The last days.

Yesterday I met a daughter of president Zuma. She told me she is the first born from his third wife. She is one of a total of 18 kids. Musa Zuma. Piercings in her face and a rebellion of the hard core sort. Was fantastic to meet her.

I met a whole lot of people yesterday, fun people that I wanted to get to know more, but I am leaving in two days. Tomorrow night Shanti, my best friend here is driving me to the airport. Then I will spend three days in Rome before coming home to Oslo on Saturday.

I have been here for quite some time now. Yesterday when I met all those people, I was at a concert with a Swiss band from Bern. I started to talk to them afterwards and it felt like we were from the same place. Switzerland seems like home now. It was so refreshing to meet some Europeans. This tells me something about how long I've been here.

I went to Mosambique for a week and then to Johannesburg for a week. I visited Soweto, Mandela's house and the apartheid museum. I want to write the story of the apartheid here, but the lack of time I have left now is stopping me. I want to go out to the beach. I have so little time left.

This morning I watched the sun rise and swam in our pool that is so full of greenish growth that I probably should not swim there, but I did and it was wonderful. A week ago I climbed table mountain and I was swimming in a lake on top of it. Same feeling. I love swimming.

I talked to my 5 year old nephew on the phone an hour ago. He asked if I had seen monkeys and I replied yes. Then he asked if I had remembered to give them bananas. I said no and that made him a little frustrated: "but why not?" "because I am scared of monkeys", I replied. "but you could have just have thrown them from afar!!!" He was getting all upset and leaving the phone. Haha.

Yes, there is a lot of things I could have done, but now there is no more time.

I had so much fun though. I will upload a few pictures here just to give you the idea of how my last weeks have been.

See you all soon!!

Heidi

Elephant madness

Listen to Ezra's wonderful commentary, haha. A true Swaziland experience!

Life in South Africa.

Last weekend, five of us drove down to a town by the coast called Hermanus where once a year people are gathered for the, brace yourself, the whale festival. Hahaha. In Hermanus lives the world's only known professional whale crier. It means he has a horn he can call the whales with, so that they curiously swim very close to the cliffs where we and all the other tourists are standing watching them in amazement. Haha, we were so thrilled. The whales can jump, did you know that? I didn't. Fascinating. Indeed I was so fascinated that I bought my very own whale horn and are now amusing my flatmates with it. Just have a look at Eline at the image bellow;) (The smoke does not come from the whale horn by the way). Whales, I love you, but I still want to eat you. Word! :)

Languages and race

I am truly sorry I haven't written in two long weeks. What can I say, it has been busy, both study wise and party wise. On the picture you see some South-African girls that we hang out with. They're all in their freshman year and so I feel a little old going out with them, but they're really nice. Palesa on the far left is from Johannesburg. Let me tell you; people here have skills when it comes to languages. Everyone knows at least three, often four different languages. Keep in mind South -Africa has eleven official languages. Down here in Cape Town most people speak Xhosa, but further up north Zulu is more common. If you're more interested in this, have a look at this link:

http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/language.htm

So I ask Palesa which languages she speaks. She speaks Zulu, English, Sesotho and Afrikaans. I ask if she speaks Zulu at home with her family. She answers; "I used to, but then I went to boarding school and turned into a coconut." Haha. what is that supposed to mean? It means that you are black, but white inside. It means you act, dress and talk like a white. You are a coconut, or someone says oreo cookie. And the other way around, if you are white, but act black you are a topdeck (name of a cadbury chocholate that has white chocholate on top and black inside). Hehe. Race is a topic for many jokes in this country, no kidding.

Now it is spring break and at the moment I am finishing some essays for university and this afternoon I'm going to the airport to pick up Simone and tomorrow we're going to drive down to Mossel Bay. It is going to be absolutely fantastic. My first mission as a tourist guide is to make him to try all the exciting meat dishes: ostrich, springbook etc.

I will post pictures of it next week. Have a great week everyone! I'm off to holiday @ the beach!

Familier names in a foreign country

This is south african chocolate. In afrikaans it says «I’m thinking of you». It is there, staring me in the face every time I am buying food. It reminds me of that I am thinking of a lot of people everyday that is so far away. I just wanna say I am thinking of all of you and miss you so much!

But going abroad do not necessarily mean you are not going to bump into familiar names and people...

I got a book from my professor about the Sudan. I was going to give a presentation on the Darfur Sultanate during the period between the 1650 and 1916 . It is a heavy sort of literature and this book seems fine. Not too complicated, and yet very detailed. The name of the author didn’t grab my attention at first: R. S. O’Fahey. But hey, isn’t that a professor from the University of Bergen? Hmm, yes it is! He is an Irish man who have studied the Sudan for most of his life and has ended up lecturing at the University of Bergen. I’ve been to his lectures during my first course in Middle East history and I remember him very well talking about his travels between Khartoum and Darfur. Here I travel all the way to South Africa in order to study African history from a different angle and I end up reading a book written by one of the professors back home!

And the very same day, this happens: I am doing a course in Afrikaans and we are learning to say where are you from, where is that, were do you live now etc. The teacher tells us to mingle and talk to each other in only afrikaans. Two and two we ask each other where we are from. After a funny confusing conversation with a guy from Austria I end up talking to the other Norwegian girl in my class. All I know is that her name is Elisabeth and that she’s a law student from the University of Oslo. And so she asks me «waar is jy gebore?» (where are you born). My answer is Oslo. Next question: «waar het jy grootgeword?» (where did you grow up). And I reply close to Hønefoss. And she immidiatley switches over to norwegian and ask? Hvor i Hønefoss? (Where in Hønefoss?) And I go: Røyse. And she goes: Hva heter du til etternavn? (What’s your last name?) And I go: Larsen. And she goes: Karlstad Larsen? And I turn into a question mark. (How the f.. does she know?)

Turns out her last name is Jøta Holter. She is a cousin of a girl I went to primary school with and she she came to our house sometimes when she was in town to play with my older sister. I don’t remember her exactly. But I remember the girl in my class talked a lot about her cousin Elisabeth. Weird!!! I go to South Africa hoping to meet new people from different nations. And here I am introducing myself in Afrikaans to a girl that used to come to our house when we were kids!

A visit to Gugulethu – a township

Saturday afternoon two american girls Felicia, Amanda and I went to mama Nokuzola's house in Gugulethu. We had dinner there and stayed over night. It is an organized tour called ”homestay”. By paying a certain amount of money to the family you get to experience a little bit of what it’s like to stay in a township where people used to, and some still do, live in shacks, but in recent years many families have gotten brick houses with finacial help from the government. Mama Nukuzola got hers in 1997. Back then it was only one room and a bathroom. Now it has two bedrooms, bathroom and a open space with kitchen. In the picture you see the son in the house; Supermanga (sounds like superman when you pronounce it) age 7, looking across the street from the house. They speak a language called Xhosa. What’s special about Xhosa is the clicking sound they make when they pronounce certain words. To me it sounds similar to the sounds you make when you try to get the attention of a horse or maybe a bird (do you know what I mean?). Anyway, the only phrases I’ve learned so far is: Igamalam indingu Heidi, ndi suka Norway. I guess I don’t have to explain what it means.

Sunday we had lunch at a local restaurant. You can only eat meat there. With other words no place for a vegetarian. To get a meal, you have to do as follows: go up to the counter (Simone, you would have loved this place) and right in front of you all you can see is piles of raw meat. You tell the butcher lady what you want (f.ex. a little bit of pork, lamb, beef and chicken) and she weighs it and gives it to the lady by the checkout. Then you pay and get the plate with the raw meat in your hands and your reciept. You walk with the plate into the kitchen where ten guys are working putting meat onto the grill. You leave it to them and you go and buy beer and sit outside around your table and wait. Huge loudspeakers all around are pumping out african rythms mixed up with american RnB. The place is crowded and people are dancing on the streets. Eating plenty of grilled meat out there in that atmosphere with your bare hands while being all sweaty and dizzy from sunshine makes you feel that this, this is a very good way to spend a sunday.

Have a nice week everyone.