Ramble On

Sunday I deemed "Jo'burg Day". Since we had all had such a rough night before we started late, around 11:30am. I had made reservations at this restaurant I really wanted to try called Moyo and Amy made a great recommendation to go to the outdoor one at Zoo Lake, which was a picturesque setting with trees and open fields and lovely lake in the background. Moyo is traditional African cuisine and we all had excellent lunches. you can get your face painted in traditional style, which I did, and they also have musicians and entertainment while you eat. It's not at all obtrusive or annoying though. It's very nice. We all enjoyed our food and the warm,sunny afternoon in the park. After that we went to the rooftop craft market at Rosebank mall. It's more of a gigantic flea market but everyone enjoyed it. Almost everyone bought a vuvuzela too. After that we headed to Newtown for what turned out to be the highlight of my day, the SAB World of Beer tour. Onl...

Saturday was our first match, and the one we were most invested in. USA v Ghana. Since it was everyone's first day we tried to start a little bit later. We collected everyone from their hostel in the morning and I had the day all planned out. We went to the Sterkfontein caves at the Cradle of Humankind (world heritage s ite!) and the Maropeng. Sterkfontein is a large limestone cave where they have been excavating the oldest skeletons ever found (hence the name). Wits University professors are responsible for most of the discoveries. We had a good but not very informative tour through the caves. My favorite part was just navigating through some of the narrower passages and seeing the underground lake. It's definitely no Luray Caverns. From there we headed to the Maropeng Visitor's center which is probably the most unfocused museum I have ever been to. The museum is based on the idea of the area being where the first humans lived. They have some guiding posters at ...

So it's now a little less than a week since I left Wits and the rest of my friends from the US have arrived. It's been an incredibly jam-packed few days and it's really hard to think how much we've all done. Especially when you factor in the jet-lag of the people who just got here. Wednesday after I finished up at Wits I was immediately picked up I was packed and ready to move out of my room at the international house. I am now staying at the orphanage in Roodepoort where my friend lives and works and it's been a wonderful place so far. After I left campus, we went to Montecasino, this gigantic indoor entertainment/dining/nightlife establishment near Sandton to watch the US game at the FIFA FanZone there. However, they had elected to show the England game, and not the US game so we were quite miffed. We had not bought our tickets yet though, so we found a bar with some other incensed Americans, ordered some beer, and began watching the most agonizing 90 minut...

I apologize for being remiss in my updating but it's been a little busy. My internship at Wits is now over and I was very sad to leave the office. They were a great bunch of people to work with and I hope that I will get to see them again soon. I also hope that I will be as lucky with colleagues when I find a real job after grad school. So the last days on campus were fun. We would watch the games in the conference room over lunch and in the afternoons, chat about team performances and game results in the mornings when we came in, and everyone's spirit was up. We also managed to make some good headway on the IEASA conference. I got some contracts edited down to what we needed and got some good prices. My evenings were pretty boring. A couple of times I went with people out to this one bar we can walk to and watched the evening game with them. That's always a nice break. But otherwise, the internship ended quietly. On my last day, the staff gave me a farewell brea...

Zambia, Zimbabwe, Zambezi... I don't think I've ever been in a position to use the Z on my keyboard this much. I've just come back from possibly the best 24 hour trip I will ever have in my whole life. Upon the unfurling of my devious plot to get academic credit for a trip to the World Cup, I found that I could fly direct from Jo'burg to either Livingstone, Zambia or Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Given the current climate in Zimbabwe and the fact that they have actual currency notes that say 10 Trillion Zimbabwe dollars and it still adds up to less than $1 USD, I figured it was best to use Zambia as my base. Their currency is the Kwatcha, and I enjoyed that 1000 kwatcha is about $.20 USD. That's right, twenty cents. I was passing out thousand kwatcha notes like it was my job. Hey big spender. So I bought my ticket to Zambia, and before I knew it, Saturday June 12, 2010 had arrived. Ever since I can remember I have had a fascination with Victoria ...

Many of you saw it on my facebook or GChat status. you've probably also noticed that I almost never update either of these but lately, I've been updating two times a day just because so much cool stuff is happening. I have a staff e-mail address here at Wits for the whopping one month duration of my time in Jo-burg. But I get the e-mails from the office and the university updates on it. This has led to two excellent developments. One is the phrase: Ke Nako. This is Swana for "It is time." And it is plastered all over Jo'burg on posters and on pubs on the TV. It's really an excellent slogan I think. It's very symbolic of it being time for Africa to live up to expectaitons about the World Cup, time to make real changes socially and politically, time to start being better stewards of the aid they are receiving and time for them to use their moment at the forefront of the world's media. But every day I get e-mails from the administrat...

Another sunny day in African winter. Temps have been in the 70s even though the nights are pretty chilly. Today, I went to church and spent the afternoon with some pretty cool youngsters from the Child Haven orphanage in Roodeport. It is supported by Every Nation , an international missions organization. If I was in their position, I would have though today was awesome. I thought it was pretty awesome anyway and I am three times their age. It started off with church. There was lots of singing and dancing, and upstairs where the kids were, there was cupcake eating as well as some learning about forgiveness and coloring. After church there was Chuckleberry's Burger Heaven, where the kids were taken to lunch as a special treat. Chicken burgers all around. Our food took 6 years to arrive at our table, but other than that it was good. There was even a trampoline and a playground at this restaurant. I guess they figure they need to distract you if the food is going to take so...

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to go out with some friends of my German friend at the international house. They have a car and took us up to a big outdoor shopping center (for NoVa people, think Reston Town Center) with all kinds of shops and restaurants. Andrea, my German friend, and her friends Cristina and Lloyd took us to meet up with 10 of their friends for dinner and bowling. They are all South Africa natives. Dinner was great only because all of the poeple were very entertaining. I talked with a guy named Teddy for a long time because he was wearing a Postal Service t-shirt. He's into folk and was really into the American music scene. He's pretty handy with MySpace pages and finding new artists. Everyone else has what I can only relate as Australian charm. When I was traveling in Europe, every Australian I met was very easy with people, very entertaining and funny. It seems to be the same with South Africans I am finding. I first met Mike, and...

Today as I called a few businesses around town and as I further my interactions with South Africans and other nationalities, I learned a few things. For instance, the guy who is studying abroad from W&M is a bagpipe player. He is friends with the German people who live in the international house and in German, bagpipes are called "dudelsacks". which is pretty much the best translation I have ever come across. When you say it in German, it sounds like this : doodlezahk. What a word! I learned another fantastic word today: ulelating (YOU-leh-late-ing). This is the sound that Xena warrior princess makes when she is attacking people. AYIYIYIYIYI!! It is also the traditional African cry of celebration or happiness. I heard this quite a bit at the graduation ceremony last night and NOW I can say that I know the proper term for it. Ulelating. Also, when you call people in South Africa at a business and they put you on hold it plays the most annoying hold music ever. I...

After today I have met some people who work at the international office, started navigating my way around the Afrikaaner and Zulu accents I come across on a daily basis, and said the phrase "T.I.A." in my head about 600 times. I am still without internet in my room, which I was hoping to accomplish on my first day. Since there has been a gas leak and a 6 hour power outage in my first two days on campus, the process of accomplishing things has slowed somewhat. I started work today and will be working on the IEASA conference administration and maybe a few side projects that I'm thinking about. After working only 5 hours a day for the last year, it felt strange to put in a full 8.5 today. I was taken on a walking tour of campus by one of my wonderful internship coordinators. She's a round, jolly, and very funny German lady who runs one side of the Wits international office. Her counterpart, a gentleman who has been helping me navigate becoming a Witsie, is very ...

I have arrived in Jo'burg at the University of the Witswatersrand. I had a really great first night too. My arrival at the airport included: a short wait at passport control, several comliments on the USA jersey I sported for the entire trip over, my bag getting to Jo'burg (thank God), and a driver waiting to pick me up and drive me to Wits. It really couldn't have gone more smoothly if you ask me. When I got here, I spent a few minutes unpacking, then trying in vain to make my internet work, and then I gave up and started wandering around a bit to see if I could see anything. I didn't get to campus until about 7pm but I did end up meeting a bunch of people. Not seeing a lot of campus but hopefully I'll be able to do that today. I met a guy from the Elliot School at GW who is here but on his way out in a few weeks. I also met a guy who is from William and Mary studying abroad here. He leaves on Sunday I think. I met another girl from the US and three Germa...

It's hard to think that's it's been almost exactly one year since I last used my blog. Since starting grad school and traveling a lot in the past year, I have found a suprising lack of time for self-reflection. During the two enormous blizzards that invaded DC this past winter, I mainly just withdrew into a cave of baking and watching movies. It wasn't the best way to spend my time but it sure felt good to give in to being holed up for a while. I have, since my last posting, traveled to Colorado twice, North Carolina twice, Charlottesville twice, Hawaii once, and Williamsburg, VA three times. I think that's it. Knowing that this is my last year before starting my "career" as it relates to my graduate degree is making me very conscious of my need to travel and exploiting the flexibility I have these days. That said, I should mention that as I write this, I am currently on a plane to Atlanta, leg one of two, where my final destination will be Johannes...