First post from the South Africa January 16, 2007
We got away from home on time and met no traffic as the Farry’s drove us to the airport in Minneapolis. I think that the northwest wind with temperatures near zero pushed us both physically and mentally to get “out of Dodge.” After such a mild winter thus far, it felt like we should hang around and take our punishment…may be next winter.
All went very well getting to Washington except we were slow to get cleared and out of Dulles airport. Little did we know that this delay would not be compensated for as we flew down to Jo’burg. You would think that in a 15 hour flight that you could make up some time but no. Actually, the plane flies most efficiently at a particular cruising speed and that the fuel economy would drop as you go faster. Thus we did not argue with the pilot because we did not stop for fuel Dakar, Senegal as our travel agent suggested that we might but flew straight to Jo’burg. I guess it was the thought of making an emergency landing in Botswana that didn’t appeal. Now there were some really straight roads (we could see them from the airplane) but no thanks we like those runways tarred – yes we do. All of this would make a minor footnote except that it caused us to miss our connecting flight to Port Elizabeth. It had already flown the “coop” by the time we got through customs and they were efficient so it was close. Dang, it was the last flight to P.E. on Saturday. It took a little time to find the right counter to stand in front of to get this problem solved. The young woman at the counter was cordial enough but it took about a 30+ minute wait before the voucher came through that allowed us to be put up for the night, which they did with dinner and breakfast. Next morning we got on the 9:15 am flight and low and behold as we were checking in they said that we were upgraded to first class. Now you know that this is something that you don’t want to have happen. No I am not daft! Traveling first class just makes you hate cattle car class all the more. You have knee and derrière room. They give you orange juice, a warm moist towel, a newspaper, and a decent breakfast. Ugh … you don’t want to go back – back there any more!!
There a couple of things that were interesting that happened because of the delay. We got to know some of the other passengers also delayed on the flight like the father and his two sons who were traveling from Kansas City and were going to do some assistance work in a rural community for their church. Also we met this group of women who we took for Japanese women traveling together but, as we found out in the van as we all headed to the terminal; they were Korean school teachers on winter vacation. They were quite excited upon learning that we visited Korea, had a daughter teaching there and were interested in how we liked it. They were quite please and each had to say goodbye as they got off the van.
As you travel around you begin to pickup on cultural similarities and differences. When the bellhop, a young black man, brought up our luggage, he held his elbow with his left hand as he accepted the tip. The only other place that I have seen such a mannerism was in Korea last summer. When they were being formal, they would always hold the arm that was taking or giving back the money. Another interesting note is the speech of the South Africans. If they were more use to speaking English (remember that Afrikaans is most common among large numbers (if not all) of white South Africans), their manner of speaking in English is very similar to Australian but a little distinctive. It is close enough that without certain key word being spoken I might guess wrong. Those that are not use to speaking English are hard to follow as in Australia. Oops you say they speak English in Australia. Yes they do but many had such thick accents that I had hard time following what they were saying even if it was “English.”
Just like in South Korea if you squint your eyes almost closed you could swear that you were in Minneapolis. Well that is excluding looking out to the north east where the Indian Ocean lies. Most of the language you hear incidentally…people walking behind you or people at another table in a café…is unintelligible. You want to turn around and look at the person…not that that is all that helpful. If the speakers are black they are speaking Xhosa or one of 6 other black languages in South Africa. If they are brown they may be speaking Pakistani or an Indian language. If they are white it may be Afrikaans or deeply accented English. In any event it doesn’t matter because you can’t understand!
What is the place like that we are staying at? We are on the third floor of this older building with suites, which means that they have a small kitchen. The price is right for the program and the location is …well… right depending upon your view. It is just across the street from a park and nice beach area. There are restaurants nearby and many things to do. On the other hand if you want studying to be foremost in students’ minds, a place far from here might be in order. For the moment I am willing to enjoy being here and we will see how the students handle it. I will enclose a couple of pictures to show the outside and the view from our balcony look.
We got into our office today and did some things on the computer. Tomorrow, we get our laptop computer setup to be used on the system at NMMU so one of us can work on our laptop and the other on University’s computer. There are Vervet monkeys around on campus who can be a pest because they get into the trash cans and throw things around as they search for food. They will come up and take food from you if you sit down next to you. More students will be around next week and all classes start that first week in February so we will see more of then. They are small with a dark face surrounded by white fur. They are cute and with an amazing blue genitalia (This was Norma’s addition; I was trying to keep this post G rated). I brought the camera on to campus to take their pictures but they were no where to be seen now for several days.
