Work this week

Monday: worked with Hilary on my data again
Tuesday: Presented on Doing research in PNG: a fragment of autobiography
Tuesday afternoon - Sandy presented on Quantitative analysis in education
Wednesday - Soweto! visited Soweto - photos of school in last blog slideshow
Wednesday afternoon - shopping at the African Market - bought lots of goodies!
Thursday evening - dinner with Yvonne Reed and her husband Mike and then Death of a Colonialist at the Market Theatre - fantastic!

Friday - caught intercampus bus to Main Campus had lunch, bought logo windcheater and took photos on steps of main building

Now waiting out yet another afternoon storm before heading home!

Soweto

Highlight of the week was going to Soweto with Ian Moll from Uni of Wits and visiting a school. The slideshow of photos from that school visit is below.

Slide show of a Soweto School

Weekend exploring JoBurg Part 2!

Almost next weekend and I still haven't finished the last one! So on Sunday we headed off again exploring - this time to the Origins Museum (Great website by the way!) Really enjoyed the weaving of rock art, modern interpretations, and paleantology. Well kept secret is on Sundays the admission is only 15 Rand which is about AUD2.50. One of my favourite rooms included huge embroidered hangings made by women recounting the historical and modern lives of the San People - this photo is of part of one of the hangings.

And here's a photo of Sandy in the carpark of the Museum with our Rent-a-Wreck car. And then as we were driving from there to our next exciting spot, I took some photos of the streets that remind us of Mont Albert. Look closely and you can spot the difference - not much razor wire in Mont Albert!

Our next stop was Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton. We had been told there was a statue of Mandela there as well as shopping but did not quite realise the significance of this juxtaposition until we were there, standing staring at this enormous statue of Mandela that looks over a Square devoted to the glories of global capitalism - restaurants -Italian, Steak, Seafood - that could be in Brisbane, or Chicago, or Florence - Even the African restaurant we ate at describes itself as "upper class" on its website

So that was the weekend!

A weekend of exploring JoBurg on our own - Part One

Armed with Hilary's copy of street maps and my natural navigation ability (that's a joke that only my family will understand) we spent a fair bit of time driving around Jo'Burg this weekend on our own.


Friday night - still not venturing far out for dinner - again to Hyde Park this time to Santorini's Greek- not as good as West End Greek and definitely not as good as Melbourne Greek food but not bad.


Saturday - After beginning the morning catching up with footy scores on Sandy's laptop we headed out for breakfast at Fournos Bakery at Dunkeld - if you follow this link you will see photos of the bakery but on Saturday mornings it is packed to overflowing. Not bad brekky - don't know why here but the egg yolks are very pale yellow - does that mean the chooks have been underfed? Can't remember every noticing it in PNG!

The big moment of the morning was buying Sandy a new pair of shoes!! and they are red!! very cool sneakers - I think he still thinks they are daggy rather than cool but I try to reassure him that I know best:-)

After buying fruit and vegies and meat and groceries - three different shopping centres, three different shops, which DOES remind me of PNG, while at the same time trying to keep up to date with footy scores in the Lions/Bulldogs game on our phones we headed out to explore.

BUT a diversion -does anyone in Oz realise that the AFL and Telstra BigPond have got the internet video rights to live AFL matches completely sewn up even if you are not in Australia. Despite some searching of forums I cannot find anyone who seems to think this is unreasonable. Well I do!! Yet another reason not to support Telstra! And No I am NOT linking the AFL website to my blog.

ok enough of the rant.

We headed off to a bookshop that Hilary had recommended called the Boekehuis which was a real adventure - in parts of JoBurg we had never been before, through massive roadworks (apparently yet another thing that will be ready for the world cup) - me head down tracing our route on the map, sandy dealing with sticky accelerator pedal and manual gear changes - but we made it. Interesting store - I keep trying to buy interesting children's books but not much luck although I did buy one here that is in a series - I'll put the link up later.

Then to Parkhurst for lunch - here I am trying to fit in with the elite - the clientele reminds me of Toorak Road South Yarra - oh except they are all under 30 in Parkhurst! Once again food was good though!

Work this week

Ok this week at work was:
Monday -
An hour with Kerryn Dixon talking about schooling in RSA generally
Three hours with Hilary looking at my data - starting with the teacher interviews from the auDA Foundation project
Tuesday -
Delivered two hour workshop for Hilary's Postgraduate students and interested staff on Rhizomatic methodologies
Dinner with Hilary and John - Ghazal Indian - Yum!
Wednesday
Two hours in the morning at Hilary's house talking about the student interview data
Lunch with staff from the Applied English Language Studies Division
Thursday and Friday
Setting up this blog and my work blog, dealing with admin stuff from UQ, booking accommodation for next stop in Madrid, investigating whether we can afford a safari next weekend, possibly to Pilanesberg
And now it is Friday lunchtime and I can't imagine any more work happening for this week so here comes the weekend!

Driving in Jo'Burg

We are definitely into a pattern now. Wake up, coffee and check email in bed - Sandy on his laptop, me on my phone as my laptop is still not connecting to network in cottage. 7am here is 3pm in Oz so can reply to anything urgent then. Breakfast, and then head to Uni around 9/9.30. Takes about 20/25mins to drive to the Uni, roads are like Port Moresby in terms of potholes, but unlike anything else I've seen in terms of the quality of cars - the other day we were at traffic lights beside a brand new audi, a brand new porsche, and a mercedes that was a taxi! Drivers are similar to POM in terms of carelessness and disregard for road rules, but it is all done at a much greater speed- after all if you have a brand new porsche you're not going to do 40kmh are you? We toddle along in our rent-a-wreck - the other night we followed Hilary home and had to do 60kmh to keep up with her and it felt like 80! We've been lucky so far not to be stuck in traffic too much and are more often going against the heavy traffic so we can zoom along watching people at a standstill opposite.

And the week just got more and more complicated!

Hilary collected us at 10am to go to the African Market at Rosebank. Wow! Stall after stall of African jewellery, masks, carvings, material, bead work, so much to see and covet! Then on the roof top of the centre there is another more general market, with many of the same African goods but also more of the gemstone jewellery, hand made bags, paintings etc that you would see at markets in Australia.
Despite almost three hours of browsing, and despite Sandy actually enjoying himself, we didn’t buy a thing. We decided to use this trip as reconnaissance and go back at the end of our stay and buy goodies then. Possibilities are beaded dolls, bangles made from safety pins and beads, a stylised painting of masai women, some beautiful local cloth, emu egg jewellery, little stone animals carved from verd???
On our way back to the car I heard my text message signal and found that my email was working and Sandys’ too. So yay at last contact with the outside world at least from our phones.
Then we went to Hilary and John’s for lunch. Their house is amazingly beautiful, and the gardens are gorgeous. White stone walls, dark tile floors, and African carvings, dolls, bowls, and art everywhere you look. A bbq lunch or braae on their patio, and then home to read my first Sth African newspaper, the Sunday Times.
The newspaper is filled with the news of the death of Terre’Blanche and the evening news is preceded with an address from the president expressing his condolences to the family and asking for calm. This is an amazing speech. At first I cannot understand why he would be saying that it is a sad day, when the man was a fascist white supremacist. But then as he goes on I realise how fragile the co-existence must be, how recent the history is. The media is making a link between a young leader singing a song called kill the boers with terre’blanche’s death which could just make the whole mess even messier.
Monday 5th April
Public holiday tried to get a car but everything was closed. Walked up the shop and that was about it for the day. Bought lots of chocolate.
Tuesday 6th April
Hilary collected us and drove to Education Campus at Wits.
Went to staff seminar presented by Penny Enslin now at Glasgow used to be at Wits on ‘social justice and benevolence’ – I don’t think that she paid enough attention to the global context of aid development and the role of the UN and World Bank when talking about the relationship between Scotland and Malawi.
We spent a lot of time trying to organise a car today with a company that kept making promises but not keeping them. The rate they gave me was amazing – AUD$400 for the month for a Mazda 323. When the car finally arrived we realised why it was cheap – cracked windscreen, odomoter and speedo not working, empty petrol tank, handbrake not working.
Wednesday 7th April – at least we could drive ourselves to work which we did without getting lost at all! But I was thoroughly freaked out by now about the car breaking down in the middle of the road on our way, and definitely knew that we could not risk going out at night in it. So I rang and cried at the man on the phone who said he would give us another car first thing tomorrow!
With the terrific help of the admin staff especially Beth, we spent most of the rest of the day trying to get internet and staff cards etc organised
Met with Kerryn Dixon and she kindly lent me a couple of local journals with papers by her and others from Wits in them, Southern African Review of Education, and The English Academy Review – Southern African Journal of English Studies.
On way home stopped at internet provider to try to sort out home wireless set up. Service man came and left abruptly – maybe this is why John (Hilary’s husband) says service in this country sucks!
Thursday 8th April
Met with Ian Moll about educational technology courses. Observed ACE educational technology class taught by Tom? – teachers identified as ICT champions in their schools working in a lab learning how to evaluate websites
Got staff cards, user names and passwords, got our laptops connected to network YAY! Thanks to Scott Kearney
Friday 9th April
Even though Mosina the guy from Car rental kept promising by lunchtime he rang and said the car would not be ready. I immediately rang another company rent-a-wreck and wish I had started with them. For not much more money, they delivered a car within an hour and a half – it’s still a beatup but at least roadworthy – with immobiliser and alarm fitted. Turquoise Ford hatchback. This makes all the difference now we have a car we trust. At lunchtime we also got into our office at Wits which is great – nice and big, even with a printer that I could connect up to my laptop. Spent the afternoon preparing my workshop for Tuesday with Hilary’s HRD students.
To celebrate the car we ventured out on our own for dinner. Only as far as Hyde Park which is the large shopping mall close by. Spent an hour in Exclusive Books, bought two local books and a postcard quote from Mandela. Had dinner at great Chinese restaurant called the Red Chamber
which was pretty good.
Saturday 10th April
Heading out for late breakfast/brunch at about 10 and the internet guys showed up in the cottage – after an hour I asked them to come back Monday morning – let’s see if that works! Went to Rosebank breakfast at bakery chain, then browsing shops including buying Sandy a new shirt at Woolworths, groceries at PicknPay. On the way home stopped at Dunkeld at terrific fruit and vegie shop and butcher.
Sunday 11th April
Again to Rosebank this time to markets again. Breakfast again at different place, rooftop market, bought dragonfly fridge magnet; necklace and bracelet from Mozambique stall; cloth from Mali, handbag from “the west”, and handmade linen jacket from local woman. Light late lunch at Nero’s?? With the newspaper.

Doing tourist stuff

Thankfully we woke to blue skies. I asked Bosi to ring the manager so I could speak to her on the phone – the owner is away. After a heated exchange I hung up and received yet another comforting hug from Bosi, who then took up my suggestion that she move us into the cottage next door that had been vacated that morning. This lifted my spirits – photos here show it is quite pretty.
We then walked up to the local shops again and had an interesting hour or so with Vodacom getting a local sim card and data plan for our phones from a very very sweet young man – is it a sign of old age that young men seem so sweet and polite?? While our phones worked straightaway we were still not connected to the internet but were assured by young Nicholas that would only take an hour.
We had arranged with Bosi to book us a driver for 1pm so rushed back home to be collected by him to take us to the Apartheid Museum. A driver? Public transport is either non existent or dangerous to use, taxis not reliable, so the usual practice is to hire a driver and car. Another lovely young man, Michael spent the 30 minute drive doing a little tourist guide work as well which was great as it gave us a bit more information to add to getting to know the city. The Museum is very well designed, informative, and very depressing. After the Hurt Locker the night before I decided I had already seen enough of men killing each other so couldn’t bear to watch many of the movies. A full wall screening of the Soweto uprisings of the 1970s was especially unbearable. The museum is set out chronologically so by the time you get to the gallery devoted to Mandela’s release you are caught up in the joy and emotion of the crowds on the TV screen there.

In the Apartheid section of the museum, I was especially struck by the place that text held in the suppression of black people in that era. One wall has a list of the Acts and Regulations passed by the government over the years as they tried to legislate against any possible resistance to the system. And then there are the walls of pass books, licences, and permits that black South Africans had to carry. A letter giving a woman permission to travel 30 kms from her home to attend her son’s wedding, with the provision that she gave no speeches while in attendance. A video of a government minister explaining that pass books were very useful for the native as it gave him somewhere safe to keep all the documentation he needed to lead his daily life. An echo of this still remains – at Vodacom, the young Nicholas didn’t quite know how to deal with the computer system that asked him to enter my 13 character ID number when I kept telling him that I didn’t have an ID number at all – let alone one 13 characters long.
Bought our first fridge magnet of the trip, had late lunch at the museum café with our first sth African beer ( a lager v. nice), and then home and cooked our first meal in the cottage with not too much trouble.
Got to find out the name of the bird that is waking us up early in the morning. Raucous loud, nothing like I have ever heard before. Huh wouldnt you know it it’s an ibis – Hadada Ibis – dark rather than the white scavengers that haunt UQ food outlets but the noise is so much worse!

What's good about Good Friday in Jo'Burg

2nd April
Raining, not a downpour but more of (once again like Melbourne!) that constant drizzle. The fridge had been stocked with breakfast and we had bought fruit salad the day before so we ate well. We then walked up to the local shops, about fifteen minutes downhill one way and up hill coming home, apparently safe to walk around this neighbourhood although we were the only white people we have seen doing so. This is where the exchange rate is particularly favourable. Chicken fillets, mushrooms, snap peas, mushroom sauce, bag of pasta, bread and milk for 122 Rand which is about $24.
When we got back decided to try out the wireless internet supposedly available in the cottage. After many attempts and Bosi trying her best to help we gave up. Maybe we could watch TV instead. Three TV stations, one of which was the sports channel which now I think only shows rugby union. Once again Bosi tried – told us we should have more channels but nothing she did could fix it. We decided to spend the extra money and use global roaming on our phones to download emails and send very important text messages to Mum to let her know we had arrived safely and to Curly to find out if the Lions had won the footy (Go Browny!!!). An hour later and Bosi came to the door. Hilary had rung to ask us to ring her. The phone in the cottage that was supposed to receive calls wasn’t working so she had been unable to contact us. For some reason I couldn’t text her using my phone but could make an expensive international call to her just around the corner. She invited us to the movies at 5pm with dinner after. We arranged for her to ring our number on the intercom, but yes of course that wasn’t working either but once again Bosi to the rescue and we set off. Hyde Park is a large shopping ‘mall’ or ‘centre’ just like any other we have been to in Australia, New Zealand, or the USA. It was only 15 minutes into the movie that I realised that maybe I was a bit over watching movies after 13 hours on a plane doing nothing else. And the movie was The Hurt Locker, one of the most depressing movies I have seen for a long time. Hilary’s husband John and a friend of hers, Susan, were with us, and after the movie we ate at a seafood restaurant in the mall, very good fresh fish. Hilary told John to take special care ordering the wine as she wants to show off SA reds to us Aussie wine drinkers.

Arriving in JoBurg

1st April
The flight! So long long long what else to say – we had paid for exit row seats so at least were not crippled at the end. The 13 hours spent eating, watching a movie, stretching, walking around the plane, watching another movie, repeat four times. What movies? Umm can’t remember! What is it about watching movies on planes that means they are removed from memory as soon as stepping off the plane?
So finally finally we touched down to a grey and damp Jo’Burg about 4pm. Hilary met us at the airport and drove us to our accommodation with a stop at the local shops. Fruit and vegie shop and a Woolworths which is a small upmarket supermarket, to buy a few supplies for that night and Friday as we didn’t know if anything would be open.
The northern suburbs of Jo’Burg where we are staying are very like the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Think Mont Albert Rd through Canterbury and Camberwell. Large houses behind high brick walls – only difference is the razor wire and/or electrified fences, long wide streets lined with English trees dropping their autumn leaves.
So we arrived at Waterfall Cottages. As with most other houses apparently there is an electric gate and intercom system. A woman answered the intercom and expressed some surprise that we were expected guests, but promised to open the gate anyway. A couple of worried moments later and she came on the intercom again and said we were expected the next day but that we could come in anyway!!
The woman was Bosi, one of the housekeeping staff, who turned out to be our lifesaver over the next 48 hrs. A lovely, friendly woman who has given me more hugs over the last couple of days than I have had in the last six months:-). The cottage she showed us into was clean, large, and adequate. Great shower though, but the kitchen was a microwave, and a small portable stove/oven that was stored on a portable trolley underneath the TV that is mounted on the wall. The sink underneath a cupboard, so low that we almost needed to kneel to wash the dishes. So tired however, that we collapsed in bed and waited to sort out the situation the next day.