It's never too late...

It has been quite a while since my last post. I am not sure many people are reading this anyway, but for what it’s worth I have been busy doing serious schoolwork. UCT is no joke ya’ll. They trick you into thinking it’s not going to be much work at all because for the majority of the semester you don’t do much at all. Then, all of a sudden, they go crazy and assign you 3 papers and a presentation the week before final exams. Really considerate, don’t you think? At any rate, I finished exam #2 this morning at the crack of dawn and now I have only one to go and it’s not until the 13th. In a way I wish it were sooner. I just want to be done with UCT. I’m sick of doing work.

Ok speaking of doing exams….UCT has some sort of weird tradition of serving professors tea when they are proctoring exams. During my Diversity Studies exam my professor Melissa was sitting at the bottom of this gigantic lecture theater that was way to big for the 40 people in our class. She was sort of holding court down there, and you have to understand that all I’ve heard Melissa talk about during this semester is unequal power relations, centers and margins, and disabling discourses. Suddenly I see one of the black women that works as a cleaning lady is holding a tray with a teapot and cookies coming down the stairs one by one. It was the most bizarre sight. I felt like I was in a parallel universe for some reason just because Melissa is this tall imposing Afrikaner and her comes this small black woman bringing her tea. Colonial flashback perhaps. UCT pretty much has colonialism written all over it.

Last Friday I visited the offices of the second community arts project I am hoping to link up with. It’s called Wola Nani, and they make paper mache bowls out of recycled ads and do some beadwork (mostly AIDS ribbons). I am really excited to work with them. The other place had some really cool recycled rubber jewelry but they would only sell me these huge beaded figures wholesale. I just don’t think college students will buy foot tall beaded people and springbok!

Last week was sort of the end of my program. We had our final dinner at one of the “African” food places downtown on Long St called Nyoni’s Kraal. It was the last week of classes. I had to say goodbye to Quinton, the fearless leader of our program, today! I wanted to cry. Quinton is the best. Next to my dad, my grandfathers, and my uncles, he is probably one of the greatest men ever. I’m going to miss him. We threw a little going away dinner for Q and Felicity at the “Mexican” restaurant last Thursday. They really appreciated it.

Last week was also the end of my volunteering projects. I ended SHAWCO a little while ago, but Lawrence House (which is a Catholic run children’s home for refugees) ended this past week. I might try to go next week. I really enjoyed helping Michou with his times tables. I wish I had gotten time to know and help Sympathy more. She is such a sweet girl. She’s 14 now and she’s having a really hard time being away from her family. I don’t even know her story. Though I wasn’t entirely happy with the disjointedness of my volunteer projects, I don’t want to think how hard it would be to leave if I had been going to Lawrence house the whole semester.

I was sad to miss Halloween this year. Fall is probably my favorite time of the year. It doesn’t get much better than crisp weather, fall leaves, Halloween and Thanksgiving. At least I wont miss out on Turkey day. Though I had a final the next day, I didn’t completely miss out on Halloween! One warden’s (RA’s but actual adults) wife is from the U.S. and she made three jack o’lanterns and had fake cobwebs and everything. We went down there with two regular UCT students and when she held out the bowl of candy one said “What do I do?” Love teaching people how to trick or treat.

I went to Cape Aghulus this past weekend with Leah, Laura and Taylor (i.e. the AU girls). We had the quintessential old lady vacation. We drove there in an old Mercedes sedan, maybe even the kind my great-grandmother had. We spent one night at Cape Aghulus backpackers, which was the cutest little converted house with a movie room, a bar, and the cutest, most colourful outdoor breakfast room. (I just spelled coulourful with an ‘ou’ without even thinking about it…scary). We had a leisurely walk along the boardwalk and the beach, followed by a leisurely drink and appetizer hour, and a leisurely dinner. We then walked home and watched a movie, and went to bet at 11. I love being an old lady. It’s my favorite life. In the morning we drove to the most southern point in AFRICA! It’s also where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. How about that? It was fun. I found some great sea shells down there too! It was stellar.

As they would say, “shame man” I am going to miss this place. I am renting a car for a little over a week starting tomorrow and I am very excited. Before I know it I will be packing my suitcases!

See you soon!

Love, Katy