The Real PE

By the end of this trip I am going to have tried every type of boarding possible down here: surf boarding, boogie boarding, sand boarding. The other day it was skim boarding. I have some nice pictures up on flickr at my poor attempt skimming. I apparently don’t have good enough balance for it and it can be quite painful if you fall. Anyway, that was just one more fun thing I did at the beach this last week. I think that was also the last time I went to the beach (I’ve been avoiding the sun so my sunburn can heal before I burn again). My sunburn is pretty much gone but now it is peeling like none other. I will save you the gross description and just say that the peeling and itching are about as bad as the burning was.

There is this really cute place to eat called Tiffany’s and their slogan is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Every time I go there I get the song stuck in my head (since I’ve only been there once it hasn’t been a huge problemJ). One thing I am really excited about here that I’m sure most people don’t care about but I am extremely excited about is running outside. I was under the impression that it would be too dangerous to run or it isn’t a common thing so people would give me a funny look running past but that isn’t the case. Right outside the flats is a beach front boardwalk that is a runner’s paradise. It curves along with the coast line; it has all the advantages of running on the beach minus the sand in the shoes. I’ll have to take some pictures of my route so you can see what I’m talking about.

Starting on Tuesday we began our orientation at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. The first thing we did was check out the school and get registration sorted out so we could actually take classes. Then we had to listen to some academic lecture, most of which didn’t apply to my study abroad group so I basically zoned out the entire time. We also went to a mall, and it felt like I was back in St. Cloud. During this time I had what I have named the 24 hour cold (the best kind possible if you ask me). I had coughing and sneezing attacks, I couldn’t stay awake, and I felt like crawling in a corner and sleeping for days on end. But 12 hours of sleep later and I was perfectly fine. Can’t say I’ve ever gotten over a cold that fast in my life but I guess a warm tropical climate is the best place to have a cold.

Continuing with our orientation we got to see the real Port Elizabeth, not just the swanky tourist areas we have been experiencing. Thursday we went with other international students from NMMU on a tour around PE while on Friday just the CSB/SJU students went to the AIDS Haven where half of us will be volunteering.

The first stop on the tour was the Port Elizabeth harbor. We learned a bit of the importance the harbor has on the existence of PE (basically PE wouldn’t exist without it). After that we went to the Red Location museum. The Red Location is a township near PE and the museum was built recently in the township to commemorate those that fought apartheid. There was also an exhibit on the massacre in Uitenhage (I think) that took place on the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. If you have any interest in civil rights research these topics, they are very interesting.

What caught my attention, however, was not the beautiful museum but its position among the shacks of the township. The museum itself is built to look like a factory from the outside (to symbolize the workers of the township and their livelihoods or something along those lines). The inside has the feel of an open warehouse and corrugated tin enclosures rise to the ceiling and house more exhibits. However, 50 meters outside the doors, tiny shacks of scrap wood and plastic being held together by string and wire that look as if a sudden gust of wind could knock them to the ground spread over the vast landscape. Seeing the contradiction that is the museum and the shacks together is a bit difficult to understand.

We drove around the townships for a while after that. Some were in better working order than others with houses made of brick, stone, or concrete. These dwellings looked more permanent but not much more stable than the wood shacks. Hair salons popped up ever few hundred meters. They were housed in cargo containers (the ones found on cargo ships). Seeing the doctor and dentists’ offices made me wonder who uses them, who can afford to use them. Most of the people living in the area can’t afford enough food to eat, let alone medical expenses. And I did see a lot more sick people in the townships. Many people walked with heavy limps or had to be dragged from place to place. Malnutrition, I’m sure, is rampant in the townships as well. The amount of garbage in the townships is startling as well. We literally turned a corner and we must have crossed an invisible boarder. Plastic bags and all other types of garbage just sit there. It is not a life I can see anyone living.

After seeing that I had a bit of a culture shock. Driving out of the townships we took a round-about way to where we were going to eat (the mall, of course) and drove past the new soccer stadium being built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup taking place in SA (everyone in SA is excited about this in an obsessive way, it’s pretty cool. I can get more information on this if anyone wants it, just let me know). And our final stop on the tour was the city center surrounded by beautiful old buildings that looked more at home in Old World France or Italy and not in the middle of an African city.

This morning it was the AIDS Haven. It is larger than I thought it was housing at least 13 children and 5 infants, I think there’s more but I can’t be too sure I’m still getting used to the accents here. For those who will be volunteering here, we will get matched up one-on-one with a child and help them with their reading and get them ready to attend primary school in a year or two.

The matron of the Haven told us that 90% of the children they care for are HIV positive. The stories we were told about how the children came to be at the Haven are just heartbreaking. Some have lost both of their parents to AIDS and had no where else to go, I can understand that. But the stories that go me were the ones of abandonment. Some mothers can’t handle the fact that their child is HIV positive so they leave them at the hospital with a fake address. The hospital is forced to bring the child to a place like the Haven and the child never sees their mother or father again. Some mothers don’t even know if their child has HIV or not, they just assume they do and abandon them as well, only sometimes it turns out the child does not have HIV. One specific story I remember the matron telling us was about a set of twins. One twin was strong and healthy while the other was weak and sick. The mother decides to take the strong one and abandon the weak, believing it is going to die soon anyway.

I don’t understand how a mother can do this. How desperate or hopeless does the situation have to be for a mother to abandon the child she has carried for nine months? Are the bonds connecting the mother and child different here? I hope not. I don’t think I will ever be able to understand why people are able to do this regardless of how long I stay here.

Onto a more upbeat note I attended my first cricket match. I watched a few hours of cricket on TV to try to understand it but I was still semi lost for the first half. If you ask me about the finer points I won’t be able to tell you much but when it comes to the general information, I got it down. Cricket is much like baseball where it is slow moving with a few moments of excitement. The last half hour was really exciting to watch because the home team was not doing so hot but came back to win. They have now advanced to the semifinals. And the people here are crazy about cricket so you can just imagine how loud the stadium was.

Peace.