A Small Breath of Africa: eGoli (City of Gold)

It is hard to believe that I've been in South Africa for nearly a month, however, I haven't had too many weekends to explore the city (Fulbright orientation, moving, et cetera). I was looking forward to this weekend because the ETAs from Bloemfontein (University of Free State) and Pretoria (University of Pretoria) planned on coming to Johannesburg.

The ETAs from Bloemfontein were going to take a bus (~5 hours) to Johannesburg on Friday, but the bus was cancelled. No problem, they were going to come Saturday morning. Saturday morning rolls around, three hour delay, bringing them in mid-afternoon. Then before leaving they find out that the bus was going to go to Kimberley first, then to Johannesburg, adding three hours to the trip, arriving on Saturday night (Kimberley is in the opposite direction of Johannesburg and it would make them 20.5 hours late). Needless to say, they postponed the trip and will come sometime in the future.

Not needing to worry about the "fickle-ness" of buses, the ETAs from Pretoria took the Gautrain down (~45 minutes). I picked them up at the station and we went to Melville, my neighborhood, sat outside, had a drink and planned out the day. After talking to a professor earlier in the week who also lives in Melville, she suggested that we go to the "Melville Koppies" - an expansive nature reserve in my neighborhood. We trekked through the reserve, which is attached to the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens. It is beautiful, a great place to picnic and enjoy the outdoors. After walking through the Koppies, we grabbed dinner at a French café in Melville before heading to "Soccer City" for a South African Premier League Soccer game (Marlize graciously had a few free tickets). We picked up Mariann (the other Johannesburg ETA) and a German friend we met on Friday night (she is staying with one of the professors and interning at the South African Broadcasting Company). Two teams from Soweto, the large township in the Southwest part of Johannesburg, were playing each other: Kaizer Chiefs and Moroka Swallows. I was excited to go to the game; the last time I was at Soccer City was for the World Cup quarterfinal (Ghana v. Uruguay) in 2010 with Gerhard and Marlize.

"What?" Moment: The tickets that Marlize gave us said that the game started at "20:15" with the gates opening at "17:00." So, we arrived at 19:00 and the parking attendant said something along the lines of "Hurry! The game already started." Although we could hear the vuvuzelas blowing, we did not think anything of it, and we casually walked to the ticket counter to buy tickets (I didn't have enough tickets for everyone). The 94,000 seat stadium had plenty of unused seats, so we found a nice section around midfield and sat down. Still not realizing it, we watched some performers and hypothesized that there was a game before the "main game" (maybe a lower-level team, like a "JV" squad). Then, the players started coming out…we all took out our tickets and compared. The new tickets, purchased at the stadium, said that the game started at "18:00" - differing from the tickets that I had (!). The second half started. We still enjoyed watching the game, soaking in the atmosphere, and Ben (Pretoria ETA) decided that he would join the "vuvuzela club." Interestingly, there are 16 teams in the South African Premier League Soccer, three of which are located in Soweto (Kaizer Chiefs, Moroka Swallows, and Orlando Pirates). I joined the "Kaizer Chiefs" bandwagon (I'm their #1 fan!).

Zulu: I started Zulu classes this week, sitting in ("auditing"), on two periods a week (~4 hours); I'm really enjoying the language. Unlike other languages that I've learned (attempted), most of the learning is through speaking and repeating, rather than reading and writing. I find learning a language in South Africa to be much less intimidating than in other countries because everyone speaks English, whether it is their first language or not. So, when I speak Zulu to someone and they don't understand what I am saying (due to my American-Zulu accent) I can ask them in English to correct me; I've been trying to speak as much as possible. Obviously there are many English speakers in other countries, but it is not assumed. For example, if I ask for directions in Italy and the person doesn't understand, switching to English for clarification most likely won't work. I find that people I speak Zulu to are very receptive; they either respond and converse or laugh and converse (not thinking that I would speak it - or laughing at my accent). Fun side-note: I greeting a security guard Sunday morning and we started talking. He stopped and said "Where did you learn Zulu?" I replied that I'm learning at university. His face lit up and he was amazed that I would try to speak Zulu, and complimented me on my knowledge (pat on the back to Scott).

Powerful Quotes: I was looking through old pictures of my trip to South Africa in 2010, which reminded me of these quotes that were in an exhibition at the "Cradle of Humankind" museum:

"A global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterized by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable." - Thabo Mbeki (former President of South Africa)

"Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food - $4 billion more than the estimated annual total needed to provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world."