Stellenbosch – Page 2 – GW Blogs from Abroad

Huis Dance and Cape Town!

AdminSeptember 1, 2014December 14, 2018

This past week was another fun packed week with a many memorable events including a bike ride from Stellenbosch to the Jonkershook Nature Reserve, watching a movie at the student movie theater on Palestine as part of Gaza Awareness week, attending my dorm's House Dance on Friday, going to Cape Town on Saturday and visiting friends from GW at the University of Cape Town (UCT), hiking the frontside of Table Mountain on Sunday, and going to a movie screening of Unearthed (a movie on fracking in the Karoo) in Cape Town and meeting the director of the movie! As always I continue to keep myself busy and take advantage of all that Stellenbosch and Cape Town have to offer. This week I want to talk about two things, the House Dance on Friday and my time in Cape Town over the weekend.

Practically every student residence at Stellenbosch organizes a fancy ball for all its residents called Huis Dance or House Dance. Living in Metanoia, I was fortunate enough to attend the event and enjoy one of the most looked forward to event of the year. This year, the residence had its dance at the Town Hall, a beautiful building in the center of town. It is hard to compare the dance to anything like that at home, but the closest comparison would be a fraternity or sorority's formal event, but slightly fancier...so almost like a high school prom for college students. The guys buy the girls flowers, and only after arriving at the venue did I realize my grey suit and purple shirt was a bit too casual for the event. I was lucky enough to attend the event with a South African date, and sat on a table with a few other international students from Metanoia. We all enjoyed the experience of being at such a formal event in Stellenbosch and one that very few international students have the chance to attend. The night was also full of Sokkie dancing, which is the traditional Afrikaans ballroom dance. Just for the Huis Dance, Metanoia had organized a lesson a few nights earlier, so I was able to learn the basics of the dance and slowly pick it up during the Huis Dance until I was relatively competent in it (I think). The entire experience reminded me how lucky I am not only to be at a university with such a rich student life and culture, but also to be living in a dorm that allows me to get involved in these events.

Moving on, this past weekend my program - CIEE - set up a weekend in Cape Town where the three of us on the CIEE program in Stellenbosch were able to stay at the Alrge apartment building in Cape Town that hosts about 200 CIEE UCT students. On Saturday I was able to run into two friends from back at GW, which was a nice change of pace as they were the first two faces I had seen in South Africa that I actually knew from home! It is quite interesting to think that for the past 6 weeks I've solely been interacting with people I had never met before. Not too often one has the chance to do that! Talking with my friends from back home, it was great to discuss our time in South Africa and compare our experiences at UCT and Stellenbosch. I am definitely happy to have chosen to go to Stellenbosch, where my program is all of 3 Americans, whereas their program at UCT has somewhere around 200. I can't imagine coming to another country to study abroad and living in an apartment building solely for Americans. What a waste of time!

During the weekend, I had a chance to experience the famous nightlife of Cape Town on Long Street, which has very similar architecture to New Orleans. We also hiked up the front side of Table Mountain on the Platteklip trail that was an extremely steep, but direct hike to the top. The hike was an intense 2.5 hour trip up, but the views from the top were stunning, and made me appreciate the beauty of Cape Town on an entirely new level. There's not a city like it! On one side of the mountain you could look down and see the city bowl, Robben Island, and all the iconic places of downtown Cape Town. On the other, you can see the beaches of Camps Bay and the mountains that stretch down the peninsula until Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. After the hike, we attended a film screening of Unearthed, a movie about fracking in South Africa, at the Labia Theater in Cape Town. The director was also in attendance and it was extremely interesting to see fracking from the South African perspective, especially since that is a topic that I have studied in detail at GW. The film was very similar to the American film Gasland, and we had a chance to talk to the director briefly after the movie. Quite cool to talk to her as she is at the forefront of the fracking debate in South Africa. It's one thing to study abroad and experience living in a new place, and it's another thing to slowly become involved in the issues that you are passionate about back at home in that new country. It's exciting to become increasingly involved in the community here and feeling less like a tourist.

South African Markets

AdminAugust 29, 2014December 17, 2018

You find yourself with nothing to do on a Saturday morning, but the weather is beautiful. What to do?

Well among the typical South African answers of hiking a mountain, going biking, or any variety of outdoors activities [South Africans love the outdoors], a staple of a weekend morning is going to the market. Now when I share this with friends back home, I can just see their thoughts resorting to the select pictures of far-away markets they may have seen in some National Geographic issue. As such, I want you to take whatever market you are imagining, and upgrade it.

South Africa has markets like what you’re imagining- wooden crates full of fresh fruits and veggies, staples for a week of cooking, maybe even something hot and cheap to eat. However, what few may imagine is that South Africa has some of the most beautiful, diverse, and lively markets out there. Markets like the Neighborgoods Market, which exists in both Johannesburg and Cape Town, sell locally made goods from upscale jewelry to different spreads to fudge to Rooibos flavored beer and beyond. It’s the type of place that you can celebrate the weekend by strolling with friends, tasting tidbits of everything, splurging on something you probably don’t need but must have, and listen to live music. It is, by far, my favorite way to spend a weekend morning and gives you a nice chance to celebrate small businesses and local flavors.

Here in Stellenbosch, despite being a small town, we too have our markets to offer. One being the Stellenbosch Slow Market, and the other being the Route 44 Market. Both, unsurprisingly, are hosted at vineyards, as Stellenbosch is in the heart of South African wine country.

saturday market 3 — Checking out the delicious food

True to form, the markets are, though joyful, also a reminder of wealth inequality within the country. Though the prices of goods may not seem high for a Western visitor, or a wealthy white South African, they are not the “place to be” so-to-say for the normal South African citizen. If the cost of your meal at the market is R60 (about $6) or the sweater you buy is R150 ($15) and you are paid the South African minimum wage of R10- that’s 1 U.S. Dollar an hour, these markets just aren’t feasible to visit, nor do they supply the types of goods that you’re looking for. As such, and perhaps this is the case too of Farmer’s Markets in the United States, these markets attract a specific section of the population and though fun, are only representative of the more upscale version of the market.

However, markets of a different kind are a staple nonetheless. I’ve gone to township markets where everyone from grandparents to children are playing and eating. In fact, it was there that I first tried a “smiley” which is a barbequed sheep’s head. I’ve also been to markets in Johannesburg that sell locally grown staple foods and working-man’s food for R2 ($0.25). No matter what market you attend, you will find something adventurous to eat, a true taste of the country, and friendly locals who will be glad to have you there. So if you ever have the chance in any country, my biggest suggestion is to find the markets!

Res-Life in South Africa

AdminAugust 22, 2014December 14, 2018

By rbhargava

I’ve been in South Africa for almost a month now…which makes me worry that the next few months will go faster than this one. The good news I’ve been able to knock off all kinds of things from my bucket list so far, and this week was one of the best in that sense. I had several memorable moments, including a tough class with the 7 graders I teach at Lynedoch Primary School on Monday, a tour of Cape Town with a geographer on Wednesday, a visit to a nearby informal settlement (Enkanini) and hike at the nearby Jonkershoek Nature Reserve on Thursday, and a trip to Cape Town on Saturday in which I ran into a massive pro-Palestine protest, went to the famous District 6 Museum, and did the very popular Full Moon Lion’s Head hike in the evening. All were amazing experiences and I would be happy to speak at length about any of them, but I want to focus this week’s blog post on something different altogether – life at my residence hall Metanoia.

I talked about Metanoia a bit in my Week 2 post, but to revisit – Metanoia is the largest university residence with about 500 students. Of those 500 students, there are 9 non-degree seeking international students – 5 Americans, 3 Germans, and 1 Swede. What that means is we are few and far between, and get to experience South African university life like few others. There a few hundred international students here for the semester, but only the nine of us are living in a completely integrated dorm with South African students. The past few weeks have made me greatly appreciate my situation, as most of the other international students are living with one another in buildings specifically for international students, or living in private residences. Two weeks ago the residence had a week-long celebration with all kinds of events from a Game Night, to a Seniors Night, to a massive party in its Quad on Friday, and even a wine tasting on Saturday. This type of community within a dorm is something I never experienced at GW, and is something I best experienced this past Monday when the dorm held its elections for Primarius and onder-Primarius (essentially President and Vice President of the dorm).

The election began around 7pm on Monday, and all students were required to attend, so the cafeteria on the ground floor of the building was transformed into an auditorium as 500 students crowded the room. Each candidate was given 5 minutes to speak, followed by a 5 minutes question period. Many of the questions were quite controversial and direct, and most students were very invested in the election – for reasons I’ll begin to explain later. The elections ended up taking over 3 hours, and we were forced to stay the entire time. Elections for onder-Prim actually ended up spilling over into the next few days as a run-off was needed. The entire election process made Metanoia seem like a cross between a fraternity, a dorm, and student government – which it practically is.

To get a better sense of why there is such a strong sense of community here, let me tell you more about the structure of Metanoia. Although every room is a single, hallways are grouped into sections…which meet once a week and are named – my section is Enkidu’s Kloof while others are more excitingly named such as Norrisville and Helms Deep. Sections meet once a week and typically share communal bathrooms. Because there are no kitchens in the dorm, many students are forced to eat their meals in the dining hall on the ground fall (which is a complete mess, but that story is for another time). This means lots of residents see each other constantly in the cafeteria as meals are served only during a one hour period.

Stellenbosch is also currently in the middle of acapella season, and Metanoia has both guys and girls acapella groups. They both had concerts this week, and in the past few weeks both groups performed multiple times for the entire dorm in the dining hall. Every now and then, an announcement over the loudspeakers will let all residents know that the guys or girls group will be performing in 5 minutes…and everyone runs down to have a listen. It’s a great opportunity to meet students and enjoy all that university life here at Stellie has to offer. What I can say for sure is residential life here is much much richer than that at GW, and I can only wish that schools in the US could learn something from Stellenbosch.

Week 3- Mountain climbing in South Africa

AdminAugust 18, 2014December 14, 2018

By rbhargava

With my second week in class over, I’ve finally settled down into university life here at Stellenbosch. Having gone to school in DC for the past two years, it’s a refreshing experience to be studying in a “college town.” It only took me a few thousand miles, but it’s great to be at a school where you actually feel like a college kid rather than a pre-professional living in a big city. This week, I want to focus on three separate events – teaching at Lynedoch for the first time on Monday, visiting the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden and hiking up Table Mountain on Tuesday, and hiking up Stellenbosch mountain twice.

As I mentioned in my post last week – as part of the LSCE (Learning, Sustainability, and Community Engagement) class I am in, I have the chance to teach 7th grade boys at a local school once a week. Monday was my first time interacting with the kids, along with my co-teaching partner Brandon (who also happens to be from northern NJ). In our first class with the students, we showed them pictures of our families, NJ, NYC, and our schools to give them a better understanding of our backgrounds. To get to know the kids better, we then went on to play several different games including 7Up, Four Corners, and Charades. From what we’ve been told, the majority of our students have ADD or fetal alcohol syndrome, making teaching and even playing simple games like Four Corners a difficult task. On a lighter note, I did get a chance to play some soccer with the students during a 20 minutes break, in which I was extremely surprised by how talented they all were and how well they worked as a team. I’m 100% confident they would beat 99% of the teams I played when I was their age in the US. Their talents on the field and struggles in the classroom point towards a background in which playing outside with a soccer ball is much more common than having a book to read at home. Looking back on the students thus far, they are almost identical to the middle school students I taught in India a few summers ago. The students here behaved, acted like, and were interested in the same things as my students in India, and it will definitely be interesting to continue to notice those similarities over the next several weeks.

Moving on, last Tuesday I went with some friends to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden near Cape Town. The grounds were beautifully kept and we spent much of the morning walking around the garden and enjoying a rare sunny and warm day. The highlight by far though was a hike up the backside of Table Mountain on the Skeleton Gorge Trail. The strenuous hike took us above the clouds through a never-ending path of log steps, ladders, and climbing a waterfall. The top was well worth the effort though, as we looked down at the clouds below and came across a reservoir with bright white sand. It was quite surreal climbing up so high, above the clouds, and coming across a nice little beach. We took a different route back down – Nursary Ravine – which was anything but easy. Luckily, our walk down coincided with the clouds moving out of the area, so we were able to hike down and slowly begin to see the land below. The hike took several hours, but was probably the most rewarding hike I’ve gone on.

Of course after such a great hike I was eager for more, so on Thursday I hiked up Stellenbosch Mountain with a friend. The hike was much less intense, but offered equally stunning views of Stellenbosch and the surrounding areas. It was clear enough to see Table Mountain and Lion’s Head directly west, and the ocean just south of the mountain. The mountain is just behind my residence, so I returned again to do the hike with some more friends on Sunday. It seems like hiking up the mountain may become a weekly activity for me!

Week 2 at Stellenbosch

AdminAugust 15, 2014December 17, 2018

By rbhargava

I’ve been in South Africa for over two weeks now, and now am settled into life at Stellenbosch. There’s much I could review and discuss about my past week, so I’ll try my best to highlight the most important and interesting aspects of the past several days.

Last Sunday, I was able to move into my dorm from the Sustainability Institute. My dorm, Metanoia, is the largest residence on campus with about 500 students. There are very few international students here, I’ve met 9 so far, so living here is a fantastic opportunity to meet South African students and fully integrate into the university life here. I’ve already made many friends here, unlike most of the 400 or so international students here for the semester who are living either in private residences or in a university complex that is for international students only. The upcoming week is Metanoia Week, a celebration of the residence, and should be full of many more fun times with local students. I’m very lucky to be living here as I understand many people have study abroad experiences that leave them with few friends from the area they are studying in.

Last week was also the first week of classes. This semester I’m taking three classes – Learning, Sustainability, and Community Engagement (LSCE); Cities, Sustainability and Community, and Transitional Justice in Africa. The LSCE is an innovative 9 credit course that meets Mondays and Fridays at an elementary school outside Stellenbosch. On Mondays, we teach students…I’ve been lucky enough to be placed with 7th graders. Having taught 7th graders previously in India, it will be exciting to compare the two groups. On Fridays, the class returns to the school for an entire day of theory on sustainable community engagement. I’ll most likely be posting entire posts just on this program as it will certainly consume much of my time here. The Cities, Sustainability, and Community course is the one I am taking as part of my CIEE program and began last week with the praxis week at the Sustainability Institute. Lastly, the Transitional Justice in Africa course is one offered at Stellenbosch specifically for international students. I have yet to take an Africa-specific course at GW, and the first lecture of the class seemed very promising and insightful on post-conflict justice in various countries across the continent.

The highlight of the week though was, of course, was getting more exposure to Stellenbosch and South African culture. Students here are extremely friendly and I’ve been able to converse with a few South Africans about what it means to be a South African, specifically post-apartheid. I’ve noticed that while the issues of apartheid are still very apparent and racism still can be found almost everywhere, the students I’ve met at Stellenbosch have little interest in the policies of the past and give hope to a much brighter future. However, that being said, the lack of opportunities in South Africa cause many of the brightest students here to leave the country for better opportunities elsewhere.

I want to end with one specific story that I hope will give a better understanding of what South Africa is like today. Last weekend, I planned a trip to visit Cape Town with a few friends. Over the course of the week, I asked as many people as possible how they got to Cape Town, what means of transportation they recommended, etc. I asked specifically about taking a train there, which was the cheapest and easiest option. To give some background on the train system here, trains are traditionally only used by blacks and coloreds, and therefore have a certain reputation. Some students told me to avoid the train at all costs, while others told me to only take first-class during rush hour, and others had told me to go in a large group. On the other hand, one white South African girl told me she had traveled alone on the train once and was fine. My friends and I ended up taking the train to Cape Town and back and had no problems, although we definitely didn’t feel completely safe on it. The lesson here though is the remnants of apartheid are evident in everyday life. Trains are still “for the blacks”, and white South Africans will rarely use them. From what I’ve been told, no one has been murdered on the train system we used, but the decades old reputation of the train system persists. “Blacks use the trains…and therefore its dangerous.” Too many people here are isolated from other racial groups and relatively content with what is going on, and that only perpetuates the problems of apartheid.

A New Semester

AdminAugust 12, 2014

quad — The Quad at the University of Stellenbosch

It’s hard to explain how it feels to have just finished the first week of my second semester here at Stellenbosch University. After a long semester break, of which I stayed in town to save money and explore, I was happy to see the town slowly fill back up again with excited students greeting each other and catching up. For us here in South Africa, our academic year runs from January-December, with this semester being the second of the two.

South Africa has the top three universities on the continent- University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria, and the University of Stellenbosch (where I attend) as well as seven of the top 11 universities in Africa. The closest top tier universities are in places like Nigeria and Egypt. As such, students from Southern Africa flock here for their studies, making for a diverse population of students from places like Namibia, Botswana, and Lesotho, as well as South Africa. This being said, both the University of Stellenbosch and University of Cape Town are predominantly white- with 68.5% of Stellenbosch and 38.6% at UCT. Many of the universities have historical racial relationships, as universities such as the University of Witwatersrand, or Wits as they call it, was created for black students to study at, University of Western Cape was for only coloured students (mixed-race), while universities like Stellenbosch only admitted white students.

Seeing as policies regarding which racial groups could apply to which colleges only changed in the last several decades, the university’s demographics remain largely the same nowadays. However, more and more non-white students are attending college here every year.

Students doing the same major at university take a set sequence of classes each semester and each year. This makes it a little difficult for someone coming from the looser American system, in which I can take a second year course, fourth year course, general education requirement, and an elective all within one semester. Additionally, different degrees take different amounts of years, so college is not considered a 4-year process, but rather dependent upon degree (no surprise here- science degrees take longer than humanity degrees). Seeing as the South African university system was set up by their lovely colonizer, England, schools concentrate on lateral learning as opposed to rote memorization- something I appreciate coming from a system which many times focuses on regurgitation rather than engrained knowledge.

Unfortunately, South Africa- like many developing countries, has a problem with “brain drain”. With only 12 of every 100 high schoolers in ZA qualifying for university, and university drop-outs outnumbering graduates, there is a lack of highly skilled labor in South Africa. Even still, those who are educated rarely remain in the country, opting instead to work in places like the UK or various places in the developed world. In an interesting read by Business Future’s in 2010, it is stated “The African human resource pool is continuously depleted as the educated choose to emigrate and apply their skills abroad. It is estimated that since 1990, some 20,000 skilled professionals have been leaving Africa on an annual basis, depriving the continent of the doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers it needs to break the cycle of poverty and under-development” (Roux 2010). It sort of connects ZA having such good universities and yet poor leadership, eh?

The bibliotek at the University of Stellenbosch

This being said, universities are universities, and college kids are the same everywhere. Between hazing first-year students, to professors who seem to have it out for you, to the library having an exponential population spike just before exams- it’s really not so different than back home. For me, it’s mind-blowing that one semester here has already come and gone, but I am so happy with how it turned out. My first semester was full of exploring cities, making friends, and attending events ranging from competing in a cooking competition to a masquerade ball at the student theatre. Based on this week, I am confident that my second semester will be no different!

First Week at Stellenbosch

AdminAugust 11, 2014December 14, 2018

By rbhargava

Hello friends and welcome to the first edition of many blog posts to come on my adventures and experiences at Stellenbosch University. Although I'm no expert on the region, I want to start off this post with a little background on the region and the university. Stellenbosch is in the heart of South Africa's Cape Winelands, and is 30 miles away from Cape Town. Today, its wine may make it famous, but the university keeps this city alive. With about 30,000 students, the university is ranked second in South Africa after the University of Cape Town, and is a major academic center in the country. As such, the city attracts some of the smartest minds in the country and is an important part of the Western Cape's economy. What I really want to highlight is the university's history. As the top Afrikaan university, Stellenbosch is unfortunately also known as the birthplace of apartheid. With that said, the university and city today ironically face many of the repercussions of the policies it helped create. The city is one of the most unequal places on Earth, with deeply segregated communities ranging from the wealthy whites on one side of town, coloreds on the other, and blacks in a far off corner. A foreigner would never see these differences, as Stellenbosch does well to hide these systemic problems behind the facades of beautiful Cape Dutch architecture and the majestic mountains that make Stellenbosch the beautiful valley town that it is. It is important to keep all of this in mind, as 20 years after apartheid - Stellenbosch is both the perfect example of the rainbow nation, and the perfect example of everything that has held South Africa back.

With the scene set and on a lighter note, let me talk more about my first week here in South Africa! As part of the CIEE study abroad program I am on (called Sustainability and Community), I spent my first week at the Sustainability Institute in a small town outside Stellenbosch called Lynedoch. Set in the midst of some of the country's best wineries, I had the chance to get my first exposure of South Africa from a sustainable development perspective - learning about issues of food security from a local farmer, hearing about one winery's efforts to become greener from a former VP, and talking to researchers about efforts being taken to improve the living standards and environment of the informal settlement in Stellenbosch called Enkanini. Hearing from these individuals and many more gave me a great overview of what Stellenbosch is all about.

Skipping ahead, after a fantastic praxis week at the Sustainability Institute, I went on a tour of the peninsula with my program (there's only two of us on the program) on Saturday. Having only been at and near Stellenbosch since arriving, I had yet to see the Cape Town. Driving there, we passed an endless line of informal settlements that was a strong reminder of the stark divisions that have come to define the country today. Cape Town of course was as beautiful as any city I've seen, and we had the chance to drive up Signal Hill, a beautiful vantage point from which most of Cape Town can be seen. Driving down the peninsula, we were able to stop at Boulders Beach in Simonstown, where hundreds of penguins were waddling around on the beach...a sight like no other! We also stopped at the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point at the very end of the peninsula - the southwestern most part of Africa. Reflecting back on this day trip around the peninsula, the Cape Town area is full of absolutely beautiful places and is blessed with some of the most diverse wildlife on the planet, but the abundant inequalities among whites, coloreds, and blacks make it difficult to call Cape Town a great city.