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Exiting America

I'm in India and like to blog about it.

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A self-obsessed postdoc seeking social change, yet trapped in the infinite loop of drama resulting from her simultaneous love/hate relationship with academia.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Pictures

Hi everybody--

I'm safe and sound at home now after a long journey. As you can see I have added a few pictures and I will be adding lots of other pictures in the next few days to currently existing posts and also will be adding new posts with new stories and pictures.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Goodbye Africa

I tried to leave Lilongwe this morning on a 6 a.m. flight that didn't actually exist. Got to the airport at 5 a.m. to find a security guard waking up around 5:15 and pulling on his pants. Drove back to town on a ramshackle, bumpy, dusty little road filled with hundreds of women with babies on their backs and buckets on their heads and dozens of men hunched over and cutting grass with large machetes.

Fortunately (or unfortunately?) I have re-booked an Air Malawi flight for later today and it looks like I'll actually make my international flight later tonight from Joburg.

In the Houston airport I met a Jamaican woman who had spent several months in Africa. When she found out where I was going she told me, "After going to Africa, you will never be the same again. It will change you forever." How right she was.

I have seen more than I ever imagined I would see in Africa but now that my eyes have been opened, I realize that I have so much more to see and do here. I can only imagine what I will learn from Africa on my next trip and I simply can't wait to come back.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Kruger National Park

After the close of our official GSE tour, the team and I all went on an adventure in Kruger National Park in South Africa.


Traffic jam in Kruger

It was fantastic. There is nothing like coming up close and personal with wild animals! We saw giraffe, elephants, African buffalo, zebra, impala, kudu, lots of boks including waterbok, ostrich, tons of different birds including at least 3 species of hornbill, a giant spotted owl, a crocodile, hippos, warthogs, duiker, an African wild cat, a LEOPARD (!), and more.

(Ok, FYI, I did not take this picture as we saw the cat in the dark.) The African wild cat looks nearly identical to a regular housecat with a little bit longer legs and more yellow on the back of their ears. It was just running around in the bush minding its own business when we come roaring through in the dead of night in a giant combie chasing it through the woods.

The park is huge and includes at least about 13,000 elephants. You can see areas that they have completely destroyed and torn up with all their tree-eating insanity.

We stayed a total of 3 nights in Kruger; one in Olifants camp and two in Mopani. Both camps were beautiful and lovely in different ways. Moonlight on the Olifants river anyone?

At Kruger you stay in a fenced in camp that is protected by two fences-- one that serves as a practical barrier and is pretty tall as well as an electric fence. We have heard, however, that leopards had gotten into Mopani park in the past. Between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. you are not allowed to be anywhere outside of the designated and fenced-in camps unless you are on an approved and guided drive.

Our first morning three of us went on a early morning river walk. Accompanied by two armed guides (Johann and Jan), we stopped on the wayto the river to check out a baobob tree. (I'll add a picture of a baobob later so everybody can see what it looks like.) We parked near the river and set out on foot. After constantly being warned not to stick even a finger out of the window of a car, piling out into the bush near the Olifants river was a little disconcerting. We spent an hour or so tromping through the bush looking at different plants, birds, and leopard and other tracks in the mud. We were only a few feet from the edge of the river and several large grassy clumps when I heard, "UGHHHHHHHHH! UGHHHHHHHH! Huh, Huh, Huh. UGHHHHHHHH!" I practically jumped out of my skin and frantically looked to our guides and their guns for some reassurance. Johann and Jan, however, seemed to take no notice. More tromping through the bush and wading through the river brought us even closer to sounds that I can only describe as horrifying and our guides were still nonplussed. I figured if they weren't impressed or wowed, I wouldn't be either. Of course the moment I saw where that large sound was coming from, I changed my mind and my heart skipped a beat: several giant water sausages (hippos) bathing in the river only 10 or so meters away from us.

Carol, Paul, and I spent at least 30 or so minutes absolutely spellbound by these giant rolling beauties as they snorted and blew, yawned and honked. It seemed that they were all around me; their roars (?) were so lound it was disorienting-- I couldn't tell if there were some in the grasses in front of me, to the side, or where. It seemed we were surrounded by hippos. Unfortunately it was an incredible experierence that had to come to an end. We started walking back, wading back through the slippery rock-bottomed river (barefoot of course), and I felt completely at peace.

On our drive back to the camp we had another surprise. A leopard slunk across the road directly in front of our combie. I caught but a glimpse of it and was too spellbound to snap a photo. We hunted for it for a while as it snuck about the side of the vehicle but only caught fleeting glimpses of it through the tall grasses.

On our last night in Kruger three of us went on a night drive during which our guide told us an interesting story that took place a few years ago when they first started the night drives. On one of the very first night drives, the guide drove the big combie (a land-rover type open truck thingie) to a dam and let everybody out of the car. (Note: getting out of the car in the park is generally illegal and punishable by a large fine.) The group were standing around on the dam or on a bridge or something looking about while the guide was sitting on a short wall. One moment he was there and one moment, when the group turned to look for him, he was gone. A leopard had slunk up behind him, grabbed him off the wall, and dragged up away. His body (or what was left of it) was found a week later, having fallen out of the tree the leopard had taken him in.

What a trip.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

OH MALAWI

Have spent the last four days deep in the heart of Malawi. OH MALAWI.


Sunset from Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi.

Arrived at the Joburg airport on the 19th to catch my flight to Lilongwe. Spent about 30 minutes looking for the Air Malawi check-in counter. I asked person after person and was told "It's this way." Then, "It's that way." Eventually figured out that the flight didn't actually exist and that "They should have told you." Yeah. Long story short, I guess I have become accustomed to AST and the African Way; I made the best of the worst and ended up in Blantyre early the next day. My friends Beth and Jeremy had planned a 4-day tour of Malawi for me and were able to reverse the route of the trip in order to pick me up in a different city.

As we were descending in the plane I had a fantastic view of red dirt roads and little grass huts from my spacious first-class seat. (Malawians are genuinely surprised and pleased when a Westerner doesn't bust a fuse when things don't go as planned.) We were rapidly dropping down from out of the clouds and into an even thicker mist when suddenly it felt like were getting some lift. As we were only a few hundred feet (if that) above the ground we rapidly started revving the engine and lifting back up into the sky.

The two business men across the aisle from me started laughing as the pilot came over the loudspeaker to announce, "Well, folks, we have had a missed landing due to the thick cloudcover and lack of visibility. We will circle back around to try it once more; if we can't land safely we will be diverting to Lilongwe."

All I am thinking, is why all the fuss, what about the radar???!!! (Turns out Malawi's airports don't have radar. Go figure.) I decide I am either going to cry or I am going to pray. Well, what I did worked and we made the landing on the second try. My friends were relieved; after packing up their Land Cruiser and driving on horrible roads at breakneck speeds for like 4 hours, they certainly weren't about to turn around and go back.

Turns out that the Blantyre airport is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains. I wasn't able to see this coming in due to the mist; of course, neither were the pilots, thus the difficulties. The South African Airways pilots hate the Blantyre airstrip due to the sheer insanity of its design. The pilots of Air Malawi, however, train on this airstrip and the training has obviously paid off as our eventual landing was quite smooth.

So after I have been here a total of 4 days I feel like a real expert. I can tell you some interesting facts I have picked up:

1. It is possible to camp and snorkel on the most beautiful lake beach you have ever seen with the most incredible fish imaginable (more species of freshwater fish than any lake in the world) for only 45 Kwacha a day (about 33 cents US).

2. Dinner for 6 prepared, plated, and brought to you at your campsite consisting of freshly caught fish, rice, and a chumbawumba-type sauce is only about 120 Kwacha (about $ 8.78 USD). IT IS INCREDIBLE.

3. On the flip side, 20% of all children in Malawi die before reaching age 5.

4. Young men living in the fishing village on Cape MacClear LOVE Rotary International tee-shirts, caps, jackets, as well as watches, shampoo, bras, and more and will give you lots and lots of lucky bead necklaces for all of the above.

5. It is very surreal to walk through the village watching all of the young men wearing your used clothes.

6. Men and women here can carry A LOT of firewood on their heads while walking barefoot or in flip-flops up and down one of the highest plateaus in Central Africa.

7. The entire Malawian phone book is about 3/4 of an inch thick.

8. There are no movie theaters in the entire country.

9. When visiting Cape MacClear, you must be careful because before you know it you will have traded all of your belongings (where is my watch?), spent all of your money, and overstayed your visa.

10. Although there was recently a several year famine in Malawi, crops seem to be coming in right now in relative abundance. Haven't yet tried the maize, but I can tell you that you haven't lived until you have driven on a mountain or floated in the lake while eating freshly harvested Malawian raspberries, gooseberries, sugar cane and grenadillas.

11. Thighs to Malawians are like breasts to Westerners. You have to get used to being eyed when you meander through the village accompanied by young male villagers wearing only your by-Western-standards-conservative swimsuit with matching mid-thigh length mini-skirt that you are very grateful you purchased for your African trip.

12. Be careful when walking on Zomba in the mist. You could fall off the edge of the plateau never to be heard from again.

13. The smell of cedar on Zomba is unlike anything you have ever smelled before.

Again, I LOVE AFRICA.

Friday, April 14, 2006

What have we been up to?

Today we visited the Sterkfontein caves, a world heritage site known as the cradle of humanity. The caves currently house a complete skeleton that has yet to be totally removed of an early hominid. It hasn't been typed just yet but it could very well be a new version of australopithecus. The skeleton is 4.17 million years old and currently known as "Little Foot". Check out the caves and the Maropeng at: http://www.maropeng.co.za/

Yesterday we visited another of South Africa's 6 World Heritage Sites: Vredefort Dome, the largest meteor impact site in the world. The meteor hit over 2 billion years ago and the ripples (what look like giant mountains) are still evident today! The impact was so large that the debris blocked the Earth from sunlight for over 200 years. Check it out at: http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/geography/vredefort-080605.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morokweng_crater

Tomorrow we're off to Kruger National Park and we will be staying in Oliphants and Mopani parts of the park. http://www.krugerpark.co.za/

If you're interested, also be sure to check out my teammate Paul's blog, especially the African ghost story at: http://www.levantine18.blogspot.com/
However, take anything he says with a grain of salt.(haha Paul)

Our Crazy Route




Carol's friend Naqi made this map for us. It shows our absolutely cockeyed route through central South Africa. It gives you an idea about our wild adventure through this amazing country. The black circle in the middle is the kingdom of Lesotho where strangely, people live in round houses, wear pointy hats, ride ponies, and wrap themselves in beautiful blankets year-round. Go figure. The map doesn't really show our Lesotho adventures, but we spent about 3 days in Lesotho, which were definately some of the best of the trip.

Right now we are in Joburg and are getting ready to leave for Kruger National Park tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. I am so excited and hope to see the Big 5....especially elephants! After Kruger I am off to Malawi for about a week and then I'll return to Houston on Aprl 27th.

Many of these cities we have visited are small towns that you won't find in your average tour book of South Africa. Make no mistake, however, we have had some of the best times and had some of the wildest parties in some of the smallest towns. Last night we were up till 3 a.m. in Potch$%#&*@!!! Mooi having very wild adventures. It was the last stop of the official GSE tour and we gave our final presentation. So it was definately an event. Among other things, we enjoyed a few South African drinks. The best of which is the Sprinkbok: a layered shot consisting of amarula (a YUMMY SA kahlua-like drink) over crème de menthe. Trust me, it's better than it sounds! The night ended with 3 of our group in a van and a policeman driving us home at 3 a.m. Yes, the police got in the van and drove us back home. Wouldn't happen in the States, that's for sure. Apparently we were too wild and crazy for Potch Mooi--they wanted us to stay home! Haha! Don't worry everybody, no chickens were hurt in this adventure.

Speaking of chickens, I ate some ostrich today. I won't say anymore about that.

More later.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Township children


Here is a picture of myself and our team at a daycare funded by Rotary in the Grahamstown township. We had a lot of fun with these kids. They sang and danced for us...they were SO cute!!

We have visited a lot of daycares, hospice daycares, schools, and orphanages during the course of this trip. Today in a daycare/orphanage affiliated with an AIDS orphanage in Viljoemskroon we met a little boy with a Sotho name that means "Lucky." He was 3 years old but the size of a healthy 9-12 month old baby. Apparently he cries constantly unless he is being held. He simply stared at us, with hardly a smile on his face. The program is for the children of patients at the hospice; they are clothed, fed, and cared for there even after their parents have passed away. Today wasn't the first time I wanted to hold on to one of these children forever and bring them home with me.

Despite what Mbeki and others in the ANC are saying, the AIDS crisis is only growing; the number of children like Lucky is on the increase.

Race

At the risk of sounding obvious, race relations in South Africa are extremely complex. On several occasions I have spoken to individuals who have sworn to me that they are not racist, but later make comments that would be considered completely inappropriate in the states. I am not talking about non-PC type comments, but outright and utter plantation-style racism.

Just the other day somebody promised me that we would see monkeys on the banks of the Vaal river. Well, I love seeing monkeys so I was really excited since we have only seen wild monkeys about three times so far on this trip and I have yet to see any baboons. On the way to the launching spot on the river, this woman pointed to two blacks crossing the road and yelled, "Look, there you can see some monkeys!" I was so shell-shocked I didn't say anything. I simply sat there with my mouth hanging open.

While I often just sit and listen to such comments, sometimes I have spoken out. A woman at a dinner party asked me, "Do you have any blacks in America?" Her husband laughed at her and said something to the tune of, "Yes, of course, NIGGERS!" I turned to him immediately, looked him in the eye, and said, "We don't say that word. But yes, we do have black people in our country." Nobody at the dinner table seemed to know what to do with this comment so the woman replied, "But not like we have here." I just stared at her, knowing the conversation wasn't going to go anywhere good. After an uncomfortable silence she elaborated, "They are not stupid like they are here." Again, I simply stared and she continued, "In America, the blacks are cultured. Here they have no culture." At this point I couldn't believe what I was hearing; after four weeks in Africa learning about some of the most complex and fascinating cultures in the world, I had to sit and listen to somebody tell me this utter dribble. I tried (and most likely failed) to explain to her that just because somebody has a different culture, it doesn't make them uncultured. Some of her rationalization for these comments included statements, like there are no roads in the townships because people are too lazy to build them, all blacks do is sit and drink by in the shabeens or on the sides of roads, there are no books or desks in the black schools, and so forth.

Today we listened to white woman talk out of both sides of her mouth. On one hand she said she was glad that things had changed, that apartheid was over, because she enjoyed being "colleagues" with blacks. As a paragon of racial harmony, she even has had a beer with them on occasion. Wow. On the other hand, she told us that things were better during apartheid. Why? Because blacks were less visible. They lived in small groups on farms. And the generous self-sacrificing farmers opened their hearts to blacks and gave them mealies (corn), milk, and bread. Even more, they built schools for the children of their workers and ensured that all children had books. A very typical comment she made was that the blacks never wanted for anything and had no use for wealth. She explained that with the new government, things have degenerated because blacks flocked to townships and overcrowded schools and so many children go without books, desks, and supplies. She assured us that the farmers had always loved the blacks and always treated them well. I told her that in my opinion any system that relied on one class of people having to parcel out food to another class of people would never be a just system. She countered by emphasizing that things were equal in their own way during apartheid because although blacks couldn't go into the white cities after 9 p.m., whites also couldn't go into the black townships after 9 p.m. I didn't even try to argue this one; an obvious comment at the tip of my tongue was that there would be few reasons, if any, that a white would want to go into an impovershed area with no stores, services, restaurants, entertainment, or (helpful) police. I will spare you the details of the rest of the conversation.

All I can hope at this kind of bullshit is primarily generational and will change with time and the new government in South Africa.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Deep and high

The program for this trip is intense. Every 2 or 3 nights we pack our bags and head to a new city. Each time it is hard to leave my hosts, the club, and the new friends. The time is racing by and I can't believe that we are nearly done with the official group study exchange program. We are currently in Parys and have only 2 more stops on the exchange!!

(Warning: Mothers shouldn't read the next part if they are feeling a little antsy about previous postings on my blog!)

But everyday we experience something new and exciting. In fact, nearly every time we leave a city I get emotional. In Welkom we toured the Harmony gold mine. This was a tour in style...very South African! We didn't look at a simulated mine and view a video as we might have done in the states. Instead, we put on mud boots, overalls, thigh-high socks, hardhats, and miner's headlamps and piled into an elevator filled with other miners. We descended for 4 or so minutes deep into the earth. My ears were popping...we were dropping at a top speed of 12-14 meters per second!! At level 21, we got out. Let me tell you, 1,600 meters (!) below the surface of the earth is a steaming hot place to be. We spent at least an hour or so down there walking and talking with the miners. I even got to try a drill. It was hot and uncomfortable and I can't even begin to describe how dark it was when you switched off the lamps. I didn't see anything gold and shiny but I did get a look at the gold reef in the wall. Unbelievable!

But as fantastic as all of that was....we had to leave Welkom. The very next day we headed to Kroonstad. Here we went gliding!! We were strapped into what looked like toy planes and a giant contraption some distance away pulled long wires attached to the gliders, pulling us up from the earth high into the sky. My first trip was amazing...I sat in the front with Trevor the pilot behind me. The glider is virtually silent once it is launched into the sky, the only sound is the wind resistance against the thin canvas walls surrounding you. It was unbelievable. I felt like a weightless bird gliding up and down and around, with almost nothing between me and the sky. I was mostly surrounded by plexiglass and the view was incredible. The gorgeous grassy farmland was laid out in front of me like an offering that I couldn't refuse. I didn't feel a single second of fear and when my mouth wasn't hanging open in awe, I kept asking the pilot to do more acrobatics. We did loop-de-loops, forcing my lips and cheeks to be plastered against my skull, then I seemed to float away from myself when we decended. Around and around we went, up and down, and all I wanted to do is laugh with joy like a little kid in a candy store. At top speed we were going about 150-200 kilometers per hour. Unfotuantely the thermals weren't the best and we didn't have an incredible amount of lift, but we were at least 2000 kilometers above the ground.

I loved it so much I got a chance to go again; this time we swooped back across the airfield toward the tent where our friends were watching, taking pictures, and having a braai (South African barbeque). As we were swooping down, one of our team was looking up with his camera taking a picture of the fly-by...we came so close, he looked up in fear and ran off! Really we weren't close enough to the ground to hit him, but I laughed so hard at his surprise that I nearly cried.

What a wonderful day. But oh so sad, we had to leave Kroonstad. The next day (I think!) we left for Parys. I was sure I would be disappointed after all we have done so far. But before the day was out I was locked in an enclosure with 3 nearly grown Cheetahs. Let me tell you they purr and lick just like a housecat; only louder and harder! Some tips about Cheetahs I have learned: their fur is soft, their bellies love to be scratched, but you must not --MUST NOT--turn your back or make any sudden moves! Leave your children at home since in a Cheetah's eyes tey are nothing more than tasty bite-sized snacks. Not long after that we came within 50 feet of a herd of African buffalo and saw an African sunset that set the sky on fire. Today, the adventures continued with a morning brunch cruise on the mighty Vaal river.

Un---!#%$*!$#--believable!!! Or, as the South Africans say, LEKKER! LEKKER-SUSA-KREKER!

I LOVE AFRICA.