Blake Tyra's South Africa Study Abroad Blog: Orientation Week Continued

Friday, February 6th, 2015

12:00pm South African Standard Time

Weather: 75°F Sunny

What an action packed last few days of orientation. I feel like a tourist more than a student most of the time because the university is working to immerse us in the culture and become familiar with the area. I know that will begin to change next week as classes begin, but the international office encourages us to travel around the country as much as we can on the weekends and breaks. I am looking so forward to spending the months ahead getting to know South Africa even more.

On Tuesday of orientation we had breakout sessions on many different topics. In the Safety & Security session we learned not only to watch out for crime on campus, but there are were wild monkeys and poisonous snakes on campus too. I have seen the monkeys and they said they won’t bother you as long as you keep out of their space. Interesting enough, they have been known to steal food from student’s hands and even a few cell phones…I wonder who they are trying to call??? There are only two types of snakes that we need to watch out for and it is not common for students to get bit, but they are apparently out there. Such a different world here, but I am loving every minute of it so far.

Another one of the breakout sessions was on homesickness and loneliness. The school physiologist that led the session helped us understand the different phases we will all be going through at different times. The first is the honeymoon phase, followed by culture shock and ending with a form of acculturalization. I went through those phases to a mild extent last semester, but I am preparing for them to be at a much deeper level here for me and my friends as we fade from the honeymoon phase into real culture shock. Of course everyday thus far I have had instances of culture shock, but they typically don’t stick because I am still adjusting to the new environment. Little by little I am easing into the local routine, but I am still caught off guard by many local customs each today. Just today we had our second power outage. The first one I was in the hotel and the backup generators turned on within a few minutes and restored full power until the outage passed. Today I was at the local mall when it went out. All that I wanted to do was mail some letters, but they needed their registers to do so. Luckily I only had to wait around 30 minutes for the power to come back, but it was an experience that we rarely have in the US.

The last part of Tuesday’s orientation was a drumming session for us international students. We were each given a drum to play a call and response game along with dancing. It was a blast having the opportunity to make some noise and celebrate African culture. The video bellow was a great shot of the dancing that we did after playing the drums.

On Wednesday we had a campus tour followed by a city tour in taxicabs. It was 85 and sunny the entire day, so we were exhausted by the end. On the campus tour, I really got how big the university is. They have upwards of 20,000 students, so they are bigger than SCSU by about 4,000 or so. The city tour helped me become more oriented with where everything was in perspective. I found out that the place that Titus and I got lost on Monday was only a few blocks down from a well visited Nelson Mandela Memorial park. We ate lunch at a local pizza and winery. They had quite the special, 2 large gourmet pizzas for 100 rand ($10). It is fun to try new things here, epically when they are very reasonable.

On Thursday we visited the Missionvale Campus for a lecture on Nelson Mandela. The campus was a 30 minute bus ride out of the city and built right in the middle of the worst poverty I have ever seen. There were people living in huts, malnourished children on the streets, no apparent running water and trash everywhere. There was so much trash surrounding the neighborhood that it looked like a landfill at first. I am sickened by the fact that people are living in those conditions in a country that is becoming more and more prosperous each year, yet still can’t raise their people from the depths of poverty. The campus however was beautiful. It appeared much newer then the main campus where I am taking my classes. The lecture halls even had air conditioning. Although a shock, I am glad that students in the poverty ridden parts of town have access to a higher education and I know there are programs that work to send students to the university that cannot afford it themselves. Still, there is much to be done to improve the quality of life for many parts of South Africa.

Last night I went with a group of us that are staying at the hotel, went to a local tavern. When we got out of the taxi we saw Chantel, a South African exchange student who had visited St. Cloud State last semester. She had visited our pre-requisite class for studying in South Africa numerous times to talk to us about South Africa, so we were stunned to actually see her out of the blue while we were here. We all got her number and she said she would try to meet up with us tonight while we are at our orientation week party at the Beer Shack in PE. The university is providing bus service to and from the beer shack, live music, dinner and two drinks for everyone, so it should be a good time.

Best wishes to you all,

Blake

South Campus