The Consequence of Sound by Regina Spektor

There have been a lot of things I can't explain over the internet that have happened to this group last week, but I shall try to do my best right now. The lack of communication hasn't exactly helped things either for remembering/writing. So I'm just being sporatic and putting whatever comes to mind. So this blog post is just like the song title that inspired it: the consequence of sound. Every time we tried to go to an internet cafe, we ended up getting there too late or too close to our departure time. So sorry that this is a long update. For those of you who didn't look at the last post/comments, I was trying to publish my last post last week, and the webpage came up with an error. When I tried to go back to it, all of my text was gone and I didn't realize until yesterday that it had just been saved to my blog drafts. So I posted things from 2 weeks ago yesterday. My apologies!

Monday--"The Colors of the Wind"/Red October Revolution Song

These are strangely enough the two songs which come to mind that best fit what's happening. Right after we got back from our homestays, we went to the University of Johannesburg and talked with an ethnobotanist! He was a professor who shared with us a few things about South African plants. First, he dispelled the myths that ethnomedicine didn't do anything. "If natural herbs didn't help your health, why would people continue to use them for thousands and thousands of years?" Some of the basic herbs were things like aloe. Some were so powerful that they helped slow the effects of HIV/AIDS. Right now, a lot of this knowledge is dying off, and so he's trying to collect it before the medicine men and women become extinct. His talk was absolutely fascinating! Gumbo, you should definitely look into this, even though it doesn't involve animals. Go to this website (ipuf@uj.az.za). I'm pretty sure it's a website and not an e-mail.

Later that day, we went to the Witwatersrand Medical School. We looked at the Adler Museam of Medicine and learned about what it takes to be a doctor in South Africa. We saw artifacts, a history of modern medicine (Pavlov and Freud were both mentioned. Unfortunately Freud had his picture on the wall. Not Pavlov. Major fail.). Later, a public health person came and talked to us about what's happening with the health sector of SA. Apparently, there's a "brain drain" going on: lots of doctors are going to 1st world countries after med school. Other doctors are leaving the public sector for the private sector. So a lot of problems, but hopefully getting better. They make all med students practice half of their training in rural areas now. So there's hope for that now.

Tuesday--"Taking Care of Business"by Bachman Turner Overdrive

Today we got to do 2 cool things. First, we went to hear about an organization called BIZAIDS. THis is an organization that impowers people in the informal sector (roadside stands) by teaching them how to handle their business in case someone gets sick. It makes sure they have a backup plan so they don't have a child-run or granny-run household. They focus on AIDS, but they also focus on other illnesses like TB as well. They treated us like kings and queens: we had a ton of juice, rolls, muffins, etc. brought in to us. The CEO came and told us about the program and we were all very pleased with it. They've gotten money from the Global Fund to expand their programs. Basically, people come in for 2 days and take the course for free! The only thing they're having trouble with is measuring the success of their program. Other than a post training survey 3 months later, there's really not an effective way to see results. I hope it continues to thrive though.

Secondly, we went to the Voortrekker monument. THis monument is like the mecca of the Afrikaner nationality. It's right outside Pretoria on top of this hill (to kind of represent the "Light of Civilization" they brought to Africa.) The place was very much designed like a cathedral. I'm not sure if there's a southern equivalent to it, but the only thing I can think of is the Confederate Flag. It represents so much pride and history, but at the same time, it also has a darker history to it, the burden of Apartheid and the baggage of intense separateness. Look it up, it's definitely worth the view!

Wednesday--"God Help the Outcasts" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney Cartoon)

This was the day I was most excited about. This was the day we visited Central Methodist Church. Since we didn't get to go to it yesterday, I was particularly excited about it today. We were to first speek with Bishop Verryn, the man in charge of the church. He had been there for over 10 years and made his home in Soweto (which is unusual, since he's white). He was the most pleasant, most endearing man I had met. He said that Central Methodist has the most progressive policy on immigrants in the world. They have literally opened their doors the the poor. They give them shelter and they refuse no one. They have had situations where theives have come in to hide, and they try and deal with the police as best as they can. They have relationships with lots of organizations and they are trying to say afloat. Interestingly enough, UMCOR has cut funds from Central Methodist. I'm not sure of the details of it, but it seems pretty political and very unfortunate. That money is especially necessary when the church hosts 1400 people in it a night (the Bishop said in it's highest point, they've had 3500). The church is 6 stories. But it smells of poverty and inequality. The piping is old and overwhelmed from use. Bathrooms are backed up and overflowing. The whole place is very unclean. But that wasn't the most difficult thing to watch. After touring the church, we went to the sanctuary and were told that we were going to lead a workshop with the women staying in the church about ways to deal with stress. We all froze. We thought we would be doing a service project like watching children. What did we have to say to refugees about destressing? It was like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I wanted to sing "God Help the Outcasts" because there didn't seem to be a whole lot of help in site. These women were all unemployed. They didn't have food. The water in the church was basically undrinkable. They were afraid to leave their kids because they thought somebody would steal them and sell them and kill them for their body parts. And what did we have to offer? Our western, luxury-minded destressing techniques. But those only work for things in our world. Grades, for instance. Do these women care about GPAs or over-filled social schedules? They're starving, they're tired. But they can't go back to their homeland because things are even worse back there. They're running out of trust...and running out of hope.

It was the most uncomfortable thing we had ever done. Dr. Boucher was amazing and didn't seem flustered at all. When it finished, we got back on the vans. I was in the "deep-thinking" van, so some of us started to cry. Some of us laughed at the ridiculousness of what had just happened, how feeble our advice seemed to these women who had experienced so much.
And then, very inappropriately, we went to a place called Lesiti--for dinner and a show.

When we got to Lesiti, we were greeted by a bunch of people dressed in native African dress. All of us were angry. This was not the Africa we had just seen. It's like the Cherokee, NC of South Africa. You know it's fake, you know it seems humiliating. It plays on the myth that all Africans run around with lions doing the "tribal thing." It skipped over Apartheid and wars with the british, like everything was happy and good.

This was the worst day. On the way back the only solice we had was singing on the bus: Sophie, Mallory, Katie, Sarah P. and I sang.

Thursday--"For Good" from the musical Wicked

This day, we drove a long way from Jo-Burg to Kimberly. We hated leaving because we had grown rather fond of St. Peters (and we still look back at it with nostalgia). But alas, we had to leave.

The drive there seemed pleasant enough. A lot of it was filled with moments of deep thinking and processing from the events of yesterday. It didn't help that we watched the movie "District 9" on the way also. The movie is about immigration in South Africa. At least, that's what the metaphor is supposed to be. These aliens come to earth and they can't get back to their planet. So humans take them in and they start to live in shacks. But then people panic because they start taking jobs and are using up resources (sound familiar?). So they make reforms and try to put them in concentration camps. Then one man in charge of the policy reform towards the aliens is transformed into an alien.

The place where we were staying was fairly gross. Ruthie, you would have rather gone camping than stay in this place. They were former mining compounds, but not very well managed. The woman who ran the place at first put all 17 girls in one room, even though we had requested triples MONTHS ago. But then Dr. Maher pulled out a copy of their correspondence, and we got our rooms. We kind of hung around for a while. Some people swam for a bit, some of us tried to do our homework. At last, we had a student-led discussion about what had happened the day before. Y'all, I've never been more touched by community. Everybody talked about their pows and wows from that day, how frustrated that we had had food and we couldn't give it to anybody because we didn't know we would give it to, how the church expected us to actually have something helpful to tell refugees from Zimbabwe about destressing, and howwe felt powerless against these systems in place...because we were just visiting students who couldn't be there long enough to make a difference in the first place. But there was hope. People found hope in some of the refugees determination to succeed and survive. We were reminded of the generosity of "asking and receiving," and that all it takes sometimes is showing people the hurt of the world and then they awaken. People cried and hugged, and expressed a thankfulness for these newfound friendships. Sarah Tandy expressed it best: the most amazing thing about this group was our Ubuntu (If you're not sure what this is, look it up. I'm sure I'll be explaining it to you later in a more indepth fashion). If we're not changing each other for the better, at least we're changing each other "For Good."

Friday--"Workin' in the Coal Mine" by The Judds/"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

Ok, so technically it's the diamond mines I'm talking about. Kimberly is famous for being the hometown of Cecil Rhodes's De Beers Diamond Company. De Beers basically runs a monopoly on the diamond business. It also has a museam called "The Big Hole," which is a gigantic hole in the ground where miners dug for years trying to find diamonds. It is truely an impressive site. The Hole is over 2 kms deep at least (maybe a mile? not sure...). As I looked across it, I wondered how many thousands of people died digging it by hand. The VAST majority of it was dug by black Africans. They lived in mining barracks, poor conditions, the works. They were not allowed to go back home to their families for weeks at a time. They would maybe see them 2 or 3 times a year. The mining museam neglected to give this information. Most of their stuff was about the diamond making process, how it's formed, measured, and cut. It also gave a history of De Beers and which events paralleled other things going on the world (for instance, one change in De Beers happened the same year Michael Jackson died). They actually didn't mention black Africans anywhere but the parts about crime.

Melissa T., you would have been incredibly happy this day! We visited a library, the oldest one in Kimberly. It had the staircase and latters from Belle's library in Beauty and the Beast! Seriously, I wanted to live there forever and help them preserve historical documents. While we were there, we toured around and saw all of their rooms. They don't throw anything away, which is fabulous. Andrew, I also saw a book entitled "Wesley's Hymns." It was very tempting to steal it. We were also told there were several ghosts haunting the library, including the ghost of the guy who invented the Dewey System (who's name I can't recall). He actually began the library, but poisoned himself because he was accused of stealing from it.

The last thing we did this day way a game drive. Not going to lie, my ABSOLUTE favorite part of the trip at that point. It was your typical safari drive on a safari vehical. We saw eland, kudu, zebra, impala, blesbok, white blesbok (Dad, you would have flipped!). I was sad I wasn't with my family at that point. It brought back nostalgia for the hunting trip in Thabazimbi. Needless to say, I wished I could have shot at least something while I was there. The coolest part of the place, however, were the lions. This man raised lions to hunt. I admit it was very impressive to see the 33 lions, hear them, and play with 1 month old lion cubs, but at the end of the day, I was very sad for them. When I was in Thabazimbi 3 years ago, John Henry (our Professional Hunter) told us that he didn't like lion hunting and would never raise lions because it was dangerous. You feed them and they come to associate humans with food. Then when you hunt them, they are more likely to try and kill you instead of run away from you. The lions we saw were also kept in a fairly small enclosed area, and too close together at that. That was not fun to see.
Dinner that night was amazing though. Wonderful steak, potatoes, a wine, and fun conversations about my previous safari experience.

Saturday--"Bye Bye" by Jo Dee Messina

This day (thankfully!) we left Kimberly. Gum Tree was not a hugely pleasant experience, and the woman who ran it did not seem like she knew how to run a hostile. We drove 8 hours this day to the Drakensburg Mountains. On the way, we watched the movie Inception on the bus. GREAT Movie! By the time we got to Giants Castle, it was dark and rainy. We had history class and planned a little about which trails we would take the next day. Sarah Tandy and I had already talked about taking a trail that lead to Lesotho, one of the 2 countries within SA. Her friend Sarah Barton and another guy from the Africa 2010 trip last year made it all the way there, and we wanted to be just as hardcore. Afterwards, we went promptly to sleep.

Sunday--"On the Trail We Blaze" by Elton John (The Road to Eldorado cartoon)

OH MY GOSH! So Kristen, Sarah Tandy, and I hiked like 19 miles this day all the way to Lesotho and back! It was crazy and stupid, and took us 10 hours and 18 minutes, but we did it! The map said it would take 8 hours, but it didn't factor in the thunderstorms that would come and delay you significantly. I wish I could describe it to everybody. but imagine the Apalachain trail like 2X more steep than anything at Jones Gap (except for maybe the Hospital Rock trail...but imagine that one for 19 miles!). On the way, we fund porcupine quills, a herd of eland (I know, right dad??), two baboons, plane reckage from a plain crash, and 2 thunderstorms. Honestly, words can't describe the experience/soreness we felt afterwards. A shower was heavenly, needless to say.

Monday--"Waiting Here" by Nora Jones
This day, we had to say goodbye to the Drakensburg I literally thought about running away so that I could stay in this mountain range. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. But alas, we had to go to Durban.

Durban is a very beautiful city, like a Myrtle Beach, but prettier. We got there and had to say goodbye to Dr. Boucher, which was very sad :-( We ate lunch and then had class later on. Dinner was kind of a big ordeal. A big group of us went out to the mall and stopped at this restaurant called News Cafe. After 2 hours, we only got 1/2 our meals, missing forks, and very poor service. It was not the best Valentines Day, but I was still happy because I loved being with my newfound friends. And yea, that was pretty much the day.

Tuesday--"Do You Hear The People Sing" from Les Miserables
Today we went to the Phoneix Settlement, an indian settlement where Gandhi lived for about 10 years before he went back to India and change the world. He began his nonviolence work in South Africa. There were things about Coexisting peacefully together, which I definitely appreciated. The tour was a little sporatic, though. It could have been better, but it was a little unorganized. But no worries. Right after the tour, we drove by a group of grandmothers (Gogos) playing soccer! That was awesome and made me smile!
After this, I decided that the best thing to do was go with Sarah Tandy, Katie Coleman, Ana Spratley, Josh, Kristin, and Laura to the beach. The weather was BEAUTIFUL! I wasn't full-out in my bikini, b/c of my sunburn. The rip-tide was incredible, and body surfing was almost lethal. I acutally caught air when I was body surfing. That is, before the wave flipped me over and dragged my face on the bottom of the ocean. But it was fabulous regardless.
That night, we had a talk from Patrick Bonds, a professor at University of Kwazu-Natal. He was just like Mama K (Dr. Maher) said he would be: a hummingbird in a shoebox. He was very intelligent, and wonderful to listen to. But he went through his slides like he had ADD. It was a lot of the things Dale McKinley had to say, but with more hope. He said that we actually did have the power to change things, and he said it without anger. It definitely made me want to fight global health inequality. Not sure how I'm going to do it yet, but you never know!

Wednesday-- "Witchy Woman" by the Eagles
This day, we went on a Muti tour (sp?). Muti is the kind of traditional healing practice by indiginous Africans. We were lead there by a woman who's name was Faith. Interesting note about her: she was HIV positive and recovering from having TB a third time (no worries, Dad, I'm not coughing up blood.) She gave us the history of Muti, the differences between seers and healers, and just the general ins and outs of traditional healing. She is an activist and I wish we coul d have talked to her even more. Walking through the market was interesting. We didn't spend a lot of time in there (Dr. Maher was paranoid about pickpockets) but lots of herbs and animal parts (snake skins, horns, etc). We then got to go shopping in a nearby market. I'm starting to like this process.

Thursday: "Toxic"by Brittany Spears
I invoke this song only to say that we went on a "Toxic Tour" of Durban. In this one area of Durban, there are 2 petrol plants, a paper mill, a swewage plant, and a container storage place. Needless to say, there are a lot of fumes around this one area. Studies were done in 2002 on school children and people around the plants and about 52% of them were affected by the toxcitity. Lots had asthma and cancer. The land actually used to be townships, but people were kicked off their land to make the plants. And while there are regulations in place, they are not inforced. The companies have lobby the government, making it very hard to control things like toxic spills and clean air. The specific NGO we went to was actually taking samples of the air whenever people feel there is a high percentage of toxins in the air. They also help schools and companies practice in case of an emergency evacuation due to toxins.

Tomorrow I have a test in sociology, so if y'all could pray that I pass, that would be very wonderful :-)

Love you bye!

PS--Guess what? Tomorrow, I'M GOING TO SEE THE BAND U2 IN CAPETOWN!!!!