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!
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