away with the fairies

So I mentioned Hogsback briefly yesterday, I will give a little more detail now.  Props to Uyen, another girl from BC, who set this trip up.  She hired the driving service and booked the hostel, thanks Uyen!  So anyway we left Saturday morning at 9 for Hogsback, which is about a 2.5 hour trip.  We were all planning on sleeping, but our driver recommended we stay awake to see the scenery.  Good recommendation.  It was gorgeous.  Hills just covered in trees, you saw no actual land anywhere.  She said it was called “Broccoli County” because it looked like broccoli everywhere, and it did!  The hogs themselves (not the animal, but the hill tops) were very impressive as well.  Everything was beautiful and it was a nice change of pace.  After we unloaded our stuff we decided to set out on the long hike to Madonna and Child Falls.   Along the way there were two other waterfalls we took little detours to.  These first two babies were like psych-outs…nothing impressive.  But once we got to Madonna and Child, WOW.  It was tremendous. After that we hiked back for dinner and decided to watch the sunset from the treehouse.  We were all envisioning this “treehouse” to be a platform about 15 ft off the ground.  Boy were we wrong.  We got to it and it was a relatively small platform about 50 ft off the ground, which a ladder change in the middle that was a little tricky to maneuver.  Also, had there been more than 6 of us up there I’m pretty convinced that thing would have fallen from the sky.  It was an AMAZING view once we got up there though, and definitely worth it.  That night we chatted under the gorgeous stars (more than I have ever seen).  I saw four shooting stars and the sight of the Milky Way was breathtaking.  I don’t know if I have ever felt that relaxed and truly surrounded by nature. 

Welp, the next day I was even more surrounded by nature.  Surrounded isn’t the correct term, engulfed is more like it.  Half the group decided to go abseiling down the Madonna and Child Falls, and Kate, Sarah, and I wanted to hike to the Eco Shrine.  So we split up and went our separate ways.  My group stopped at the Visitor’s Center for better-detailed directions to the shrine, and we were told to just follow the signage.  Easy enough we thought.  We were wrong.  So everything started off great.  We saw the signs for the Eco Shrine so we followed them.  Then the signs stopped appearing, and forks in the path seemed to be getting greater.  So we were kind of playing the guessing game, trying to follow the path that seemed most used.  No offence Robert Frost, but this was not the time to take the road not taken.  Well it didn’t get us to the Eco Shrine.  We finally saw what looked like an opening to the shrine and started rejoicing, until we heard cars.  We opened up on……a highway! So basically the opposite of an Eco Shrine.  We just laughed and decided we were not meant to see it and decided to head back, not before getting semi-lost first. (Don’t worry Mom, we were never actually lost, just faced with a plethora of choices.)  There was a point when we were standing at a break in the forest and no path was visible.  But us three intelligent ladies made it out alive.  There was of course that point on the hike when Sarah and I were discussing all the different poisonous snakes we had learned about in our Zoo class the week before and I’m pretty sure almost gave Kate a heart attack.  Not to worry no animal encounters, although we did hear monkeys!  What was so weird about this hike was as we went deeper we kept going farther and farther down.  The whole time I was thinking “Well this is gonna suuuuck on the return trip.”  Somehow we were out of the forest in 15 minutes.  I’m still baffled and going to assume a] the fairies did it (the name of our hostel was Away with the Fairies) or b] that forest was some sort of time warp.  I half expected that when we got back to the town it was going to be 100 years earlier or something. 

All in all it was a wonderful trip and a great break from Grahamstown.  I am working on putting pictures on Picassa so when those are up I will post the link.  

Me, Kate, and Sarah in the "infinity tub"

hogsback!

So this weekend the BC group plus our new friend Kate from NY took a lil trip to Hogsback, South Africa.  It was gorgeous.  It's where JRR Tolkein got his inspiration for Lord of the Rings. Ya.  I will post more about our awesome hikes later, I am exhausted. And there will be more pictures to come but someone downloaded a lil too much Modern Family, The Office, and 30 Rock so her internet quota is practically depleted. OOPS. I don't regret it.

But I will leave you with a lil something...

Madonna and Child Falls

This was the glorious waterfall waiting for us at the end of our hike.  Well actually the middle, because then we had to turn around and hike all the way back.  Mostly uphill. Ouch. 

Schreeeeeineeeeeer! Awoo Awoo Awoo!

That would be my house call/cheer/whatever you wanna call it. And I know there are some people out there that are skeptical about me having real South African friends. Well you better believe it.

Some of the girls of Olive Schreiner!

Hayley, Megan, Meeeee, Chyanne, Jen, Sarah

Molweni bahlobo bam!

translation: Hello my friends!

Today was my first isiXhosa tutorial and man was it overwhelmimg.  The way it works at Rhodes is that there are lectures, tutorials (tuts), and practicals (pracs).  Basically each class is made up of 3-5 lectures a week accompanied by tuts or pracs.  The tuts and pracs are more important than the lectures and are interactive.  It’s like a discussion group at BC that actually matters.  My zoo class has a 3 hour prac every Wednesday (this week we are dissecting turtles), my art history class has a weekly tut (which I also had for the first time today), and my isiXhosa class has two tuts a week. That was a lot of parentheses, I’ll try and stay away from those for a while. (No guarantees.  Actually, because I will be translating some things, I can guarantee the opposite.)

Anyway, today was my first isiXhosa tut and the titshalakazi (female teacher) walked in and spoke only isiXhosa. Clicks and all. I looked around.  Half of the people in the class completely understood and were responding. Why are they in isiXhosa 1 non-mother tongue??? Luckily, the other half of the class looked as terrified as I did.  The only thing she said in English was“in this class, we only speak Xhosa.” She then started asking us questions in Xhosa and expecting us to respond. In Xhosa.  I was the fourth person down the line and I was preceded by three people who already spoke Xhosa. Awesome. No help for me. Oh well. I was able to answer what my name was and how I was doing, but I didn’t remember the word for surname so I became a little confused by that. How did I respond? By speaking Spanish. Ya…

Titshalakazi: Molo sisi (Hello sister)

Claire: Molo titshalakazi (Hello teacher)

T: Unjani sisi? (How are you?)

C: Ndiphilile, enkosi. Unjani wena? (I am fine, thank you. And how are you?)

T: Ndiphilile, enkosi. Ungubani igama lakho sisi? (What is your name?)

C: Igama lam nguClaire. (My name is Claire)

T: Ungubani ifani yakho sisi? (What is your surname?)

[[sidenote: She has a very heavy accent and is speaking rapidly. Can you blame me for not understanding a question in a language I have never heard before?]]

C: Ifani yam….ehhh…lo siento pero no se….ohhhhhh……ifani yam nguKreeft. (My surname is….ehhh…I am sorry but I don’t know…ohhhhh….my surname is Kreeft)

Phew. Made it out alive.  We also had to say where we came from and when I said California she made all these noises and said things and people laughed and I had NO CLUE what was going on. So, being me, I sat there and smiled because that’s what I do when I’m nervous. She then just stared at me and then it got silent. And awkward. At least I felt that way. Then she said in English “I will ask you a question later about that, when you have learned more Xhosa.” What does that mean??? I guess I will find out later. 

and how could i forget???

WELCOME TO THE WORLD MaryJane "Janie" Heffernan!

Sending you love and cuddles from Africa!! Congratulations to my cousin and lovely godmother Mary and her husband Brian on their third beautiful daughter.  I can't believe I will have to wait so long to meet you!  Maybe a skype session with the Heffernan girls will be in order? I know Maisie will be a GREAT big sister and Francie will continue to be the veteran big sis she is.

Love and miss my entire family!

and a few more...

finally a photo with me in it yay! ps the cross body trend is worldwide. literally every girl has one and i have yet to see a normal purse. 

 look we have friends!

 the pool, or "the beach" as some call it. ya not gonna lie much time will be spent here....

a few random photos...

I have to admit, I have been TERRIBLE in the photo department so far. When I remember to bring my camera, it's gross out. When I realize I have forgotten it in my room, it's beautiful out. Don't worry though, when I hold my first baby lion there will be so many photos it will probably make you sick. Not really though. It's not possible for my face or the face of a BABY LION to make you feel sick. It will probably make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Regardless, on to a few photos that have already been taken...

the clocktower of Rhodes

 the view from the clocktower - looks towards High Street

 part of the townships

 a donkey just chillin on the sidewalk

 an overview of part of Grahamstown, the church in the middle of the left edge of the photo marks part of "downtown"

blah blah blah

This school does not know how to handle exchange students.  Today I had my first practical for zoology. When I registered for this class, I explained to the professor that I am an exchange student just here for 5 months. He said I should be fine and would not have to do the big year-long project since I would only be here half a year. He failed to tell me that there were required materials for the weekly practicals. We had a zoo lecture earlier today, and he reminded the class to bring their lab coats and dissection kits to the lab. “I don’t have a lab coat nor a dissection kit” I thought to myself. After class Sarah and I went to ask him what we were supposed to do about our lack of materials. He said we would get it sorted out at the practical.  When asked if we needed anything else, he responded with “a writing utensil and some paper.” Seemed simple enough, both of those were in my bag already. Welp, I was wrong.  We show up to practical and were able to buy the dissection kits and borrow lab coats. We picked up the procedure and started dissecting our frogs. (The rest of the class had already done this in zoology 1 and zoology 2. I hadn’t done this since sophomore year of high school, so I was a little rusty as were Sarah and Boone.) The TA gets to us and looks at Boone’s drawing and says “You aren’t planning on turning that in are you?” No one told us that it needed to be done in pencil, on unlined paper, and that we needed to use a ruler to underline everything. It was very frustrating as it seemed every 5 minutes some new rule popped up that we weren’t aware of.  The TAs thought we were dumb or something and asked if we had ever dissected a frog before. We kindly told them that it had been about 5 years since our high school dissection classes and that in our labs at our home universities we isolate DNA and transform strains of yeast so that they are no longer mutants. That kinda shut them up.  The practical is definitely gonna be the most difficult/stressful thing I will do class-wise when I’m here, but it should get easier once I get into the routine.

Well that was it for my mini rant, but stop reading now if you get easily queasy.

So anyway the physical dissection itself was fine. I am a nerd in that I love dissecting things and looking at how everything is so interconnected. What was different about today’s frog dissection? THE HEART WAS STILL BEATING. The ENTIRE time I was dissecting it.  That actually made me feel very uncomfortable because I felt like I was actively causing this poor frog pain as I cut out its ovary and moved its stomach around.  I have to say though, it was fascinating watching the heart beat. Nerdy? Totally. Creepy? Probably. Ashamed? Not at all. 

On a completely unrelated note, I realized I never told ya'll about how I get into my dorm and get my food. DIGITAL FINGERPRINT TECHNOLOGY. I place my right finger on this little glass pad, it lights up red to scan, then flashes green once it's verified and bam, the door unlocks.  Ya, it's pretty badass.

first day of school! first day of school!

Today was my first day of class, and quite honestly I was excited.  I wasn’t excited to be starting work, but I have been out of class for 8 weeks.  Don’t get me wrong, I looooove my vacation time, but it is nice to be getting into a routine again. 

So the class I had today was Zoology 3. It’s a double credit course (8 credits) so I was expecting it to be pretty difficult. We did the typical gloss over the syllabus for the beginning of class and then did an actual lecture for about 20 minutes.  Kids showed up up to 20 minutes after the class had already started (lectures here are only 45 minutes). Based on the lecture the class should be pretty easy.  Obviously I have only been to one class, so how could I even know right? But I’m pretty sure this class should be manageable, and I can’t see it being harder than anything I’ve already taken. I felt like I was in high school again. Well in the last 5 minutes the professor explained that we are going to be focusing on species native to Africa, so he put up a map of the continent on an overhead projector (so old school).  They were all numbered, so he would ask a question like, “what country is number 4?” or “what is the biggest country in Africa?”  Silence.  No one answered, because no one knew.  This was true for every question he asked.  One person was able to identify one country, because he came from there.  I was sitting in the front row with my friend Sarah from BC and our new friend Boone from Georgia and we just looked at each other. Now I am no expert at geography, but if you put up a map of the US and pointed to a state, I would be able to name it (thank you sporcle).  I also am aware that the US is one country and Africa is a whole continent, but still. You would think that one would have some knowledge of the surrounding countries.  I was surprised, as were Boone and Sarah. 

That was my only class today, ya my Mondays are easy. Tomorrow I have all three of my classes so after I have been to each once I will be able to go and get my textbooks.  I looked today for my zoo book but because it’s from 2002 I figured it wouldn’t be in stock. I was right. I then did some major damage at Clicks and Checkers, the local drugstore and supermarket.  The whole money thing keeps throwing me off, though.  I keep thinking I am spending loads of money, but I'm not. I had two bulging bags coming home today and I spent about 500 rand.  That's about $70.  Thanks to what I bought today I am becoming more and more of a real person here in South Africa. I have a tea kettle in my room now so that I can make tea (duh) and also drink the water from the tap now that I can boil it. The only thing that I am missing is decoration. And sharpies…(hint hint mom). So if anyone wants to send me a postcard or mail please do! I would greatly appreciate it. My address is…

Claire Kreeft

Olive Schreiner House

St Mary Hall

Rhodes University

Private Bag 1032

Grahamstown

South Africa

6140

Do it you won’t.

p.s. How sad is this: we have fieldtrips in my zoology class. That’s not sad, that’s actually cool. The first is over a weekend. The same weekend I happen to be turning 21.  Now that’s sad. Depressfest ’11. 

hectic.

the south african version of "hella" as in...

"dude your accent is hectic" (translation: your accent is very [american]), or
"there were hectic people in the rat" (translation: there were a lot of people in the rat)

sorry!

i’m sorry i have not been posting regularly! it’s still o week so my schedule is random and its hard to find time to sit and write about my day. here are a few of my first impressions/feelings/thoughts about rhodes and grahamstown.

i really like it here. i wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly why, it’s more of a feeling. the people so far have been really nice. south africans in general seem to be a verrry outgoing people. i remember when i first got here and got thrown into the house meeting before i could even put my stuff in my room, i noticed how comfortable all the girls were with each other. i assumed they came already having known one another only to find out that they had only met earlier that day. i felt very welcomed by the girls in my house.

south africans speak their mind. so far i have been to two plays on campus, both very controversial. one was about HIV and sex and one was about clashing cultures on campus. both were followed by a workshop-type discussion. i was blown away by how open everyone was speaking. there was no judgment either if some girls knew more or less than the others. the play about clashing cultures was about coming to rhodes and the different situations you might encounter. there were some heavy topics and i expected people to shy away from them. i know i did. speaking openly and easily about race is something i really struggle with, but these people just went for it.

people tend to stick to their own groups. i dont mean its like in your face or anything and this also tends to happen everywhere.  its more of a subtle, natural thing. in res (residence house) everyone hangs out and everyone is cool with each other. but i have noticed as this week progressed that when you go out at night people tend to stick to the same people and the same bars. when you ask anyone about it, they all seem to give the same well-oiled speech. apartheid ended and they worked it out and now there is no more issue. and it doesnt seem like there is an issue, it just seems to be what people are more comfortable with. 

we went to the townships (poorer areas around grahamstown) today and ill post about that soon. it was a very weird experience. on another note, my health is improving yay!

"i would sell my kidney for a ticket to the states"

some funny things that i or my friends also from bc have heard or been asked:

"why would you ever wanna come to africa? its so boring nothing goes on here"

“just keep talking to me its like im watching tv” (about my “accent”)

“oh you go to boston college? isn’t that an online school?”

“do all girls in america talk like ke$ha?”

“who the hell is busted posney?” (that one was just plain upsetting)

“does everyone in america watch white chicks?”

“i wanna go to america for the food. i hear the portions are HUGE”

people here are obsessed with america. they only watch american tv and movies. they have american products like cheerios and venus razors.  one boy said that south africans pay more attention to what goes on in america than what goes on in africa.  it really does seem to be that way. so far i haven’t received any negative attention for being from the states. people usually get wide-eyed and start asking questions. or sing california gurls. it’s a pretty even split. 

the view from my room! dont worry mom, i lock the windows at night :)

FINALLY

WOW. what. a. beginning. i apologize now if i leave out some details. it has been a crazy past few days and this has been my first chance to do anything remotely close to posting on the blog so it is all jumbled together in my mind. i know my adoring fans have had their hopes crushed logging in again and again only to find that one dinky post from joburg. i will hopefully never leave you feeling so empty ever again. 

travel…

so lets just say it was a looong day+ of traveling. first, jetblue had the longest line i’d ever seen thanks to the 1000 ft of snow that postponed many a traveler. we finally made it to the front and the machine that gives the bags their tracking numbers is broken so it had to be done manually (which will come into play later).  our flight to new york was a little delayed but fine. we get to the gate of our next flight (the big one) and upon rechecking in discover that jetblue gave me 4 bags and kate 0.  so they attempted to sort that out as we waited an extra 30 minutes as this flight was casually delayed as well. the next 15 hours i was in a stupor thanks to the nyquil that unfortunately only made me sleepy and failed to knock me out. that flight however seemed not as long as it should have felt, most likely because i knew i was flying into AFRICA. now, this is where the “fun” begins. we land and have to go recollect our bags and go through customs, which turned out to be moving our bags from one conveyer belt to another one farther away. the point? no clue. not a single bag was opened. dumb. anyway my two bags are literally the first two off the belt and im feelin good. one of kates isn’t far behind…and that was it. the other one never showed. we stood there for probably half an hour (mind you our flight to port elizabeth is currently boarding at this time). we talked to baggage people to let them know about the missing bag and rushed to load the bags that we did have on the next belt. by the time we got there the gate had closed because our flight was leaving in 5 minutes.  they said we might be able to make it. i knew 100% we were not making it. they said run. what did we do? well kate just took off running and i then was left to chase her.  i happened to be in jeggings (def recommend for traveling) and boots and a long sweater. and i have more carryon luggage than her so i was unable to run up the stairs. this was probably the BIGGEST joke moment of my life. i knew we weren’t making the plane. i knew. why did i keep running? the world will never know. well we get to security and go through (didn’t have to take off shoes or empty water bottlesßwe didn’t know this at the time) only to find out that yes, in fact, the plane had already left.  awesome. we were sent back to get tickets for the next flight. those who saw my first reactions might have thought i was about to die or break down or just give up. that lasted all of .2 seconds. i had this strange feeling of entitlement rush over me and i was not going to stop until i had that ticket in my had. we were first told that we would have to buy a new ticket. we were then told that there were no more seats on any of the flights to pe. i then argued the point (mom you would have been so proud) that we missed the flight for two reasons that we had no control over: both our previous flights were delayed, giving us minimal time to catch our third; and kates bag was lost. it worked. we got two seats on the next flight out, which happened to be with another bc girl in our program. i got to vidchat with my mama and relax for a bit, which was actually a very nice break from flying. the pe flight was short but i experienced the worst turbulence i have ever encountered. im talking the rollercoaster-feelin, frame-shakin, im-gonna-end-up-on-a-magical-island-and-never-find-out-why-its-magical type of turbulence.  but the views were beautiful.  it was really interesting to pass over these amazing estates with pools and trees and land and then to notice the houses getting smaller and closer together and finally see slum dog millionaire-status shacks, just row after row after row.  after landing we went to collect our bags and…drumroll please…kates bag beat us there. missed flight for nothing. oh well, i think it actually worked out for the best. we then took a bus to rhodes with a ton of students from zimbabwe.  once we got to the school and unloaded our bags, the staff person took one look at us and told us we could register tomorrow because we were obviously hot tired messes.

that was ridiculously long. i will post more about rhodes itself and what its like being here tomorrow!

AFRICAAAAA

safely in johannesburg! WHAT. A. DAY. i will post about the adventures later, theres a lot to say. off to port elizabeth and then my new home grahamstown!