We flew into Johannesburg, or Joburg as the locals call it, and settled into a nice little bed and breakfast 30 minutes outside of the city. It was a cozy little place, with a few rooms -- four people to a room, and then the love shack. The love shack is outside of the bed and breakfast with red curtains and cheetah print bedspreads. I haven't even mentioned the best part yet, the love shack has a jacuzzi in it! I was placed in the love shack with Grace and Lisa, and now I understand why it is called the love shack -- its so cold out there you absolutely have to all hop in the same bed to huddle for warmth. Needless to say, we felt no love from the love shack, but felt love from each other as we snuggled for heat!
When we woke up the next day we went to the Apartheid Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum which discuss the historical context, political, and social culture of South Africa before, during, and after the Apartheid. The Hector Pieterson Museum focused more closely on the student protest movement and is located in Soweto (short for South Western Township) where Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela lived -- Nelson Mandela's house is now a museum and Desmond Tutu spends most of his time in Cape Town now. Exhausted, we went back to our backpack travelers lodge, Tre Fontane, ate dinner and went to bed fairly early.
The next morning we started our orientation by learning a little isiZulu (is it apparent from my title?) and going over "fear and expectations of the trip." After lunch we were dropped of at the Pavilion for shopping. The Pavilion is a massive shopping mall, I mean 5 story shopping mall. We were given three hours here, I bought an adapter for electricity (because the one I brought doesn't work, and in fact only one person brought an adapter that does work) and a Castle beer at Firken Brewing Co.
Today we traveled into Durban for the first time. We were given a map with a few check points and dropped off on one side of the city, picked up 4 hours later on the other side. It was good to get out of our travelers lodge and explore a little bit. It was really windy and rainy here today, and apparently it will be tomorrow as well -- but the forecast afterwards seems promising. We used the bus system: People Mover, to get around the city, it was 4 Rand (7 Rand is about $1). When we arrived at our final destination we ate at the Copper Chimney for some Indian food. Now we are sitting at the SIT office for the first time, able to use internet for the first time (no Facebook though, it apparently eats up too much internet?) and waiting to be toted off to dinner -- at an Indian restaurant, surprise!
So overall consensus of my first 4 days: colder than I expected, less active and productive than I hoped, but our schedule seems promising.
We have met the main people from my program at SIT here in Durbs (Durban for short -- another local term): Imraan, Shola, Langa, and Kay. Imraan is the academic program director of the trip, extremely knowledgeable and personable. I spent 8 hours with him in the drive from Joburg to Durbs with Lisa and Taylor and had many intellectually charged conversations. Shola is in charge of home stays and questions about the city and fun things to do, she seems very sweet and warm, but I haven't spoken to her a lot. Langa is our linguistics teacher -- only isiZulu, but still quite thrilling -- and is one of the drivers. Langa is lively and happy, very talkative and friendly to all of the students and filled with laughter. Kay is another driver who doesn't talk much. At this point in the trip Kay is known for wearing his headphones and playing music so loudly the back of the bus can hear him! Today Melissa practically yelled his name to no avail, as Drake and Akon were playing too loudly on his MP3 player.
Next up is moving into my home stay in Cato Manor, a township, on Friday and starting my practicuum! I will either be placed in a primary school or secondary school to teach and observe the classes, but I don't know which I will go to quite yet. Starting the upcoming Monday I will begin my two week practicuum, followed by a two hour lecture every day. After that we have a weekend excursion to the South Coast (fun fact: parts of Blood Diamond were filmed there) and then heading to a rural home stay (will explain that when I understand it more) and then to Grahamstown National Arts Festival! Apparently, the festival is huge and very popular, but also negative degrees in celsius...I'm not so good with below freezing.
Sala Kahle (goodbye in isiZulu)
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