not really used to seeing a fully armed large black man greeting me a pleasant morning with a rifle pinned to his side the size of my body. Needless to say, you greet back with enthusiasm.

Saying, “Ill see you later” means nothing. You have to add in when or a guess to when. So you say either I’ll see you just now, I’ll see you now now, or I’ll see you now. Just now= in a few days. Now now= in a few hours. Now= maybe I’ll never see you or maybe I’ll see you in a week. A very strange concept that I’m still adjusting to.

No matter how much Americans try to blend it, our backpacks and sneakers make us stick out peanut M&Ms compared to regular M&Ms.

I hate, absolutely hate, how people smoke everywhere. That’s one thing I love about home in a way. Here, there are no smoking laws in regards to restaurants or bars or the streets. And almost everyone smokes so smoke is everywhere. My asthma wants to rebel against my body already with the dry humidity let a lone the great smell of cancer streaming up to my nostrils every ten feet.

I’ll never talk in Celsius or kilos or anything metric. I have tried and it just leaves me confused. Numbers have never been my thing.

The only night people don’t drink is Monday and that’s only if you are sick or have a family emergency. Sundays you are not allowed to buy alcohol. Wine is sold in the market but beer is sold in bottle stores. Social lives are super important and if you’re not in, it’s hard to get in—but when you have an American accent, it makes for interesting conversation ranging from ‘did you vote for Bush?’ to ‘what the hell is this football thing?’

Ahh, that’s all I can remember for now. Spring break is in 2 weeks and I’m thinking of going to Africa Burns, which is considerably comparable to Woodstock 1969 minus Janis Joplin and the LSD. You drive 2 hours north of Cape Town and camp in a cell phone restricted area for 4 days, without shower or anything electric and just listen to the coolest music, hang out with friends and hike. It’s going to be a blast! I’m pretty stoked. I was considering ending up to Egypt for the week, but flights are too pricey and I’m going to see if I can get a discount for a ticket more towards December when I’m out of school and I have a few weeks before I head back to NY. Shark diving is a possibility this weekend, finally. After a week and half of rain and being sick, I finally get to see a shark an inch or so away from my face. Other things on my future agenda, sky diving, bungee jumping, tenting on Table Mountain and scuba diving.

I hope things in NY aren’t too warm and that things are winding down for the Fall.
Cheers,
Mel