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