Realization from the weekend: I am not, as much as I sometimes try to be, the “out doors-y” type. With that being said, I’m still glad that I went on the trip, if nothing more than to see that part of the country and spend time with other international students. We started our trip Friday afternoon on campus, where in typical South African fashion, our bus arrived about an hour late. Luckily, we had a decent tour bus to accommodate all 40+ of us, but it did have its unique charms. Most notably, it rattled incessantly, to the point where I thought that it was probable that the engine was about to fall off into the road. We arrived to a place called Veyane Cultural Village about three hours after we left, near the city of St. Lucia. This place has made a living of off showcasing traditional Zulu culture to guests, so we were housed in around twenty different hut-type buildings. That evening, we were dressed in Zulu attire and treated to a performance by the males who work and live there. They then encouraged all of us to join in, much to my enjoyment. Riiiight. Luckily, by the time they reached me, they were running out of time and pulled us in to the circle in groups rather than individually.

Afterwards, we were served traditional Zulu food, which consisted of basically carbs and meat, with a few veggies. It was decent, but definitely not something I would want to live off of. Finally, we ended the night by watching a movie called “The Native who Caused all the Trouble”.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early (4:30am to be exact) and headed out to Hluhluwe game reserve, where we drove through the park in our tour bus and stuck out heads and cameras out of the window. Not to sound ungrateful, but I had basically already experienced a game reserve drive so this was not the most exciting time of my life. However, we did see a few lions which I did not see the first time around. After the Hluhluwe (pronounced sha-shlu-ie) adventure, we headed back to town and made a quick stop at the orphanage we were going to be spending the afternoon at, only to be told to come back in an hour when more children would be there. So instead, we journeyed over to the Saturday market that was going on and wandered around there. I’m sure everyone was just as interested to see 40 wide-eyed white tourists as we were to see them. Fortunately, we broke into smaller groups rather than travel as one large mob. In my group, we walked up and down the market aisles where they were mainly selling trinkets and food, so nothing of great interest to me. We went into a sport shop because one of the people I was with was looking for a cheap knock-off soccer jersey. The store owner started talking to me, asking me where we were from and why we were here. As I turned to leave, he informed me to keep my bag close because “they like to take them here”. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this, but the store owner was of Middle Eastern descent and all of the business patrons and basically everyone else is black. Not that I think he was encouraging the idea that black South Africans are not trustworthy, but it is these little things that I have been noticing between the race groups that have made me wonder. For most of my life, I have only witnessed prejudices between whites and blacks, but in this country, and especially this area with the presence of the large Indian population, I have often found myself wondering what their relationship with each other is like. This is partly related to the visible class difference between the Indian population and the black population. I realize that this is partly related to the percentage of each group in the total population, but the Indian population is very well off here, at least in comparison to the black population, so I wonder if there are any feelings being harbored surrounding this.

Anyways, we returned back to the orphanage and were treated to a song and dance performance by the 25 or so children living there. The significance of this orphanage is that it is home to all AIDS children, either directly or indirectly affected by the disease. Here, we socialized with the children and then had lunch. Once again, I’ve already had a similar experience like this before, but this one differed slightly because there was a larger proportion of older children and the fact that it is situated in the province of the country with the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate, with at least 40% of the population infected, compared to around 20% of the general South African population. I always leave places like this, especially orphanages (I say always like this is a weekly occurrence, when in reality this in only my third trip to an orphanage in South Africa, and one of them I was only there for about a half hour) with feelings on uneasiness. I haven’t pinpointed exactly why this is, but I do know that I have extreme turmoil over the photographing of the children leaving at these places as if they were a sight to see and not true human beings. Of course the kids enjoy having their picture taken once they realize what’s going on and they automatically want to use your camera, and to my disagreement, many people on the trip handed the cameras right over to the kids and had them take picture. I have just as big of problem with this, even though I know it probably isn’t that big of a deal. I guess I just have an ethical issue with it, that they only way to get these kids excited and to like you is to flash your $200 digital camera, rather than just playing with them and giving them old-fashioned attention. I understand its cute to have photos of them to show all your friends back home, but seriously, take a step back and realize what’s going on here. These kids will never see concentrated wealth like a digital camera represents so is that really the best way to spend an afternoon with them???

Moving on. We left the orphanage after lunch at headed closer to the city of St. Lucia where we went on a boat ride at the Smangaliso Wetlands park and saw hippos and crocodiles while cruising down a river that empties in the Indian Ocean about 3 miles down the way. We then finally made our way back to Veyane for the night and a Braii.

On Sunday, we had breakfast and then packed up and made our way back to Durban, with a detour to the Richards Bay area. After a 30 minute intense bus ride down a gravel road (bags were falling off of the storage above the seats left and right and I think it would have been possible to get shaken baby syndrome if there were any infants on board), we came to a community leaving between logging fields and the sand dunes that sit on the coast. This community, the Sabokwe community to be exact, is a small group of people that has been moved around numerous times in the past decade, almost always because of Apartheid laws. They now reside on land that is not very fertile and the water pump that they government gave them three years ago has yet to be connected because no one there knows how to and the government has not given them any support as to how to do it. We took a walking tour of their neighborhood, where I made a new friend who kept following me around and finally got up the courage to grab my hand which she did not let go of for the next hour. The high point of this visit were the soccer games that our group played against the local kids. We had a girl team and a boy team (don’t worry, I didn’t play) and for the first time in seven years, we had a winning team. The girls defeated the first group (mind you, they were mainly 6 to 14 year olds vs. college students), but they boys were defeated in an intense game. Once again, we were served lunch (traditional Zulu culture always provides guests with food and drink) and then boarded the bus for the trip back home, hot, sweaty, sun burnt, and dehydrated.

Monday, I woke up nice and early and walked up to campus. I was supposed to have my anthropology course, but it recently came to my attention that I have yet another course conflict with my gender studies course which I don’t want to drop. So, instead, I spent the morning navigating congested hallways, angry students, and confusing procedures, but was successful and now (fingers crossed) I am finished with schedule changes. The course I’m taking in place of anthropology is luckily a course that has been of interest from the beginning. It is called Intercultural Communication, and we met today for about 10 minutes and the prof. just explained a few aspects of the course and then we were dismissed. Class was cancelled for Tuesday and I don’t have any class on Wednesday ever, so I’m free until Thursday now. That means one thing: laundry in our washer which takes an hour to wash and then using this great new invention called the wind dryer. Figure that one out.

On Tuesday, I got word from Ashley that the students were protesting on campus because housing was over-booked by 300 students. I didn’t have class so I wasn’t on campus to witness all of this, but it sounds like quite the event. Not that I’m complaining about not having class, but honestly, I’m very anxious for classes to actually begin so I can have a routine and meet other students.