Belated Tripping

And another much too long blog...apologies in advance

Day 1

The original plan was to fly from Cape Town to East London in the morning then make the 4 hour drive to our both figurative and literal Haven on the Wild Coast of SA, but "technical difficulties" and lost luggage inhibited both the leaving of CT and EL respectively. After a hectic time at various airports we decided not to let the airport officials spend over 4 hours driving to and, more importantly, trying to find The Haven and just stay the night in EL to get the suitcase in the morning.

Day 2

Unfortunately, this decision resulted in us not making it to the Haven in time to go to the nature reserve with the rest of the PennState people. This is the point in my story telling where I realize that I'm not in the mood for story telling and will just tell you the highlights ever so briefly (I say briefly, but really you should know better by now).

Highlight #1:
Having wonderful meals cooked for me every night. One night we even had live entertainment, where everyone working in the kitchen came out to sing in a sort of congo line.

Highlight #2:
The confused zebra wandering around the hotel grounds with the horses.

Highlight #3:
There were students from University of Cape Town (UCT) studying climate, one of which wanted to interview me for his project. The interview consisted of me being head of my own windfarm and having to make decisions on how much power to promise people based on various weather predictions. He was looking at the factors people take into account when making decisions. After this we started talking and I mentioned I recently took up ballroom dancing. He dances as well, so we go outside to try a move...sound familiar? The move consists of me standing beside him one minute and the next minutes...standing beside him...? At some point I spun backwards over his arm, but it beats me at which moment that was. Even when he dropped me...one minute I was standing, the next I was lying on the ground. Fun, but I was definitely less prepared for this than the upside down move.

Highlight #4:
The UCT students were studying weather patterns in the area and one day they had to release and track a weather balloon every three hours for a full 24 hours. It was really cool to watch and one of the students taught us how to read the equipment and explained what it all meant. A PennState student and I were so interested that they suggested we try it for real and let us track a balloon. We lost it in the beginning, but eventually recovered and were able to track it for 12 minutes (they averaged 25 minutes and the record was around 40). Not bad for a couple rookies.

Highlight #5:
One of the most interesting things about this trip was when the professors organized with the head of the hotel to let us meet with the Chief of the area. We got to ask him questions to learn about his role within the community and some of the issues he is dealing with. He talked about how some aspects of their life were better under apartheid (obviously not in so many words), his perception of the current government and their hope for the future. I found it interesting how the issue of government versus community control of the land, paralleled First Nations land claims in Canada. It's funny how all over the world people are really just repeating the same set of conflicts over and over.

Quickness

Hey all!

I just wanted to say hi and that I'm going away for a week with a group of professors from PennState. We're going to explore the Eastern Cape province and just generally be fantastic. This means that I probably won't be able to update you until I get back. So you will have to hold out on the fantastic until then, at which point there will be another excessively long posting letting you know what I got up to. You have been warned!

Love and rockets!

Kaptein span die seile

OM and I went to sokkie at the main student building on campus. I already explained sokkie, but for the few that refuse to go back and read my old postings it is essentially a fantastic form of dancing done to terribly hilarious Afrikaans music (ie. anything Kurt Darren) with some random rock thrown in for good measure.

When we arrived there was no one there…well there were three couples and us, so for all intents and purposes no one. We had fun jumping around and practicing our air guitar knee slides to the music, while the couples tried to dodge us. Then my friends showed up and OM had her first sokkie experience! Oh the excitement! We were all dancing and changing partners, as is pretty standard for a sokkie, and then the boy-who-is-soon-to-be-my-new-best-friend-little-does-he-know (or just “my new bff” for short) found out that I like to be spun, possibly from the look of shear joy that passed over my face every time he spun me. This resulted in a fantastically convoluted dance move, where I was constantly spinning and he basically flung me around at an increasingly fast pace. It got to the point where even he lost control and I went flying across the room. Sokkie is honestly a viable motive for me to move here permanently or at least for longer than a year!

Just before my new bff left, he introduced me to one of his friends who is one of the regulars at sokkie night. I had been dancing with him for a while and when we took a break he was telling his friend about a new dance move he had just learned and asked if I would mind demonstrating. He had been dipping me to gain my trust, so I consented to this “new move”. So this move consists of standing at a right angle to the guy on his right hand side. Then you wrap your left leg in front of his body and around his waist, when he takes a step back to jump up with your other leg and cross it, then slowly lets you down until you’re essentially vertical…but upside down. I’m not saying we aced it, but it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done dancing and thus must be practiced!

But now I’m tired, sweaty and I think I might have a mild case of whip lash, so it’s time for a shower and bed. Night!

Drugs = Proactive Health Care

I now fully understand why we keep stealing South African doctors. They are just too wonderful. The extremely rare times I go see a doctor in Canada; they listen to a couple of my symptoms, tell me I’m probably fine and kick me out. Granted this is possibly because I tend to go to walk-in clinics and not my family doctor, but the point still stands. This doctor, however, listened to all my symptoms, checked out my symptoms (I don’t even remember the last time someone checked my blood pressure), asked me questions, listened to the answers, and called my t-shirt a blouse (I love South Africans, they make everything sound classier).

The first thing he asked me after I described my symptoms was “Coffee?” meaning…have I been drinking an excess of coffee lately and not was I interested in consuming some, which would have been nice. This got me thinking. I wonder how many students come in during exam time (as now is SA exam time) with caffeine overdoses. Furthermore, is a caffeine overdose a legitimate reason to postpone an exam? ‘Cause that’s a pretty easy medical condition to inflict on yourself…not that I would ever do that…nope.

On a related note I realized that today is International Feel Sorry for Yourself day.

In addition to this I have recently (as of 30 minutes ago) discovered that Chris Leavens, the inventor of IFSFY day, is having his first live show anywhere near Vancouver in Victoria on May 30. First Bloodhound Gang and now Cute with Chris Live…why are all these awe-inspiring people playing shows near my home for the first time when I’m on the other side of the world.