Hello from Africa! Its Sunday night here, and after a busy few days I finally have time to sit down and blog about what has been happening on my trip!

Oh man things have been interesting
Sorry this is a bit long

Part I – what I have been up to
Part II – culture

Part I
I flew united from sf to dc on the red-eye which was pretty lame. It was hard getting through security since I kept showing up to the line with something that wasn’t actually a boarding pass (after waiting in a long line for the united people, I finally got one). I had the window seat (yes!) next to a man who thought he was hilarious. We finally landed at dulles airport in dc at 6 in the morning – I wasn’t able to sleep so I used my pass to the red carpet club that my dad hooked me up with and slept there. A few hours later, some business man was on his phone and was telling the other party how offended he was that some ‘college student was sleeping in the place [he] paid so much for.’ Um hello – there are over 100 seats here, go choose another if you don’t like me. And try not to wake me up next time fool.

Finally my flight to jo-berg, south africa, left before 6 that night. The people at united were actually helpful and called south African airlines to ask when they would be at the gate at the desk thing, which was at 1:30 – I was there at 1:00 so I could be the first in line to change my seat to a window, which I did (woo!). the flight was pretty uneventful – I sat next to a nice guy who is moving to cape town for a few months, I watched ‘sex and the city the moive’ and ‘kunfu panda,’ and took an ambient which made me pass out. When I finally woke up we were over nambia (Africa!).

Amanda picked me up with a friend and we went to her flat. After eating dinner we went with a bunch of her friends to see the south African band, the parlatones, at tapas (a college bar). It was packed. it reminded me of the cu football night game last year where there were so many people trying to get into folsom at the same time that I could have easily picked up my feet and still moved with the slow current since we were so packed in. anywho, we finally made our way to the back deck and hung out there the rest of the evening. We stayed up till 4 while I caught Amanda and drew up on stuff they were missing back home – I woke up at 12:30 the next day. So yes, at this point, my body had no idea what time it was anywhere.

Friday we went to lunch at rock café here in port Elizabeth where I ate so fast you wouldn’t have known it was me. It was amazing. We walked along the beach (which the restaurant goes right up to) then walked back to her flat (a good 40 minutes). We originally got to the rock café by taking a minibus – the day before I arrived there was a big minibus (oxymoron there?) strike where buses were being stoned. But they worked it out.

That evening we all went to the German Club that is out of town a little bit for Oktoberfest! Yes, Oktoberfest is really in September, but in order to get a real German oom-pah-pah band they had to wait until the end of October. Castle beer (a south African beer) was flowing and it was ridiculous. This is something that has been advertised here for a few months and the whole town (well the white population was there). The band (we were right in front dancing the whole night) played many a good ol’ German song, then switched over to songs like ‘take me home, country roads,’ ‘smoke on the water,’ ‘living next door to alice (ALICE! ALICE! WH THE **** IS ALICE?!,’ ‘ and ‘hang on snoopy.’so that was a little weird, but still fun. We left around 1, were in bed by 2, then got up at 5:30 – so really we took a nap; we didn’t actually go to bed and sleep for the night.

We had to get up that early so that we could catch the last bus headed to grahamstown that day. It took a little over an hour and was fine, although the bus was stuffy with smells. We had tea and scones in town before our friend Andrew (from camp!) picked us up and took us walking around town. It was good fun checking out the high school/college town for a bit (we stopped by the photo store where sean (yay camp!) works and said hi!), though it was chilly the whole day. Amanda and I were so drained (or ‘stuffed’ as south Africans would say) that we asked to go to his friends flat to sit/sleep, which Amanda did the latter. Sean came and hung out with us that afternoon, which we spent lounging around his fiance’s (sarah) flat with her roommates. It was great to talk with all of them! That evening Andrew wanted to see the movie ‘taken’ which was luckily playing in town, but Amanda and I wanted to see something significantly less intense so we saw ‘mama mia.’ Mama mia = ridiculous. Pierce brosnan = horrible singer (why he had 2 solos the world will never know…). Following the films we walked a few blocks to a pizza place and while were were eating a big group of blacks got into a fight. They ended up closing the restaurant and calling the police since it went on for over 10 minutes – we got out when there was a chance and headed back to sarah’s flat. Amanda and I were asleep by 10:30.

Today (Sunday) we went to church with sean and sarah (and all of their friends were there too). The service went like this:
singing songs individuals in their congregation wrote for 45 mins – it was like a big party with people rocking out and dancing around
1 hour 20 minutes – the speaker was from Tennessee (great, we get to hear an American preach…) and didn’t really say anything concrete. He mainly was talking in circles about superficial things about how your faith should be. Redding, California is ‘mecca’ for this church group because of the purity movement coming from there (the good things about redding I have experienced are: in n out and mini golfing (which is on a hill – I find that weird)). The preacher spoke about what these students must do to be healers (apparently he prayed to a fire fighter in redding and healed his injured knee instantly; also, another preacher ‘cured’ a woman with AIDS by praying for her. Riiiiiiight). Basically, I really appreciate how liberal my church is now – vpc doesn’t shove things down your throat – it wants to help you group spiritually, not religiously. Vpc and the woods also give you the tools to create your own faith if you want; this seemed to be either Our Way or The Way Down. Tight. The words ‘born again’ were used a lot too. And now onto part 3 –
alter call – at the end of his long talk he started to pray for the group and 5 minutes into the prayer people started moaning, yelling, falling on the floor and rolling around, throwing their hands up, speaking in tongues, crying, you name it. It kept getting louder and louder as the preacher shouted ‘FRESH OIL NEW WINE’ over and over. He then asked the ministry team to come up so he could pray for them – he also had people behind them to pray for them (which Amanda and I thought would just be a nice laying on of hands). NOPE. When he touched these people they began to yell and fall to the floor where they began convulsing (so the people who were there behind them were actually there to catch them). When half of the line of people had fallen, the preacher placed his hands on the shoulder of a young man who wouldn’t fall – so he pushed him down! The last in line was a girl who didn’t collapse to the ground (good for you!)

SO YES, things were interesting. This was the first service like this that Amanda and I had ever experienced. Im not saying that this is bad, but its just not for me. Sensing our awkwardness and shock, sean and sarah asked if we wanted to get tea just outside of the hall. We said (hell) yes. We were the only people who came out. The preacher offered to pray for anyone who wanted it, which was everyone but the 2 americans. While eating our yay-for-you-being-a-visitor cake and sipping our tea, our conversation would be interrupted by yelling, lots of yelling. Im guessing from falling on the floor. That floor was probably pretty clean with all the clothes that fell on it wiping the dust and dirt off. I left feeling like I needed to go to a bar and get a drink – something minorly ‘sinful’ in order to cloud my mind. I want to look into why revivals and born again groups are so powerful, especially with educated youth in developing countries to better understand the social context behind it all (‘anthropology! Girl, I knew you was smart!’. [insert this summer ‘WAAAAH’ noise and outward arm movements here]

Sarah’s flatmate Natalie made lunch for us all (chicken and salad [iceberg lettuce, so it was delish]) which was followed by me introducing them to the lavender chocolate I had in my bag. Here, organic chololate is hard to come by, and when you find it it’s quite expensive, while finding uniquely flavored chocolate doesn’t really exist (we Americans truly have it all). Before getting on our bus at 4:30, sean and sarah took us to the botanical gardens where we walked around for a bit – twas delightful. We caught our bus back to PE and have been hanging out at amandas flat for the evening.

Yay for spending time with sean and Andrew!! It was so wonderful to see them!!


Part II
Tidbits of culture:
This is why I wanted to come to SA – to view the social constructs of society post-apartheid.

Society is divided up into three very different social and economic standings:
Whites, coloreds, blacks

Within the white category is the subset of africaaners, who hail from the Dutch who were almost as good as the brits in colonizing (please, the brits were way too good at that).

Taking minibuses is seen as a way for blacks to get around town – the only white people who take these means of transportation are uni students. Most whites don’t take cabs usually either (which are driven by colored people – im still trying to figure out this group and what it means). The towns (like grahamstown and PE) have the centre of town (or city) and then are surrounded by townships or locations (these two are the less PC names which everyone uses; the PC title is something different that I cant remember). Townships are where blacks reside and are usually shanty areas in industrial parts of the outlying city where whites cannot go without some sort of a guide. Amanda’s friend, brita, who is also an American exchange student, has a class in one of the townships (it was a big mixup – they thought the class would be on the main campus in PE) and she isn’t allowed to go to it because it is so far away and in an area where she cannot go alone.

Most people refuse to walk alone, especially at night. no matter where you are you cannot do that. When we went to rock café Friday afternoon and walked home this was ok, but to walk home from the bar where we head the bad the night before would be unacceptable, even with a large group mainly of white university guys.

All of the places we have gone to have been mostly, if not all, white. There is little mixing of the social strata from what I can see (except for at church, there was a 50-50 ratio there).

In this part of the country, blacks speak xhosa which is a unique language because it is a ‘click’ language. There are three different clickes:
the aspirated backwards ‘t’ in ‘tick’ is one (but breath in to get a better sound, and make it shorter)
if you close your mouth and let your tongue rest naturally, right before the roof of your mouth goes up to the palate and the middle of your tongue is the space for the second click.
say ‘because’ and where the back of your tongue hits the back of the mouth is where this click happens (but a little farther back). It is a very glottal sound that reverberates in the back of the mouth and into the throat.
When we go to Durban blacks there will speak Zulu prominently. There are 11 official languages of South Africa.

So many things here are very British, so its good that I spent time in London so that I wouldn’t have to get a course in British Influence 101. for example
Restaurant check = bill in the British dialect
Cookies = biscuits
College = high school
Apartment = flat

There is mayonase on a whole lot of food (salad?? Really??)
There are two different faucets in the sink – one for hot, one for cold (whoever though about putting the two into one should win a nobel prize)
Driving is done on the left side of the road (which I still can’t grasp, especially when walking across the street – where are the cars coming from??)
You have to ask for the bill (not check) when your plates are taken away or else you will never see the waitress again
Tea is everywhere, all the time

There are many other things which I cant think of right now, but that gives you an idea.

Most people are very savvy to America –what is popular in music, tv shows, books, and our politics to name a few. Talking with sarah at church was interesting because in a group at church they were reading “a purpose driven life” and were asked to vote for mccain or obama based on their beliefs and the book. Nearly 70% of the group voted mccain, because of (which I though of before she said it) abortion and gay marriage. LAME. Ok I will be objective. What is more interesting is that most people do not know of or anything about the candidates running mates. Amanda and I informed her and sean of one of the vice presidential candidates, and were incredibly biased (aka palin sucks and is scary). I find it really interesting that though very informed about many things, there are certain events and influential people and happenings that people here simply do not know about.



Ok im done – more to come later!
I travel to Durban tomorrow to see another friend from camp with Amanda and drew, back on thrusday