Africa bound, again

[Vinilaa]

Beginning on May 30th I'll be in RSA for 9 weeks. I'm going to travel around Cape Town from May 30 - June 8, then head to Durban for the film festival and Winter School. I'm going to do the service learning program and hopefully get a paper published while I'm there. I'll leave Durban July 29th and I'm thinking about taking a train to Jo'burg, then I fly out of Jo'burg Aug. 9th.

I think it will be fun to take a train across the country, even for such a short distance.

Hopefully Travelocity won't scrizor me if I don't take my flight from Durban to Jo'burg. Those people seriously have their heads up their asses and their customer service is the absolute worst.

In fact, I'm on terminal hold with one of their agents right now! Joy! :wiltrose:

I'll post updates when I can.

[Andriana Duskrose]

Beginning on May 30th I'll be in RSA for 9 weeks. I'm going to travel around Cape Town from May 30 - June 8, then head to Durban for the film festival and Winter School. I'm going to do the service learning program and hopefully get a paper published while I'm there. I'll leave Durban July 29th and I'm thinking about taking a train to Jo'burg, then I fly out of Jo'burg Aug. 9th.

I think it will be fun to take a train across the country, even for such a short distance.

Hopefully Travelocity won't scrizor me if I don't take my flight from Durban to Jo'burg. Those people seriously have their heads up their asses and their customer service is the absolute worst.

In fact, I'm on terminal hold with one of their agents right now! Joy! :wiltrose:

I'll post updates when I can.

Have fun eh! And don't burn too much coffee down there.

[BobDole901]

Have fun eh! And don't burn too much coffee down there.


It's not called the Dark Continent for nothing!

[Qaediin]

Have fun Vin. Remember take pictures and post them=)

[Mystrae]

Beginning on May 30th I'll be in RSA for 9 weeks. I'm going to travel around Cape Town from May 30 - June 8, then head to Durban for the film festival and Winter School. I'm going to do the service learning program and hopefully get a paper published while I'm there. I'll leave Durban July 29th and I'm thinking about taking a train to Jo'burg, then I fly out of Jo'burg Aug. 9th.

I think it will be fun to take a train across the country, even for such a short distance.

Hopefully Travelocity won't scrizor me if I don't take my flight from Durban to Jo'burg. Those people seriously have their heads up their asses and their customer service is the absolute worst.

In fact, I'm on terminal hold with one of their agents right now! Joy! :wiltrose:

I'll post updates when I can.

Sounds Fun Vini! And as Q said.. Remember to take pictures and post them! 8)

[nwinn]

Have a safe trip, assuming you're not on hold anymore! :D

[Vinilaa]

Have a safe trip, assuming you're not on hold anymore! :D

I'm off hold and in Cape Town but don't get me started on those jerks at Travelocity. I h ate them!!!


but I <3 Nwinn!!!

I have my camera. I'll post pics when I can.

[Kirynos]

Enjoy yourself!

:confuse:

[Zeldapika]

Have a blast and post lots of pictures! :D

[Rhedd]

OMG Vini! You are going to africa again and you DIDNT TAKE ME AGAIN! IM CRUSHED>

[Vinilaa]

OMG Vini! You are going to africa again and you DIDNT TAKE ME AGAIN! IM CRUSHED>

Sorry Rhedd, customs here is very strict!! NO DORFS allowed. :|

I climbed Table Mountain yesterday and took the aerial cable car down. It was amazing!

I took some photos but it might be a while before I can upload them.

So far I've visited some Townships, gone wine tasting, toured Cape Point and the Waterfront and hiked up Table Mountain. :D

[Rhedd]

Sounds like you are having a great time again!

Ps. The hole customs crap is bullshit =\ Dwarves are far more uber than humans anyway!

[Vinilaa]

I'm in Durban now, staying at the Hippo Hide until Winter School starts on
the 27th.

I enjoyed Cape Town very much, I almost wish I'd spent more time there.

The Green Elephant was a great backpackers and I highly recommend it.
Defa, the dog, can climb trees! hehe

I went wine tasting with Avon and Lucy, Avon is from Jo'burg and Lucy is
from England. We had a great time. It was a nice drive up the coast and
then inland to Stellenboch. We went to two wineries, both were on lovely
estates where they have all the fancy stuff you'd expect from a wine tour.
The first winery, Delheim, was not very impressive. We went on their wine
tour and tasting but the wine was not that good. Then we went to Simonsig
and that wine was very good. I bought a bottle for Avon since he drove us
up there; but when we got back to the backpackers, Avon set the bag down
outside and the wind blew it right off the picnic table. Oh well, it was a
nice wine...

The next day I went to Cape Point with a group of women from Belfast. Who
are in Cape Town studying physio-therapy. They have a five-week internship
at a teaching hospital near the Green Elephant. We had a great time even
though the weather wasn't that good.

I also went to Table Mountain, and Robben Island. I'll write more details
later, when I get to UKZN and internet isn't R10 for 20 minutes.

[Vinilaa]

I'm moved into the dorm here at UKZN. I moved in on Monday but have been busy with orientations, classes and helping out the newbies. :p

This weekend we're heading to the Drakensburg and then to Ladysmith to see some Zulu battlesites.

I'll write more when I return.

HUGS!!!!!

[Thuggo]

Have you found Dr. Livingstone yet?

[Vanuiil]

hope your enjoying yourself vini! i miss you!

[Vinilaa]

Have you found Dr. Livingstone yet?

I think we ate pieces of him in some poyqui we had in the Zulu Kingdom... :o

[Vinilaa]

hope your enjoying yourself vini! i miss you!

I miss you too!

I'm having a great time; however, yesterday I went to my first day at my Service Learning placement... Westville Prison.

It was too much for me... I couldn't handle it. I was very uncomfortable... :sad:

I'm going to work in the Edith Benson Children's Home instead. ;)

[Vinilaa]

Sorry it's been so long since I've written anything. Since I've arrived on
campus I've felt as if I've been in a whirlwind. I've barely had time to
catch my breath.

On Monday, June 27 we moved into the res. and got settled in. There are 27
International Students and it's been interesting getting to know them all.

On Tuesday we had orientations... all day long. Yeah, all day.

On Wednesday we had a tour of campus and got our Library and LAN
orientations. We also had our Service Learning Orientation. Thursday we
began classes. On Friday we had classes in the morning but then left for
the Drakensberg at 1pm.

In the Drakensberg we stayed at Giants' Castle and had a great buffet
dinner. That place was seriously swank. Here's a link!
http://www.amatikulu.com/giants_cas...commodation.htm

From Drakensberg we went on to the Zulu Kingdom and Boer/British/Zulu
battle sites. I'll post more about that later.

So tomorrow I leave UKZN for Amphitheatre in the Northern Drakensberg and
then go on to Johannesburg for a week before I head home to Raleigh.

Amphitheatre is truly amazing from what I understand and I'm excited to
see the Apartheid museum in Jo'burg.

However, let me finish my UKZN update before I get too far ahead of myself.

I told you about the Drakensberg/Zulu Battle sites weekend. After that
weekend trip the Service Learning students were to report to their
placements. I was sent to Westville Prison to learn about/participate in
this project called, "Theatre of the Oppressed" based on theories by Paulo
Freire and Myra Bergman Ramos from their book, "Pedagogy of the
Oppressed". Here's a link with some info:
http://www.marxists.org/subject/edu...reire/pedagogy/

There's a book written by Augusto Boal about using theatre as a way to
rehabilitate the disenfranchised... Here's a link:
http://www.wwcd.org/action/Boal.html

There are some very interesting ideas, anyway, Westville prison has a
project in which they use theories from Freire and Boal in order to
rehabilitate criminals... the prisons here are badly overcrowded b/c the
quality of life in prison, while not great, is still a far cry better than
that in a township. Needless to say, there are issues...

On the first day the Service Learning bus took us up to the prison but we
had to wait 45 minutes for security clearance... even though they knew to
expect us. I understand these things happen but we were the first ones
dropped off and other students had to get to their placements as well.
Then we went to a conference room where the wardens and guards were having an impromtu birthday party for a bigwig commisioner or some such from
Pretoria. We had cake and tea. We also discussed differences between the
US correctional system and the one here. There are some interesting
differences... their system is probably in many ways more humane than
ours; however, I think they take some things too far, for example
prisoners with HIV/AIDS are not allowed to be discriminated against which
means someone who is HIV/AIDS positive is not allowed to be separated from
the general population. Fine ok, I understand, but when you see the stats
for rape within the prison, I don't feel like that solution is the best
for everyone concerned.

I didn't feel safe walking around the prison. But I'll get to that. After
the b-day party we went to a bar... yes, a bar in the prison. It's for the
guards... in fact much of the prison looked like a country club for guards
where, oh yeah, there are these people who need keeping track of... But
let's not call them criminals because that's a pejorative label.

Ok so the prison...

We're sitting in this bar in the prison, which is weird, and then we have
a 30 min. lecture by a woman who is involved in the Theatre of the
Oppressed project. The lecture is extremely interesting and informative
but then she leaves... and we're sitting there thinking, "and? what are we
supposed to do?" On top of that, Mr. Palay, the main warden at the prison
starts telling us all this mixed up stuff about the US and when we try to
correct him he gets this attitude like, "poor stupid Americans, you don't
know anything about your own country." Great fun. Really. Then he and the
guard who is supposed to show us around the prison start asking us if we
have anyone to show us the Durban nightlife... we stare at him
dumbfounded. So he says, making a dancing gesture with his arms, "you know
nightclubs, dancing." We all look at each other. Oh perhaps I forgot to
mention that my group of students is comprised entirely of women... 7 of
us to be exact. So then Mr. Palay says, "we could take you out..." I
immediately dislike the direction of this conversation and so I cut him
short and say as curtly as I can, "we have an entertainment coordinator
through the university who takes us out. Thanks." He chuckles. Oh and at
some point, I don't remember when exactly but it was during the "you're
such stupid spoiled Americans" lecture, he makes what I think is an
extremely inappropriate comment about "do you know how many millions of
sperm had to die so that you could live..." I have no idea what that was
supposed to mean, nor do I want to know.

At this point I'm feeling very uncomfortable. But wait, there's more. Then
they ask us about a braai (South African BBQ) ask us what kind of alcohol
we'd like to drink (keep in mind not only is this inappropriate for the
situation, but some of the women present are under 21), and they
persistently try to pin us down on a date... I'm volunteered as the
spokesperson, mostly just because no one else is saying anything. I say,
"we have a very tight schedule and I don't think it will work for us, but
thanks anyway." But that's not good enough, they keep saying things like,
"well what about in the afternoon toward the last week..." "we have other
classes and exams to study for." Finally they force us to pick a date so I
arbitrarily pick one just to get out of the conversation and on with our
day... it's around lunch time and we were on our bus at 7:30am in order to
get to the prison by 8am.

So it's lunch time, we go to the guards cafeteria... whatever, we eat.
Then we have a tour of the prison but time is running out as the prison is
locked down at 3:30 (also the time our bus is supposed to fetch us) and
it's getting close to 2pm. So we rush through our tour, which is good
because we felt like we were being paraded around; basically we were ogled
by inmates and guards alike... it was nauseating. I was angry. I felt
completely unsafe in the situation. On the way into the prison the guard
at the gate made a joke about strip searching us, we didn't find it
humorous in the least. We stood in a cell with over 100 inmates wandering
around and only 2 guards and all around us the inmates are like, "hey
baby. /wink" On our return to the res. one girl was crying and called
Andrea to ask to be placed elsewhere. I called our Service Learning
professors and told them what happened but I felt like they didn't believe
me, or take my complaint seriously at all. However, they did change the
placements of those who wished to be reassigned and I was reassigned to
the Edith Benson Children's Home.

Ok this is turning into a novel rather than just a chapter so I'll write
more later. As soon as I get another chance to hop on the net I'll tell you about the rest of winter school because I'm sure you're dying to know.

Currently I'm in Jo'burg. I'll stay here till Wednesday and then head back to Durban. I'm flying home August 8 from Durban.

Bye for now.

[Vidmer]

Ugh, that sounds awful. I think I'm going to scratch South African prisons off my too see list. I don't think that theatre rehabilitation is working on the guards or inmates. I'm glad you got out of there ok.

[Kirynos]

Wow, yeah... be careful. It's somewhat mind boggling to send all women to do service at a prision anyways.

:confuse:

[Vinilaa]

Completely mind boggling... so anyway I switched from the prison to the Edith Benson Children's Home and that was a much better placement.

However, there is more to tell about the prison... because we ended up having to go back there the next week on a field trip to "demystify" the experience... wtf ever that means. :confused:

I'll get into that a bit later. Now I'm just hanging out at the Hippo Hide waiting to fly home on Monday. :p I may go see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy later today.

Cheers!

[Kirynos]

Is that a bar? or what is it?

:confuse:

[Vinilaa]

Is that a bar? or what is it?

:confuse:

hehe the Hippo Hide is the backpacker's I've been staying at here in Durban, when I haven't been living at the University. :o

http://durban.kzn.org.za/durban/516.xml

[Stacked]

A woman in an all male prison? Come on tell me you didn't exspect to be eyed like a piece of meat.

[Kirynos]

I wouldn't think That about meat...

:confuse:

[Vinilaa]

A woman in an all male prison? Come on tell me you didn't exspect to be eyed like a piece of meat.

Obviously I'd expect as much from the inmates, but from the guards as well? No I wasn't expecting that. /shrug :o

[Andriana Duskrose]

Obviously I'd expect as much from the inmates, but from the guards as well? No I wasn't expecting that. /shrug :o

See, not only are they men, they are pigs too! MEN PIGS! :eek:

[deezy]

See, not only are they men, they are pigs too! MEN PIGS! :eek:
You're pretty good at this game. ;)

[Andriana Duskrose]

You're pretty good at this game. ;)

Well, it takes one to know one! Errrr wait! Awwww Fuck! :(

[Kirynos]

Some of us try our best to not be so stereotypical. The rest of us bash those guys, and call them metrosexual.

:confuse: