First Week of Classes

Well, my first week of classes went okay, considering I haven’t been in class for seven weeks. Unbelievable, right? I think so, but every moment of it was enjoyed. The first class I attended was South Africa Jazz/Music. This was a pretty awesome class. It’s taught by a woman named Lestie Hughes, an Afrikaner professor at NMMU. Our lesson Monday night (2:45-5:45) was on traditional Xhosa music. The Xhosa are a group of native Africans from the Thembo tribe, which, by the way, Nelson Mandela was a royal member of. Class was actually pretty fun! We did clapping to different beats, and did a round of a song in Xhosa. We also listened to some music and learned the elements of it. Their music is so complex ! I believe it's called Ngumi. It was so cool to learn about it and be able to hear all of the elements. To complete the class session, we watched a video on the different types of bows they use and saw a few videos of women singing. If you wanted to hear some of what I hear, see if you can find this type of music on youtube. Another really fun thing to learn was the different types of clicks the Xhosa language has. First is the “x” click, which is kinda on your front teeth. Next is the “q” click, which is from the roof of your mouth. Last is the “c” click, which is off the side of your cheek. I’m still working on prefecting this, but I’ll be sure to give you an example when I get home. J

The next day the kombi/taxi strike was still on, but luckily our only class was Senior Seminar, taught by our own professor, so we just walked up the street to the Church’s meeting hall and had class there. Our senior seminar is really focused on talking about the past history of South Africa and the Apartheid. We started reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. Our professor is on of the top political science professors at our university and is an expert on South African politics, so we are in very good hands. Gary talked for a while, giving us really good background information and then we discussed the Nelson Mandela book in small groups. I’ll give you a brief overlook on the history of South Africa. The native African tribes were the first to live here, which had many different tribes in different areas. Nelson Mandela comes from the tribe of the Thembo and was royalty actually. His father was the counselor to the chief. Then around the 1400’s the Dutch came down. Today descendents of these people are called Afrikaners and they speak Afrikan, a variation of Dutch. At this time, Africa was only a stopping point for the British while they were on their way to India, but eventually in the 1800’s they settled here. This was the time when the phase “the sun never sets on the British” because they virtually controlled land all around the world. Like I said before, the city of Port Elizabeth was named after a higher-class British woman named Elizabeth who died earlier in life. The British wanted to set in a parliamentary democracy, but realized that they were not the majority, and eventually the Apartheid was established. The Apartheid not only took away the rights of the blacks/natives, but also coloureds, people of Asian descent. That’s enough of a history lesson for now.

Then Wednesday, surprise, surprise the kombi strike was still on! After being shuttled to school, we had our Community Service course. We only have this one every few week. This course is taught by a part time professor, Natalie Mansfield, who has a degree in social work. We really just talked about how if you see a community with a need, one can’t just “fix” it for them, instead we must go into the community, form personal relationships with the people, and ask what they think they need. If they do not need what you think they need, after you leave, your work will not survive. It was a really good session and we have goals from last year’s group of what work they want to keep doing at our volunteer sites. Originally, I though I wanted to work at the AIDS Haven, but I’ve actually changed my mind and decided I want to volunteer at Pendla School. I will be a teacher’s aid and occasionally on rotation, I will also work in the garden that supplies fruits and vegetables for the kid’s lunches. Both are terrific places to volunteer, but each have separate things to experience. I will be able to teach some kids their first words of English and they in turn can teach me words in their first language, Xhosa.

Wednesday afternoon/evening (2-5) we had our first South Africa Literature course. We’ve been reading short stories that all have the underlying theme of the concern about security and against crime in South Africa. There are fences and security systems around all the buildings down here. It’s bit different coming from home, where I can just leave my car doors unlocked and my keys in the car in the driveway. Sometimes it seems here we have to ask the question “Is the security to protect against the crime or does the crime happen because all the security measures seem to expect it?”

Then, today was my last class of the week, South Africa Politics. This class is different than my Senior Seminar class, because we will be focusing more on the present politics of South Africa. We talked a bit of the different elements and themes of politics and then we watched a video. The video was extremely interesting and shocking. Since the Apartheid was overthrown in 1994, 15 years ago, this country is still trying to recover and adjust to the new government. Nelson Mandela was a very charismatic leader and had a dream for this country and did a lot of good for his people. He freed them from the racism and oppression of the old government, but this country is far from perfect. Like I said before, there is still extreme poverty, 90 % of Port Elizabeth lives in Townships which have little shacks to live in. Whites still live in the wealthier parts of town and hold better jobs. We can see that in our own flats. The maids who clean our rooms everyday are all black, but all the people who work in the office are white. We heard today a story about students at separate college last year who, as a sort of “initiation,” made their housekeepers eat food that they had urinated on. They took video of it and it was circulated on youtube. Last year around this time, there were some riots against this action. We are also here in an election year. The election actually just got set for April 22nd, I believe. The concern with this is that, the may that is favored right now is named Jacob Zuma. Zuma was and last president, but he was fired because he was involved in a scandal where he raped a family friend, whom he knew was HIV positive, then said that we showered afterwards to reduce the risk of getting AIDS. Not only that, but at that time he was a top leader in the governments AIDS Prevention. Corrupted government, huh? It was all just very interesting and very shocking. I’m not even totally able to touch on all the stuff in the video, but I’m pretty excited to learn more about this country through all these classes, even though it sounds like I’m going to be writing quite a few papers and doing a lot of reading.

P.S. I uploaded pics on Facebook. Check them out!