Crisis Averted

Like I said before, the next two days (Friday and Saturday) were spent pretty exclusively on our group lab report. I won’t bore you all with the details, but it actually wasn’t as bad and boring as I thought. I got to do a lot of number crunching in Excel (which is fun for me); read, write, and revise parts of the written sections; and do everything else in the most relaxing and funny atmosphere with the other three members of my group. We discussed our oddly cohesive group dynamic earlier, like how we can joke around so much (to the point of pissing off other people around us who can’t simultaneously joke and work) yet still accomplish a lot, and how it’s really the first time in a while (or ever) that a group we’ve been in has been so unified and organized with the workload. Group projects are usually a pain in the ass because there are the people who are almost too chill about the whole thing, and the people who are so anal and upset at the aforementioned people that they just do the whole thing themselves. Thankfully, my group couldn’t be further from the norm, which made the two or so days we spent working on everything exponentially less crappy than they could have been.

Before we knew it Sunday morning arrived, which for many of us meant one thing: Haven food. We’d been talking up the copious amounts of food at The Haven pretty much ever since we left the first time and had to experience rationing at Dwesa, so we (myself included) were excited to just get there and stuff our faces and not have to worry about eating too much and the person next to you not eating enough. So after about seven hours in the car (a longer trip (because of the recent rains, apparently there’s a tropical storm/depression nearby) that consisted of me finishing Hunger Games, us blowing yet another tire, and reminding ourselves how desperately this area needs a new road) we finally touched grass at The Haven, and it was borderline magical. We went straight to lunch (which they held for us, they had a total of six guests in the three weeks we were gone, so we pretty much own the place) and gorged like there was no tomorrow. Freshly baked bread? Yea I’ll have three slices of white and two of wheat. Some chicken concoction? Don’t care, I’ll take three. Chocolate mousse for dessert? Are you shittin’ me?! So after eating about a village worth of food each, we figured out the room situation (got my own room, suhweet), unpacked, and put some finishing touches on our project before yet another feast at 7.

Following dinner we had a pretty brief yet thought-provoking cultural discussion with Erica. We talked about being ethnocentric versus ethno-relative and the ideas behind being culturally competent or something like that. One really good discussion tangent that came of it was regarding THON and if the Dwesa-Cwebe community and other parts of South Africa could do something similar to raise money for the reserve. First we all talked about different reasons we do or do not participate in THON, then Erica postulated that the reasons are all distinctly American values (generosity, independence, etc.), which I found pretty fascinating. This led to yet another tangent (which continued into a conversation with a group after the discussion) about people’s motives for doing THON and just some general overall opinions of it that I’ve never really heard before. It was really just super interesting to learn about everyone else’s thoughts on something that might initially seem pretty uniform in belief at first, but really has so many different beliefs and opinions along with it.

So I get up the next day around 5:30 with the intention of going for a run and doing some core afterwards. I never understand why I make such lofty goals for myself for the morning, considering I’m a completely different person in the morning. Exercise is about a million spots after breakfast on the list of things that’ll get me outta bed, so I snoozed my iPod and went back to sleep, which must’ve been some negative karma that transferred to my laptop. When I got back from lunch later it was just about dead (which was weird because I hibernated it with about 60% left), so I plugged it in, which did nothing. So I had the intention of turning it off and on, which I know is what my Dad would’ve told me to do, except for the part where it didn’t turn back on. For the next two days I had what was essentially a giant black brick plugged into the wall, sitting there doing nothing. It miraculously turned on Wednesday morning, after about the eighth holddownthepowerbuttonwaittakethebatteryoutandtrryagainputthebatteryinandtryagain process. Anyways, Monday night was fun because, seeing as Tuesday was our rest day, we got to get our drank on. Even though I didn’t drink as much as some others (thanks for the shots Ken…), it was still really really fun. The rest day couldn’t have come at a better time, as I was able to just do nothing at the beach and sleep away some stuffiness. I really love the rest days because they’re the best opportunity to just be by yourself for an extended period of time. Not that I don’t like hanging out with the rest of the group, but some me time is healthy for everyone I think. After having a blast doing nothing in particular then eating a whole lot, a few of us hung out and watched soccer until we got tired and called it a day.

The next day (Resurrection Day I called it, which oddly enough came on the third day…) we started Neil’s course, which is centered on sustainability. Though we’re only two days in as I write this, we haven’t really talked about “typical sustainability” like alternative energies and stuff like that. It’s definitely a …different approach, and I don’t want to rush to any judgments already, I just came in with a different expectation (solar energy in Africa? Brilliant! Let’s eat). The structure of this course is much more favorable, though, as it’s split into three one hour sessions a day (9, 12, 6), a time limit Neil is very good at sticking too (as opposed to our other professors so far). We had to do a little writing assignment about our passion, which kind of bothered me. I don’t really consider myself someone that has this burning passion for anything, even listing hobbies is hard (damn I’m boring), so I was stuck pretty hard on that one for a while until I just chose traveling considering I’ve enjoyed all of the traveling we’ve done thus far. The following day followed pretty much the same structure, just with everyone working on a group paper/project that’s due Sunday. It’s pretty odd that even though our group (for the most part) is extremely functional and cohesive socially, academically a lot of people just butt heads and waste time. I assume it’s because some people just take their academics super seriously and their way has obviously gotten them this far, but it’s ridiculously frustrating to try to get a point across to not just one stubborn person but a few, or just to watch other people try to suggest something that isn’t even considered. That’s why I’m glad my group from the previous project was able to work together again, because I know we’ll get stuff done and have fun without drama, which sounds like the perfect group for anything.

I woke up late the next day, reverting back to my pre-Africa self of snoozing my alarm until I remember I can just turn it off, yet somehow made it in time to catch the tail end of breakfast. In our first two sessions we discussed and learned more about our time in the schools next week. Monday through Thursday we’ll be pretty much just observing, then going back later and doing more teaching, which makes sense (learning about somewhere before we teach in there). The next day was essentially an off day because we were going to Mthatha, a city about 2-3 hours away, to buy some necessities, see the Nelson Mandela Museum, and just generally see civilization for a little bit. It would be my first time off Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserve in what felt like forever, so that felt fantastic.