Beaches and Papers

Things have been pretty up and down for me lately. I’ve been struggling with some homesickness, and then trying not to be too hard on myself for being down. The general life struggles of moving far away, but today I’m doing pretty well.

A role I know well....

I’ve signed on to an Assistant Stage Manager for the department’s production of The Man Who by Peter Brooks and Marie-Helene Estienne. It’s directed by Andrew Buckland, who’s a fairly well-known South African performer and director. I actually saw him in a production of Fuse several years ago at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. It was a fantastic show, just three men who played all the characters and all the props.

This show is pretty chill from my position. I basically just set up the props and tell the stage hands when to go on stage. Not nearly as exciting as Flip Side with all the flies and wheeling around of staircases, but I think it’ll be a good show none the less.

It’s a series of vignettes of people with different mental challenges, ranging from the well-known amnesia and Tourettes to stranger phenomenon like visual agnosia where the patients can see, but the visual information they receive doesn’t connect to meaning in their brains.

I’m having a good time working backstage. It’s a place a feel pretty comfortable and confident, which is really great to have here. I also feel like I’m getting to know the other drama students, but especially the department faculty and staff well by working on the show. If we have a good run tonight we get the weekend off, so cross your fingers, I am.

Turistas

Last weekend Interstudy organized a trip for all the Rhodes and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Interstudy students to go to a backpacker hostel in Cinsta. Buccaneer Backpackers. It was right near the beach! I was very excited, since I hadn’t been to the yet. The trip there took a lot longer than we’d planned because there was a mix-up with the directions, but eventually we made it and crashed out early.

The next day we headed out to the beach pretty early, but it was so windy that we didn’t last long. I think I’m still shaking sand out of random pockets. But, the weather was gorgeous and that afternoon we went on a Game Drive. We had a lovely lunch outside where we were entertained by the lurking ostrich that roam the grounds. Then we went into the park, there weren’t that many animals out that day; it may have been the heat. We saw a bunch of zebra, wildebeest, giraffes, various kinds of antelope and LIONS! There are three female lions, one male and some cubs in the game reserve. We saw two females and the male, but the other female must have been off with her cubs.

They keep the lions in an area surrounded by an electric fence, and we received clear instructions not to put any of our limbs out of the vehicle or to stand up, ever.

Apparently one of the females has charged some of the vehicles and we might need to head out pronto, but this time they were pretty chill, laying around in the shade.

All in all it was a really fun and informative drive. Our driver knew a ton about all the vegetation and told us some of the medicinal values of some things, and about the different invasive species of plants in the area and how they are being destroyed. I really enjoyed it, even if we never found the rhino.

Back to School

Getting back to school after such a fun weekend was a little daunting.

Before I left I turned in my thesis proposal for Smith (which they have approved! And now I just need to FedEX the college the official paperwork ASAP).

Then on Monday my initial proposal for the big drama research project was due.

Then 2 more papers, but luckily I got an extension for one paper, and the other one was fortuitously moved to this coming Tuesday, so that relieved some of my stress.

And we started auditions for our Drama Practical options on Friday! Here the whole of Drama 3 (about 25 students in total) goes to drama literature/history lectures together, and then we chose 2 different practical options (performance, directing, applied theater, design, stage management, dance/choreography, or playwriting) to study in-depth in smaller, workshop style courses. In Drama 1 and Drama 2 you get introduced to most of these options through more general “pracs” (kind of like the tutorial system that I described before).

I’ve decided to audition for dance/choreography, applied theater, and playwriting.

You get to take 2, but you have to audition for 3 so that they can have options in placing you. For dance/choreography we had to come up with a 2 minute movement piece, and music to go with it. We were supposed to do it once silently and then again with the music, but luckily he thought we were running out of time so we only had to do it one. This really lucky for me for two reasons, one I was exhausted from practicing for my piece and the movement study that he made us do, over and over, for the audition. Don’t get me wrong. It was really cool; it was also just really long and challenging.

Long story short, he said we’re all in! So that was really exciting. I don’t think my piece was that great, but it showed that I do have some sense of movement and know how to use my body.

Next I have to prepare my applied theater piece. Applied theater is sort of educational theater, but with a leaning towards social awareness. So, think interactive pieces designed to bring about dialogue within the community about a social justice issue that affects them. I’m excited about figuring that one out.

I’m going to turn in some of the playwriting work that I did last semester, but I really want to start making new work while I’m here. Playwriting is my third choice, because I can’t do either of the other choices at home, but if I do wind up doing it I’m sure I’ll have a really good time.

Me

The beginning of this week was really rough. I was stressed out and terribly homesick. I kept trying to remember why is was that I came here; why did I go so far away from everyone I know and love, and honestly I was so down that I couldn’t come up with a good answer. Just at I was stuck so I should stop moping.

Now it’s the weekend and I feel a lot better. I did a lot of work this week, and accomplishing things always makes me feel better. I’ve been in touch with people at home and new friends here. I’m starting to feel like less of an island out in the middle of nowhere.

Elephants, lots of Elephants

Last week I went to the Addo Elephant National Park with a bunch of other American turistas, a few Canadians, and a Scottish girl. The trip was organized by one of the local hostels. They do day and weekend trips all over the area (insert link here).

At first I felt a little bit out of place. Most of the other students had all met during the international students’ orientation (that I missed) and all seemed to know each other pretty well, but by the end I felt much more comfortable.

We pilled into two vans and began our drive to Addo, which is about 1-1 ½ drive from Grahamstown. Everything was pretty uneventful until we were pulled over for a random check. The police woman just stood in the middle of the lane and waved us over to stop, it seemed totally bizarre. She took his paperwork, walked around the vehicle, seeming to be looking for something incriminating, and then asked him for some more paper work. He didn’t have it. She then had him go across the road to fill out some more paper work.

Our driver also works as a bartender at the hostel where many of the Americans hang out, so this was all sort of comical, and an interesting comparison of how differently the police interact here. Needless to say, we took pictures of our friend getting a ticket.

They gave him a ticket for not having documentation for being able to drive a van with a lot of passengers, which he can contest because he does have permission, jus didn’t have the paper work. Then we drove off, saw a giraffe on the side of the road, and then the cops came up behind us flashing their lights. They’d written something down wrong and chased us down to get it. Bizarre.

Once at the park we drove around for several hours, mostly staring out the window searching for signs of life. There were loads of warthogs everywhere. They are so ugly they’re cute, in my opinion. We saw some zebras, which were beautiful. The ostrich seemed a little ragged, and there were lots of kudu (in the antelope family) as well as dung beetles. Dung beetles have the rite of way on all roads in the park because they are such an important part of the ecosystem.

It was getting close to lunch and we still hadn’t seen an elephant. We met up with the other van, who had apparently seen several elephants up close, and started to head back to the picnic area for a cook out (braai). Then, I spotted an elephant on the side of the road. The other van missed it and kept going, but we backed up and it walked out of the bushes in front of our van and crossed the road. Yep, definitely a proud moment in my life. We were able to hold our heads high during lunch having also seen an elephant up close.

<--- My elephant.

We went back out after lunch and saw several more elephant, including a Momma and baby elephant walking down the road.


It was a great adventure.

School Stuff

My Courses:

Drama 3: literature and theory lectures 4 days a week and practical workshops once a week for first term, more on those later

The Environmental History of South Africa: lectures 3 times a week, one is a double period, and seminar groups every other week

isiXhosa: Grammar and vocabulary lectures twice a week, tutorials with isiXhosa mother-tongue tutors twice a week, and once a week cultural lectures

In case you couldn’t tell this is a lot of class time.

Here courses meet for 45min periods, and there are officially 10 periods in a day starting at 7:45am and ending at 6pm.

Rhodes uses a tutorial system, which are basically (compulsory) small discussion groups lead by a senior student. Students prepare assignments and are expected to do reading for their ‘tuts’. As I understand it, this is where most of the class discussion happens and lectures are mostly just well, lectures.

The only tutorials I have are for isiXhosa, but I would describe those classes as a conversation class, trying to get us more comfortable speaking isiXhosa.

My history class has a seminar every other week. We prepare a short paper (1000-1500 words) about an assigned topic and discuss it in small groups with our professor.

Drama has practicals, “pracs”, which for the first term are once a week workshops with the different faculty in the department. Next term we will each pick two fields that we want to pursue more in depth. These include stage management (which can also include some rigging), design elements, performance, dance performance, applied theater, directing, and playwriting. You have to audition for each section, and people generally audition for three or four so that the faculty can have some flexibility in organizing people.

The other interesting element here is that classes are held at a different time each day, so my Drama class is at 8:40 on Monday, 10:05 on Tuesday, 10:30 on Wednesday, and 11:55 on Thursday, and every course is like that! On Tuesday I missed my isiXhosa course because I got the time confused (I thought it was the Weds. time, which is later). I don’t know why they do it this way, and no one has been able to tell me except that that’s just they way things are. Apparently that’s how many high schools are organized too.

I’m really enjoying my classes. Drama is looking at “Re-imagining Popular Theatre”. We’ve been studying Dario Fo, and today we’ll being looking at Brecht & Cabaret.

The Environmental History of South Africa is also really fascinating. We’ve got a very small class, and even fewer who show up to classes regularly! But on Tuesday everyone showed up because we had a guest lecturer come and talk about the history of alcohol, and he brought samples. It was both informative and entertaining!

I'm getting a little more comfortable with isiXhosa. Having to say things over and over in the tut really helped.

Getting Started

Part 1: Travel (this bit is pretty typical, but I thought I’d include it anyway)

My first actual day was full of travel, arriving in Johannesburg around 4pm I had a 3 hours lay-over. There is a lot of construction at the Jo’burg airport to prepare for the 2010 World Cup and I was escorted to a different part of the airport to make my connection. The airport was fairly typical, which was actually comforting. Over-crowded restaurants, overpriced food, strange gift/gadget stores and mildly comfortable waiting areas, all in all a typical airport.

Another flight to Port-Elizabeth this one 2 hours. The man I sat next too looked out the window for most of the trip, genuinely interested in the view. I find it really refreshing when people aren’t jaded by travel and still want to see the spectacular view. I kept thinking about how all these people had lived through apartheid and how their lives must have changed in the last 20 years. It seems such an overwhelming difference.

I was picked up at the airport along with another student. I didn’t catch his name. He and the driver rode in front, while I rode in the back with a woman who slept most of the way. I tried to watch out the window, but by this time it was already dark and I couldn’t make out much from the throw of the headlights. It is very dark in the South African countryside.

Everyone was very nice when I arrived, and I stayed up for a while longer getting to know some of the other students in my residence (commonly referred to as “res”).

Part 2: School Prep

First, a note on the South African education system, about which I have been learning a lot. During their last two years of high school SA students are expected to pick a degree field (all of which are constantly referred to with abbreviations that I don’t know). They specialize in certain subjects and take exams based on their field of interest. This means that they are expected to know, for certain, what degree they’re going to get before they come to university. It’s a 3 year degree program, some of which offer an optional 4^th honors year.

In these first few days I’ve mainly tried to get my courses sorted out, and tomorrow we’ll see if it worked! In order to register I had to jump through several hoops, the most interesting to me being meeting with the head of each department in order to gain permission to take courses in that subject.

I’ve gained permission to take the third year courses in Drama and History. The drama course includes both theoretical/literary study as well as practical courses (all included). History is divided into two terms: first term Environmental History of South Africa, second term a course on Zimbabwe. And finally Xhosa (the local language in Grahamstown).

Because of the differences in our curriculums I’m a little intimidated by the courses I’m taking, so it’s a good thing my grades here don’t count.

Part: Social Status

Because of my delayed arrival I missed most of “O Week” (orientation week). (This is first semester for African universities because our seasons are switched). While part of me is grateful to not have to repeat the first year orientation process, I am a little sad that I didn’t get a chance to meet the other Interstudy students at our orientation.

However, I did arrive in time for the final day of Serenades, a very interesting Rhodes tradition! For the entire O Week, each “res” gets up at 6am and goes to the front of another res and sings to them, that res replies with a song, and then students are broken up into groups to meet each other. Typically, a male res will come to a female res, but they started to switch things up and the day that I was roused at 6am another female res come to our house. I’m not sure how long this has been going on, but it is quite entertaining and seems to really bond each house, even if it’s just because they’re so cranky about getting up.

There have also been several parties most notably a movie premier night and a street party. The movie event was fun, although I was very tired because it was my second night in town and I was still very jet-lagged. All the movies they played were American films that have been out in the US for a few months. I had this hilarious moment when I realized that on my first real night in SA I was sitting in a movie theater watching The Bucket List, surreal.

Last night there was a street party. They blocked off one of the roads on campus, set up a stage the size of a semi, literally. It was a semi truck that turned into a huge rock stage. Not to mention the block long bar. They also gave out free water and sandwiches, which I thought was very smart. The music was good, house and hip hop, and loads of people dancing. I didn’t last too long though, I walked around all day trying to get my courses sorted and errands run.

Today has mostly been a day of leisure. I’ve made a new friend and we spent most of the day just walking around town, and the botanical gardens (check out the pics). I got my first sun-burn. It was overcast all day, but that doesn’t stop UV, so I’ll be more diligent about my sunscreen from here on out.