Babson South Africa Offshore

Stuck in SA

2009-07-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

We started the day hunting a male lion who we could hear roaring – very, very cool. Unfortunately we did not find him, but I think we were close a couple of times. We did, however, see two male cheetahs chilling on top of a termite mound. They are so beautiful, and it’s totally different to see them in the wild than on a cheetah reserve. We didn’t ever see any leopards but we saw four out of the big five and honestly for me just seeing what we saw of the lions would have been enough. Guess I should have been born a Leo!

The rest of the day was pretty well a complete disaster – our tour operator showed up 45 minutes late to get us, then apparently didn’t know what time our flight was so took us on the scenic route including a very long stop for a lousy “fast food.” End result – we got to the airport 42 minutes before our flight left, and our seats had already been given away to standby passengers.

So most of the group was rebooked on a flight that gets in about 24 hours after originally scheduled, but I have to be at work much sooner than that so I’m getting on a flight to New York and figuring out a way to get back to Boston from there. Also maybe I’ll somehow figure out how to shower and get some appropriate clothing for the work dinner I have that evening – somehow I don’t think my Maties pullover (my official favorite piece of clothing, aside from the Maties logo not being big enough) is going to work for that particular crowd.

My boss is literally going to kill me. At least Rebecca won’t, barring continued misfortune.

So we’re staying at this guest house that is probably the most disgusting hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Mary and I had to be moved to a room where the shower and sheets were actually clean. After wolfing down some food and a Castle at the buffet dinner we all shared the internet connection off the cell phone network before crashing into bed – what a cranky group we get when we’re going to be 24 hours late getting home and all our plans are shot to heck. When I was talking about how much I wanted to stay here longer I was thinking more of Stellenbosch than Johannesburg but tomorrow may bring its own adventure, hopefully a better one than today’s!

Just reflecting a bit on the trip – it’s so funny how some things just don’t turn out at all how you intended sometimes. I remember having a moment of panic the Sunday night before the first week teaching wondering what I had gotten myself into, but by the end of the process everything turned out so well both for me and for the learners. I have so many memories of teaching, of the learners, of things we’ve done and most of all some of the people I’ve met that I’ll take with me forever. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place where I felt so immediately at home and comfortable, despite all the obvious differences, but I do know I will be back here, and hopefully soon (assuming I survive the next couple of days!). After all, I have some unfinished business!

And maybe next time someone will explain cricket to me. All my visits to London and no one would explain it either. Whatever, I know it can’t hold a candle to American football!

Today we saw a 3,000-year-old tree

2009-07-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Also more giraffes – aside from the cats, for which I have a particular affinity, I think the giraffes are my favorite. We were calling them dinosaurs – such crazy-looking things but very beautiful and so graceful when they move.

The morning’s excitement was that one of the rangers from another lodge had spotted the pride of lions – we first thought it was twelve, then we heard eighteen. D was so funny he turned around the vehicle with the explanation that “it’s really something to see a pride of twelve lions” and we were joking about how he felt the need to justify going to look for the lions. I was actually the one from our group to spot the pride – I was just looking out into the bush trying to see lions and all of a sudden I saw four faces looking back at me. The picture I uploaded is about as good of a shot of what I saw as I have – I think I zoomed in a little but that was very cool for me. I spent the whole safari looking for cats so I would usually miss the big things up ahead because I was so busy looking for smaller things by the side of the vehicle, but for once my cat-searching paid off!

So the pride walked literally just behind our vehicle, then we drove around a bit more and they walked in front of us. Once they had all passed we drove further on to another road they were likely to cross and cross they did – I got some pretty good pictures of adult females, a sub-adult male, and a little baby. The baby was so cute! After that we lost the lions but saw some baboons (whee…).

At lunch Rayshawn spotted an elephant just near camp (literally 15 meters off the path) so we went to check it out. D came with us and let us get within about 10 meters of it which was probably quite unsafe but it wasn’t THAT far to run for shelter (of course an elephant is pretty fast). When I first got there he had his ears out which means that he was pretty agitated but we stood still and he soon calmed down even when D went a little closer to see if he could get him to do something more interesting than what he was doing. But the elephant was too busy eating to bother charging at us, so we went and ate our lunches as well.

In the afternoon one of the other rangers had spotted a rhino, so we went to check that out. What an odd-looking thing! At one point it looked about to charge but it didn’t, which is most likely for the best although some of us thought it might be fun to be charged by at least one wild animal.

We also saw a family of hippos, one large hippo that moved faster in water than I’ve ever seen anything move, two warthogs, more zebras and water buffalo, the aforementioned 3,000-year-old-tree, and had a sundowner in a beautiful spot by a dry river bed. Following that, we saw the same male lion from the previous night – this time he got up, yawned, stretched, and moved locations so we got to see something a little more interesting than last night (although he did stretch and roll over last night which was very cute). This guy is just HUGE – the pictures really don’t do him justice but seeing this guy maybe 15 meters away is really spectacular.

We had a little group session when we got back, to present the professor with a gift for all of her amazing work on this trip, including acting as surrogate mother to eight students, and to reflect on the trip and bond a little bit. Dinner was again amazing, but I did not stay up too long afterwards because the internet was working again (it hadn’t been for over a day due to the heavy cloud cover). The moon and clouds were amazing that night – never seen a sky quite like that.

"I just became the coolest person I know"

2009-07-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

- Rayshawn

Well, I am not entirely sure what expectations I had for safari. I think in terms of landscape I was expecting something a bit more savannah-like; as you can see from the pictures there are actually quite a lot of trees and shrubs. I do think it’s fair to say though that today exceeded whatever expectations I might have had. I swear sometimes I think luck follows me – I have a habit of being in the right place, at the right time.

We had two drives today – one that went from about 6:30am until 11am, and another from 3:30pm until about 6:45pm. Today on our morning drive we started off by seeing (other than the various antelope-like creatures which are quite common) a giraffe which was right up next to the road. They are amazingly graceful creatures, and also very unique-looking. Charismatic megafauna indeed – D was saying that most people do not eat giraffe because the animal is too well-liked. Same with zebra, but apparently zebra doesn’t taste very nice, either.

Next, Alice spotted a herd of water buffalo, which we looked at for a good 20 minutes. These creatures are apparently quite aggressive; a lot of them were staring at us, but none of them charged us or anything. I had never seen wild water-buffalo before, just the domesticated ones in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Next up were two elephants, also literally right next to the road. Luckily for me I was on the same side of the vehicle as both the giraffe and elephants – I was maybe 3 meters away from one of the elephants. It is so neat watching them eat. They are apparently quite destructive, what with eating like 21 hours a day or something. We saw one literally kick a tree down and then eat parts of it.

After this Alice continued her mad spotting streak by seeing a cheetah. I’m not at all sure how she did it – I saw it after she spotted it but it was very well blended into the grass and just bounded away when we got too close.

Next up was the thrill of the day, if not the entire safari: we saw a pride of lions hunting water buffalo. Our spotter Mpho had been working five years and this was the first time he actually saw lions hunting. Apparently seeing a pride is relatively common, but some people can go their whole lives without seeing a hunt. We were told at the time that we would never see this again, so this experience did not go unappreciated. D was definitely very excited as well, and it was amazing to see something like this up close and in person. Just breathtaking, really, and all the credit goes to our spotter and the spotters from another camp that tracked the pride much of the morning.

After the lions disappeared into the bush we headed back for lunch and a quick respite. Some monkey tried to steal our food and after D left I had to chase it away twice (I was closest). In totally separate news I looked at a map today and yes, where we went shark diving is nowhere near the Eastern Cape. Maybe I will get there at some point.

Anyway – the afternoon drive was also spectacular. It’s funny how this safari goes – you go from driving along just looking at the scenery and madly trying to spot animals to stopping and staring some crazy things right in the face. In the afternoon we saw more antelope creatures (kudu, which I know is very tasty, waterbok (sp?), and impala which is my favorite to look at), more hippos, wildebeest, zebras, jackals, and, following an awesome sundowner by a large lake, a male lion. He wasn’t doing much besides sleeping but he was huge and so beautiful.

In case you can’t tell I’m a bit behind in writing these up and I need to go to bed now, so postings for the last few days will come when I get home most likely. But stay tuned because there is more to come, I promise!

Going on safari....

2009-07-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today was a travel day – we had a maybe 5 ½ hour drive from Johannesburg to our safari which is on the Manyeleti Reserve, just outside Kruger National Park. We arrived around 3:30pm, and were promptly served lunch, complete with white wine from, you guessed it, Stellenbosch. I think it is fair to say that everyone was pleasantly surprised that the safari is inclusive of alcohol as well as food – oh and the food is just fabulous. We were told that Manyeleti is a more authentic safari experience than Kruger – apparently in Kruger the roads you drive on are paved, and you can pretty much see the big five (lion, water buffalo, leopard, rhino, and elephant) every day because years ago people would kill impala and put them out as food for the predators so that they got used to seeing humans. So Manyeleti is the actual habitat for these animals. Apparently also during the days of apartheid Manyeleti was where the blacks went on safari, since they were not allowed into Kruger.

After settling in for a bit we went out for a quick drive with our guide Dries who goes by the name D. It happened to be both his birthday and the Fourth of July, and since it was getting dark and, later, was raining a little bit our ride mostly consisted of a sundowner by a pool with some hippos. We did learn that on a night safari the spotter flashes the light to look for the eyes of animals – diurnal animals have yellow or green eyes, and nocturnal animals have red eyes. We saw neither, however.

Dinner back at the lodge was fabulous – I had the oxtail pie. I really must start cooking this at home, I bet it would be pretty cheap from the place where we get our meat CSA.

After dinner we drank some more in celebration of D’s birthday, including tequila shots (since that is his drink of choice). As they say here, “tonight we drink for tomorrow we ride.” I went to bed relatively early though, in preparation for the 6am wakeup call.

Leaving Stellenbosch

2009-07-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

Today was essentially a long ceremony. Two learner groups from each school participated in a business plan competition, and presented powerpoints to the entire assembled group. Bloekombos was not represented because of the short program (just this week), which I know was disappointing to them and I felt really terribly. But the groups from Hector Peterson who presented did really well, I am terribly proud of them! It really warmed my heart to see the progress of all the learners in just the short amount of time that we spent, and I believe and hope that many of them took some good learning out of this. How many will start their own business, I am not sure, but I think they all gained some good skills and confidence. Hopefully they had as good an experience as I did!

Sne told me that some of the learners asked him if I was a professional teacher which surprised the heck out of me, but I’ll take it as a compliment. I was definitely forced out of my comfort zone this week by having to lecture so much but I think it was a good learning experience for me as well.

Afterwards I signed the certificates for the Bloekombos learners, and we all took pictures and had some sad goodbyes. I do wish we were staying even a few days longer, I had such a good time here in this lovely city. Our hosts were wonderful and gracious, working with the learners was an amazing experience I will always take with me, I’m very glad to have met some new friends and aside from the first week even the weather was amazing. I will admit to having a good time scaring the locals by telling them how cold the winters are in Boston – some of the Hector Peterson learners said they wanted to come visit me in the U.S. some day which would be totally amazing, but I advised them not to come in the winter because they would not enjoy it.

We rushed out of the apartment and traveled to Cape Town airport where we caught a flight to Johannesburg, and we’re staying at some crazy modern hotel. The lights in our shower are green, but hey, at least we have a shower!

And today, I lost a bet

2009-07-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

We had a little bit of a late start this morning, and after a quick marketing exercise where groups of learners practiced designing and marketing a new type of candy bar, Sne and I worked with the learners in groups to go over their business plans. Many of them had filled out quite a bit of the business plan as homework (which was not required, mind you). There was still some confusion about the difference between startup costs and COGS, but overall more learners understood, and faster, than had been my experience last week. So I think going over the COGS vs. vs. fixed costs vs. startup costs over and over and over did help – in fact one group of girls got it exactly right on the first try, with no help from me.

So the business plans we had in our class were two hair salons, a car wash, selling paraffin, selling eggs, selling decorative glasses, and a fruit and vegetable stand. Some nice variety, and I really think a lot of these are achievable businesses for the learners, so maybe some will actually follow through and start up their business.

After a handful of Castles and soundly losing a bet, we went to a braai at Tshepo’s house for all the Babson and Stellenbosch volunteers. All in all, a most enjoyable final evening in Stellenbosch!

Don't drink and walk on the road

2009-07-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

I must start off with a correction – shark diving was NOT in the Eastern Cape. But it was east of Cape Town and Stellenbosch.

Today was another good day with the learners – we started off with an income statement and I had the craziest flashback of Professor Parrino teaching us similar things about a year ago. Suffice to say finance is not my strong suit! For an exercise I had the learners do an income statement for the t-shirt business we did yesterday. One group did quite well and wound up with the correct gross and net profit, although they confused some COGS items with other operating income. Overall quite good though.

After finishing up with the finance we moved on to marketing – I did the marketing overview, Sne taught about advertising, and then I taught about market research. The trading game was quite a hit, the learners really had a good time!

In the afternoon after lunch we went through an exercise of dissecting the business plan of one of the learners as a class (her business was to sell eggs in the community). We started with the four Ps of marketing, and talked a little bit about her strategy (would it be less for less, more for more, or more for the same). I feel like I’m teaching much better this second week – going away from the curriculum more and bringing in some elements that I learned at Babson. As part of the exercise we went through the costing of one unit for a third time, in detail. I will say that I think it is finally sinking in, and some of the boys who are clearly the kids who are “too cool for school” and were joking around a lot the first couple of days were paying rapt attention for a lot of today, which I think is a good sign.

I think some of the kids are finally starting to understand the math behind the business which was probably my main objective for teaching this week. One student, Xolani (and I’m pleased to report that I learned the way to pronounce X in Xhosa, or at least something approximating the way to say X in Xhosa) said after class that he “finally got it.” Today he was a little shaky but now he understands, and they do not teach this in their schools. When they teach things like the income statement it is not in the context of a business, so the learners do not understand. I was so gratified to hear this because I think some of the other learners probably feel similarly. It’s an odd situation because I’ve been doing most of the teaching this week and there are 14 learners so I feel like more of a traditional teacher than last week, and as a result I don’t think I have such a close personal relationship with these learners. On the flip side though, I think I have taught them better. On the car ride back I was talking to Deon who is one of the Stellenbosch volunteers and he was saying that is a common tradeoff – be a teacher or have a deeper personal relationship. Ultimately I came here to teach and I think that’s the most important thing but I do kind of miss the bond I had with my learners last week.

Anyway afterwards many of us went out for a braai (aka BBQ) in the woods (some sort of national park or recreation area). Unfortunately the braai took so long getting heated up that most of the food was not cooked by the time it was getting dark, so we finished up back at the Waldenhof apartments where we learned that one member of our group would win any dancing competition he enters – and he definitely entertained us, we had a great time. Before heading back to the apartments though I had a really good time – the weather was warm, the scenery was gorgeous, and we had some interesting conversations. I will report that I think I’m probably the worst student of Afrikaans ever, I can’t remember anything unless it’s written down! Also the wine had this warning label on it that we all found hilarious – it said “Don’t drink and walk on the road, you may be killed.” Driving, apparently is ok, but walking is very dangerous!

In totally and completely unrelated news today is the tenth anniversary of the Ask Jeeves IPO, which I had totally forgotten about. Good times … I feel very nostalgic for my life back then, sometimes. So a shout out to anyone and everyone who worked with me back then – hope the best for all of you in the years to come, and I miss you!!

Math, math, and more math...

2009-06-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

We arrived at Bloekombos exactly on time (we finally learned to tell the learners to show up at 9am rather than 8:30). We were delayed because I needed to buy bread for the peanut butter & syrup sandwiches. This is the downside to being the only school in session this week, I think some of our logistical needs fall through the cracks. <-- Understatement of the day.

Sadly for the learners who did not care for math we spent pretty much the whole day doing math of various sorts (or maths, even as they call it here –this reminds me more of the UK every day!). But overall we had a very good session with the learners today – we reviewed the main components of a business (what you are selling, how you are going to make the product or perform the service, who you are selling to, how they know about it, strategy (less for less, more for more, the same for less), where to sell from, etc.). Then we moved onto the math, which I did my best to keep interesting. Someone threw out the idea of a hair salon so we listed up all the costs and divided them into startup and operating costs, and into fixed and variable costs. Then we practiced calculating the cost of one unit (in this case a hairstyle), calculated the labor cost, and figured out total revenues and costs for the month assuming 100 customers and 144 working hours. This whole process took about an hour which I think was good because this was the part of the program that really gave the learners the most trouble at the two schools I was at last week.

Lunch eventually showed up around 12:50pm, when we were in the middle of doing an income statement exercise on t-shirt sales. We let the learners go around 1:30pm, but did not get picked up until 2:45; apparently there were some delays in dropping the learners at Stellenbosch off at their schools. After getting back to Stellenbosch, Matilde and I went out to buy materials for the learners for the trading game for tomorrow.

When I got back to the apartments, most people had already left on a bike tour. I went for a run before it got dark, and ran into the bicycle crew on the way. It was gorgeous – winery on the right, open field with some beautiful white horses on the left. I ran up a bit further and turned around, and was smacked in the face by seeing a township (I think Kayamandi) on the hill up ahead. It is just such an incredible contrast to see this rural view that can rival anything I’ve seen in the world in the foreground with a township in the background. The contrast in such a close area is really something to behold, and what really got me thinking was that I had completely forgotten that the township existed. It is so easy when you are in Stellenbosch or Cape Town to forget the dire poverty some people live in, and then you look at it in a situation like this and it is actually beautiful, from a distance. Speaking of beautiful – at one point I turned around on the run home and the mountains were this amazing shade of pink that I had never seen before, like something out of National Geographic. Stunning – just stunning.

For dinner our group went to a restaurant called Cubana where I had a much-needed salad. Too much tasty and exotic meat in this country so I don’t eat enough vegetables. Some of the Stellenbosch volunteers came out with us for another drink after, but this whole process took so long that by the time we were ready to move on it was time to go back to the apartments.

Bloekombos, Day 1 and Finally, Wineries!!!

2009-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

The internet conked out in the middle of the USA-Brazil soccer game last night, and is still out. I’ll get to post this at some point, I’m sure. Not like the game was too much fun – the U.S. folded in the second half like the Flyers in the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals. Or maybe, the teams just switched jerseys in the second half – who knows?

Anyway on Friday I had volunteered to teach at a new school. The decision took me about 10 seconds because although I love my learners, I had a sense that this week’s activities at Stellenbosch would probably not require as many volunteers as there were and I would be better utilized teaching in a new school. I was a little surprised that none of the other Babson students volunteered to join me, even when pressed – they all have very good relationships with their kids, which is great. But for me, I know my kids will do just fine without me when I leave in a few more days and I wanted to meet some new ones. But I was more than a little apprehensive about who might join me teaching, and how that would go.

First thing in the morning no one joined me. Warric drove me out to the school which is called Bloekombos and is currently in a cluster of temporary buildings while the permanent school is under construction next door. We had a bet going as to how many of the 29 registered learners would show up – I guessed 11 and he guessed 15. When we arrived there were exactly 11, but two more showed up later so we need to find a new bet. I was excited though – this is a good sized group, and we have six boys and seven girls. This is very unusual – most of the groups are lucky to have 30% boys (obviously last week we had zero!).

We covered similar material this week to last Monday but I found this day much better, partly because we had some more talkative students (mostly boys) and partly because I had done this before and had a much better idea of what I was doing. If only I had known I would be doing this again I would have taken better notes last week on the points to cover, but c’est la vie. I will say though that I am much more comfortable working in small groups than lecturing to a class, so I’m glad I had last week’s experience to rely on. I would have been pretty terrified if I were in this same situation last week, alone with thirteen learners.

After an hour or so another volunteer named Sne showed up. He’s from Kwa-Zulu Natal on the east coast, and he was telling the class about his educational experience. In his school they had to share textbooks like three to a student and when he was growing up he encountered all this negativity – people telling him he couldn’t do this or that, or wouldn’t succeed and shouldn’t even try. As I told him at lunch I find it amazing that despite all that he persevered and has made it as far as he has (he graduated high school at 15, which makes him a kindred spirit!) and he’s in his third year at Stellenbosch which is an achievement in and of itself since I don’t believe he speaks Afrikaans. I should probably mention at this point that given the racial makeup of the volunteer I had originally assumed that Stellenbosch was pretty racially diverse … but not so much. Apparently the non-whites are so rare that they refer to themselves as “raisins in a sea of snow” and only 3% of the black students who start at Stellenbosch wind up graduating from Stellenbosch. Many drop out and many transfer to other universities where it is easier to get by without knowing Afrikaans. 3% - that’s a depressing statistic.

I’ll know these learners better in a couple of days but we had them go through and list their goals and some were quite amazing. We did have some who wanted to be entrepreneurs, and a girl who wanted to be a police officer, quite a few who wanted to do social work, a fashion designer, and most exciting to me two girls who in addition to their other goals said they wanted to be “independent women” which is to say have their own life without a husband (or perhaps just not subservient to a husband, I’ll try to explore this more later in the week). There is also this one boy who wants to be an economist and he’s quite the intellectual – his first question after we covered the entrepreneur vs. employee difference was how the economic recession affected entrepreneurs. Officially the hardest question I’d been asked in six days, after all of about 20 minutes. If he keeps it up this one may find himself the owner of my stack of outdated Economists that I brought with me!

After returning to Stellenbosch a group of seven of us (three Babson, four Stellenbosch) went out wine tasting at a couple of wineries. It was so much fun! I found most of the reds pretty undistinguished but some of the whites were good, and I did pick up a bottle of olive oil. The views from the latter two wineries up in the hills were amazing – one had vines on a very steep hillside as the foreground to a view of the valley and mountains behind, and the other is in the picture I uploaded. Replace the hills and you have a view straight out of Sonoma, but those hills, my goodness … I could have stayed there all day looking at that view. This would be a great place to come for a week, scout around, and buy a lot of cheap wine to ship home and age.

After a quick stop by the grocery store so I could buy some PB&J with which to gross out the South Africans (apparently jam with peanut butter they find about as disgusting as I find the concept of peanut butter and syrup), we headed back to the apartments and talked for a bit before heading out to a lovely dinner courtesy of Babson College, to talk about the plan for the rest of the week for the students volunteering at Stellenbosch.

Anyway I’m looking forward to tomorrow because the students will, I’m sure, be more open than today and also because tomorrow is the day when I think we convey the most learning. Today was so funny – I asked how many of them liked math. Not a single hand went up, but I told them they are going to need to do math to be able to run their businesses but it’s fun math because you are keeping track of how much money you are bringing in which is really why we’re all here. Now, to bed, and try and kick this headache I’ve had (too much wine, not enough water I’m afraid).

Cape Coast Tour

2009-06-27T15:51:00.000-07:00

Today we did a Cape coast tour, which consisted of a lot of driving up and down the gorgeous peninsula south of Cape Town. The coast looks a lot like California, specifically Big Sur – absolutely spectacular. Many of the seaside towns also looked similar to what you might see along the coast, up north in Marin or down by Half Moon Bay. For those of you who haven’t visited such places, you have fishing villages and trendy shops along the water and up steep hills, with the backdrop of higher mountains behind. There are also some gorgeous wineries just south of Cape Town in a very ritzy area called Constantia. Most of this day I felt like I was back in California, driving on the wrong side of the road.

Along the way we stopped at a sanctuary for African penguins, which are severely threatened both by overfishing and the increasing cormorant population. They were very cute little things waddling around!

Cape Point itself is a national park and reminded me for all the world of Point Reyes, but the vegetation was different of course, and there was more of it so it didn’t quite have that end-of-the-world feeling to it I always get at Point Reyes. Okay, yes, I’m feeling nostalgic … moving on … there is a lot of wildlife here. We saw a lot of baboons, and I spotted a large adult elgin which is like an antelope and apparently very tasty – it’s next on my list (kudu was first, and tasted like a cross between cow and buffalo). We also saw a wild ostrich right by the side of the road!

We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant called Two Oceans. I was happy to have some seafood, and the panoramic view of False Bay was absolutely spectacular. Sorry Nepenthe, they have you beat there!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful – at the moment I am waiting for the USA-Brazil Confederation Cup final to come on the TV since I don’t particularly feel like braving the smoky bar, and getting ready to prep tomorrow’s lesson plan. I finally found a beer that tastes better than Coors Light by trying the beer the college kids didn’t like (why didn’t I think of that earlier??). Feels to me like there’s an opening for a good microbrew here because the selection is pretty sparse …

Cape Town & Robben Island Tour

2009-06-27T15:34:00.001-07:00

Our tour started at the District 6 Museum. District 6 was declared an all-white area under apartheid and all non-whites were forcibly moved over the course of a couple of years and the area was bulldozed save for white-owned properties and religious institutions (churches and mosques).

The museum was really great – it contained a mix of photos, memorabilia, and memories of District 6 as well as the history of what happened. There is a sheet two stories high on which people wrote their memories, some of which are just incredibly meaningful. Between the memories and the apartheid-area signs that look like they are right out of American history (save for the Afrikaans on them) there’s a great sense of “let’s not forget the past” which is very important obviously but at the same time I feel like there is such tunnel vision when we look at one thing and ignore the injustice in the rest of the world. Hearing about the South African students who protested being taught in Afrikaans and many were killed (including twelve-year-old Hector Peterson) reminded me of what happened recently in Burma where the monks and the students bravely tried to stand up to the junta and were rewarded with death or imprisonment (or worse). More on this in a bit…

Between the stories and the photos you can get a real sense of the strength of feeling a lot of these people had for their home. Maybe I’m imagining it but I could literally feel the pain and the loss in the air of that building. It was poignant but also really uncomfortable, so I was a bit relieved when we left.

It’s always sad to return to a place you used to live and find it different, and how heart-wrenching to have it completely taken away from you and destroyed. This reminded me in substance quite a bit of what happened in Boston with the demolition of the West End so that it could be redeveloped. At the time the West End was filled with narrow streets, tenements, people packed in, disease … but it was also full of immigrants, so I believe part of the desire to disperse it was similar. People were uprooted, the area was bulldozed, and almost no one received compensation if I recall correctly, so the parallels are striking. To this day, the West End doesn’t have any sort of community feel (at least to me), and it also lacks a museum.

One of the most amazing things there was this huge laminated map on the floor. A university had been built over part of the former District 6, so people could not reclaim their land after apartheid. So they wrote on this map where they used to live, to help reclaim the space. It’s amazing that for a place a world away a lot of the names are familiar – Worcester, Hanover Street (the main thoroughfare just like the North End in Boston); there was even a family on the map named Rodgers.

After the museum we did a quick stop in Langa which is the oldest township in Cape Town, to see the barracks where the male migrant laborers (and later entire families, three to a room) lived, and some of the new housing the government is building. Following that, we went to Guguletu township and saw the monument to the Guguletu 7 and to Amy Biehl, whose stories we learned about in class prior to the trip.

We were dropped off at the waterfront, I went to look at the market before our ferry left for Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela, Jacob Zuma and others were held as political prisoners and forced to do hard labor in the limestone quarries which permanently damaged their health (lungs and eyesight, at least). This was a massive tourist trap which is unavoidable I suppose but at the same time it really detracted from the experience. I wasn’t able to get a feel for the place like I could in Cambodia at Tuol Sleng, for example. The memories of this place are lost amongst the thoughts and feelings of the tourists.

I didn’t realize but all of the tours of the prison itself are by former political prisoners. The tour guide for the first half of the tour was saying that some prisoners cannot bear the thought of coming back but for others coming and working here, or even living here as employees are allowed to do is cathartic. But for some, they have a hard time adjusting back to normal life the same as any person who has been incarcerated for a long time, so this is one of the few jobs some of them can actually do. I wonder which is the case for our guide – is he here by choice or by necessity?

So yes, we can recognize that we are privileged to have been born in America and for me to have been born with a skin the color where I rarely experience racism and when I do it’s surprising and shocking. I’ll probably never be put in a situation where I can choose to struggle for the right thing or be put in jail as a freedom fighter but it’s hard not to ask myself what I would have done had I been in America during the Civil Rights era or South Africa under apartheid. Back to Burma – would I be the sort of person who had the courage to give up my life or my freedom for the struggle for freedom? Probably not, I often think, but I suppose you never know. Then I ponder the immortality achieved by Steve Biko or Nelson Mandela and wonder was it worth it; I imagine Mandela would say yes, and Biko is not around to say. But Mandela in a way is one of the lucky ones – he doesn’t have to worry about not being able to reintegrate into society and work as a tour guide.

The view from Robben Island and the ferry ride back was amazing. This city is achingly beautiful in a way that doesn’t even translate in pictures, very much like San Francisco (which according to the innkeeper is Cape Town’s sister city). You can’t tell from the maps how hilly Cape Town is, just like San Francisco. That backdrop of Table Mountain is like nothing else I’ve seen before – it’s hard to imagine a more perfect way to frame a city.

I left the main group and came back to the guest house to work. Apparently dinner was Mexican which I probably would have disdained anyway, but Mary enjoyed it which was great because it was her birthday today.

I sat out on the porch for a while as the sunset. Far away I could hear some singing, and periodically the whine from the Table Mountain trams. The view from the house is just perfect – the gap in the trees frames the skyscrapers just perfectly and the clouds were a shade of pink that did not come out in the photos. It’s hard in a place and time like this not to reflect on my life, where I am, and how I feel about everything.

When it comes to this trip I find my mind spinning somewhat with the intersection of past and present, here and elsewhere, and also a very fundamental confusion. I’m here, and what I’m doing and what we’re all doing is helping in some small way but it’s hard to reconcile the arrogance of swooping in from the outside with the reality that very little will change when we leave, and really who are we, and me in particular, anyway, to come and try and fix or change it? This isn’t my country and what do I really know anyway? Well ok I do know startup, fixed, and variable costs pretty well which has turned out to be one of the most useful things I taught last week. But change has to come from within and maybe that is the sort of thing outsiders can help organize or maybe not even that.

These kids are helping us as much as we’re helping them and I think the same question of follow-through that I ask of them I can ask of myself. Government is like business – in theory you think it should take care of people’s basic needs (heck our taxes are high enough) but in reality it doesn’t and people do need to fill the gap, just like in business people need to keep a watchful eye for the big picture and what’s not happening and sometimes fill in even when it’s not “their job.” Part of me definitely feels like if I finish up in a week, go on safari, go home and go back to school and work like none of this ever happened then something is fundamentally wrong. But at the same time, inertia is a powerful thing. I suppose it’s like anything, if you want to do something you need to make it a priority.

Last day at Hector Peterson

2009-06-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

Today was our last day in the schools, and it was a short one. Next week the learners are coming to Stellenbosch for various workshops. We used the first hour and a half or so to go over some final details on the business plans with the learners – there are definitely still some issues with the cost accounting part of it (more egregious with some than with others – there is one learner who could most certainly benefit from some special tutoring but there was no time). But we had to let the learners present their business plans, and then we gave feedback. I thought they all did just an amazing job in the time that we had, really amazing.

Such a contrast from the first day when we could barely get them to speak – today one of them named Zusiphe was talking about her relevant experience and she said that in grade 3 she used to sell chips so she had sales experience but Phumeza (one of the other learners) would steal her chips every day so now she would pay more attention to keeping this thief away. It’s great that they have relaxed to the point when they can joke around. Another great thing was that for much of the morning they were working themselves in a group, helping each other, and only coming to us for review or questions. Hopefully some of what we did this week sticks with them.

Hopefully Stellenbosch will actually follow up this time; this program has been going on for fifteen years and they have never systematically tracked what the students have done next. I think they plan to but there are plans and then there is what actually happens.

The tour company that is handling our tours for the weekend in Cape Town came to pick us up and take us to Spier winery and cheetah reserve on the way to Cape Town. The cheetahs were very beautiful and elegant. Some of us went in to pet them, which was a lot of fun. Their bodies are very elongated; I guess I haven’t seen a lot of cheetah pictures but I was expecting something more like the proportions of a house cat. We saw one cheetah being fed, and it acted just like my cats – going right up and demanding good, then eventually lying down to finish eating. Standing up takes energy I guess.

Some of our group went to see an eagle reserve but I wasn’t really interested. We waited outside but unfortunately by the time we got bored and went to check out the wine tasting it had just closed. Maybe next week. The winery was beautiful though and I will say that as attached as I am to Sonoma you just can’t beat the backdrop in Stellenbosch.

The ride to Cape Town was uneventful. The guest house is lovely, and Mary and I have a great room in the top floor with our own shower. Yes it’s that exciting – we almost took a picture.

For dinner we headed to a steak restaurant that was recommended to us and it was quite good but also dinner took 3 ½ hours from start to finish. I won’t lie – that put me into a very bad mood because I had some work and Capstone work that just didn’t get done that night because I was so tired by the time we got back. Also unfortunate is that we don’t get to sleep in at all this weekend, and certainly won’t be able to at Kruger next week. I suppose the good part is that by the time we get on the plane to leave in a week and a half we’ll all be just exhausted and can sleep much of the way!

Attack of food poisoning

2009-06-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

We had at least six volunteers (three Babson, three Stellenbosch) down with food poisoning today, although one of the Babson students insisted on teaching anyway. I had a very mild form, just bad enough that I didn’t want to eat anything all day. At this point we’re pretty sure it is caused by the lunches they have been feeding us, which are delivered lukewarm at 8am and are not eaten until noon; the USDA would be absolutely horrified (2 hours at room temperature is considered the limit).

Back to Hector Peterson today; my learners were all very happy to see me and wanted me to take all of their pictures, which we did at the lunch break. Aren’t my girls beautiful? Today they filled out their business plans and it was amazing; they were having so much fun and were so excited that they did not want to break for lunch! One pair is writing a plan to sell necklaces and bracelets, one is selling sandwiches, one is selling Russians (which are sausages), and one is selling t-shirts with printed images on them to tourists. As with yesterday at Stellenzicht, the biggest challenge was the sheet where we figured out the cost and gross profit for one unit of sales. In several cases there was negative profit, so the learners had to raise the price or figure out a way to lower the cost of the materials and labor involved. I was struck by how much faster these learners understood the concepts than the learners yesterday – it is just so surprising to me that the students from a poorer school would have such better grasp of math and unit cost. Or maybe we just did a really good job teaching them with the peanut butter & syrup exercise!

We did have one new learner today. Archie spent the morning tutoring her and then she teamed up with one of the other students to work on a joint business plan.

After class we gave two learners a ride to the train station and a conversation that started off by wondering why there were no boys in the class (and so few in the other schools) led pretty quickly to a discussion of gender roles. Tshepo who is one of the project managers for this program was saying that women should not have a problem being more successful than the men but one of our learners was very strong in her opinion that she should make less than her husband because if she made more money than there would be no respect in the relationship. Later Tshepo was saying this says a lot about how she was raised but also how she would need to live her life – if she wants to be married she can’t be an over-achiever at this point in her life.

We picked up another set of volunteers at Musibambane, and we were taking one of their learners with us back to Kayamundi and so Tshepo asked her the same question and got the same answer. But it’s interesting – later one of the people on the trip was talking about the similarities between the U.S. and South Africa in that here there are townships but back home there are the projects, and here people who did not experience apartheid themselves do not really learn about it, and we do not really learn about the civil rights movement in the U.S. This was what I was thinking as these girls were talking, that even in American culture you most definitely see some form of this. Some gap is OK but I think in general people are uncomfortable if there is a big success gap (or the potential for a future big success gap) between husband and wife where it is the wife who is more successful, but the other way around is more accepted.

In the early evening we had a class meeting at the professor’s lovely B&B, followed by a curry dinner at the Black Rose. That was quite good, what of it I could manage to eat…

The internet is apparently no longer working inside the room so I have to go out to the balcony which is cold, so out I go to upload this post and follow up with my Capstone team who I have abandoned this whole week. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better – the plan is to go to a winery that has a cheetah reserve on the way to Cape Town. I could hardly be more excited … for the cheetahs, yes, but also to have our own shower. Having to run around from room to room in the morning to see who is awake and willing to let me use their shower isn’t the most fun in the world. Only 6 more mornings of this…

Stellenzicht

2009-06-24T22:51:00.001-07:00

Cold and rainy again! This morning the other volunteers for the Stellenzicht school did not come (one was sick, one was taking an exam, and one I think was a no-show). For some reason none of the Stellenbosch volunteers from my school wanted to go to Stellenzicht, so I went today. There were 12 learners there and three volunteers (another woman named Celine also came with us), and my school had the three volunteers with the same five learners. I swear, they really should change the ratios of teachers to learners after the second day, if not the first, and not make it optional. I was really pretty disappointed not to be able to go back to my school with my learners, but at the same time I was interested to see another school.

Stellenzicht is in a more wealthy part of Stellenbosch – the classrooms here have real door handles and it looks not too unlike an American high school. When you walk in at first there are some stairs to the second floor and a big hallway rather than a large central courtyard.

Jacky quickly reviewed the income statement with the learners, then we split them into groups of four to work with us on their business plans. My group had a would-be hairdresser, restaurant owner, pharmacy owner (and later doctor), and general store owner. I found the contrast to Hector Peterson pretty striking – the kids were similar (shy at first, and spoke Afrikaans rather than Xhosa when they wanted to talk amongst themselves) but the similarities pretty well stopped there. These students were having trouble with some of the basic concepts that I know they were taught the day before, around cost per unit, the difference between fixed and variable costs, and between variable costs and startup costs. I was trying to explain but I’m not sure how much was sinking in, which was a little frustrating. But these children also I think do not need the class so much – one’s father was clearly well-to-do because he has a car and she said he would lend her R15,000 (about $2000) to start her pharmacy. So I suspect they were not as motivated.

On the plus side, the school did serve us hot coffee! At the lunch break we took lots of pictures of the learners who absolutely loved hamming it up for the camera, it was great.

We had a quick debrief session back at Stellenbosch. Apparently my students at Hector Peterson missed me! I felt so badly. But I will see them tomorrow!

Four of us went out for a run/hike; we ran to the foot of the mountain behind the gym and the rugby fields then walked up the steep parts of the hill and ran on the lesser grades, until we got to the steep trail. It was like a 55 degree slope, I’m not kidding. So we scaled that, letting the boys run ahead. The view was AMAZING – you could see all of Stellenbosch, and the wineries, and over to the Kayamundi township. At one point the university was lit up with sunbeams and was absolutely gorgeous, and the intensity of the green was amazing, especially for winter.

About ¾ of the way up Jacky heard thunder and we saw some ominous clouds and thought better of being on a steep slope in a flash flood, so we headed back down to the road, ran down the mountain, and then continued along the path I found a few days ago. When we got back, nearly 2 hours after we headed out, the gate to the apartment block was locked, neither of us had our keys, and the only people in the apartments were asleep. Luckily I had some experience climbing fences (and honestly this one was not even that hard), so after resting for a bit I scaled the fence and let Jacky in.

I’m still mulling over the racial/social/political reality on the ground here – more on this when it’s not so late at night. I will say that so far, it has not been what I expected in a number of ways, and it worries me talking to people. Many people (save those with their heads in the sand) seem to think that South Africa is on a bubble at the moment and it’s not clear what will happen next – Zulu/Xhosa civil war, political upheaval, economic improvement, a combination of the above, or something else entirely. I haven’t asked everyone but I think I have yet to meet an ANC supporter (let along a strong ANC supporter), at least in the ANC’s *current* form as a political party, yet the party keeps being voted into office. But perhaps this is a reflection of populist politics – I was having this conversation with Archie yesterday about Zimbabwe, and we were talking also about Bolivia, Venezuela, and potentially even Iran although I’m still not clear what exactly happened in Iran. In any event this is certainly going to be an interesting area of the world for a good many years to come – I certainly hope the best for the people here but there are so many factors at play and such a very difficult, very recent past – it’s a bit hard to fathom fully, not coming from here. And if you do come from here, you don’t necessarily reflect on it because things are the way they are or the way you see them, and without traveling to other places you tend not to question where you live very much. I know I didn’t until I started traveling certainly internationally but even within the U.S.

Can’t seem to get the internet working so I’ll post this entry when I can. Looking forward to tomorrow!

Here is a picture of the fence I climbed: