Classes, Rugby, and Meat

I haven't been writing as many posts lately because school has begun and my days are filled more with class than with crazy animal adventures. School began a week and a half ago on Friday which was a Tuesday schedule (quite confusing since many of the teachers did not know whether they had class or not). I shopped a few different classes which were not in my major but would have been much more interesting than the classes I ended up with. Unfortunately, I realized it made sense to take classes which counted so it would make it easier my senior year at Brandeis. I am taking a computer science course on C++, a course on creating Databases, health psychology (basically how to be healthy and convince other people to live healthy lives), and introduction to Politics. The former computer science class will probably be the most excruciating while the middle two will be bearable and hopefully the politics course will redeem the rest. My hope is that during an election season in South Africa (April), a politics course will help me understand what's going on more than I could on my own.

My first week of classes were fine with not that much work, but 9 a.m. classes every day wears you down, and I was very thankful for the weekend. Friday night all of CIEE walked to the rugby stadium to see our first professional rugby match. It was the Vodacom Stormers (the western province team) vs. the Reds (Australian). We all sat in one section which happened to be right in the middle of the field and I sat only a few rows back. That's pretty good for R65~$6.50 but CIEE covered the cost. The game was much more exciting than the professional soccer match we saw a couple weeks before. It was also nice to know what was going on since I had figured it out to watch my brother play. The Vodacom Stormers scored early and built a pretty good lead over the Reds and even after a comeback by the Reds, they were still 3-points shy of the win.

At the soccer game, they all had plastic horns which people blew constantly the entire game creating an incredibly annoying bee-buzzing noise. I was very appreciative that no one brought those horns to the rugby match. The difference in racial make-up of the crowd compared to the soccer game was very apparent as Quinton (our resident director) had told us to expect. While we appeared to be the only whites at the soccer game, the majority of the crowd at the rugby game was white, though it still appeared to be more diverse than the soccer game.

The food of choice at the rugby game appeared to be donuts as every minute you could count on a donut vendor with a backpack full of hot chocolate coming by. Alcohol is also sold at the rugby pitch while at the soccer match it was not.

On Saturday we went to the Planetarium, which also happened to be a natural history museum. The exhibit on indiginous South African people had a sign in the back which noted that the exhibit had been left untouched since the 1970s so one could see the racist way in which it
was presented during Apartheid. Unfortunately, this sign was hidden in the back but at least it was there. The Planetarium show was interesting since the stars you can see in the southern hemisphere are different than you can see in the northern hemisphere where I've spent the majority of my life.

Sunday we got into two minibuses with a few of the SOL mates and went to Mzoli's Meat in the township Gugulethu. It is basically a tent in the middle of the township where you order buckets of meat and then watch the soccer game played in the narrow street or dance. The food usually takes a few hours and was no exception this time as we got there at 12:30 and the food did not come until 3. It's a good thing I made crepes that morning (which are called pancakes here, while pancakes are called flapjacks). We sat on top of a payphone shack and watched the game with other South Africans. The game was much more exciting than the professional match we watched as it was crammed onto a narrow street with much less rules. When the meat finally came, we gorged ourselves like animals, and though it was not the best food, it was worth the experience and I would certainly come again.

Now I must grab lunch before class. I'll try to post some more pictures soon.