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.

National Women's Day

On the 9^th of August it’s national women’s day here in South Africa. It became an annual public holiday in 1994 (after the Apartheid regime disappeared). It became a date to remember on the 9^th of August 1956. On that day 20 000 women marched to protest against one of the many laws that were carried out during the Apartheid regime; the pass laws. It commanded black, colored or Asian people to carry passbooks or “dom pas” in Afrikaans meaning “dumb pass”. They were forcibly moved to certain areas commonly known as the black’s homelands. If they moved outsides these areas they had to carry this pass as a documented proof that they were allowed to move in the “white South Africa”. The women marched to protest against this and collected more than 100 000 signatures.

They had made a song especially for this occasion, and pay attention, it is beautiful: Wathint'Abafazi Wathint'imbokodo! Now you have touched the women, you have struck a rock.

Saturday South Africa beat Australia 29 to 17 in rugby. The match was played out in a stadium approx. two kilometers from where I live. It was a big deal. Great deal of passion, screaming, painted faces, flags and beers. With other words: just like any other match played anywhere in the world. In order to get away from it all, Ruth and I went shopping. I found a dress that reminded me of my own way of expressing women power: the Betties. And I also walked by a very funny sign in Wimpy, one of the many Fast Food chains down here. The last picture is a statue of Virgin Mary by the pool in our garden and my lonely umbrella.

To women power!

D-day and Dirty skirts

Dear all

Friday was so called D-day at university. This means it's the last day you can register for classes. It was raining cats and dogs and I was running around campus to get my schedule all worked out. I am afraid I got a bit over enthusiastic cause I ended up signing up for Afrikaans language course (the strange language they speak here which is very similar to Dutch or Flemish) and an African dance course in addition to my history classes. I guess time will show if it's going to work out or not. After I got all the signatures I needed, I spent the rest of the day inside, trying to get warm again. But I still got sick (again.. f***). Someone told me I should eat differently to customize my immune system to South Africa’s bacterial flora and climate in order to try and stay healthy. Do I eat differently? Hmm well, the avocado here is so splendid, I simply have to eat one every single day, with yogurt and pepper. And I drink more red wine than usual and a lot of orange juice. But these days I finally had to surrender to C-vitamin pills. I hope they help.

Today I am writing a paper on an article for my history class. As I described earlier, the lectures here are easy to follow, but when it comes to the homework, I am experiencing now that it is not so easy to get started. I am constantly sick (as I am always in the beginning of a stay in a foreign place) and therefore my academic stamina (I mean how long I am capable of concentrating) is very low. In addition, I have no idea how much they expect of me here and that scares me a little. I have a two page long paper to hand in tomorrow and I find it difficult to manage. My motivation is there (I hope), so I guess I'll be fine, but I truly hope that it's going to get easier after some time here. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going, eh?

Yesterday, I had a lazy Saturday. But three cool South African girls, that was in our house drinking a bit on Thursday, had told us about a concert that was supposed to be awesome on Saturday night in a place called assembly down town. I rang one of the girls up to ask if she was still up for it. She was unfortunately not, but we decided to check it out for ourselves. Bingo!! The band that call themselves Dirty Skirts turned out to be really awesome despite that their most recent album is called "daddy don't disco" (..) Most of the people there, I'd say there were around 300, knew the lyrics and didn't need to be asked twice to sing along. After the last song, everyone screamed "we want more, we want more" and I guess the Dirty Skirts guys expected as much, cause they came back on to the stage and the singer said "you guys are such a fucking handfull". Haha. And this was good planning I suspect, cause the song they played as an Extra song was actually called "you are such a fucking handfull" Great. We felt so good and it was all such a perfect night. I have a good feeling we're gonna be hanging out in the assembly a lot. I think the picture encapsulate the atmosphere quite well. Haha, From left after me there is, Eline, Ingrid and Ruth. They all live in the same house as me.

So, let me finish this up by wishing you all a good week and cheers to good health.

Heidi

Litt skryt

I did it! My choice of university is perfect! They even have recycling! Haha. Look. Nice easy-to-understand recycling all around campus. The university of Bergen have a lot to learn.

Today I had my first day of lectures and I loved loved it. The topics are super interesting and they are not so hard to follow. Despite the mind blowing speed in which the south African professors are speaking and their peculiar accent (South African sounds like a mixture of Australian and British/Dutch - no offense!) I don't have real problems keeping up (at least I don't think so yet -ask me in a few weeks). So, I find it not so tough as I feared. Good . There is one disappointment though, a rather superficial one; I was dreaming about a handsome and intelligent Kofi Annan look alike professor, but no, far from it. One of my professors is the spitting image of jim broadbent. Haha.

Today a new person arrived to stay in our house. A math student from Boston. He seems very nice. To have a look at our house, look at Ingird's blog on the right; "Mitt Sør-Afrika".

Heroes

Gotta love them grafitti artists. This picture is taken by some stairs on campus, I’m gonna pass it on my way to uni every day from now on. The women on the left is South Africa’s most famous swimmer; Nathalie du Toit. After she lost a leg in an accident she kept on swimming and is so damn good that she beats most of the worlds top swimmers with both their legs intact. The man in the middle needs no introduction. Nelson Mandela turned 91 years of age the day after I arrived in Cape Town and is still travelling the world making speeches. Puh. So yes, these people are definetly heroes. Can anyone identify the man on the right?

My first week in Cape Town- opportunities.

My arrival

I’m here!! Been here a week already!

My arrival here was a classical one. Therefore I’d like to describe it.

We arrived at the airport at 8 in the morning. Some students welcomed us straight away and put us on a bus that took us to the university. The drive took us through the city. We passed gorgeous landscape, great buildings and billboards of the upcoming world cup in 2010. The traffic went smoothly, the sun was shining and the city seemed flawless. Suddenly Eline said “ oh, look at that!” and we turned around and could suddenly see what seemed like thousands of sheds behind the highway fence. A huge slum area visualized itself on the left while on the right hand side of the road the houses looked like those you have to pay 3 millions NOK for back home. The obvious contrast made me feel a bitter aftertaste of the excitement I just had felt. My heart sank and then I felt stupid; of course it is like this! I had known it but just forgotten about it in a few seconds of excitement. But my new discovery of this made me think of how sad this situation in a society really is. Later I learned that the correct term for these slums is Informal settlements. I’ll write more about this in later blog essays.

My new neighborhood

I feel like a true writer here I sit in my new room in a house that is unnecessary nice for a bunch of students (we have a pool in the garden!). My desk is right in front of a window. I live on the 1^st floor (2^nd in Norwegian) and I have a good view of our drive in. A couple of tipsy party guests yesterday described my room as a prison cell from a Shakespeare novel (...) It has windows with lattice (for obvious security reasons) covering 3 walls. It has purple floor carpet (no, I didn't spill red wine over it, it has that color) and a nice old fashion bed. The roof is not so high (fine by me) and a all in all the room has very cozy feeling.

The neighborhood is called Rondebosch and seems very pleasant. That is before you have a talk with the police. “Never walk alone, no matter which time of the day!” is their unmistakable message. Help!! I’ve never lived in a dangerous city before. I guess they try to scare us because you can never be too careful. But it takes sometime to get used to always looking over your shoulder but at the same time look like you’re not scared, but a confidant local.

Today I was having a drink with two people from the “ghetto” as they expressed it themselves (meaning black townships outside the city) and one of them is a graffiti artist. He almost choked on his cola when I told him that we were told by the police to never walk alone in this neighborhood. To them this area is like coming to a quiet place full of trees. I guess you can compare it to what we Norwegian feel when we walk around in Frogner in Oslo. So maybe I don’t need to be so scared.

The best Sunday ever

Let me tell you about my great great first Sunday here. The South African’s way of emphasize something is to repeat the word. So “great great” means “really great”. Cool, eh? I can get used to that. So on Sunday we went on a bus tour with approx. 500 other foreign exchange students around the peninsula south for Cape Town around Cape of good hope. We stopped to have lunch in a township called Ocean View were 25 000 black people who were relocated in the 60s lives. Ocean View has become a ghetto full of problems. It’s not a hard to understand why; Imagine newly made homeless people, all with different backgrounds squeezed into a new place to live. The term relocated is the political correct term, but it’s really more like the military term “moved with force”. If you’re interested in reading more about the moving of black people to make room for white people in South Africa I advice you to read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six,_Cape_Town It’s about the most famous district in Cape Town. But keep in mind: In Cape Town alone this happened in 42 districts!

The houses in Ocean View reminded me of "the project" you see in the TV series "the wire". It is full of drug abuse and crime. But we got to meet a man, who I first thought was a woman, who has worked with local kids for over 20 years. He is teaching them how to sing, dance and act. His pupils preformed for us in a gymnastic hall at the local school. We got to watch astonishing, neck breaking hip hop dancing.

I gotta buy a CD.

The "Ich hasse Berlin" syndrome

This is a big change of topic. Nuvel.
A big worry for me personally when I am here is all the organizing. Registration at the university is a fascinating long process. But the professors here are making us look at it on the bright side. Instead of just deciding which course to take by simple online clicking, we have to use our legs, walk to the different professor’s offices and get their signature for “yes, you can attend my class”. Does this seem unnecessary? Yes, definitely, but as they point out here; it makes it more personal and down-to-earth-like! (…) I’m sure this is a very good argument, but when you try to squeeze all this into your timetable between the English test, the welcoming workshops etc. you feel like they don’t make it easy for you. I’d like to call this “Ich hasse Berlin” syndrome. Siri, if you are reading this, you know what I’m talking about. Siri and I love Berlin, but during a cold January morning in Berlin a couple of years back we found ourselves in a situation where all things seemed to be against our well-being. And so, to make us feel better about this we started to say “ich hasse Berlin!” just to get our frustration out. Hasse means hate in German and nothing’s like expressing anger in German, it makes you feel much better! Works every time. So my point is; even a city that you love love, like Cape Town in my case, can make you wanna tear your hair out and scratch all your face pimples out and just kick a light pole.

The many opportunities

But I cannot complain about the paper mill and all the things I need to organize. According to the professors we get a special treatment compared to the 21 000 other African students at the university. They have to stand in queues for like days… and again I get reminded how lucky I am. I get to be here, live and experience this great city (did I mention they serve huge glasses of excellent red wine in bars for 20 NOK?) and study whatever I like in one of the best university in Africa. I am thrilled and terrified.

Big big hug to whoever reads this.

PS: If you want to know more and see some pictures I encourage you to have a look at Ingrid's blog (she has a much better camera than me). You'll find the link in the column to the right on this page.

travelling fever

"I've got a fever that so hard to bear ":) I am leaving for South Africa in one week now. I have a lot to do, but I am so restless and unorganized as usual, that I am just hanging out doing random things, searching the internet, listening non-stop to 2pac and smoking some cigarettes. I am so afraid that I forgot to do something really important, most likely some kind of paper work of vital importance. But today I got the most urgent paper: my VISA! Yeah.

Where are my thoughts? I'm picturing how this city at the tip of Africa looks like, my university is situated at the foot of a mountain. Looks very pretty. I'm gonna live in Rondebosch, already got my room and all.

What is so hard about this farewell from Bergen though? (cause it seems very tough right now). I am saying good-bye to Fantoft, my home for the last couple of years. I am farewelling Bergen, my hometown for the last three years. The places are not so hard to leave, I guess, it's more all my excellent friends here that are causing me this heartache I'm feeling (yes, I'm in a poetic mood); Siri, my neighbour, Ane and the rest of the Betties (the band I have to leave now), Simone, my italian boyfriend, Stefano, his best friend and my best buddy. Hehe. Josefin, my good friend from Universtiy and so much more. Laila, Diego and many more of my beloved neighbours in Fantoft. And my family, that I already said good-bye to some weeks ago. My youngest nephew Frej will be twice as big when I see him again I guess. Oh, and all the other friends.. that I will miss so much. Also the once in Oslo that I don't see so often, but that I think about alot, like Christel from home, and Gunvor, Silje and Birgitte, my former flatmates and Krisitn SL the soon-to-be doctor. So many tears, so many good-byes. Also Silje M. in the north that I unfortunately didn't have the possibility to visit before I left, I will miss alot. And Jackie girl in Ireland.

All in all I feel ready to leave. Klar som et egg:)

I'm starting a new era of my life. I will be spending 6 months in South Africa, then I will go to Rome, Italy to celebrate New Years eve (Capodanno). My next moves after that are for the moment uncertain.

What makes it's easier, and less scarier to go, is that I am not alone. Ingrid will be there, and that is just fantastic. We are going to live in rooms next to each other for a whole semester (good luck Ingrid! ;)). I've heard that there will be rain and cold awaiting me in Cape Town. Strange, I never thought I'd be going to Africa packing warmer clothes than I am wearing in Norway. I knew Cape Town had winters, but you know, it's Africa..

So, I'm still in Norway, but my mind is elswhere. Soon going.. this travelling fever is really kicki'n in. "What a lovely way to burn":)

Check the lyrics for "fever" by Ella Fitzgerald.