Blogs from South Africa, Africa - page 577

ah Africa! Africa » South Africa » Cape Town By fun adventureJune 21st 2007 Africa! The word evokes for me so many contradictory images. Our month in southern Africa was a strange and wonderful world away. Internet connection, where it existed, was expensive, and our daughter was with us, depriving me of a major motivation for keeping up entries. Now we’re home, my tan is fading, and here’s highlights. We started in Capetown, visiting townships and parents of a former au pair. We drove south and east along the coast, around the Cape of Good Hope and the very southernmost tip of Africa, where European ships sailed for hundreds of years, and where some very noisy penquins now r... read more

Well it took a while for me to get here and honestly the number of stories I have saved up in doing so would take a day and a half to recall and you all don't have that kind of time...so I'll give you the abbreviated version and you can ask me more later. Missed my connecting flight in Paris and spent the day in Charles de Gaul waiting for the next flight. I drank 6 dollar expressos trying to stay awake and deal with the jet lag before I got to South Africa. It worked, barely, and at 11pm that night I got on the plane to Joburg and passed out for the next 10 hours or so. I spent one night in Johannesburg and then travelled with other researchers to Blydespoort where we met ... read more

On Sunday, a group of us went down to the weekly market at Green Point, about a mile away from where we are staying. The weather was pretty gorgeous in the morning, if a little cold, and the walk was pleasant. The market is a conglomeration of artisans and vendors who sell a lot of little african trinkets, like salad tossers (odd, I'm aware), elongated ebony figurines, radios made out of coke cans and bottle tops, and beadwork. Most of the items there are actually made in Namibia, Botswana, and the Ivory Coast, and the vendors jack up the prices to no end. I have serious dilemmas about bargaining for these items. The people selling them are living in abject poverty, and the prices they originally sell for are not actually expensive. Granted, the quality ... read more

So I realize that this may be a little late in the works as compared to a traditional blog but I will do my best to fill in the major issues covered over the last month as best I can. I plan to give a current description of what we are going through on the research project accompanied with a synopsis of different portions of the class that took place for the last four weeks. The group of about 22 students was on the move constantly with very little time to digest the information we were encountering. I plan to begin that digestion now by describing what we went through and reflecting on its significance. Now: To give you some perspective I am currently staying in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa just outside of Kruger ... read more

One of the largest canyons in the world, and still growing. Surrounding area too.... read more

Friday wasn't too busy, sight-seeing wise. We spent a lot of time on the campus at University of Cape Town, getting oriented to our program and meeting our professors. We took a tour of the campus, and I have to say, the South Africans sure seem to love their stairs. A lot of things around here are named after Cecil John Rhodes (aka the Rhodes scholarship), and there is a lot of controversy surrounding his contributions to the country. It's interesting to hear the South African people's takes on the politics. Everybody here, even the poorest people, are VERY political, and I have tried to have conversations with everybody from the porter at the hotel to our law professors about their take on the political situations, particularly the conflicts between the Xhosa and Zulu populations. ... read more