Last weeks- New Roomate, U.S. Board Visit, Voortrekker Monument, Strategic Plan ...

So much to write since I’ve been reluctant to sit down and write my last couple of weeks here.

Just over a week ago my new roommate arrived from Finland, Emilia. Her first weekend in town was quiet as Akeel was out with old friends and Anna left with work for Limpopo. We spent a day going for a walk around Pretoria to help her get oriented. I showed her the Union Buildings where I went one of my first weeks here then we ventured on to find a place we heard has the best pizza in town—Toni’s Pizza. We walked for about an hour away from the city center into a middle-class residential area where we stopped to ask two women directions. The two sister were so friendly and offered to walk with us to find the restaurant. We walked for over an hour talking with them about growing up in a township, getting married and having children. The older sister was married to a Nigerian man who was the pastor in town and the younger had just had her second child. Although we never found the restaurant it was a much greater reward just speaking with the two kind strangers with fascinating life stories.

Since I arrived the Idasa building has been under construction attempting to turn what was deemed by Ivor Jenkins, the head of the center, as the “ugliest building in Pretoria” into a lovely office space. Last week the building was finally completed at 9 am on Wednesday morning, perfectly in time for the first meeting with Idasa’s U.S. Board at 10 am. The U.S. Board, an affiliate of Friends of Idasa, a NGO in the U.S., works to facilitate relationships with people in America, but also mostly to raise Idasa’s profile and fundraise. I had the opportunity to attend a few of the events put on while the U.S. board was in town including a reception last Thursday. The picture above where I'm wearing a pink dress and standing next to my coworker from GAP, Juliana, is from the reception.

At the reception I spoke with Aly, a former intern who is now the first full time employee at Friends of Idasa in Washington D.C. There was another former intern who held exactly my position in GAP named Sheila who I also had the chance to speak with who now works for the UN in D.C. During dinner I met a woman from Zimbabwe who works for a Zimbabwean NGO setting up an office in Johannesburg who described the situation in Zim, as Zimbabwe is referred to here. She said while humanitarian focused NGOs have continued to operate effectively, activist NGOs have been pushed out or severely constricted. Moreover, when I asked whether conditions had improved in Zim she shook her head firmly saying while the currency had been scrapped (now U.S. dollars of SA rand are used), the situation remains dire. Before shops were completely empty, she said, or they had a section for Zim dollars and one for foreign currency, sometimes the foreign currency side would have very limited amounts of food, which only a small subset of the population had the means to buy. Today more people are earning money in a foreign currency and able to purchase goods, but many still do not have any money for food. One of my former flatmates from Zim would send groceries on 2 day bus rides home so that his family had food to eat during this time.

I also attended two 4-hour sessions on Friday, each broken up by a tea break (it’s South African law that there must be two 15 minute tea breaks per day!). Both sessions had very interesting discussion and speakers. The first was on the role of civil society in democracy and Steven Friedman, one of the leading South African scholars and activists in ending apartheid, spoke. He emphasized that civil society is necessary to democracy, but democratic government is also necessary to have a civil society. Moreover, he urged the importance of civil society to changing society’s attitudes and not just government’s policies. Last, he touched on the problem of an inactive civil society in much of Africa and the difficulty of reviving the once incredibly vibrant civil society in South Africa. The second panel was on the role of South Africa in the world. The Executive Director of Idasa, Paul Graham, wrote a paper on the topic and spoke to it on the panel. A few interesting points were raised. First was South Africa’s traditional timidity in world affairs, which Graham argued was rooted in history. Second was addressing calls by the West for South Africa to deal with problems in the region as the strongest regional democracy. For example, Hilary Clinton’s recent plea for South Africa to in effect “solve Zimbabwe” is asking South Africa to step up to a larger role in world affairs. In conclusion, we asked “Can South Africa dream for others if it is yet to achieve its own dream?” In a way this is the struggle facing Idasa itself. South Africa has huge problems to overcome and needs to continue to work to strengthen itself, but this requires Idasa to adapt as an organization to work within an existing democracy rather than in a state in tradition as it did historically, which is now more similar to Idasa’s current work in other African countries than it is to its current work in South Africa.

After the reception Akeel, Jerann, Emilia and I went out to Hatfield. Hatfield is a diverse neighborhood likely because it is home to the University of Pretoria attracting students from all over. However, while most races are represented, the racial divisions are still strikingly strong. In the main square there are almost solely white people, but if you cross the street, on the other side the restaurant, bars and clubs are nearly 100% black. While there are certainly areas in the U.S., which attract certain races, I have never seen such a complete division in such close proximity. I’ve heard many different perspectives on race since I’ve arrived. Some people believe people of different races and cultures simply enjoy different food, music etc. while others insist it is racism. While I’m sure it’s some of both, it surprises me that this kind of racial division was not apparent to me to the same degree in Cape Town or even Jo’burg.

At work I've been putting together a Strategic Plan for GAP detailing their work over the next five years. It was a fun assignment that required editing, summarizing and condensing papers used in GAP's proposal to gain funds for the 5 year program. I also collected and wrote bios for my coworkers who have all had interesting careers, many working with UNAIDS or other UN programs as well as with related development organizations across Africa. I've also been helping with some background research on the effects of HIV laws vs. policies as GAP is trying to form an opinion on which they prefer. The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) wrote a set of recommend HIV model laws for the region and Idasa is trying to assess whether or not these will have a positive impact. Many believe the current laws related to HIV in the region focus too much on criminalizing people with HIV rather than protecting their rights.

This past weekend Akeel went to spend the weekend in Jo’burg with relatives for the start of Ramadan while Emilia, Anna and I were all feeling sick and slept in most of the day Saturday just going out for a late lunch and shopping before returning home ready to curl up in bed again. On Sunday we made a big breakfast and ate on our balcony, which is soo nice. We love to hang out on the balcony that wraps around much of our apartment so there is space to walk around. After breakfast we caught a cab to the Voortrekker Monument. The Monument sits up on a hill just outside the city center and commemorates the Great Trek made by the Afrikaners in the mid-1800s. It was interesting to see since I don’t know much about Afrikaner history and there was a beautiful view of the city from the top. Just across the highway on a nearby hill is Freedom Park, which is a memorial to those who suffered and died in the struggle to end Apartheid. Freedom Park is still under construction and when the location was first chosen there were some who thought it was trying to detract from the Voortrekker Monument by reminding of the less glorified aspects of Afrikaner history next to what some see as a sacred monument for the Afrikaners. On the way home the taxi driver asked us "how did you like learning about your history?" even though we've told him that we're not Afrikaner multiple times. However, I think it's very confusing for people when I tell them I don't speak Afrikaans, many continue to use Afrikaans for a few tries before they realize I really don't understand a word they are saying. It is likely because I am tall and have lighter hair like most people of Afrikaner origin not to mention that most of the white people in Gauteng are Afrikaners (although I was surprised to learn from a colleague that in South Africa as a whole, nearly 40% of the white people are British South Africans, I thought it was a much smaller proportion).

On Tuesday I had a lovely dinner at my coworker from the Communications Unit, Ayanda. Ayanda’s house and it was fun to see a neighborhood outside the city. We had a delicious dinner, but had to cook without water since it went out just when we started cooking and didn’t come back on until after dinner! Above is a picture of Ayanda's Argentinian friend, Lucille, Ayanda and myself at her house for dinner. Tonight I’m headed to dinner with most of the other interns and young people working at Idasa for my last night in Pretoria! I’ll be home Friday, looking forward to seeing everyone!

Braai and Orientation

Before this blog, I thought I should share some of my favorite food discoveries this summer:

1) Oatmeal, with yogurt and granola (sooo good) plus fresh or dried fruit

2) Avocado with salt on toast

3) Digestives- I had these in Australia, they are biscuit-cookie things which taste delicious and aren't too sweet

4) Curry and Pasta- two of my least favorite foods usually, but when cooked by my flatmate Akeel, from Malawi, with Indian spices, tomatoes, chicken, garlic, onions.... sooo good

5) Halloumi- fried cheese, sounds disgusting, but is actually really good on salads, for an appetizer or in lentils

This past weekend was my flatmate Rose's last in Pretoria. She has been here for a year now and plans to return in January after finishing her final semester of college. For her goodbye we hosted our first braai at the flat complete with potato salad, pasta salad, greek salad and teriyaki chicken. We were going to attempt to make pap, but decided we would probably butcher it to the point her host family would not enjoy it. Her host family, who she lived with while studying here in high school, traveled up from the southern suburbs of Johannesburg. There was a little boy, Caclio, who was so mischievious. He went to the bathroom on the porch and ran around eating everything in sight then rubbing his chocolately hands on the walls, but he was adorable! We made a bonfire and enjoyed a warm evening on the balcony. Her host family (mother, 2 sisters and cousin) were extremely talkative and funny. We danced to South African gospel music and heard stories from Rose's high school days.

Yesterday was orientation, in week 8 of my intership. Idasa didn't run an orientation last month because of Reflection Week. The 4 hour orientation was led mostly by Yvette, the Executive Director's assistant who discussed the fascinating history of Idasa. Yvette has been involved with Idasa since her student days when she described the amazing responsiblity placed on students' shoulders to do the legwork leading up to the transition. Idasa was founded when Alex Boraine and Frederik van Zyl Slabbert , broke away from the Nationalist Party in which Yvette described them as "cultivated" to take the presidency as good, Afrikaner boys. In its early days, Idasa hosted now famous meetings between banned political organizations and prominent white South Africans (from politics, business, law etc.) to facilitate discussion about a transition. The most famous of these meetings took place in Dakar, Senegal and broke ground between famous ANC exiled leaders and prominent Afrikaners. Yvette described running around the country like mad during the 80s and early 90s training people about democracy and trying to instill a more democratic culture in the country. Idasa's work was extremely controversial and at one point Ivor Jenkins' (current director of the Idasa office where I work) home was shot at requiring him to go into exile in the United States where he spent a year working with the Kettering Foundation. I would have loved to hear more stories about Idasa's early history, but we had to move on to Idasa's policies and procedures and IT.

Realities- Death, Crime and Racism

I'm constantly surprised by the commonality of death here, which I guess shouldn't be too surprising given life expectancy is around 42 compared to 78 in the U.S. Every week there are people from the office out of work attending funerals. One day on the drive to the gym with a couple coworkers, they were discussing the frequency of attending funerals and how people get tired of telling people they are going to funerals because of the talk that follows. The commonality of death is not only linked to the HIV epidemic, but also to crime and accidents, which are much more common in South Africa than in the U.S. I have heard so many stories of people who have had relatives and children die in car accidents and who have had relatives murdered. Steve, the driver of the Boogie Bus from Cape Town, described witnessing violent crime in broad daylight and a man I met at the Bushfire music festival mentioned his brother's murder. While I haven't been able to read the local newspaper much since I've been here, I've heard nearly every day there are reports of murders in the Pretoria area. Just last night I heard a gunshot outside the apartment at about midnight. At first I didn't believe it could be a gunshot, but my flatmate from Malawi and a friend who lived downstairs nodded seemingly unfazed by the shot. It is easy to visit South Africa and see beautiful architecture and countryside, surprising development and great food, wine and shopping, but for people who live here crime and death are never far away. Consequently discussions about the topics are much more frequent and less extraordinary than they would be in the U.S.

Over the long weekend (Monday was Women's Day, a national holiday in South Africa) the Idasa offices were broken into. When I arrived Tuesday morning I went to my desk as usual and only when I ventured to the bathroom did I see the red type blocking off the executive wing of the building. Once again, my coworkers were unfazed by the break in. As a man on the flight over told me "you must expect to get mugged." Similarly, people expect to be robbed from time to time and take the necessary precautions to protect their things by buying LOTS of insurance, backing up computer documents and investing in security to limit robberies. Multiple laptops, computers and a big screen TV were stolen from the executive wing, but by the afternoon everyone was working on a new computer having transferred their saved information almost as if the robbery had never taken place. Surprisingly, Idasa has just completed a new front gate to the building and elevated security, but the security guard let the robbers in to take a cut of the bounty. However, now a coworker informed me he will probably be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

There also seems to be much wider support for the death penalty here than in the U.S., at least more than within the liberal California college and Minnesota atmospheres where I've discussed the topic. Many people believe South Africa's high crime rates are a result of too weak punishment whereas I tend to see it as a result of history, inequality and expectation. I remember a conversation I had with a man in Swaziland whose brother had been murdered who was angry the murderer could not be given the death penalty. Another coworker of mine from Uganda insists South Africa have harsher punishment for criminals as he described how his home had been broken into multiple times and even his seven year old daughter had been robbed multiple times at school by children who believe she has more than them and so have the right to take her things. It is true that South Africa has a different attitude toward crime than much of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. I've had coworkers describe being mugged with witnesses standing by rather than jumping in to stop the crime. Part of this seems to be due to the frequency and normality of crime, but also the fear of being hurt if they intervene. However, in East Africa last summer we were warned not to make a fuss if someone stole from us on the street because of the phenomenon of mob justice. There was an incident a few years before where a volunteer started screaming that someone stole his camera. People in the streets chased the man down and killed him for it. My coworker from Uganda strongly believes South Africa needs an atmosphere more like this. He described a time when a USB drive was lost in the office in Uganda and the manager locked all the doors and made everyone stay inside and search until it turned up.

Race is also a daily issue that comes up multiple times per day. Just walking down the street in Sunnyside people will yell "Hey whites," which is surprising to me because you go a few blocks a way to the next neighborhood or the University of Pretoria campus and everyone around you is white. Many people I have talked to use the terms "good" and "bad" to describe people as if it were easy to classify a person into one group or the other, saying you get "good blacks" and "bad blacks," "good whites" and "bad whites"--language that would be outrageous in the U.S. and was to me to hear. Instead, most of the crime that takes place in South Africa is not by cold-hearted people, but by people following a complicated moral code in which it is acceptable to steal from those who have more, but still not to physically harm or kill. This complicated moral code is displayed in the movie Tsotsi, which is about crime in the Johannesburg area. Of course, there is violent crime as well, but the majority is stealing phones and money to get through the day.

One of the most shocking conversations I've had was with an Afrikaner taxi driver who drove me from the airport back to my apartment. He described how he thought everything "fell apart" when Mandela came to power and that the whites should have ended apartheid, but maintained power through the transition. He thought it was a tragedy that the inner-city neighborhoods, like Sunnyside, have been transformed into lower income areas while the whites and wealthier blacks, colored and Indians have moved out to the suburbs. He went on to claim that Africa would be nothing without whites and would fall apart and that different races could never truly mix, saying "You can't mix apples and oranges." When I left the taxi I was sad that people still thought so strictly along color lines and couldn't see the extremely positive aspects of the transition and the hope for a more integrated future. Perhaps it was naivete, but I really did not think anyone still thought this way let alone that it was a person who seemed otherwise rational and well educated.

The majority of people I have spoken with are very interested in discussing issues of race in a positive and productive manner looking for ways toward a more peaceful, integrated future. I can't count how many times I've been asked "what is the difference between race here and in the U.S.?" and "what do you think of Obama and how he is handling the issue of race?" Even within Idasa issues of race are controversial and complicated. Idasa strives to balance power positions between races and genders. There is also the new issue of balancing South African versus other African and foreign workers at Idasa. Since Idasa is a South African NGO it gets difficult to employ such a large number of foreigners, at the same time, Idasa is becoming an increasingly continental and even global organization working across sub-Saharan Africa with some global projects in Sri Lanka, Latin America and Iran just to name a few.

While these realities of life in South Africa are grim, it is important to realize that death, crmie and racism all exist in the U.S., as well as everywhere else. While the rates are worse here, these factors do not define life here making it a dangerous and sad place to live as I think some people see it. Instead, South Africa is a very happy place with a promising future. I have had many people ask me why I want to spend time in Africa, who find it sad and depressing, but Africa and South Africa are far from it. There have been incredible advances and development across the continent. Moreover, it is a fun place to be. People are generally happy, lively and full of culture. There is also a sense of freedom in Africa that the west lacks, it might be partly due to worse law enforcement, but I think it is also closely tied to African culture. The feeling of freedom makes Africa a much more relaxed place to be where it is easier to slow down and enjoy each moment.

Last week I started reading Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty," which is a GREAT book! I was reluctant to read an academic, economics book over summer, but it is an easy and extremely interesting read, which I would strongly recommend. It not only tells the story of Sachs' incredible career, but it also shows the promise of development and how quickly it is possible to raise peoples' standard of living and eliminate extreme poverty as has been done in much of the world. After this book, I'm really looking forward to taking a development economics course next year.

Swaziland, Birthday and Goodbye

My first week back in the office after Cape Town flew by. I helped out with smaller projects including emailing partners across Sub-Saharan Africa (and the U.S.) asking for updated contact information, working on a database and editing papers because the data for our paper is still being processed by Afrobarometer. My fellow intern in GAP, Dirkie, left on Friday :(. I was sad to see her go, it's been fun having a friend and fellow student to work on projects with and learn the ropes of IDASA. On Friday we had a celebration for Dirkie's goodbye and Marietjie's birthday. It was a full GAP gathering with 4 cakes, samosas, and falafel! Everyone in GAP loves to laugh and have a goodtime and it was fun to interact with everyone in a more informal setting.

This past weekend my flatmate Anna and I rented a car and drove to Swaziland for the Bushfire Festival of the Arts recommended by one of our coworkers. It was an adventure from the beginning. Figuring out how to rent a car, drive on the other side of the road, find a hostel, cross the border... Anna drove since you had to be over 21 and able to drive a stick shift. Due to Friday's office festivities we left later than planned and arrived at the border around 7:45 pm where we were greeted by a mass of cars without any apparent order trying to edge up to the narrow gates to enter the border crossing. After about two hours we crossed the first gate after which we waited in line on the South Africa side to get a car pass and our passports checked. It was madness in this line as well not only because it was a Friday night (and the border closed at 10 pm, so we barely made it, people who didn't usually slept in their cars until it opened in the morning) but also because of the music festival. When we finally made it through the border I tried my best to give directions to Sondzela Backpackers and just got lost once on suddenly deserted roads. We had no idea where all the cars from the border disappeared to! Finally we found the hostel, located in a game reserve. We drove by impala and wildebeast on our way up to the lodge.

Sondzela backpackers was a really nice hostel. The blankets were warm! There were delicious fireside breakfasts in the morning with traditional Swazi porridge. There were two women who worked at USAID, a group of Peace Corps volunteers from Mozambique and a group of French people who worked at the Alliance Francaise in South Africa staying at the hostel. On our walk down the path to the main lodge for breakfast the first morning we ran into 2 warthogs just a few feet away! I had never been so close to one, and I have to admit they're not quite as cute up close as they are running with their tails up from far away. We caught a free shuttle to the festival in the morning to make sure we could get tickets. Throughout the day there were different African bands playing, a selection of food and craft shops. I met a couple more Peace Corps volunteers working in Swaziland manning one of the booths from Iowa and California. I tasted impala (my favorite game meat so far!) and mulled wine for the first time at the festival.

The festival took place at a venue called "House on Fire," which was a funky building with a stage and many levels, balconies and spaces from which to watch the show. There were tropical plants breaking up the standing and sitting areas with engravings in the stone walls and colorful tiles for decoration. Each of the bathroom door stalls had a fun expression on it. One I took a picture of said: "I love you like a chicken rolling in the oven." I didn't understand all the decorator's jokes...

Johnny Clegg was the headliner of the festival. His grand entrance involved cheering crowds and a fire dancer. Clegg is a South African musician who speaks and sings in multiple languages. He would sing one song in English, another in Afrikaans, one in Zulu etc. He was especially famous during apartheid for being a unifying figure as a white South African who grew up poor and and speaking Zulu and thus could cross the racial divide. Everyone there seemed to love his music and there were people of all ages dancing, which made for a fun atmosphere. Another of the more famous artists was a hip-hop artist from Uganda and DJ Sbu, a popular DJ from South Africa.

The next morning we woke up early to start the drive back since we worried about a hectic border crossing and wanted to return the car before dark (cars have been stolen from the street outside our apartment so we didn't want to leave it there overnight). The drive back was very stressful! We took a different route so we could get to a less hectic border crossing. However, even the road was one of the only ones marked in the whole country on my Lonely Planet map, it was a small, curvy road, sometimes paved and sometimes dirt, filled with potholes and very difficult to drive on in the rain and a stick shift car... We got stuck in a pothole at one point. The roads also went on for miles with no turn-offs or sign of life so if you got stuck getting out could be a problem especially since our cell phones didn't have reception in Swaziland. At one point we saw a huge paper mill emitting masses of smoke, but no people around. We also drove by huge fiels of black ash, which looked like they had been recently burned. Swaziland was an interesting place... Anna said it looked like the end of the world and in many parts it did just emptiness with factories emitting smoke and burned fields. We were so relieved when we finally reached the border to cross into South Africa and have nicely paved, pothole-free roads with people in sight!

We drove for a few more hours back to Pretoria, dropped off the car and took nice, hot showers before curling up in our beds with tea.

I can't believe I only have a bit over 3 weeks left! These 7 weeks have flown by.

Cape Town Part IV: Garden Route Road Trip!

Saturday morning Liese, Brittni, Sarah and I woke up early to catch the train into town to pick up a rental car for our road trip up the garden route. The garden route is a popular tourist destination in South Africa that describes a stretch of coastline and surrounding towns in the provinces of the Western and Eastern Capes. Renting a car here is cheap and the easiest way to get around on your own, as long as you can learn to drive on the left hand side of the road! Luckily Liese had mastered this skill. Once in town we walked down Long Street and ran into a little trouble getting the car since we forgot to bring the driver's passport so we had to stop by Rondebosh on the way out of town to pick it up. We drove for about six hours straight through rolling green hills, yellow wildflowers, farms and wineries, which again looked strikingly similar to California. However, every now and then we would pass a sprawling township next to the highway and signs reading "Hi-jacking Hot Spot." I was surprised that townships existed even in the countryside since I thought they were a city phenomenon and the rural poor lived in villages, like I experienced last summer. Yet townships are a country-wide phenomenon and seem to me to be much worse living conditions than those of the villages I experienced last summer even though many people in the villages are poorer than those in townships. There is also a sense of dissatisfaction with life in the townships that I didn't experience in the villages last summer where people seemed to be content with a simpler life.

At one stop along the way there was a pen filled with donkeys, ostriches, turkey, goats and ducks right next to the gas station... Then we walked in to the KFC next to it to use the restroom where there was a group of young Afrikaner boys wearing soccer uniforms. It is strange here how you can feel like you're in America one minute at a KFC, with rolling green hills and the next have a reality check of driving by townships or ostriches that you really are in Africa. Due to our late start we weren't able to do much except drive Saturday, but we did stop to walk around the pretty waterfront at Knysna, which had cute shops and beautiful sailboats in the bay. The scenery around Knysna reminded me of Minnesota; the bay looked like a lake and was surrounded by pine trees.

We decided to drive on to Plettenberg Bay for the night so that we could be as close as possible for our first stop the next day at Storms River just across the border into the Eastern Cape. After a freezing night in the hostel... All hostels say they provide bedding, but that usually means one blanket which is insufficient in the winter with no heating! Brittni bundled up in about 10 layers and that's what it took to stay warm! The rest of us froze a bit. We woke up the next morning at 7:30 so we could leave the hostel early enough to get to Bloukrans to bungee jump right when they opened. We made it so early that we were the first ones to jump. I wasn't sure I was ready for another bungee jump after last summer I thought I was done with that, but it was the highest bungee in the world and would likely never do it if I didn't do it now so I signed the form, paid and was locked in to go--they don't give refunds if you don't jump! None of us were too enthused about going first, but the people who worked there told us we didn't have a choice, it was already decided but wouldn't tell us who was lucky number one. Then they dressed us in harnesses and marched us down to the start of the bridge.

We walked across a scary metal platform to get to the center of the bridge. Walking across the bridge was one of the scariest parts for me. The bungee is setup in the center of the bridge directly beneath a busy road, which we drove across to get there not knowing the bungee was directly underneath. At the center platform we were greeted by probably 15 smily guys taking pictures and dancing to upbeat music. Besides Sarah, the rest of us were too nervous to start dancing as we looked around at the gorgeous trees and ocean, but frightening height of the bridge. Sarah jumped first and before we knew it she was on the ledge and the guys were counting down and all the sudden she was gone. We could only see her bobbing up and down on the other side. I was up next and as my stomach flipped and I was too nervous to listen to what the instructors were saying. Then before I knew it they said "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, bungee!" The wind rushed past my face as I plummeted down, keeping my eyes open.

The view of the mountains, sky and ocean was beautiful from upside down. Just a few minutes later, one of the instructors was next to me, lowered down on a cable to bring me back up to the platform. Excited and hungry after our jump, we headed back toward Knysna where we had a good lunch next to a canal. Then we drove up to Oudtshoorn, a town famous for ostriches and if you went there you would know why. There were ostriches everywhere! mostly raised for their meat, but we came to ride ostriches! The entire process of riding the ostriches was ridiculous from watching the ostriches march in to the arena where we rode them to seeing the people who worked there catch them by putting a bag over their head and pulling on their necks (they promised it didn't hurt them, but the ostriches didn't look too happy) to us attempting to get on their backs. There backs were curved and in order for the ostrich to be able to run you had to sit really far back and hold onto their wings to the point where you felt like you would fall off and I did fall straight in the mud at my first attempt.

Our next stop was at the Cango Caves where we arrived just in time to do the adventure tour. I'm a little claustrophobic and was worried about spending an hour and a half in a cave that required us to army crawl through small tunnels (they had to make sure we were small enough to go on the tour). However, the cave was beautiful and despite bumping my knees and scratching my back a few times it was really fun in explore the cave. The first two chambers were large and were once inhabited by Bushmen. When we finished the tour it was a bit after 5 pm and we still had a 5 hour drive back to Cape Town so the grimy and smelly 5 of us piled back in the car and drove back to town. We took a windy, hilly path which was a bit scary in the dark, but we made it back.

Monday was a (mostly) relaxed final day in Cape Town. I packed up in the morning then walked up to the University of Cape Town (UCT) from the house. It is one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen set on a hill with a dramatic mountain in the background. There is a large staircase leading up to the symmetrical campus with the Rhodes Memorial statue in the center. I was surprised that the campus was mostly white given their relatively small proportion of the population. It was fun to be on a campus with tons of students around sitting and chatting with friends on the grass and walking to class.

I walked back to town and met up with Brittni for lunch. On our way to a restaurant a girl called my name and when I turned around it was a girl I knew from middle and high school in Minnesota who was studying abroad at UCT for the semester. Such a small world! After lunch Brittni and I headed to Cavendish, a large mall. We saw Janine's jewelry store and a store by a local Cape Tonian designer, which had pretty, French-inspired clothing. The one stressful part of the day was trying to withdraw cash because my ATM card's information was stolen (and money withdrawn) so I had to shut down my card and can only open it for short periods of time to withdraw money... This is a difficult process because I have to call my bank in the U.S. who usually puts me on hold, which uses up international minutes and then give them a bunch of info so they can unlock my card. I'm just glad this happened fairly late in the trip so I don't need my card for too much longer!

I caught a ride to the airport in the Boogie Bus! (shown above). The guy who drives the Boogie Bus has had it for 16 years and is a friend of Prof. Samoff. He used to drive groups of Stanford students and said he started focusing on safe transport of students after Amy Biehl was murdered.

Cape Town Part III: Cape Peninsula and City Tour

The day after the conference I was up early again for a tour of the Cape Peninsula. We saw so much in one day, I could have easily spent a day at each of the places we visited. After stopping by a bunch of hostels to pick up people for the tour, we drove by the beautiful Clifton beaches just outside of Cape Town and through the mountains to our first stop at Hout Bay where we took a boat out to see the fur seals. The ride was very bumpy and I felt I was about to fall out on more than one occasion. It was a gorgeous view looking back of a small town on a bay enclosed in mountains. We left the bay and followed the rugged coastline to the rocky island filled with adorable seals. There were also small seals swimming right next to and under our boat. Back in Hout Bay, there was a "fat seal" trained by a man who sat with and fed the seal all day allowing toursits to take pictures with it. There is a picture of me above with the seal which looked like it was constantly smiling :).

After visiting the seals we drove through a cluster of wineries, home to the famous Constantia winery. We stopped at a beautiful lookout over a wide beach, which looks like it would be filled with swimmers in the summer. The only problem is there are 76 great white sharks in the area alone and attacks are not as rare as you might like. After having some tea and muffins we continued to Boulders Beach. On the way we drove by Simon's Town, a famous little beach town, which looked like a beautiful place to live. At Boulders Beach we saw African penguins which were adorable. They live on the beach and in the nearby rocks and greenery. African penguins are becoming increasingly rare even though the beach tries to protect the eggs by building safe enclosures. The penguins were probably only a foot high, black and white with pick rings around their eyes. There were also two other varieties which were much more rare one of which was dark blue and bigger than the black and white penguins.

It was a pretty chilly and overcast day, which I think made the scenery even more dramatic and beautiful. When we arrived at the National Park we were greeted by mischievious baboons and had to be sure to keep our windows closed. We unloaded our bikes for a short 3 mile ride through the park just when it started raining. It was a chilly ride, but the scenery was gorgeous. There were mountains in the distance and grassy plateaus closer by with interesting, moon-like rock outcrops. We looked for zebras and ostriches, but didn't see any during the ride.

We ended our ride at the visitor center where we tried to warm up and ate sandwiches for lunch. Back on the bus we made our way to the Cape Point where we walked up to the lighthouse. The scenery here was even more spectacular than before with dramatic cliffs and the gorgeous, green peninsula reaching out into the water. From the lighthouse we could see Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope as well as a sign marking how many thousands of miles we were from NYC among other cities. However, the lighthouse was not built in an ideal location so high up on the hill and there was a historic boat crash as the ship was round the peninsula because it couldn't see the light of the lighthouse. A second lighthouse was later built at sea level. I sent a postcard home (the only address I knew by heart) postmarked at Cape Point.

Since it was raining at this point we decided not to make the slippery trek down to the Cape of Good Hope and drove down instead. It was beautiful down here as well with huge whitewater waves crashing against the seacliffs. We took our pictures next to the well-known sign marking the furthest south-western tip of Africa and climbed out on the slippery rocks filled with tiny crabs before heading back to the car to warm up. On the drive back we stopped at a cute craft shop and enjoyed the scenery of small beach towns nestled inbetween mountains. We also saw two ostriches and a few antelope on the way back!

The hot shower felt soo good back at Sarah, Brittni and Liese's place. For dinner Brittni made delicious lasagne to celebrate Janine's birthday. (Janine owns the house the girls are staying in and is a jewelry designer). For dessert we had pound cake with strawberries--so good--especially with balsamic vinegar.

The next day I slept in after a tiring week of waking up early and going to bed late. I took the train into town to visit museums and explore City Bowl (the city center). I started out at the Castle of Good Hope, which is right in the middle of the city and is actually a fort built in anticipation of a war. I arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard. We saw the torture room where prisoners were tortured in attempts of gaining a confession. They were first tied in a corner and whipped after which they would be hung by their feet from the ceiling if they didn't confess then after a certain amount of time the rope would be cut and they would fall to the concrete ground. If they confessed, they would be killed and if they did not after all three torture methods and were still alive would often still be killed or sent to Robben Island to perform hard labor.

Across from the castle was a plaza that was formerly a public execution ground. I continued up the street to the District Six Museum located in District Six, of course, the area of the city that was destroyed during apartheid by forced removals of tens of thousands of habitants. In recent years, the government has invested significantly to restore the inner-city neighborhood which maintains scars of apartheid.

Next I walked to the Slave Lodge a museum where slaves from the Dutch East Indian Company were held. It is one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town dating from the 1600s. There was an interesting map showing where all the slaves came from and visualize the mesh of cultures that are now in Cape Town. So many of Cape Town's unique cultures and ethnicities derived from the slave trade and the mixing of races once in Cape Town. There was also a large exhibit on Steve Biko, a leader of the Black Consciousness Movement who was killed in prison. It was sad to read the quotes of white leaders refusing to express emotion at his death or admit that it was a result of mistreatment and lack of medical attention.

After the slave lodge I walked a bit through the Company Gardens, which are a mini-version of Central Park--they even have a zoo like Central Park! Then I walked about a half an hour down to the waterfront to buy a few souvenirs and enjoy the African music and happy atmosphere. I caught a cab back to Rondebosch and packed for our roadtrip the next day!

Cape Town Part II: IAS Conference

The next four days in Cape Town (Sun-Wed) I spent mostly in the Cape Town International Convention Center (CTICC) where the International AIDS Society (IAS) held its biannual conference on HIV Prevention, Treatment and Pathogenesis. For four days many of the world's leading researchers converged to discuss advances and areas for continued research in fighting the HIV epidemic. It was a huge event with over 6,000 people in attendence from 123 countries around the world. 30% were from Africa and 70% from other continents.

A quick side note on the CTICC and tourism. The CTICC was a large, clean, very nice convention center, which I can imagine left many visitors to the conference feeling South Africa was a very developed country. It is surprising the efforts South Africa makes to make it seem attractive and rich to visitors. This is especially apparent in preparation for the World Cup. Our guide on the wine tour told us buildings were being put up along the highway to hide Khayelitsha, the second largest township in South Africa after Soweto and home to nearly 2 million people. He also said South Africans will be asked not to drive during the World Cup and he said it was so that foreigners didn't have to see South Africans bad driving. This was shocking to me and reminded me of China's efforts to display a good face to the world during the Olympics. Additionally, an entirely new wing of the Cape Town airport is under construction as well as the huge, beautiful stadium next to the ocean. Cape Town also has much less crime than Gauteng (the area with Jo'burg and Pretoria) and I think it is mostly because the government invests significant resources to make tourists feel safe. There are car guards outside at night and many security guards in touristy areas during the day.

Early Sunday afternoon I attended a session on coinfection of HIV and TB. This is an enormous problem, especially in South Africa. Whereas a person with a healthy immune system has only a 10% chance of developing TB disease in their lifetime if they are exposed, a person with HIV has a much higher likelihood of developing the disease. Since TB is infectious, the more people with HIV, the more people who develop TB and the farther it spreads. This is a HUGE problem in South Africa where nearly one in five people is infected with HIV and many live in close quarters in townships were TB spreads like wildfire. A woman who works for the city of Cape Town who I spoke to at the conference said everyone in Cape Town has latent TB because it is so incredibly common. Much more frightening than normal TB, which is almost always treatable especially in people with a healthy immune system is MDR (multi-drug resistant) and XDR (extremely drug resistant) TB which are growing in South Africa and around the world.

After the first session I headed out to Adderley, a main street in Cape Town, for the AIDS march. Hundreds of people walked down the street wearing red HIV-positive shirts demanding better treatment to be provided by the government and more money to be invested in health. A repeated phrase from the conference was "Health/HIV is NOT in recession" emphasizing that money often equals health and the same amount of resources needs to be invested in healthcare. There was also frequent praise of the U.S. and disappointment with other G8 countries because the U.S. was the only country to uphold its promise of resources to fight HIV at the most recent G8 meeting. At the march I met up with Sarah, Brittni, Nick and Mickey. Nick and Sarah also attended the conference with me.

After the march, Sarah and I had dinner at a yummy restaurant called Cubana then headed back to CTICC for the opening session. On the way through security we met a professor of public health from Bordeaux, France and when I told him I was studying abroad he said he would give me a tour of the city if I made it down to Bordeaux. The opening session was a grand event! It began with people who hung from ribbons dancing on the main stage. Next we were greeted by the Executive Director of IAS. There was also an HIV-positive speaker who helped found TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) which has had great success in demanding the government provide more ARVs. We also heard Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who helped discover HIV and Baleka Mbete, the Deputy President of South Africa and the next in line to take Zuma's position. However, my favorite speaker was Stephen Lewis, a canadian and the former UN Special Envoy to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. He has also held other positions in Canadian government and the UN. He is a great speaker who I heard at Stanford freshman year. He's extremely passionate and reemphasized the need for scientists to demand policymakers do more for public health by publicizing their discoveries. I was surprised to learn that a person who contracts HIV at age 20 in the U.S. can now expect to live close to 69 years. ARVs are pretty incredible drugs with the one major problem of their cost. In much of the developing world, ARVs are provided once a person's CD4 count drops below 200, but throughout the developed world, people usually opt to start ARVs much sooner. Although the drugs have serious side effects, starting the drugs with a CD4 count of 350 or higher has shown to be much more effective at extending life span by fighting the virus before it has grown, allowing the drugs a step-up.

Day 2 of the conference we woke up early to make the 2-hour morning plenary session at 8:40 am. With our muffins and coffee in tow, we heard Reuben Granich from WHO speak about HAART as Prevention. HAART is highy active anti-retroviral therapy. The idea is that by placing HIV-positive people on ART they have a smaller chance of passing the virus on to their partners by lowering their viral load. Additionally, HIV-positive mothers are less likely to pass the virus to their children (MTCT) because of a lower viral load. MTCT is usually prevented by injecting the mother with ARVs before giving birth, then giving the baby one dose of nevirapine immediately after birth. ARVs can also be used for prevention via pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis which work to decrease chances of transmission by having ARVs present just before or after exposure to the virus. Many medical students working directly with HIV-positive patients carry post-exposure prophylaxis in case of an accidental exposure.

After another couple sessions, we were feeling worn out and close to contracting blood clots from sitting for so long so we took a break and walked to the waterfront. The waterfront is a fun area to walk around, but very touristy. We had a sushi lunch then lounged under the sun next to the harbor. I ran into my flatmate from Pretoria, Rose, who was visiting Cape Town with her mom. We had delicious ice cream then meandered back to the convention center via a road that looks like palm drive :) for one of my favorite sessions of the conference on Gender and Sexuality in the context of HIV/AIDS, Security and Conflict. One of the memorable speakers was a young woman conducting research in southern Sudan where she described the dire situation. There was also a professor from Australia who discussed the importance of sex and sexuality and the way conferences on AIDS tend to forget its positive role in society. After this session we went out to a delicious restaurant, Royale Eatery, where I had a lentil and garbanzo bean burger with hummus and feta--soo yummy. They had nearly every burger imaginable, including ostrich burgers!

The next morning we woke up for the Tuesday plenary. I enjoyed a talk by Stefano Bertozzi on financing the HIV response. He echoed the theme of needing "more money for AIDS" but also "less AIDS for the money" emphasizing the need for operations research to find where money could be used most effectively. One of my favorite sessions today was on drug use and the HIV epidemic. In much of the world, intraveneous drug use is responsible for the majority of HIV cases. There was a young women who is a researcher at the University of British Columbia's Urban Health Research Initiative (website: http://uhri.cfenet.ubc.ca/content/view/25/43/) who spoke about her research of setting up a safe-haven for drug users, which provided clean needles and syringes. She showed the clinic decreased transmission of HIV and allowed people to seek medical help promptly when needed and likely prevented 52 deaths. The study has been controversial and the Canadian government hs recently worked hard to shut it down. Another speaker from Ukraine discussed the problem of HIV in prisons and the governments failure to provide ARVs to HIV-positive prisoners often leading to premature deaths.

In the Wednesday morning plenary session my favorite speaker was Rachel Jewkes who spoke on Gender and Sexuality. Her main point was that rape is not responsible for most transmission of HIV associated with gender-based violence, but instead intimate partner violence. Many believe South Africa's high rates of rape (30% of men report to having committed rape) may be partly responsible for South Africa's high HIV prevalence, but in fact there is only a 1 in 200 chance of transmission occuring at any one interaction. Instead, it is much more common to contract HIV from repeated intimate partner violence when one or both partners are unfaithful. Jerald Sadoff also spoke about the possibilities of a global TB vaccine, recognizing TB is greatly aggravating the HIV epidemic. This is important to remember, because people don't die of AIDS, they die of opportunisitic infections that take advantage of an immune system weakened by AIDS.

A side note about another shocking stat I remember from the conference is that of pregnant women in Kwa-Zulu Natal (the province with the highest rate of HIV in South Africa), no women studied had HIV at age 15, but over 60%of pregnant women had contracted the virus by age 22.

The conference was a great experience and gave me a peak into the scientific world. I also really enjoyed visiting the booths displayed in a common area. The ARV drug companies had the fanciest booths that looked like commercial sets and gave out free espresso drinks and cookies. Their wealth provoked some discontent and there were protests by TAC and MSF demanding cheaper ARVs. While first-line drugs are now produced generically, 2nd and 3rd line drugs, needed by people with more advanced HIV disease are still very expensive. There was also a tent advertising Ora-quick an HIV test that involves swabbing the gums without requiring blood to be drawn. Sarah, Nick and I got tested and was unimpressed by the lack of pre and post test counseling. Also, a man in front of Nick got tested and received a negative result, but said the test was poor because he has known he is HIV-positive for 15 years... However, Ora-quick is supposed to be a highly accurate test.

Wednesday evening we attended the closing plenary, which summarized major findings and had another HIV-positive speaker inspire the audience to work harder to end the epidemic. IAS also said goodbye to its outgoing Executive Director and looked forward to the next conference to be held in Rome in July 2011.

Cape Town Part I: Table Mountain, Robben Island and Wine Tour

This week has been such a whirlwind that I'm not sure where to begin. I absolutely love Cape Town. It is definitely one of my favorite places that I have ever visited. Set in a spectacular location on the ocean surrounded by imposing mountains and filled with palm trees, Cape Town is shaped by a rich history, filled with diverse people, delicious restaurants and a lively culture.

After a 2 hour flight delay I took off for the quick flight to Cape Town last Thursday night. When we landed I met a nice family from Wisconsin traveling throughout South Africa. I was supposed to be met by the Backpackers Bus to take me to a hostel on Long Street, but I think it left because my flight was delayed. Instead I had to catch a cab, which was a bit more expensive. The man at the information desk helped me find a taxi driver who gave a good rate, but wasn't an "official" driver. When the metered taxis saw this, one of the drivers ran over and began to argue in front of me that he wasn't a legitimate taxi. It made me a bit uneasy over which I should take, but I trusted the man who worked at the information desk. I soon learned that metered taxis are a HUGE ripoff and most people who take taxis in Cape Town have a relationship with a few taxi drivers with whom they negotiate prices.

I stayed at Long Street Backpackers for a couple nights, which is a hostel located in the center of town and is convenient for touring. The next morning I woke up really early despite getting hardly any sleep since I was staying in a dorm-style hostel with college-aged students arriving at all hours of the night. It was also freezing with just one little blanket. I caught a cab to Table Mountain to go up the cable car before it closed for repairs two days later. The view was spectacular! The top of the mountain was covered with rugged rocks and small grassy plants and it was possible to walk around the top of the mountain to get amazing views in all directions. I snapped tons of pictures and met missionaries from South Carolina, Canadians, French and people of nearly every nationality except South African. There were cute rodents which lived on the mountain, but I'm not sure what they were called.

After being awestruck by the beauty of Table Mountain, I took a cab to the V & A Waterfront, a touristy area of Cape Town from where I caught a boat to Robben Island. Robben Island is an island about a 30 minute boat ride from Cape Town and the location of a famous prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years (the other 9 he was held on the mainland) and was used as a place of isolation for people with lepresy before that. Visiting Robben Island was a very moving experience. Our tour guide showed us the place where Robert Sobukwe was held for many years, not as a "prisoner" but in isolation. We also saw the sandy pit were prisoners were forced to perform hard labor and the cave in the side of the pit where the more educated prisoners would conduct lessons to teach other prisoners in secrecy. I was surprised that the island also had a little town with a church, lighthouse, tennis courts and school. It would be a beautiful place to live, but is also home to about 8,000 rabbits and the 3rd largest colony of African penguins in the world. We ended the tour with a visit to the high security prison where Mandela was held. Our tour guide was a former political prisoner named Sparks who described the rationing of food and living conditions based on race. Whites were allowed to wear long sleeves, while black prisoners were forced to wear short sleeves even in the winter. The white prisoners received butter and jelly with bread while the black prisoners did not. It was shocking that even the prison conditions were dependent on race under apartheid. Also surprising was that political prisoners were considered more dangerous than normal prisoners who had committed rape and murder.

In the evening I met up with friends from Stanford working in Cape Town for the summer. One of the girls, Brittni took a seminar on South Africa with me last winter quarter. Sarah and Liese are the other two who are all living together this summer in Rondebosch a suburb of Cape Town and location of the University of Cape Town. I stayed with them after the first two nights in the hostel, which was much more fun and comfortable! For dinner we met up with friends of Brittni, Sarah and Liese including lots of Americans interning in Cape Town for the summer. We had a delicious meal at Mesopotamia, a Kurdish restaurant which had a middle eastern feel with dark red walls covered in antique pots and embroidered rugs. We ate a feast of lamb, chicken, veggies and delicious appetizers.

After dinner we walked around Long Street. Long Street is a busy street in Cape Town filled with restaurants, bars, backpacker hostels and clothing stores. It is a fun and lively area to be at night. We met up with more friends there. They included Jessica, a recent Stanford grad doing a Fulbright in South Africa and her friends Nick, also doing a Fulbright, and Mickey.

Saturday morning I woke up early again to catch my ride for the wine tour! Less than an hour outside of Cape Town are rolling green hills covered in vineyards, which reminds me of Paso Robles wine country. Our first stop was at a winery called Anura where we toured the cellars, learned about the wine making process and tasted wine and cheese. My favorite was the Sauvignon Blanc. The backdrop of the winery was a beautiful mountain, which I was told looked like a frog, but I didn't see the resemblance. Next we drove to a beautiful area filled with cyclists where we took a half hour bike ride at the foot of gorgeous mountains. I felt like I was in California, France or Switzerland biking amongst wineries and cyclists. After some good exercise we headed to Stellenbosch where we explored the town. Stellenbosch is home to a beautiful white church, called the Dutch Reformed Church.

After exploring Stellenbosch we had lunch and another wine tasting in Franschoek a town founded by French Huegoneots. Next we headed to a winery that specialized in champagne. This was my favorite winery by far! After our final tasting we stopped by one final winery not to taste wines, but to pet a cheetah! It was a beautiful animal, but very sleepy! Cheetahs sleep 18+ hours per day. The center raises money by allowing tourists to pet cheetahs and works to support the remaining cheetah population--they are the most endangered large cat in Africa.

Btw- the man at the Internet Cafe I'm at right now has an ADORABLE baby monkey :). He let us pet it, but warned of its sharp teeth!

Melville!

Today was a long day of researching at work for my article. I'm trying to get as much done as possible before I leave for Cape Town on Thursday!

This weekend was very relaxing and fun. On Friday after work Anna and I caught a ride down to Melville with a coworker who was born and raised in Soweto and now lives in Melville. Anna and I stayed in Melville for the weekend to dogsit for an adorable golden retriever, Jaischa, and an old cocker spaniel, Tikki. Tikki was bit of a trouble maker tearing through the trash and wandering into rooms he knew he wasn't supposed to go in while Jaischa was an active 2 year old who tore up her pillow! We were also housesitting for a Dutch couple during their vacation. The woman is a freelance journalist and has a pretty awesome job. She writes stories on topics of her choice and films videoclips for Dutch media. However, there are some restrictions. She was hoping to write a story on the culture of funerals in Soweto, where there are often 50+ funerals per weekend—a mark of AIDS—causing funerals to become a social experience and integral part of the culture, but she said editors are not enthusiastic about “another story on HIV in Africa,” forcing her to chose a more entertaining topic.

We stayed in their lovely Meditteranean-style home with a beautiful porch, braai (bbq), pool and gardens. Our room and the porch also had a gorgeous, panoramic view of Johannesburg. I loved the house with dark wood, comfy sofas, a relaxing bed and black and white checkered kitchen floor. However it wasn't the easiest house to learn to live in due to the extensive security measures. When we first arrived, we were shown the emergency button and pepperspray right next to our bed in case anybody came in. Next we were shown the locks on all the doors and windows, which blinds to keep shut so that nothing could be seen from the street and how to set the alarm system. This was all in addition to the 10 foot high walls surrounding the home and cage over the front yard (in case people were able to get over the wall topped with barbed wire). We were instructed to enter and leave from the garage door, always watching to make sure the door closes completely. The front door was to be used only if there was an electricity outage (which happens often). This required reaching behind the door unlocking the lock, throwing off a heavy metal bar and opening the gate. Once inside the caged in front yard we unlocked the front door before quickly turning off the alarm system.

The home also had the mark of apartheid. There was a small shack in the backyard where the maid lived with a broken window and concrete floor. The neighboring homes all also had the shacks leftover from apartheid.

On Saturday evening we walked around the corner to explore the popular nighttime destination. There were many bars and restaurants full of people of every race and nationality imaginable. Melville is known for being a diverse neighborhood, while Pretoria is known to be one of the more racially divided cities. (An interesting side note is that the name Pretoria is changing to the name Tshwane to reflect African rather than Boer heritage). After the host asked us a bit about ourselves, he seated us at a table where he thought we would have fun. We met people from France, Mauritius, Sweden, Ireland, the U.S. and Holland just at our table. I’m not sure if it was a foreign hangout destination or the host just led us to the “foreign” area, but I have a feeling it was the latter.

Sunday we had a relaxed day exploring Melville. Melville is a small, funky neighborhood with people from diverse backgrounds. It has one main street with delicious Sushi, Thai/Vietnamese, Mexican, Portugese, French, Italian and African restaurants interspersed with a couple of used bookstores, gift shops and fancy hair salons. The street was cute, but very short, so we explored another cluster of stores. On the way we passed two churches. On one side of the street was a large, brick building in which Afrikaners streamed out after mass, on the other side was a smaller, white stucco building with solely black people who were relaxing after mass. We continued over a small hill and down to the next cluster of more practical shops—grocery store, an Internet café etc. There was also a “Cool Runnings,” which is a chain of restaurant/bars that are painted in red, yellow and green and feature reggae music (and lots of smoking!) at night.

I’m off to Cape Town on Thursday and will be staying in Long Street Backpackers. I’m looking forward to hopefully meeting some more interesting, young people since I will be staying there alone, but also seeing the Stanford girls working in Cape Town as much as possible! My roommates just returned from 2 weeks in Cape Town and have told me how fabulous a place it is, especially the setting beside the ocean, between two beautiful mountains.

P.S. I have pics from the house and pups will post (but probably after Cape Town)

Afrobarometer Article and Brooklyn Outing

It's been a good week at the office, despite my bad luck of having bird droppings land on me on my way to work. Dirkie (the other intern) and I are working on an article comparing data collected by Afrobarometer in Zimbabwe and South Africa to measure the level of media access and its impact on active citizenship and interest in public affairs. It is a large project that requires background research on South Africa and Zimbabwe's media history, theoretical research on the role of journalists in promoting a democratic society and data analysis. It has been really helpful to work with Dirkie who is a Communications major and has taken multiple classes on technical data analysis!

Yesterday I went for my first run in Pretoria because I finally found a route and time of day when not too many people were around, but enough to feel safe. I ran down the busy Jorissen street through the University of Pretoria and by the rugby/soccer stadium. The school was very pretty with large brick buildings and athletic fields enclosed within brick walls. It was a lovely run except it was bitterly cold at 7 am; I watched each exhale in front of me and had bright red ears when I returned to the apartment.

Last night my flatmates and I went to Brooklyn, a nice area of Pretoria. We visited the health food store which had natural peanutbutter (one of my favorite snacks!) and tons of gluten-free food, vitamins, dried fruit etc. The store was in another large, American-like mall. I'm shocked by the number and size of malls here! We also saw 2 huge stores specializing in fancy evening gowns--think prom and wedding dresses galore. After perusing the mall we watched Sunshine Cleaning in an adorable old-fashioned theatre showing alternative movies. It was not the most uplifting movie, but it was well made and interesting to watch. For dinner we ate at a lovely Thai restaurant, which drew a largely Afrikaner and East Asian crowd despite its location in a mostly black African neighborhood. It has been interesting to observe the race dynamics and different perceptions of certain restaurants, shopping centers and neighborhoods held by people from different ethnic backgrounds.

This weekend I'm off to Melville to dogsit with Anna for a couple who works at Idasa. Melville is supposed to be one of the nicer suburbs of Johannesburg with good restaurants and shops to walk around. Next week will be a short one as I'm headed to Cape Town Thursday night for 11 days. I'll be attending the International AIDS Society's (IAS) conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention. I'm really looking forward to this, should be a great learning experience! There are speakers from all over the world talking about everything from new research on HIV prevention methods to the effects of the economic downturn. However, what I'm most looking forward to is meeting people interested in HIV/AIDS from around the world. GAP will be there representing Idasa and last year SIC (who I volunteered with last summer) sent a delegate to the Mexico City conference, and maybe they'll be in Cape Town this year!

Weekend in Jozi and Soweto

So much to say since I last wrote!

First, last Wednesday afternoon my flatmates and I went to the Pretoria zoo for the afternoon because we have a friend who works there. He gave us free passes and a golf cart tour of the park. It was a pretty area set right in central Pretoria. We saw gorgeous peacocks, 3 huge rhinos, zebras, lions, tigers, elephants, flamingoes, kangaroos, bears, okapi, crocs and alligators, tons of antelope and a bunch of strange fish. One fish didn’t have any eyes, called “cave fish,” and another fish that walked around on the ground. Unfortunately, my camera battery died just after we arrived :(.

Thursday we walked to nearby Church Square after work, also in city center. It has beautiful architecture and a sculpture in the middle. However, most businesses have deserted the city center in both Pretoria and Johannesburg so it is not a very nice area. There is broken glass scattered across the square and a lot of loitering. In the evening I played action cricket with Idasa’s cricket team. It was really fun! Action cricket is an adapted version of cricket played indoors with fewer players. Everyone was really nice and patient teaching me the rules! The game is pretty simple; you have to hit the ball with a bat then sprint across the line before the other team either catches the ball in the air or hits a wicket (little sticks on either end). Your partner in batting has to run in the opposite direction when you hit the ball. After everyone on one team bats, you switch sides.

Friday Anna and I headed to Johannesburg, also known as Jo’burg and Jozi, for the weekend. Jo’burg is about 45 minutes away, but usually longer with traffic. It is one of the major, if not the major, economic hub of Africa. An enormous city, Johannesburg has suburbs sprawling out in all directions with everything from millionaire mansions to squatter camps. Even more so than Pretoria, most of the businesses have moved to the northern suburbs because the city center is notoriously dangerous. The city is also surprisingly segregated with certain areas in which each race dominates.

A girl from work asked her brother to give us a ride down to our hostel, which took an hour and a half in traffic! She pointed out the more famous monuments while her younger brother’s driving terrified me a bit… On the drive up we passed China town in the suburb where our hostel was located—Eastgate. It was definitely a mini-version compared to SanFran but had a large Asian population. We stayed at a hostel called Brown Sugar Backpackers in Eastgate, a southeastern suburb. The hostel was great and so much fun! It was in an old mansion on a hill with a panoramic view of the city (pictures above!). It’s run by a super friendly woman who went out of her way to help out guests. When we first arrived she told us our room was in an outdoor hut with one bed, barely wider than a twin bed and nothing else in the room. The room was probably less than 6ft. by 6ft. Luckily we were able to switch rooms because it would have been freezing outside! She moved us to a room with a larger bed in the main building called the glass room because the ceiling was made of glass. It was an addition to the original mansion, but made for an interesting room! However even this room didn’t have heating. Almost no buildings have central heating in South Africa even though it gets to freezing temperatures, but there were space heaters downstairs.

It was a fun place to hang out in the evenings that felt like a combination of summer camp and college. We ate group meals and cooked food for each other in the morning. There was a lounge with a pool table, couches and games filled with loads of young, interesting people. The first couple I met was from Australia and were in the middle of a year long trip around the world. They had been throughout Southeast Asia (the Philippines beaches was their favorite so far) and had been in South Africa about a month. They rented a minivan and had been driving from hostel to hostel. After South Africa their next stop is Central and South America. We also met a ton of people from the British Isles spending the weekend to go to the Lions vs. Springbok rugby game. The Lions are a rugby team formed every four years of the best players from the British Isles. The team alternates going to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to play a tournament. Apparently this is a huge deal and tons of people fly down to watch the games every four years. We met three Scottish boys, 4 good-humored Irish and an Oxford grad training to be a professional swimmer. I also met a fair number of solo travelers including a woman from Toronto who works in Dubai, an American studying for a semester at University of Cape Town, another working at wild animal refuges and a third working in Zambia. Staying at hostels is great because they are full of young people open to meeting anyone and everyone. There was also a cute, elderly South African man who was filming the scene and each guest left a message on the video.

On Saturday, while the majority of the hostel headed to the rugby game, we walked to the Bruma flea market just a half hour walk down the road. The flea market had lots of cheap clothing, music, sunglasses plus the normal display of African ebony sculptures, scarves and beaded jewelry. At the flea market we met our taxi driver. The best way to get around is to become friends with taxi drivers, then you can get their number and call them whenever you need a lift. After the flea market, we took a taxi to Constitution Hill where we visited the highest courtroom in South Africa and saw the remnants of a prison where leaders from most major liberation groups were held including Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi. From the hill we walked through Braamfontein, got a glance of the University of Witswatersand and crossed the Nelson Mandela Bridge to get to Newtown. My favorite part was the Nelson Mandela bridge because it had a nice view of the city and tons of bright yellow, green and purple trains down below. I couldn’t resist snapping a few pictures—carefully! We had been told Newtown was one of the nicer areas in central Johannesburg, but in reality it was bare and a bit deserted. The restaurant I was looking for had been closed and there were very few people in the plaza. A few craft markets were open near Market Theater and we saw the outside of Museum Africa, but unfortunately it was already closed.

After an early dinner in Newtown, we headed back to the hostel for a much quieter evening hanging out by the heat lamp and playing scrabble. My new Irish friend tried to explain the difference between the British Isles, Ireland, the UK, England etc. but it was a confusing distinction especially when it came to sports. For many sports, but not all, Northern Ireland and Ireland share a team even though Northern Ireland is technically part of Great Britain but for other sports they have separte teams. He also said many people from Northern Ireland describe themselves as Irish despite not actually having Irish citizenship… it makes sense, but is confusing to an outsider! He also explained a bit about the education system. Similar to many European countries and South Africa there is a major exam taken at the end of high school and the score you get determines which careers you can pursue. The test is out of 600 points and to become a doctor, for example, you need to score nearly 600 and to become an electrical engineer at least 200. It was fun to hang out in the hostel, play pool, drink tons of hot tea and mingle with the constantly changing crowd. I also spent a lot of time paging through tourist books about all the sites and hostels across South Africa.

Sunday morning Anna and I took a tour of Soweto and Jo’burg. We were picked up at 9:30 and headed to the township. My first reaction was surprise at the size of Soweto. It sprawled over rolling hills and contained a huge amount of diversity from the direly poor to middle and even upper classes. There was a large shopping mall, a stadium and even a KFC. We began our tour in the upper-class Soweto neighborhoods. It was definitely a surprise to find beautiful homes with sculptures of Greek gods outside and many without any high gates armed with spikes and barbed wire. The township is actually considered safer by many than areas of the city and a lot don’t use walls. Although there were beautiful homes, just a block away from the most expensive homes were tin shacks that looked like outhouses, fires burning piles of trash and stacks of bricks and dirt left as the remains of old buildings. We continued the tour to the middle class neighborhoods and finally to the poorest squatter camps. Soweto was also very segregated, like Johannesburg. Our guide strongly emphasized the point that NO whites live in Soweto, and there are certain colored and Indian townships. Along the way we stopped to visit a woman’s home, Regina Mundi Church, the historic power plant (with the 2 famous graffiti tours), Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu’s homes and the Hector Pieterson Memorial. Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu still live in Soweto, but Mandela has moved to a wealthier suburb. The Hector Pieterson Memorial and the corner where he was shot were very moving. Hector Pieterson was the youngest person, at only 13, to die in the uprising on June 16, 1976 in which the police opened fire in the township of Orlando, killing many youth. Pieterson was caught in crossfire between the police and students on his way home from school. At the memorial, there was a stone wall commemorating the bodies of those who were never found that died in the uprising and a stream symbolizing the tears shed for those lost. The entire time I could not believe how recently these events had taken place—when my parents were in college!

We had lunch at a buffet style restaurant with traditional African food. I skipped the tripe, but tried most of the rest of it…including the vegetable fat ice cream, which wasn’t too bad. My favorite dish was the bread. It’s hard to describe, but it was fresh and almost doughy, traditionally cooked at home to save money in the township. Our guide Sam said in the village you spend 100 rand a week, in the township 500 rand a week and in town 500 rand a day (divide the rand by 8 to get a dollar). Again, I met interesting people on the tour! There was a young couple who live in Malawi, two British college students and a couple of sisters from Finland. The younger sister is doing an internship with the Finnish embassy in Pretoria. It’s a requirement for her degree to both do an internship AND study abroad. We’re hoping to meet up again soon since she lives nearby.

In the afternoon we went to the Apartheid Museum set next to Gold Reef City, a popular amusement park, just outside the city. The museum was fascinating and sad from the beginning. The exterior is a concrete building with heavy slabs of concrete labeled “democracy,” “freedom,” “equality” etc. rising from the building. There were also copper fences adding to the feeling of being jailed inside the museum. When we entered we were given cards designating our race as “white” or “non-white,” which determined which entrance we took to enter the museum. It was an artsy indoor-outdoor museum with powerful videos and first-hand accounts. There was also a special dedication to Helen Suzman, a white liberal who advocated to end apartheid, and just died on January 1^st, 2009. I also really enjoyed a special Mandela exhibit, which followed his life from childhood to present showing his amazing journey from tribal royalty to a scholar, advocate, prisoner, leader and politician. My favorite part was a wall with many of Mandela’s most famous quotes about everything from courage to justice to love. The museum was small by American museum standards, but I could spend hours in there—every word, film clip and picture told a story.

After a very historical day, we came back to Pretoria on a long, rainy drive. Back to work tomorrow… looking forward to starting a new project this week and having more of my coworkers in GAP back in town!

Hope you’re doing well, I love hearing from you! It feels far away over here!