locating, orientating

Thoughts on life in my house: mostly relaxing. We’re currently sitting around drinking a several bottles of wine and getting ready to heat up the coals for a braai—tradtional South African barbecue. We’re frying veggies and pineapple for me and boerwors sausage for the meat eaters.

Things at UCT: mostly stressful. We spent over 4 hours today taking a standardized test to prove we graduated high school. We’ve spent a couple days in orientation lectures, including how to register for class, all the paperwork that needs to be sorted out and how to find the appropriate staff to help you—only no one here answers emails. Everything’s done by paper, so it means running around to visit heads of departments, asking them to approve you for any course you’d like to take, and then going back to your ‘faculty’ to register. No approval, no class. It means lots of lines and hassles and gazillions of forms, but hey, that’s bureaucracy.

here's tehya's album: http://picasaweb.google.com/mkcarlson2/TehyaDoesSouthAfrica# check it out

I’ve learned lots of surprising things about South Africa since I’ve been here.

some interesting things I’ve thought about:

- The barefoot culture: class, grocery shopping, walking to pharmacy: no shoes, no problems, no worries. I’ve tried it out. Thoughts: nice. but mostly just dirty.

- The weather: it’s so hot and so humid, fruit spoils in a day. a mango bought at ten at the morning is spoiled by 5 pm. it’s intense. grocery shop every day if you can.

- Concepts of time: everything’s slow except the driving. Keep in mind, professors have right of superiority and drivers have the right of way. You got hit by a car? Bummer, legally, you’ll pay for the damages.

- There are infinite uses of the word now. You can say ‘just now’, for in a few hours, or ‘Juuuust now’ for in several few hours, or ‘now now’ for in a few minutes, or ‘right about now’ for who even knows when. Goodness.

- Panic Buttons: I didn’t really believe they existed, but our house is equipped with thirteen—one for each of us. The idea is, you keep it with you and when there’s a burglary or what have you, you press the button and activate the alarm. It seems crazy at first but then you look around at the bars on every door and window and it’s pretty obvious. Crime is an issue. Fact. Bring enough cash with you for a good night but lock up your computers and valuables. You kind of expect to be mugged. It’s strange but not that strange—it’s just how you live.

We took a tour the other day of the Cape of Good Hope, the place where explorers began to go more eastward than southward, or something. It was beautiful, windy, and glorious. Enjoy.

The Cape of Good Hope (good luck, eh?)





Penguins on the penguin colony in Simons Town.


Mama and baby


Cape Town's rocky coast


Clifton Bay, table mountain