Saturday 06/27
Our experience here in Pietermaritzburg has been an interesting mix of intellectual/ cultural/social stimulation. Actually not what I expected it to be at all! Honestly, when I learned that the majority of our time in Pietermaritzburg was going to spent in lectures and discussion dinners, I was really not ridiculously excited. Luckily, the lecturers were for the most part extremely interesting and the discussion dinners turned into some of my favorite evenings in South Africa! Surprise!
Our Saturday morning began with a mini-tour around Pietermaritzburg with us trying to get a feel for the history and area. Pretty typical educational tour with the group. The highlights of that for me are in a tie between the wildfire that almost engulfed our parked cars, or the random man who came in to contribute to our little lecture. Ok, clearly the second part was more reflective, but the fire was crazy! The man provided an interesting perspective and input to Jumbalani’s (our guide) story and knowledge. It is still so beyond comprehendible to me how recent all of this history is to South Africa. To have a random stranger walk up to our group and listen and comment was not something I would have expected else where, but I wasn’t really surprised by it here. The afternoon involved listening to Jumbalani’s own story of his involvement in the ANC and how his life had been shaped by the volatile politics around him. I always prefer the personal reflections and experiences to wandering around a museum or listening to generic history. Oops on my part, but I just find personal accounts much more valuable since they are more relatable and almost tangible. And so I appreciate them more.
The evening was most definitely one of the best evenings I’ve had in South Africa. Jumbalani’s wonderful family had invited the group to their home for dinner and an eve
ning of bonding. It was FANTASTIC. For one, there was this adorable little baby who didn’t let anyone hold or entertain him except for me. I don’t know where some of these maternal instincts are coming up from in me, but a part of me is definitely changing when it comes to children. So I spent a significant amount of time with the baby. This family is one of the warmest I’ve ever come in contact with. The experience reminded me a lot of the one that Deandra, Ella, and I had in Luxor when we went home with a random family for Eid dinner. Except this night was centered around a Michael Jackson tribute dance party that everyone was participating in, even the baby! We also had a really great dish cleaning party to help out the family after they’d cooked us a delicious dinner. They had bought halaal meat to be sure that everyone (aka me!) could eat. How nice is that??? All in all, the day was good, but the evening is GREAT GREAT GREAT. Such an experience. Sunday 06/28
I love Sunday mornings in South Africa. Would you like to know why? Because they usually equal SLEEP, but for some God-forsaken reason, our B&B has a very strange concept of what customer service should be, as in they feel like it’s ok to come into our room where there are five girls sleeping, clearly sleeping, and laugh and talk and clean so freaking loudly. Sorry, I understand that not everyone has the same schedule, but it was really ridiculous and really rude. Anyway though, so our morning basically involved sleeping, waking u for breakfast, and then going back to sleep before waking up to listen to another former of the ANC give an interview to our group and Jumbalani. His discussion was interesting as well, but honestly the majority of it was lost as we were FREEZING our butts off on the porch in the cold and rainy weather. Victoria, Danielle, and I all cuddled under the blanket and our hoodies the entire time. Not comfortable.
Our evening was just as good as last night, but very different. We were invited to dinner at the lovely home of Rod and Fiona, two white South Africans who had played an extremely proactive role during apartheid. Their story is quite fascinating, especially the perspective of their almost-30 year old daughter who was quite young when her parents were so active. It was definitely a perspective I had been waiting to hear. We’ve heard so much from older people, both black and white, but I didn’t feel like I had really any insight into what was going on with the younger generations until tonight. It was great to get the memories of a young white girl who had grown up with the majority of black friends, who then moved to an elite high school and was frustrated with the narrow-mindedness of the students there. Fiona and Rod were so dynamic, with Fiona being one of the strongest women I have ever come across, and Rod having this dead pan humor that I absolutely love. The entire evening held my attention, which says quite a lot actually. Especially when if comes to long discussions.
Oh and in the evening, GOOOOOO BRAZIL!!! J
Monday 06/29
We finally had a chance to explore Pietermaritzburg on our own this morning. All in all, there is nothing particularly enthralling that we found about the city. It’s pretty small, and apparently kind of dangerous, but those aren’t unusual characteristics for a South African city. Victoria, Anthony, and I just walked up and down some streets looking in random stores, the like 5 Rand shop, which is worse than a $1 store/better than any other store, depending on how you look at it.
We went back and took naps before our second part of the interview with Jumbalani, and then it was getting ready for cook-out this evening. I made the salad. Sweet. I didn’t chop any of my fingers or drop too
much lettuce, only a little bit. It was beautifullll. Not really, but I was ok with it. The cook-out was spectacular. (Yes, I just used the word spectacular.) There were soooo many people there, including Jumbalini’s family again which I was very excited about. The baby was asleep so I didn’t get to spend too much quality time with him, but I spent a while talking to the other youngsters in the group. We discussed everything from safety in South Africa and how comfortable/uncomfortable they are most of the time, driving and driving in the States versus here, how our names sound so weird to them and how I could probably do four backhandsprings before pronounce most people’s names here. They were all great conversations. These kids are so cool, really. And so curious about life in America. We’re trying to convince the oldest boy to apply to Duke next year, so we’ll see how that works out. Hopefully well.
The highlight of the evening outside of my time with the kids was our farewell song to Bill. He’s leaving for home tomorrow morning, so we decided that he needed a go
od-bye present. Which equaled a parody of Build Be Up Buttercup, DukeEngage South Africa style. It was filled with inside jokes of our time so far, but he loved it! And we loved singing it. Sort of. I totally recorded it so if anyone wants to watch it later, let me knooow.
Tuesday 06/30
How about we keep this short and simple…
Things I did today:
1) Woke up
2) Ate Breakfast
3) Bought a rugby hoodie
4) Said good-bye to Bill L
5) Slept on the airplane
6) Back home to the Med Villa in Cape Town
Ukuthula,
Lynn
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