back from vacation

Here are some hi-lights from the trip:

From left to right: Steve, Susan (Prexy's traveling companion), Valeriano Ferrao (former ambassador of Mozambique to the United States), Prexy and me having dinner in Maputo, Mozambique. Maputo is the capitol city.
Steve and I with Nava and her parents at their home in Gaborone, Botswana. Nava is my roommate in Cape Town and she invited us to her home in Bots for some delicious homemade Persian delights cooked up by her talented mom! Gaborone is the capitol city of Bots. Albeit, there's no city center, a lot of people say that it is a city of highways. 
This is the zebra that tried to kill me in the front seat of the car (you can see my skirt in the bottom right corner of the frame, I had made a move for the backseat). This is at the Gaborone game reserve. 
This is my birthday celebration back in Cape Town. My roommates and I spent the whole morning at Cape Town's finest bakery. 

**I've posted most pics from the trip on facebook.com

Steve left South Africa on Tuesday and I went back to school for second semester on Wednesday. Perfect timing! 

This semester will be pretty busy. I'm taking two courses: African Politics and Political Journalism. I'm trying to beef up my understanding of how politics relate to civil society in Africa and perhaps gain perspective on why there are so many failed states on the continent. In addition, I'll also be looking at how African conflicts are portrayed in the United States media. Many say that there is a certain demeaning vocabulary used when relaying African conflicts in the news and in films. It's a vocab that is not used when describing events in Europe, Asia, or conflicts anywhere else on earth. A word like "tribal" would be used to replace the word "ideological" when covering an African story as opposed to a European story... more on that later. 

This semester I will also be tutoring for the African Studies department. Three times a week I will host a discussion group of 15 undergraduate students. The students have a lecture with the African Studies professor, then I will work with them on a more personal basis (I'll also get to grade papers!). I thought this would be a good way to expand on my education here, but also to earn some $$$$, or in the South African Rand it would be: RRRRRR. That's a little currency humor for you. 

Madiba's birthday

I forgot to post yesterday, but I did want to mention that yesterday, July 18th, was Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday. 

In South Africa, Mandela is called "Madiba" as a sign of respect. People in SA were asked to spend 67 minutes yesterday performing an act of service to others. 67 is the amount of years that Mandela has been committed to bettering the lives of others. 

Steve and I forgot about the 67 minutes, but we celebrated at a dinner last night with some of Prexy's close friends. His friends ranged in occupation from documentary filmmaker to union organizer, but they, like Prexy, have committed their lives to the greater good of disadvantaged people- I hope to follow their lead in my own life. 

a long time ago...

My sister in law Brenda posted these photos on facebook.com as a birthday surprise and I thought I'd share them. 

1989-Brenda would fix my hair and get me ready to go to kindergarten. 
This is me and my big brother Jeff. We were probably watching General Hospital

I was the flower girl at Jeff and Brenda's wedding. Clearly a looong time ago :)

Birthday at Kruger Park

I found a few minutes at an internet cafe to drop a quick blog.

It's my birthday! Steve and I are with Prexy and a friend of his in the Kruger Park area of northeast South Africa.

We spent the morning driving through the park viewing the following animals in their natural habitats: giraffes, elephants, lots of antelope, rhinocerous

we have not spotted a lion yet, but we are going on a night safari tonight that sounds promising.

pics to come....

woops

In the post about Prexy's Columbia class that I wrote a couple of weeks ago I made a factual error! I confused Ahmed Kathrada with Mac Maharaj. 

Let me explain: in the post, I had said that Kathrada was the reason that Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom existed, because "Kathy" would smuggle it out of Robben Island prison for him (Steve and I will be going to Robben Island in July, I'll post pics). I was wrong! It was actually Mac Maharaj, who was also a political prisoner at Robben Island who smuggled out Mandela's manuscript in 1976. Coincidentally, Prexy's group also had a meeting with Maharaj. 

I have since edited my mistake out of the post. 

This just goes to show that it's been too long since I've read Long Walk to Freedom - which I recommend 100% to anyone interested in Southern African political autobiographies. Just kidding, but if you're interested in learning more about South Africa and apartheid, it's a stellar read and one of my all-time favorite books. 

South African films I also recommend:

Tsotsi (won best foreign film at the Oscars 2006)

Catch a Fire

you can find these on Netflix 

June Graduation

This is my brilliant friend Cynthia. She graduated last Friday with the same degree I'm going for (Master of Philosophy, African Studies). Cynthia does a lot of gender work for NGO's in Kenya where she's from. I wouldn't have gotten through the semester without her. She always took time to read through my papers and help me edit and work through my ideas more thoroughly. She will be returning to Nairobi in a week and I will miss her a lot. I suppose this gives me a good reason to visit Kenya!

On another note, the grad ceremony was a lot like American colleges with the robes and whatnot. However, there were no commencement speeches, no pomp and circumstance, and no blow horns. Every graduate got a fair amount of stage time. Their name would be called, they would walk onto stage and kneel (yes, kneel) before the vice-chancellor of UCT. The chancellor would tap their head with a grad cap and then the grad would stand up and have a garment draped over thier shoulders and then walk off stage. I was pretty impressed with how patient the audience was for all of this, there were around 200 grads. Overall, there are several grad ceremonies held throughout june and december to accomodate all of UCT's graduating students.

Climbing Lion's Head

On Friday, it was unusually warm and sunny in CT, so a group of 13 UCT students (most of whom were from Nava's architecture program) climbed Lion's Head Mountain. To say the least, it was pretty spectacular - three days later and I'm still sore throughout my arms and legs. Above is a photo of Lion's Head that I found on the internet. I tried to get a menacing image of the mountain to justify my prolonged muscle aches, I think I accomplished the task, it looks pretty hectic in this photo.

From left to right: Nava, Thapelo, Huda and Tiago - I've come to know them through Nava. This photo was taken at 2:30p.m.

Nava scaling with the provided chain


Reaching the top after an hour and a half

The Indian Ocean.

Heading back down I encountered serious vertigo.

Twilight over CT.
I don't know if you can tell, but this is Nava and I about half way down the mountain.

This is near the bottom. We got down at about 7p.m. then had dinner at an indian restaurant. It was a really cool day.