Life in the Compound

July 12, 2009 - Life in the Compound

After a day-long busride, we finally arrived in Umtata which is Nelson Mandela’s hometown. This blog is entitled “life in the compound” because that is exactly where I am…..in a lock down security….HOTEL. This area is very prone to theft, so we are under maximum security. The little town area has a super grocery store where we all decided to grab a picnic dinner for tonight to eat on the picnic tables in the compound. But for now, I am sitting on the “stoop” outside of my room watching all the guys kick the Hannah Montana soccer ball around. Hey - we do what we can to make our own fun!!

I should probably go back and recap my time in Grahamstown since my last blog focused mainly on my Indian Ocean experience. Grahamstown, home of the National Arts Festival, was a total blast. I just loved the vibe of the hippie college town full of everyone from Hare Krishnan (chanting included), tourists, and South Africans. I did a lot of shopping…probably a bit too much and definitely threw out too many Cheetahs (R200) and Water Buffalos (R100). As Kim says, we were “flippin’ the cheetahs and water buffalos in the sky makin’ it rand!” I found some great souvenirs for some very special people!! We saw three shows while we were there: Simphuwe Dana (a jazz artist), Threads (a Poetry/Dance fusion) and Disgrace (the film of the book I just finished a few days back). Dana had an amazing voice…but I’m not a huge jazz person, so I probably wasn’t as into it as I could have been. Disgrace was incredibly heavy and depressing, but I knew that going in. The best, however, was Threads. Through modern dance and some AMAZING performance poetry, the poet told the story of relationships and how we’re all connected in family relationships and in life. They used a lot of string for props to demonstrate the family ties. It was incredibly powerful and almost brought me to tears multiple times. I truly wish they were selling a DVD of the performance because it would be amazing example of performance poetry to show my students and to illustrate the raw emotion from just the spoken word.

Prior to seeing Disgrace, a group of about 10 of us decided to go out to an Italian restaurant for wood fired pizza…they were great, except for the fact that it took almost an hour and a half to get our meal. Gotta love South Africa service!! Because we were running so late, we asked the waitress if she could call us a cab. The waitress just laughed and said, “We don’t have taxis”. Yet another South Africa experience! We scarfed down our pizza and raced across town to get to the show. Sounds easy, right? Well, I didn’t mention that the walk included a 15 minute hoof up the hill…and by hill, I am talking about a freaking mountain. By the time I got to the top I was just so exhausted…not to mention we were pratically running up there. Guess I burned off some of that pizza!!

After the movie we headed back to pack up our things for our early morning departure. Heather and I decded to do one more load of laundry around 11pm. We went to the laundry room, threw in our stuff, poured in the powder, and tried to star the machine…..no water. So we had to dust the soap off all our clothes and do some hand washing in the sink….oh the perks of living out of a suitcase. I set my alarm for 2:30am to get my clothes out of the dorm dryer. Oh what I go through for clean clothes when there’s a free laundry service!

The best thing about the dorms happened this morning. Our dorm had communal bathrooms, so many of us had the foresight to take a shower in the evening anticipating the morning rush. Thank goodness I was one of those people…because guess what!! We woke up this morning and there was NO WATER in the building. It was definitely an interesting morning…followed by a 6 hour bus ride.

Alright, time for some Compound Kickball. If this soccer match is any indication, it’s going to be intense!! Peace from the compound!! J