Goodbye Honeymoon Stage

A little over a month later, things are beginning to settle down, a bit. 

While there is a small sense of relief that comes with conforming to a schedule, I can't help but get antsy for the next big adventure. The realization that everyday and all day cannot be filled with new and exciting things has become fully apparent, and, while that may seem disappointing at first, I know it was an unrealistic expectation to hold. 

With routine and with the lack of constant stimulation, I can feel the culture shock slowly making itself present. While the feeling is not overwhelming, it does give me the chance to do some self-reflection. 
It was probably very ignorant of me to think so confidently that I could never begin to feel that sense of loneliness, that I would be able to waltz through these 11 months without so much as a hint of homesickness. I also think that it would be conceited of me not to share the more vulnerable side to my adventure because it is a vital part of this whole experience and a vital part of my personal growth. It doesn't happen often, but those times at night when sitting in my room alone, there is that long for the familiar, whether it be a familiar face or a familiar voice or real bacon.

On the other hand, however, sometimes I forget I am halfway around the world. While that sentence may sound silly at first, sometimes I have to remind myself, "oh hey, yeah, you're in Africa." Despite being a minority here and despite the fact that I can sit in a class and hear absolutely no English, I sometimes feel as if I am just away for school somewhere closer to home. I think that if a person travels around the globe, they may come to the realization that everyone in the world, down to the core, is pretty much the same where ever you may be. Yes, there are those cultural differences of behavior and all of that, but essentially, if you break it down, you have the same types of people everywhere. With that thought comes the basis for my fundamental beliefs on equality, and, to me, that is a comforting fact for me to hold. 

For my history-buff friends and family, I wrote my first test today for my Anthropology class. It was 100 points and covered 3 essay questions: Discuss the early Pan-African understanding of African identity, Discuss the processes that shaped the formation of tribes as they exist today in Africa, and Using the example of the Azande, examine the function of religion in society, highlighting the major differences between witchcraft and sorcery. 
Each of these topics intrigued me and it is very interesting to learn about Culture and Society in Africa through a classroom setting. A lot of it, rightfully so, sheds a negative light on colonialism in the 19th and early 20th century and their view of Africa as being "barbaric" and "backwards" and how their views still influence western cultures today. Fingers crossed that I did well.

On another note, spring has almost arrived! Most people here classify the beginning of September to signify the beginning of the spring season. This is entertaining to me because it has been in the high 80s all week.

Most girls here carry umbrellas to block out the direct sun. A few of my friends here have expressed their concern of getting darker, which is directly opposite of girls stateside. Even in the 85 degree weather, there will be girls wearing long pants. I can't help it though, I'm very eager to break out my summer attire. 

I would also like to thank those who have sent me recipes and would like to ask people to continue sending them my way. I can't wait to get started cooking and sharing the results with you guys. 

Lots of love
El

A Small Request

Hello!

So, this weekend I was supposed to go to my ceramic professor's farm and maybe do some hiking in Lesotho; however, due to the cold weather and other unforeseeable circumstances, we decided to postpone the trip for another weekend.

So, Friday night, I was able to attend a birthday braai for my friend Nokwazi. It is always fun meeting new people.


On a different note, I have a small request for those friends and family members who either enjoy cooking or at least know a few good recipes.

At UKZN, there is not a dining hall where you can buy a meal plan. Instead, we are left to our own devices for cooking. While it would be easy to eat out every night, I try to avoid that path. I have been cooking a lot of pastas, salads, fancy grilled cheeses, and rice dishes. All of my recipes are pretty simple out of laziness and time spent.

I am hoping to broaden my cooking palate while I am out here and would love for people to maybe throw a few recipes my way. The only requirements/restraints are my lack of oven (I only have a stove) and time. Most of the ingredients back home can be found here, just with slight variation in names.

So, if anyone had any recipe they think may be a good one for me I would really appreciate it. If you would just post it in a comment or send me a link to it online or send it to me via email (ejones01@saintmarys.edu), that would be great.


Thank you for your help!

Hippos in Hluhluwe

Sawubona!

So this past weekend, I returned to little, old St. Lucia, but this time I went with ISA and all of the American exchange students (Pmb and Durban kids). The reason I like St. Lucia is that it is super small and I feel 99% comfortable walking around on the streets. There is one main street, Mackenzie, and pretty much everything there is to do is right there on that walk.

Arriving in St. Lucia, we all ate dinner at Ocean Basket. I got the beef and chicken skewer and it looked something like this:

For the duration of the trip, we stayed at a hotel called Boma. It was super nice and we had very big rooms. We were most excited about the fully loaded kitchen. 

That next morning (Saturday) we met with our Safari guides at 5:15 in the morning and they drove us over to the Hluhluwe. This safari would only be a half-day trip (my previous being a full day). The perk with this safari was definitely the weather. It was not cold and rainy and actually started to get really hot in the afternoon. 

I saw many of the same animals as I did last time and we had another great safari guide. However, the best part of the safari was when we came across a cheetah! This was a very rare find because there are only about 40 cheetahs in the 100,000+ acres that is Hluhluwe game reserve. This big cat was so beautiful and I was able to get a few decent pictures. 

That was easily the climax of the safari, although I did manage to capture some nice pictures of the other kinds of wildlife

An Impala

Zebra love

Pumba 

Giraffe running

The low point of the trip hit near the end of our safari. On our way to see a breeding herd of elephants (Close to 30 of them!) our truck ran over something bad and popped a tire.  After about 15 minutes driving on the spare, the bolts started coming loose so we had to stop yet again and eventually missed the big herd of elephants. We were all very dissapointed

Also near the end, the wildfires started picking up and gave me a wicked headache.

That night, half of us decided to go to the grocery store and cook ourselves a little braai for dinner. It was a collaborate effort and everything turned out deliciously. 

The highlight of that meal was not the stray kitten scratching my finger while trying to feed him meat, but the creatures that stumbled upon our little cookout right after sundown. 

HIPPOS!! So exciting!! 

Hippos are extremely dangerous and they run much faster than any of us could, but we were very excited to experience them right outside our back door. I wish that my camera was able to take a clearer picture, but I am sure that I can steal pictures from somebody else and post them later on.

The next day (Sunday), we went kayaking! In crocodile, shark, and hippo infested waters! Although our trip was only two hours we managed to see several hippos and a huge crocodile sunbathing. There was a certain adrenaline rush that came with the fact that we were in the water with these fierce beasts that easily eat us if they had wanted. Since we were in the water, I felt unsafe taking my camera so I was unable to capture pictures, but I doubt the pictures would have been able to do the experience justice. 

This picture of a crocodile sunbathing was stolen from a fellow student.

After kayaking, I went and visited my friends at the hostel I stayed over at last weekend. It was good to run into them again.

After that, we headed back home to Pietermaritzburg! Tiredly restless, I was ready to sleep in my own bed.

Next weekend, my ceramics prof is taking me and three other girls to her farm! We are going to spend Saturday in Lesotho hiking in the Drakensberg Mountains and then Sunday relaxing at her farm. Can't wait to share those pictures when they come.

So for now, Hamba Kahle!

Stay well.

Birthday in South Africa

So yesterday was my birthday (wahh! crazy!!) and I would like to thank everyone who wished me a happy one.

I would also like to give a big thank you to some of the girls who are here in South Africa with me.

When I woke up, I didn't plan to think much about it. I'm here in the beautiful country of South Africa and, to me, that is enough of a birthday gift for me. Before I left, I had already celebrated my birthday with my mom, Scott, and Ian, so that was another reason I didn't think too much of this birthday.  I also was feeling a tad homesick for some family birthday comfort.

But, as a big surprise, I got a wonderful gift delivered to me outside of my residence.

That definitely helped with my homesickness, and I had a wonderful lunch from it. Thank you so much guys :) Love you!

A few weeks ago, we found out that Thula, our ISA adviser, and I share the same birthday. So, as a thank you to him, we decided to surprise him with some homemade grilled cheese (we also discovered awhile back that a lot of South Africans around here have never tried grilled cheese before). These grilled cheeses we packed with cheddar, gouda, caramelized red onion, barbecue sauce, and avocado.  He loved it.

Little did I know that the girls here were also planning to surprise me as well! They bought a beautiful cake from our favorite bakery down the street, bought me a gift card to a cute, little local hiking shop, and a birthday girl sash that I was to wear out that night (and yes, it lit up). 

They definitely made my birthday a special one, and I cannot thank them enough :)

When it is each of their birthdays, I will be sure to return the favor. 

Benefits of Talking to Strangers

Okay, so to clear things up in the beginning, the title of this blog is not meant to scare my mom or anyone else about me talking to random people I meet here in South Africa. I am very safe and conscientious about who I converse with, where and when. We, as international students, have come to terms with (or at least have been brought to full attention of) the dangers of being with the wrong people at the wrong times in the wrong places.

However, my very loud personality and the need for constant social stimulation has lead to many beneficial, social encounters.


I would also like to apologize in advance, again, for a very long post. This weekend has been very full of new experiences.

This long weekend, Catherine, Lena, and I rented a car and headed off to St. Lucia. The drive was about 3 hours from Pietermaritzburg and it went very smoothly. Catherine was in charge of car rentals, so she was designated driver. She said it took maybe one minute to get adjusted to driving on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right. In Germany, their driving is like America (with driving on the right side of the road), however, I think it would have taken me longer than a minute to get me orientated on the roads here. Driving at night was very nerve-wracking, but we made it safe and sound.

For this weekend, I was in charge of booking our safari. When looking at the different options, we decided to go with the full day safari at Hluhluwe game reserve which included a breakfast and traditional braai lunch. When we got to St. Lucia, we were told to pay for the safari the day before, so we drove an extra 45 minutes or so to Hluhluwe, not knowing that they had an office in St. Lucia. Although we went way out of our way, we were rewarded with seeing our first elephant on the side of the road! We left in good spirits, excited for the next day.

Arriving at our hostel, we were very disappointed with the living situation. The people were unfriendly, the beds did not feel clean, and the cooking utensils and stoves were sub-par, but we are an easy going group so we shrugged it off.

The morning of our safari we woke up at 430 to the sound of heavy rain, thunder and lightening. To say the least, we were very disappointed. The plan was to meet our safari guide at 5 am outside of our hostel, so we got dressed and did just that. Despite the rain, we went ahead on our safari with a nice Indian couple joining us. By the time we reached the park, the rain had stopped.

We had a wonderful safari guide named Paul.

Entering the park, the first animal we happened to see was a giraffe! Giraffes are very inquisitive and they apparently do not mind the safari jeeps rumbling through.

Then some zebras.

Paul is not a fan of the zebras. He says they are mean and nasty. 

After about an hour and a half of driving around we went to a sort of camp ground that is in the middle of the game reserve. It was very nice, but very expensive to stay in over night. They only have one fence surrounding the area and it is meant for elephants only. Apparently some of the big cats or hyenas can wander in and have wandered in. All of the trash bins are "hyena proof". In that camp ground we had our breakfast.

After breakfast, we spent the next few hours touring around the other side of the park. We saw elephants, impala, wildebeests, warthogs, monkeys, rhinos, baboons, and a variety of birds. We did not, however, manage to see any leopards or lions. Although we seemed to have seen a lot, Paul was very disappointed and said that this was one of the least active safaris he has ever given. We had a great time though and did not mind.  

Around 1 we stopped for lunch. Paul started to cook some meat on the outdoor grill while Catherine, the Indian man (whose name I cannot remember for the life of me), and I hiked down to, what I assume was, the Umfolozi River. 

Fighting off thorns and elephant poop, we made it to the bottom. 

 

And then walked across to the other side (Catherine video taped, but she came across as well later).

After that small adventure, we feasted on some grilled sausage, steak, and wonderful pasta salad. 

After talking with this couple the whole trip, we exchanged emails to share pictures that I took and they, in return, are going to email me a list of fun things they suggest to do in my area. Also, we exchanged emails with Paul because of the picture I took below. Paul's a bird watcher and apparently this bird is really rare to see outside of the dense bush and he was impressed with my picture.

Heading back to St. Lucia, we decided that we no longer wanted to stay at our hostel a second night. So, on Paul's recommendation, we headed over to a different one. There, we were very happy. The accommodations were a lot nicer and the facility was cleaner (plus the same price!).

In addition, while walking outside, I ran into a guy that I met at a different hostel (about three hours away) a few weeks back! This was an absolutely crazy happenstance. His name is Dayle and he owns a hostel in Mozambique. Last time we met, Dayle and a few others wrote a huge list of places for us to visit when we have long weekends. He is actually the reason we picked Hluhluwe!

That evening, Catherine, Lena, Dayle, Gugu the receptionist and I played cards. I taught them Matt's Game and we had a blast. It was especially fun because Gugu had never played any card games before. After the card games, Dayle mapped out a suggested route for Catherine and I on a map on where we should go on our summer holiday. Catherine's boyfriend is flying into Cape Town around the same day that my mom, Scott, and Ian are coming, so we decided that we wanted to take a trip to experience more of Africa. 

He also gave us more information on his hostel in Mozambique (http://www.mangobeach.co.za/) 

The next morning we drove the car back to Durban and walked over to our new hostel. This hostel, http://www.bananabackpackers.co.za/, was very nice and accommodating and about a 15 minute walk from "The Golden Mile" which is a beautiful boardwalk along the beach.

We laid around on the beach, walked the board walk, ate some Indian 'bunny chow', and watched cute surfers for about a good hour. 

That night, Catherine and I visited Joe Cools, a bar that is situated right on the boardwalk. We met a very nice group of girls from Howard Campus (where I will be next semester) and had a great time laughing and dancing.

Sunday we spent the day at new, sort of ritzy beach called Umhlanga with two friends we met from JoBurg. We spent the whole time taking fun pictures and climbing out onto the rocks.

Here, the guys are eating the famous Indian Bunny Chow and we are eating some yummy Thai.

In the evening we met up with Emily and Li from UKZN and went back to campus.

All in all it was a great weekend. 

Funny story though, turns out ISA (the program Saint Mary's utilizes for the study abroad here) is taking us on a safari again next weekend! To the same place!
I hope to have better luck with the animal sightings then.

Finally,  a shout out to my Dad  because it was his birthday Saturday! Next year I will make up for not being there this year. 

But, for now, 

Hamba Kahle! (Stay well!)

Getting Into Routine

Friday was officially the 2 week mark here in South Africa. For some reason, it feels like so much longer than that. Things are beginning to settle into a routine now which is very helpful for stress and time management.

When it came time for classes to start, I realized that I forgot that this was not just some big vacation. I actually had work to do. Classes (or here they are called Modules) started our first Wednesday here, but, for the first week, many professors didn't hold their lectures or just had them for about 10 minutes to explain the scheduling and course outlines. There are three types of modules that I have: lectures, tuts (tutorials), and practs (practicals). Lectures have been the hardest thing for me to get used to because UKZN is  a bit different than Saint Mary's (and not just because there are guys every where). UKZN is a larger university than I am used to; my largest lecture holds close to 300 students. Tuts and practs are smaller and the class size is broken down and used by professors to get more students personal attention and help. These are more what I am used to. While lectures are a bit more lenient with attendance, usually all tuts and practs are mandatory.

Originally, my four modules were: French, Anthropology, Ethics, and History. Entering my first history class, I realized it was not something I was interested in doing here since it was not Africa-centered as I had hoped. So, instead, I joined ceramics! Ceramics is run by a sweet and slightly eccentric, older lady who doesn't mind telling you how it is.  We already completed our first ceramics project which was combining three things on a tile: Something organic, something hard and man-made, and something soft. I did a pear core, my ukulele, and an avocado. Now, we are working on flower vases. I am slightly disappointed that I will probably be unable to take it home, but I'm sure it will find a nice home here.

Friday, some of the ceramics master and honor students invited our class to a braai. A braai, if I didn't explain it before, is an African barbecue. So my friend Catherine (from Germany) and I walked over to Checkers, the closest grocery store, and picked some things up to take over there. We bought hamburger, chicken, and asparagus, broccoli, and potatoes to wrap in foil and season with oil, salt, and garlic. Catherine also bought feta and tomatoes to wrap in foil as well. The other students had chicken legs, beef and chicken sausage, and corn on the cob. It was a lot of fun and it was great to meet a different group of people. I also got a list of some South African bands to check out later.

On Saturday, me and a few other girls were invited to a birthday party at the local botanical gardens. It was nice meeting new and interesting people. Li and I had the opportunity to play frisbee with a fun group of guys and then we spent a good while of that time walking the grounds of the garden and taking pictures. The gardens were so beautiful and definitely a "go again" kind of spot.

That night we introduced our two German friends to the movie The Breakfast Club and went to get sushi for dinner. Afterwards, we found out it was Indian night at a club next door, so we went to check that out as well and had a blast. (South Africa, specifically the Kwa-Zulu Natal region, we were told, has the largest Indian population outside of actual India).  

Next weekend, Lena, Catherine, and I have planned a trip to Hluhluwe (try pronouncing that!) Game reserve which is 3 hours away in the town of St. Lucia. We plan to rent a car and drive down there on Thursday. We do not have any classes on Friday because it is National Women's Day. We will drive up Thursday, stay in a hostel down there called BiB, and have the full day safari on Friday. Saturday we will drive back to Durban to return our car and spend the night in a hostel there. Sunday we will hang out on the beach and then head back to Pietermaritzburg that evening. I like to think of it as an early birthday celebration :)

Will share (hopefully good) pictures!

Hope everyone is doing well

Cheers!