1. this one was posing for the camera
2. the monkey who ate my chips
Then we had our lunch break, and unfortunately, I still have yet to find a good place to eat on campus. It seems the cafeteria that I thought we were supposed to go to is just for grad students and faculty. So we’re left with a fast food type restaurant that we tried and it was gross. Then today we tried another place and had another gross lunch. There is a café in the international student office, but people who’ve gone there had to wait over an hour for their food. We don’t really have that much time. I think I’ll have to start bringing my lunch or something.
But on our lunch break today…I finally saw the monkeys on campus!!!! They seemed to be the same kind of monkey I saw on a game drive with Kate. But we heard people talking about seeing them on the upper campus. And while we were sitting on the grass, we saw these monkeys (4 and one baby wrapped around the mom’s tummy) make their way down the stairs with tons of students! It looked so weird. Then they were on the railing. One girl got kind of surrounded and had to throw her apple and slowly get out of there! Apparently the monkeys are known to attack (bite and scratch) girls who have food. One of the monkeys crawled into the garbage can and pull out the bag of chips I had just thrown away!! Obviously I had cleaned that bag out pretty well, because then he threw it on the ground. So monkeys are the ones causing the litter problem in SA! Oh it was just so much fun. And we were in the elevator to get to class and we asked some other students if they saw the monkeys. They said with an almost bored expression, “the monkeys are here every day.” But exciting for us!
Then I went to SA literature and that was a great class. We discussed short stories that we had read. I’m really enjoying learning about the South African culture in all of these subjects. But now that we have the syllabi for all these classes, I’m noticing that a lot of assignments are culminating in the first week of March. So I’m going to try and get ahead in my reading so that I’ll have time to work on the papers too.
Tonight we had a welcome dinner at the Catholic Church. It was really great. You might be amazed to know, but the church ladies who serve meals at the churches at home actually look and act the same here! Three older ladies served us chicken curry and rice for dinner. It was great. The priest was new to the parish and he is from Ireland. He was very glad to meet us and complimented the US on all their work to help Africa. He said that the US may not be right in the Iraq war, but that we are the country that does the most to help others and that we should be proud to be Americans. There were also black students from NMMU there who are a part of the Catholic organization on campus. Most blacks and whites here are Christian. And there is also a large Muslim population. They told us that many blacks still have their tribal religions, but are Christians too. They invited us to events and mass going on at school. After dinner we went out with these students to a club and had fun dancing to American and South African music.
But that’s all for today. Let me know if I’m writing too much. These posts seem to always get longer than what I mean them too and I don’t want them to take too long for people to read.
3. my first day of school picture
The strike went on for the third day like expected. We got shuttled to class. The first class was community service. We’re taking that as a workshop and mentorship while we’re volunteering. It also sounds as if we will be trying our hand a community development, which would be an awesome experience! In this class we were supposed to introduce ourselves with our name and one surprising thing we’ve found since we’ve been here. One girl, from MN but not from our program, said she was most surprised that there was ice cream in South Africa. Most of us just covered our eyes and looked down because we were so embarrassed!!
Then we had our lunch break, and unfortunately, I still have yet to find a good place to eat on campus. It seems the cafeteria that I thought we were supposed to go to is just for grad students and faculty. So we’re left with a fast food type restaurant that we tried and it was gross. Then today we tried another place and had another gross lunch. There is a café in the international student office, but people who’ve gone there had to wait over an hour for their food. We don’t really have that much time. I think I’ll have to start bringing my lunch or something.
But on our lunch break today…I finally saw the monkeys on campus!!!! They seemed to be the same kind of monkey I saw on a game drive with Kate. But we heard people talking about seeing them on the upper campus. And while we were sitting on the grass, we saw these monkeys (4 and one baby wrapped around the mom’s tummy) make their way down the stairs with tons of students! It looked so weird. Then they were on the railing. One girl got kind of surrounded and had to throw her apple and slowly get out of there! Apparently the monkeys are known to attack (bite and scratch) girls who have food. One of the monkeys crawled into the garbage can and pull out the bag of chips I had just thrown away!! Obviously I had cleaned that bag out pretty well, because then he threw it on the ground. So monkeys are the ones causing the litter problem in SA! Oh it was just so much fun. And we were in the elevator to get to class and we asked some other students if they saw the monkeys. They said with an almost bored expression, “the monkeys are here every day.” But exciting for us!
Then I went to SA literature and that was a great class. We discussed short stories that we had read. I’m really enjoying learning about the South African culture in all of these subjects. But now that we have the syllabi for all these classes, I’m noticing that a lot of assignments are culminating in the first week of March. So I’m going to try and get ahead in my reading so that I’ll have time to work on the papers too.
Tonight we had a welcome dinner at the Catholic Church. It was really great. You might be amazed to know, but the church ladies who serve meals at the churches at home actually look and act the same here! Three older ladies served us chicken curry and rice for dinner. It was great. The priest was new to the parish and he is from Ireland. He was very glad to meet us and complimented the US on all their work to help Africa. He said that the US may not be right in the Iraq war, but that we are the country that does the most to help others and that we should be proud to be Americans. There were also black students from NMMU there who are a part of the Catholic organization on campus. Most blacks and whites here are Christian. And there is also a large Muslim population. They told us that many blacks still have their tribal religions, but are Christians too. They invited us to events and mass going on at school. After dinner we went out with these students to a club and had fun dancing to American and South African music.
But that’s all for today. Let me know if I’m writing too much. These posts seem to always get longer than what I mean them too and I don’t want them to take too long for people to read.
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