Classes start

The past two days have gone by quickly as we finally started classes here. All of the classes are offered at the Stanford Centre which is approximately a 10 minute walk from our house. I went to more classes than I am actually going to take because we have a shopping period to explore classes. I went to three different class meetings over the past few days and I have another class tomorrow morning.

I started off classes by attending a course on race and labor in South Africa. It was taught by Xolani (with a click in it that I can say!) who is a native who has earned her PhD and teaches at the UCT business school in sociology. She was a very interesting person and very clearly knew a lot about her field. Most of the students in the program came out to the class, I assume because it was the first course offered. I don’t think I will take this course even though it has some really interesting commentary on race relations here.

After that, I went to a course on the archeology of South African hunters and gatherers. The professor, John Parkington, is a UCT professor and is basically the stereotypical archeologist. He wears the outfit and talks in the exact way you would picture. The course focuses on the stone age hunters and gatherers specifically in the Western Cape region. It is really interesting to be studying this here in this context because it is theorized that the first humans were from or near this region. There are tons of interesting sites to visit and our Bing sponsored trip is to the Cedarburg where there are cave paintings from early modern humans. I’m really excited about this class and I think I’m going to take it.

On Tuesday night, our professor for “The effect of HIV/AIDS on the fate of vulnerable populations” invited us over to his house for dinner as the first meeting of the course. We had a presentation from the NGO we will be working with in the field to help evaluate the HIV affected populations in Dunoon. It sounds cool as well and I think I will take this course. It was also really fun to just be at a professor’s house and interact in a more social way with him. I have a really unique experience here to get to know professors and ask questions in a way that isn’t possible elsewhere. I definitely feel lucky.

Wednesday has brought only one class (archeology) this afternoon, but it has been fun in other ways. During the late afternoon, I went up to UCT with a couple other students in the program and played ultimate Frisbee with the UCT club team. One of the students in our program has been playing with them since last quarter and so we just went up to join in. I had a really fun time and it was awesome to actually meet some UCT students. We got up there a little bit late because the Jammie Shuttle to Campus was running late, but we got there in time to jump in some drills and a scrimmage. The “B” team is pretty relaxed and it was fun to just get outside and meet some new people in the area.

Tonight has been relaxing. I’ve been doing some reading for the class I have tomorrow morning. For the rest of the day we will be doing a tour of the townships and I will get to meet the staff at my service learning placement. I’ll write more about them after I actually meet them, but for those who are curious, I will be working with Philani Child Health and Nutrition. You can look up more information at philani.org.za.