I’ve been here for more than a week now, and haven’t really gotten around to updating this blog. So – here goes. Cape Town is a very interesting city – it’s a cool mix of European/Western influence & then things that are distinctly African, with its own unique quirks, too (they call traffic lights “robots”). The city is divided into “neighborhoods,” and we’re living in Mowbray, one of the slightly seedier ones – safe during the day, but you don’t really want to be wandering around at night on your own. We’re about a 5-10 minute walk to the Jammie stop to Upper Campus (the Jammie is the UCT – University of Cape Town – student shuttle, which is pretty necessary since campus is divided into 3 parts, Lower, Middle, and Upper, and is on a huge hill so walking from Lower to Upper Campus is quite a hike!), so that’s not too bad. Lower and Middle Campuses house the law school, the music building, and some other random bits, but the main academic things for undergrads are all situated on Upper Campus.
I’m living in a cute house called Charnwood, which is divided into upstairs and downstairs. I’m downstairs with a fellow Eph, Stuart, and we each have pretty large rooms (much bigger than I’d probably be living in at Williams! I have a fireplace again :>), and then we share a bathroom, living room, and kitchen. The three other girls from the Williams in Africa program, with whom I’ve been spending most of my time, Glynis, Jennifer, and Emily, live upstairs, and the four of us have been cooking dinner together most nights, and are quickly destroying a deck of cards. We’re living on a street filled with study abroad students, most of whom we haven’t spent much tie with, but there’s a whole semester ahead of us so who knows what’ll happen.
We’re actually just starting the semester – second semester for UCT…it’s winter here! …but by “winter,” they mean 60 and sunny instead of 80 and sunny. It’s rained a couple times, and the first two nights I was here I was sleeping under a comforter, fuzzy blanket, fleece blanket, and unzipped sleeping bag, since I don’t have a heater, but it’s been getting warmer and I’m down to just a comforter and the fuzzy blanket now, I’m happy to report! I think I’ve got at least some grasp of where things are on campus now, though last week we were wandering around during winter break, so there wasn’t really anybody around except for the international students, but today campus was packed with people! It’s pretty exciting seeing it busy…makes me appreciate Williams’ size, though! :>.
I thought I had my first class today, but that was actually false – the timetable was wrong, and it turns out my class only meets T/W/Th, so that’s kind of nice. I’ll only be taking two classes here, a poli sci course called 3rdWorld Politics, and an econ class called Economic Challenges in Africa, because of the work I’ll be doing with the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI). We start at EPRI tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes then!
The past week or so has been spent getting us oriented, including a big tour day thing down Cape Peninsula, where we saw PENGUINS(!), Cape Point, and a few other things along the way. We also did a campus tour, listened to a bunch of boring talks (and one or two interesting ones), and generally started to find our way around. Like I said, Cape Town is divided into neighborhoods, and while you can certainly walk between them, some are farther away than others, so the best way to get around during the day is to take what are called “taxis.” (If you’ve been talking to me a lot, ignore this part – I’ve definitely told you already. :P) Taxis are one of my favorite things here, because they’re something that you would never see in Palo Alto or in Williamstown! They’re minibuses (think big van things with seats inside), and guys lean their heads out the window yelling their destination. You can flag them down anywhere on Main Road (which is appropriately named), and they’ll take you all the way to downtown, or to Wynberg the other direction. You get in, sit with about 20 other people, and pay your 5 Rand or so (~75 cents), and tell them where you want to get out, and they’ll drop you off. Super convenient, and pretty quick, too! It’s kind of a weird thing, though, because all up and down Main Road there are constantly people whistling and yelling at you – I thought they were catcalls when I first arrived! But no – harmless taxi men.
So far, everything has been going well! It’s sunny, our cooking has been a success, I’ve been reading a lot, but just for fun, and taking some much needed time to relax. All that interspersed with good conversations with Williams kids over card games and a bottle of wine – we had a long debate yesterday about how sex ed should work. :>.
Being here is definitely taking some getting used to – it’s weird to think about paying for internet by the megabyte, or watching the electricity meter slowly tick down (the landlord was running his laundry business off our electricity! But we caught him, and now he’s subsidizing it. Ha!), and certainly strange not to use a cell phone or a camera on Main Road because it’ll identify you as someone who has a cell phone and a camera and is therefore worth mugging (though the muggers are strange here – there are stories of them taking your cell phone and returning your sim card, taking your wallet and returning your credit/debit cards, etc), but for the most part it’s starting to fall into place a bit. I’m excited/nervous for my first class. I’ll put some pictures up here of our Cape Peninsula excursion – I haven’t taken many others (I’m planning on taking a few of my room/house/campus soon, I swear!), but there you go.
The view from Cape Point, looking West.
