After the field placement, I stayed an extra 5 days to explore this beautiful country even more. I met great people along the way throughout my time there and had some fabulous (& some dangerous) and no-so-hot experiences. How enlightening it was also to hear the views from others about my country, some of which I have had discussions regarding with fellow Americans.
In addition, my adventures gave me the following: two safaris (game reserves as they are called) with one in a traditional safari truck and one in a car, a visit to Lion Park (one of the safaris) where I pet the lions. Of course, I could not resist. This is also where I fed the ostriches and was bitten...twice!! Who gets bitten by an ostrich?! Me, apparently. Did that stop me? Nope, I went right back to feeding all three. The giraffe was too preoccupied and likely too full to let me feed him. I shopped and shopped; ate some absolutely delicious food, wanted to go cage diving with the sharks, but I had no time; saw the gorgeous African coast and where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet; visited my 2nd World Wonder called Table Mountain (my 1st was Machu Picchu in Peru); visited a wine vineyard (I may not drink, but I enjoyed myself); went to Robben Island -where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison-, by ferry (and relieved myself of the breakfast granola bar I had due to the motion sickness); went to a Starkfontein, a cave that has been there for years, which was dark, cold, and deep. We literally crawled, slid, bent, etc through this cave. Other adventures were that when I first went to the airport to leave, my flight was later cancelled, then the next day the flight was delayed twice. When I finally made it to S.A., my luggage was also delayed and I did not receive it until two days after my arrival into the country and my laptop was missing from it! I bruised my shin with the iPad, the strap on my purse finally broke with eveything in it, a cab driver took me to the wrong hotel, and so forth. Certainly, more has happened, but this is already very lengthy.
One night in Cape Town (a suburb outside of it), while looking for a restaurant to dine in, a friend and I were almost hit by a car! You have to remember that South Africans drive on the opposite side of the road than in the United States. While I already knew this, I still stepped into traffic looking in the direction that I would at home, not thinking about the road differences, thus the on-coming traffic almost hit us. I was pretty far out into the street, further than my friend. Yep, I even heard the car horns blaring at me, but it still didn't register that they were blowing at me, the crazy American in the street! Too funny :). Then, not even 10 minutes later, we get picked up by the police while just walking down the street still looking for a place to eat. He pulls up and my friend stopped, while I continued walking. She yelled to me "that's our"...I thought she said "that's our ride", so I said "oh no, that's not my ride" LOL, so I kept going. Well, my dissertation is on sex trafficking (hers also), so I was not getting into any unknown vehicles. I stopped to turn around and see what she was doing, only to realize that she had said "that's the police". Duh. Anyways, I still wasn't convinced or trusting, so I walked back to where she was and we questioned him. "Are you really the police", "how do we know that for sure", "this could just be a cop car and you have his vest on", "where did you just come from", "so you just saw us walking and decided to stop", "why", etc. We got in the police car and asked about restaurants. I still had more questions though. So I asked his name. He answered, to what I thought he said "Innocent". SO I said, "wait you pick us up on the road and your name is Innocent"?! This must be a joke. Again, "Innocent" is what I "heard", but his name was Enocen. Duh. I don't usually experience language barriers during intercultural interactions, but this was an example likely because I was on-guard. It was dark, late, two female foreigners walking alone. It was definitely an ice-breaker as we all laughed. Yes, he was actually the police. I remembered that we had just passed the police station with a bunch of cops standing/talking outside, so it was fine. He was just assisting two visitors to his country.
I jokingly asked the officer if he would be picking us up to us back as well; if he would remember us. He replied that he may not remember me, but would remember my friend. That was interesting, so we probed for more information. She was going to ask if he had seen her on TV or something; is that the reason he would remember. I asked him why he would remember her. He said he seen her somewher, so I asked where he might have seen her because we looked at one another very puzzled. We were not expecting this answer, but he said becaue he saw her walking the streets LOL. SO I said, "Oh. Oooh, do you think she's a street-walker?!?" She said, "Oh my gosh, now I'm a street-walker!" Maybe she just had a familiar face to him or something, but it was hilarious!
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Adventures of South Africa
Well, I just returned home 2 weeks ago to the States from South Africa. While home has been in the sweltering heat, it was winter time in South Africa! Again, I visited another country during their winter (Peru in 2011). I will not make this a habit.
South Africa is intriguing. Yes, it may have its social ills, injustices, economical woes, and political corruption like any other country, yet the humanity (and some of the places I visited) is what is beautiful. The diversity, as you know I love, stands out clearly. People are of all shades and colors, and simply identify as African or South African, as opposed to White South African, etc. For the most part, I felt the warmth and genuine sincerity of people, and others not so much. People also really know and understand their history, which was refreshing for me because it doesn't seem to be the case in the U.S. Something else that was amazing is that generally, people in South Africa appeared more open and willing to discuss difficult things, such as race relations, their traumatic history with Apartheid, race/sex differences, etc. It made me question why the U.S. seems so concerned with forgetting or "getting over" our traumatic history or neglect to acknowledge the current lingering effects. This is not a comparitive analysis of the two countries, as I do not like to do that, but rather it is a reflection of my experience. I appreciated also how people admitted that their perspectives or experiences were just that...theirs, meaning that it does not represent everyone. I strongly believe this because we all have different life experiences and viewpoints.The issue is when we attempt to impose those onto others or judge/mistreat them if/when different than our own.
I visited several organizations to see how they serve their populations, and to see how 'psychology' is viewed or done. I was in the affluent areas as well as the underserved areas. These organizations included schools, shelter for those without homes, community center for youth, etc. We had a group project to reflect upon that which we learned and offer interventions, part of International Psychology when consulting with clients. Traveling throughout the country from the north in Johannesburg and Pretoria all the way to the south in Cape Town (and the countryside) and back north, the biggest lesson that was confirmed for me is that people are just people...point, blank, period. If only we could recognoze this, perhaps there would be less division.
To be continued...
South Africa is intriguing. Yes, it may have its social ills, injustices, economical woes, and political corruption like any other country, yet the humanity (and some of the places I visited) is what is beautiful. The diversity, as you know I love, stands out clearly. People are of all shades and colors, and simply identify as African or South African, as opposed to White South African, etc. For the most part, I felt the warmth and genuine sincerity of people, and others not so much. People also really know and understand their history, which was refreshing for me because it doesn't seem to be the case in the U.S. Something else that was amazing is that generally, people in South Africa appeared more open and willing to discuss difficult things, such as race relations, their traumatic history with Apartheid, race/sex differences, etc. It made me question why the U.S. seems so concerned with forgetting or "getting over" our traumatic history or neglect to acknowledge the current lingering effects. This is not a comparitive analysis of the two countries, as I do not like to do that, but rather it is a reflection of my experience. I appreciated also how people admitted that their perspectives or experiences were just that...theirs, meaning that it does not represent everyone. I strongly believe this because we all have different life experiences and viewpoints.The issue is when we attempt to impose those onto others or judge/mistreat them if/when different than our own.
I visited several organizations to see how they serve their populations, and to see how 'psychology' is viewed or done. I was in the affluent areas as well as the underserved areas. These organizations included schools, shelter for those without homes, community center for youth, etc. We had a group project to reflect upon that which we learned and offer interventions, part of International Psychology when consulting with clients. Traveling throughout the country from the north in Johannesburg and Pretoria all the way to the south in Cape Town (and the countryside) and back north, the biggest lesson that was confirmed for me is that people are just people...point, blank, period. If only we could recognoze this, perhaps there would be less division.
To be continued...
Riding again
So has this been the longest road stop? Well, here I am again to update you on what you've missed...and trust me, it has been an adventure. Here goes:
Since we last spoke, I celebrated another birthday (birth month, I should say) this year, traveled to South Africa, planning for my graduation party, made some more progress on my dissertation, had several social outings, which are great to help my work/life balance (that's my psychology talk/justification), and got a friend out of a terrible date.
As I told you previously, I accelerated my doc program (great decision) to finish sooner. Then, while traveling overseas, my laptop (work computer) was taken from my luggage by the airline, who now acts as though they are clueless. More on this later. I had school work, work-work, students' and colleagues' info on it-some that I did not get to back up beofre leaving. Also, since we spoke, my dissertation was held up by 2, counting 2, major delays: one with the method's consultant who was unresponsive to e-mails and showed up to phone meetings unprepared, on the train, and distracted. Can you believe that!?! The other delay was by the IRB that took way longer than their projected timeframe to give me a decision on approval or decline to conduct my study...you must show that you're ethical when doing research with human participants, which is understandable, but this and the 1st delay led me to dropping a dissertation course last term (I was still enrolled in another), thus holding up the process. I don't like this part of the road, but it happens.While I would have been preparing to defend my dissertation in August, this is no longer the case now, so I should be ready in September or October. I am back in that course that I had to dropp and working on putting my dissertation together. My last changes were not back up...ugh!
At the end of June, I went to South Africa. It was part of my doc program like Peru last year...and like with Peru, I stayed an extra week following the field placement to do some more traveling and exploring through the country. I will write to you on the adventures in South Africa because that needs its own post. While away, I missed my hubby's birthday (again due to traveling). In my defense, I did warn him that when I started this program that he will see me in about 3 years :). We celebrated a little when I returned by getting cookies and gelato and spending the entire day together walking through the city (literally). There was no real destination; just strolling between neighborhoods. It was great, enlightening, and not foreign to us because we enjoy walking. I will say though that once we got home that night, out feet were ACHING! Tomorrow (7/26), we will have our four year wedding anniversary and he says he has a surprise for me!...
XOXO
Since we last spoke, I celebrated another birthday (birth month, I should say) this year, traveled to South Africa, planning for my graduation party, made some more progress on my dissertation, had several social outings, which are great to help my work/life balance (that's my psychology talk/justification), and got a friend out of a terrible date.
As I told you previously, I accelerated my doc program (great decision) to finish sooner. Then, while traveling overseas, my laptop (work computer) was taken from my luggage by the airline, who now acts as though they are clueless. More on this later. I had school work, work-work, students' and colleagues' info on it-some that I did not get to back up beofre leaving. Also, since we spoke, my dissertation was held up by 2, counting 2, major delays: one with the method's consultant who was unresponsive to e-mails and showed up to phone meetings unprepared, on the train, and distracted. Can you believe that!?! The other delay was by the IRB that took way longer than their projected timeframe to give me a decision on approval or decline to conduct my study...you must show that you're ethical when doing research with human participants, which is understandable, but this and the 1st delay led me to dropping a dissertation course last term (I was still enrolled in another), thus holding up the process. I don't like this part of the road, but it happens.While I would have been preparing to defend my dissertation in August, this is no longer the case now, so I should be ready in September or October. I am back in that course that I had to dropp and working on putting my dissertation together. My last changes were not back up...ugh!
At the end of June, I went to South Africa. It was part of my doc program like Peru last year...and like with Peru, I stayed an extra week following the field placement to do some more traveling and exploring through the country. I will write to you on the adventures in South Africa because that needs its own post. While away, I missed my hubby's birthday (again due to traveling). In my defense, I did warn him that when I started this program that he will see me in about 3 years :). We celebrated a little when I returned by getting cookies and gelato and spending the entire day together walking through the city (literally). There was no real destination; just strolling between neighborhoods. It was great, enlightening, and not foreign to us because we enjoy walking. I will say though that once we got home that night, out feet were ACHING! Tomorrow (7/26), we will have our four year wedding anniversary and he says he has a surprise for me!...
XOXO
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)