Onderstepoort starts off w/an AHHHHHHH!!!!!

So…words are ready to pour out of me now. It has been so long since I’ve come at you, and I’m sorry for that. When I was in the USA in Jan/Feb I was so busy and consumed with absorbing the spare time of my friends and family that internet time was at a premium. Time to ponder, deal with, and summarize my experiences was just not happening. Immediately after that I started veterinary school and that’s been mad adjustment as well as a ridiculous amount of school work. Plus I had jet lag a bit when I arrived back so I spent any free time I had sleeping. So…now, 2 months later I speak.

Since last I related my world to you, I have been to the USA, moved to a new place, started veterinary school, and other things I guess. So a lot has happened…adding to the span of time I’ve been silent :)

Being in the USA was wonderful. I went home from late Jan to early Feb and it was just what I needed to ground myself after a year away from home base. In the first 24 hours of being home (after a hellish flight) I hugged my mom, ate tacos, spent time with great friends, listened to beautiful hiphop music on the radio, and generally just bathed in the splendor that is the city of Chicago. Much love to everyone at home that gave me love, support, and rides while I was at home!!!!

I spent my time all over the place: Champaign, Urbana, Waukegan, Chicago, Downers Grove, Janesville (WI), and Bristol (WI). Visited nearly all my friends, family, and 2ndary family members. Ate many many tacos. Drank many delicious beers (the beer in SA is total crap). Saw my bands. Walked my streets. Threw snow at my brother (even snuck a nice whitewash in there). Froze my BUTT off due to extremely cold temperatures. It was so cold one day that my friend’s kids didn’t have to go to school (it was -30F outside). So what did we do? We played outside of course! It’s the Wisconsin way! I think the first week I was home was officially the coldest week of the whole year…good timing, eh?

I think the nicest thing about being at home was that I wasn’t foreign. It was cool. Because I’m foreign in SA I sort of stick out like that nail that wasn’t pounded in all the way. It’s something that isn’t that big of a deal sometimes and then sometimes I just want to fit in completely without having to deal with sticking out. Some days you just want to blend. It gets tiring swimming against the stream all the time…even if you are breaststroking in the lazy river. People here look at me all the time or I just stick out in general (like folks come up to me and talk to me, etc). Mostly it’s because of my voice but a lot of times it’s because of who I hang out with here. I’ve learned to just ignore it or not see it, but I realized when I was at home that I am still seeing it here. It is affecting me. The absence of that kind of attention was really cool…relaxing.

I returned back to SA in the early days of February (I left the day the Superbowl was being played, d’oh!) to start veterinary school at a new campus called Onderstepoort. Say that 10x fast!! It’s pronounced: ohn-derr-ste-poor-t. Afrikaans in the house!! It’s at the FAAAAAR north end of Pretoria. It’s about 20km outside of town. There’s a mountain in between the main part of town (where I used to live) and where I live now. Far. I moved all my stuff from Cliff’s house w/his help. It actually took me 3 days to get to my campus cos people had promised me rides and then didn’t come thru for various reasons…it really pissed me off, but sometimes you just have to deal w/these things if you don’t have your own transportation. It’s all part of the deal.

It’s been a long time since the first day I stood out on 224^th Ave with my lion bookbag waiting for the bus to come and whisk me away to my first day of kindergarten. Many of my first school days have come and gone without too much thought, but as this most recent first day of school was sort of topsy-turvy…I thought I’d write about it.

My first day of veterinary school was actually everyone else’s 5^th or 6^th day of school so that was a bit disconcerting. Instead of being mildly clueless w/everyone else I felt like the only completely clueless one in the bunch. I was still in the USA visiting my family when the NoVs (said: no-vees, what 1^st year vet students are called here) were getting used to the campus, buying their green jumpsuits that will soon be covered in cow crap, and getting their note packets for a fun-filled semester of body fluid balance, grassland management, and more and more anatomy.

I arrived at Onderstepoort on Tuesday afternoon with Cliff, moved my stuff in, and went back into town to see some of my friends. I had no idea how to hook up with classes or anything so I decided to just start fresh the next morning. And, as my campus is WAY out of town, I thought it was a good idea to use this opportunity to visit some people I probably wouldn’t be seeing in awhile. Went out, saw some people, had some welcome home beers.

Wednesday morning arrives…my first day of school. I have absolutely no idea where my classes are. What time they start…well I don’t know anything really. I missed orientation while I was in the USA, so I’m totally out of the loop. I emailed some people when I was at home, but nobody emailed me back with information. And, although I recognize faces from my classes last year, I don’t really know anyone except this guy called Niven and another guy, David, who’s in a year higher than me. I called David the night before and he told me to wake up early and follow everyone else to class since the NoVs are the only ones that start at 7:30am. Yeah, I start class at 7:30am every morning…d’oh!

So I woke up nice and early, showered, ironed my clothes (yep, that’s right), had a banana, listened to some tunes and put myself in place to follow the pack of people headed to class. I get outside my dorm and don’t see anyone. D’oh! I sort of know the direction of the campus from my dorm, so I start heading in that direction…praying to see people. I see a few groups of girls and follow behind them as if I know exactly what I’m doing. Yeah I know what’s up…I’m a natural! Eventually we get to a building and I ask them if this is where the first year students have class. They say yes and show me to where we will have most of our lectures. I just want to convey how much I feel like a deer in headlights this whole day and most of the next day…and the next day. And the next few weeks…I’ve calmed down a bit now. I can do this. People aren’t scary here…I just haven’t talked to them yet.

So most of the day after I deal with class, I deal with administration, look for notes, try to figure out how to eat here, and use the computer. 3 days later I’ve got most of it ironed out. I can eat food here, use the computer, and have some of my class notes. I arrived during RAG week, so there was basically a big party every night. I bowed out a bit cos my room looked like I’ve been fraternizing with hurricanes and cyclones and I was so unorganized that I couldn’t afford to be spending my nights drunk and my next day wondering why I gave this day to last night. Oh yeah, RAG is some organization on all SA campuses that organizes and raises money for charities. It’s a pretty big deal on campus. They have 2 weeks of the year (at the beginning of the respective semesters) where people party like crazy, drink a lot of beer, and have parades and stuff. The whole week there is an event every night and at the weekend there is the big blowout with a RAG queen being named and a parade and stuff. Last year I missed the RAG parade because I was a totally clueless new student (even though it passed about 2 blocks from my house).

Things have improved considerably since my first day of school at Onderstepoort (called OP). I was really stressed when I first got here. I didn’t know anyone and didn’t know anything about this place. I am stranded here cos there is nothing around me. I was having sleepless nights. It was basically like starting all over again in South Africa…and it was hard enough the first time. All the friends I have made live on the other side of the mountain so I don’t get to see them much. I am starting to make friends here…I mean I am “the American” so most people know who I am and talk to me but I still don’t know them…yet. I spent a lot of time alone when I first got here. Eating meals alone, walking alone, sitting alone in class. But now I’ve got some friends and people to hang out with, so I’m not totally on my own anymore.

Oh yeah…and I’m in vet school so the amount of schoolwork is kind of insane.

The campus is really beautiful. There are pastures all over the place with cows, piggies, horses, and other stuff intermixed with the various school buildings. It’s not uncommon to see someone herding animals or walking horses thru the campus (read: watch out for poop wherever you walk around here). The main circle in front of my dormitory has 2 goats in a pen…apparently the mascots of this campus. I don’t know their names yet…but working on it. The new students (like the ones in my class) are on a schedule to feed them each week. The campus is rural so there is pretty much nothing around except some mountains. It’s peaceful and I think it’s going to be good for my brain…except for the struggle to get out and around places. But I’ll figure it out…it’s what I do.

There is not much in the way of anything around my campus. The closest anything is about 20 minutes walking/10 minutes by bicycle. There’s no kiosk of any kind on the campus where you can get simple amenities. There’s a cafeteria in the main school building. There’s an eetsaal (cafeteria) in my dorm where you can get food at designated times. There’s no ATM (not a huge problem cos there’s not much to spend your money on here anyway). There’s no place to buy airtime for your cell phone. Nothing. So living here takes some planning and friends w/cars. Luckily I’ve made some friends with cars here, so it’s not a big deal as long as I help pay for gasoline. Also there’s a main road by my campus so I can take minibus taxis to town if I need to get around on my own. When the white people on campus hear that I take these minibuses they are even more eager to give me rides because they think the minibuses are dangerous…so it all works out to me getting a ride somehow some way.

My class schedule is pretty insane here. I go to school basically from 7:30am to 3pm everyday. Sometimes we get out early, sometimes we stay later. I really hate the class schedule. That schedule doesn’t work for anyone! It’s too early to be learning things and then when class gets out I don’t have the energy to do the studying I need to do. I’m a day napper and a night owl. Adjustments, adjustments. I feel like I’m in high school again in so many ways here. First, the campus is small so everyone knows everyone’s business. There’s even a name for it: OP Soapies (soapy being the lingo here for soap operas on TV). 2^nd, everything I do is regulated like when I go to class, when we have tea time (yeah we have tea time here), when I can get food from the cafeteria, etc etc. 3^rd, the class schedule is just like high school. 4^th, at times I think this ‘high school’ mentality rubs off on us such that the teachers treat us like kids. To be fair, I do go to school w/a bunch of kids (the age range in my class is age 19/20-40something…but most people are under 22 here). I just feel like I’m at a time in my life where I’m done w/dealing w/someone telling me what to do and when to do it. I’ve been thru it already at my first university. I’m used to being able to think for myself and regulate my own life as I want. Which I don’t feel like I have command of here. The remoteness of the campus compounds my reliance on other people and the “system” that is in place here. There aren’t many options. It can be frustrating at times.

One bonus about my dormitory: we have a pool!! It was green when I first got here but they’ve drained it and now it looks like a regular pool. It’s so nice to come home from wrestling with sheep and be able to jump into the pool and swim around. The Piscean inside sometimes needs to be soothed…

The campus here is SUPER Afrikaans. Most people speak Afrikaans to each other (not everyone though…there are a lot of English white people here). The language thing frustrates me sometimes but instead of crying about it…I am learning. If ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em I guess. A little story to illustrate…

For all our classes we have a lab practical associated with it. One of the classes I take here is an animal handling class, so we wrestle animals once a week in small groups. My practical group is about 10-15 people…and I’m the only not Afrikaans person in the class. I don’t know how that happened. Afrikaans people LOVE to speak Afrikaans. They are a group of people that really love their culture (adamantly sometimes) and they aren’t afraid to express that. I’m not totally stupid so I can understand some Afrikaans. I know a lot of words and am learning more and more everyday. So the first day I had this lab practical the teacher we were having asked (in Afrikaans) if everyone was Afrikaans and could she speak Afrikaans. I understood what she said so I waved my arms and said “No! I speak English!” After which some guy in my class said “Ya, daar is die Amerikaner.” (yeah, there’s the American)…I was marked. I was so freaked out and shy and nervous (uncharacteristic of me…but stress is a mutha!) that being in this situation was so scary to me. 1) I don’t know anyone in my class. 2) No one is speaking English except the teacher when she addresses all of us. I almost cried a few times during the course of that class. But people in my class are nice and one guy even taught me how to say “I love cattle” in Afrikaans. Now he teaches me 1 new thing a week in Afrikaans. Last week I learned how to count from 1-10 and this week I learn 11-20. In class that day I couldn’t decide if this situation was a closed door or an open window. At the beginning of class I thought it was a closed door, but now I think it’s an open window. Even the teacher said to me that I would be learning Afrikaans in no time in this class. Which I think is a good thing.

Now I can understand a lot of things people say and I have tons of people to act as translators around here so I am learning even faster here. I can engage in small talk, but big Afrikaans talking is a bit out of my league. People have been saying that my accent is pretty good for an American (which is a HUGE compliment). I make people laugh w/my “lekker slaap” “lekker swaat” “morde, morde” little phrases. (‘have a good sleep’, ‘have a good study’, ‘morning, morning’) A lot of people have been commenting to me in the last week or so that I seem to know a lot about South Africa for only being here a year. I’ve been getting that comment a lot lately…it’s really nice to hear from other people. They have no idea how I know all these things about their country. Well…it’s because I listen, I get around, and have met all kinds of different people here. In a complexly stratified society like South Africa, being able to have access to lots of different groups of people is rare. Most people stick to their own flock and so they don’t absorb the culture idiosyncracies of the others around them…which is a bit sad. But I think it’s a common human thing. Birds of a feather type of thing.

I’ve had a lot of visitors in the last weeks: Sam Hagerbaumer (a friend from high school) and Andy Stoll (a fellow Rotary scholar from Iowa). And tomorrow my friend from Waukegan (Dave Villalobos) arrives for a 2 week sojourn around SA. Sweet! I have also had a few other visitors from around SA which has been nice cos I’ve been feeling so isolated here on the other side of the mountain.

Today is my birthday…I’m now 27 years old. Nice. I was meant to have a bbq on Sunday, but we were having a test the next day and the weather was NOT good for a bbq…so I postponed to today. The weather is the same rainy crap today, but I gotta party. And most people have gone home now so it’s kinda lonely. I am actually sort of sad today…but maybe after a few beers and some roasted meat I will feel better. We’ll see.

I did a Day in the Life for March, but need to get my photos together. I have photos from home as well. I just need to get it together, but really haven’t had time. I missed 3 Day in the Lifes due to losing my camera at New Years (December photos lost, no camera to take photos on Jan 15) and I lost my new camera on the night of the 14^th of Feb so I couldn’t take photos that day either. A guy found my camera so I got it back in the end…but still missed Day in the Life, d’oh! But I’m on track now and hopefully I won’t be losing any more cameras ;)

Hope you are all well and those of you in the USA…enjoy spring! It’s such a beautiful season. I love the smell of the earth thawing out :)

Keep the faith and spread it gently

Much Love

Lynsee