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.