2/6/2010

Last day of history and culture. An entire class in 3 days. Beat that, Tufts. We started out by talking about the short story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” a Hemingway short story taking place in Africa. After that, we did a workshop on District 9, and I learned so many of the linkages between apartheid and this movie. There was a whole problem with the Nigerian references as well that I had no idea of, which I will talk to you about in person if you’re ever curious. After that was our last history lesson, dealing with the pop culture (called Y Kulture), we were done with the class…pretty much forever.
After the class, we tried to do some surgery on Bryant’s foot. He had gotten a thorn stuck in it, and then the tip broke off. Me being the person I am, I found it fascinating. A bunch of us tried to get the thorn out, but none of us were successful. In the end, we bandaged it back up in hopes that we could get a salve that would suck the thorn closer to the surface. After lunch, we came back to talk about our cartoon presentations, and then we turned in our excel projects and got to work reading the crazy amounts of papers we have due for tomorrow.
At 4, a few of us went down the road to this little store, not knowing what to expect. I had not experienced true rural Africa until this point. There was a rusted ford truck in the grass, a mule-drawn cart in the road, and the building was smaller than my bedroom. Inside was an assortment of candies and sodas, as well as toiletries and beer. I got two little chocolate bars and a bag of chips, and it was delicious. The whole thing cost me R9,50, which translates into about $1.25. Weeeeeeee. It was delicious. Then as we were sitting, one of the guys sitting on the porch came up and asked if we would pay him to take a picture of us. No one but Kirst and I understood what he was asking, so we had to be the bad guys and say no thanks. Then we went back to camp, and meditated (I love it here). Dinner was my first SA barbeque, which they call a bry (not sure how its spelled), and dessert was ice cream. Bed!