a week of school and a weekend out!

Wow, I can’t believe that it has been a week since I posted, so much has happened over this past week. It was my first full week of real classes here, which has been pretty intense just in terms of time spent in the seat. On an average day, I get up at 630 to be on a bus at 7, class starts at 8 and I am in classes until 5. It is weird because there are usually only a couple or three lectures a day, but just being in the house with 30 people all day wipes me out.

Last week we had a couple of really good lectures from guests. We went to a special needs school and spent the day there, then talked about the context of education and special needs education. It was strange, there were children there at a special needs school that would have been mainstream in the states. For example, albinism is classified as a disability here, and albinos cant go to regular school because they would be beaten. The same for people with any kind of physical disabilities, the regular schools here just are not very accommodating to needs. We talked a lot about the level of funding that education has here, and the failings of the education system. It is very well funded, but the teaching is way under par, and there is no way to fire teachers because they are unionized. Everything in this country since the appartide seems to be unionized in one-way or another; the army was just on strike, as was the post office and the bus system.

We also went to a cultural lecture on the Zulu people that was pretty interesting. The lecturer was a Zulu historian who answered questions that we had about past and present Zulu lifestyle. I went to an open-air market, which was very cool, lots of crafts and knock-off sunglasses and sports apparel. I also talked to a couple of professors about the topic that I will be studying. I am thinking about doing a practicum in a rural area clinic, but that would mean that I would be just kind of there for a month and a half or so, and I wouldn’t be able to come back to Durban for that time. The other option that I am thinking about is researching and learning more about a study at a hospital about an hour away. The study is doing trials to determine if there are adverse effects to taking both traditional healer remedies and ARV treatments at the same time. Either way, it should be pretty interesting stuff.

This weekend we got to have a town weekend and booked into a backpackers. On Friday night we all went to a local club called joe cools, and got our chilling on. There were mainly funky looking white dudes there, the euro-trash look is apparently in among the youth of SA. Before Friday I didn’t realize that a mullet and a fauxhawk could be sported simultaneously.

Saturday I went to the beach for the first time!! It was beautiful, the water was cool but not cold, and it should get really nice as we get into spring and summer. I brought my stick and played on the beach with Katie, and swam and went for a run on the beach with my friend Karthik. Saturday night some of us went out with one of our home stay brothers, Thando and his friend Tubs (Thubisa). We went to an abanlungu (white people) party up in a really nice neighborhood. There was a great view of the skyline, and I talked to a bunch of interesting people. We left and went to another party, one of Tub’s friends was having a 21^st. This party was a little bit down the hill, and was more like a block party. The birthday boy was really excited to have Americans at his party, we went through and met his family and his mamma sat us all down and fed us (it was like 12 at night) there was chicken and beef and a bean dish called chakalaka, which was spicy and had a medley of veggies in it. There was an angry drunk who kept yelling at us, he said “Americans!! Follow me!” and we went through the party to a back room, through security. He told us to come in and shut the door, and it was just he and we in this tiny room. We were a bit nervous, but then he busted out the cooler and started passing out Heinekens. The party was fun, but when we were there I noticed a security guard with an Uzi. Just kind of chilling. The host told us not to worry, that he was just there for security, but it was slightly unnerving.

Sunday we all studied for a Zulu test on Monday (which I bombed. Time to start studying harder) I went to the beach again and went out for ice cream with Ujin and Karthik. The last couple of days have just been class, which is getting progressively harder, and hanging out at home. I had a really good talk with my brother Brian last night, he is 25, and he told me about growing up under appartide, and being the only black kid in his model c school. He played rugby in high school, and we talked about working out and sports. I really like my family here.

Until next time,

Sala Kashe

-Ben