Orientations!

Ok, so now onto all the fun stuff of orientations. On Saturday I had my Arcadia orientation (the university I am traveling through in the US). Andrea and Kevin Patrick are our program directors. They seem really nice and are extremely knowledgeable. Both are originially from the US, but have lived in and traveled to many places in the world. I can’t remember everything, but Andrea worked in Russia and Kevin has lived and worked in Brazil and lots of other places. Both of them came to South Africa from 1997 to 2000 to work. Kevin worked on helping to rebuild the SA government, specifically an ethics code for government. Both of them decided that SA would be a great place for students to learn and study abroad, so they decided to create this program for Arcadia. I know they are incredibly dedicated to this program for that reason. Kevin will be teaching a mandatory course called Contemporary Issues in SA. This class is only for the people who are with Arcadia, 15 people in total. We have had two classes so far, and it has been very informative. Apparently Cape Town is the whitest city, in the whitest province (like a state), in the whitest country in Africa. Kind of disappointing, not going to lie. Tonight we learned all about the ANC (the ruling political party and biggest opposition group to apartheid). I’ll tell you about that with the history of SA later. Anyways, the class seems like it is going to be phenomenal. Kevin has a ton of contacts throughout SA, and we will be going on fieldtrips and having lots of guest speakers.

On Sunday we started UCT orientation with a field trip! There are about 450 study abroad students, probably about 400 of them from the US. All of us got on big charter buses and took a tour of the city. Then, then drove us to see the penguins! Ok, so it wasn’t quite as fantastic as I thought it would be, but they were cute (although they smell quite bad). They are South African penguins and they live on the beach. Who knew?

After this we went to have lunch in a township. A township is the places where blacks were forced to move during apartheid. Basically the government went into nice neighbor hoods and bulldozed black people’s homes and forced them to move into fenced in areas on the outskirts of town. This was to prevent blacks from taking over power from the whites. These townships still exist, even 15 years after apartheid has ended and are completely poverty stricken. Most people live in shacks, literally a one room house with tin roofs. The township we were in I have heard is actually one of the nicest in Cape Town. The SA government is in the process of building apartments for people in townships, and this township was largely made up of these apartments. Every person in a township is supposed to have an apartment by 2014, although this still seems like an incredible task to me. The townships do, however, have electricity that was added only a few years ago. We ate in a school I believe, and the food was wonderful! They made some South African dishes, and again, dessert was the best. Then they put on a program for us. A bunch of kids from the township danced for us. They belong to a program that was created to try to keep these kids from ending up a criminal or on drugs. They were really good! There was also a few older people, probably in the 20’s, that sang for us. They apparently just recorded an album, and it was quite good. All of the kids were adorable and it was incredible to watch them break dance and do flips and all sorts of fun stuff. It really showed the heart and soul of the community. I’m hoping to do some volunteer work in a township.

Then we went to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. Cape of Good Hope is the south-western most point on the African continent. Also, it is supposedly where the Atlantic and Indian Ocean meet (although that is slightly disputed). At one point, we walked down an enormous set of steps to go to the beach. I got to touch the ocean for the first time from this side! We then climbed for about 45 minutes to get to the top peak. It was beautiful! We also saw baboons on the way up. Several were carrying babies and they were really cute. Then on the way out we saw some ostriches! It was incredible, but also exhausting. That night we went out for dinner and I had ostrich lasagna. It was really good actually! It pretty much tasted like beef, but had a slightly different texture. I’ve heard that it’s really good for you, so I guess it’s good I like it.

Yesterday we had more orientation sessions. We found out about the registration process, which seems quite difficult and much different than I am used to. First of all, the campus is huge and it’s on a huge hill (actually, more like a mountain)! No more walking from one end to the other in 15 minutes (oh BW). Anyways, in order to register I have to look up classes in the handbook (not online), then I have to go to the faculty (college) that the class is in and find out what time the class is and when it meets, make sure nothing conflicts, and then I can register. There are periods here. For instance 8-9 is first period, 9-10 is second, ect. You can only take one class during each period because you also have tutorials, which are small group sessions where you can ask questions. The environment here seems much more strict. There is no taking food or drink into classrooms (even water) and I guess you don’t ask questions during class. Perhaps this is the case at large universities in the US, but I don’t know. Definitely different than I am use to. Also, the grading scale is quite different. 80-100% is an A+, 75-79% is A, 70-74% is an A-. Sounds great, right? Well, I’ve heard that it is extremely difficult to get an A and that most students are happy with C’s here. I guess they grade a lot harder than in the states, so I am kind of worried, considering I have to get a C for my credits to transfer. Also, most classes have a final worth 50-60% of your grade. That’s a bit scary, I must admit. And tests are not normally multiple choice, but rather 3-4 essays and then short answers. Oh goodness. It seems a bit overwhelming at the moment, but hopefully it will be fine. Random fact - supposedly UCT is one of the best, if not the best, university in SA and probably Africa.

Today at orientation we had a rather explicit but informative talk about HIV/AIDS. I pretty much knew all of the information they were giving, but I understand what a huge deal HIV/AIDS is here. Most statistics state that 1 out of 4 people in SA have the virus. They have condoms in every bathroom on campus, as well as several testing sites. There is also a really active student group that is committed to informing students, preventing the transmission of HIV, and testing. I think that I am going to learn a lot about this issue, and see the enormous effects it has had on SA.

Oh my, that was a lot of info. If you made it to the end, I hope you at least found it interesting. I hope you are all having a lovely evening (or I guess afternoon for you)!