The Beginning of the Journey

Alright, I know this blog is very late in the starting. BUT in my defense, internet in South Africa is a ridiculously hard to come by commodity. Not out of scarcity of this wonderful resource but rather because of the system. It’s a rather drawn out process: first you go to the bank and pay to the internet provider’s account, then you wait the three business days but it’s hopeless as they will inevitably fail to send you a username and password to the network, then you talk to your landlord who requires at least another 3 days to contact the provider and such things, and finally you get your internet. I’m not quite at the last stage of the process but I have high hopes that the end is soon in sight. Well now that you’ve heard my rather drawn out explanation, let me tell you about my first few weeks here!

First Week or So

I slept at a hotel near the airport the Friday night that I landed and left for my lodgings on Saturday morning. The place I’m staying at is called Annie’s Cove. It’s an absolutely delightful little area of 4 bedroom hut like houses. There are a 120 students here: 90 are international students and the other 30 are South African first year students. The pictures below will be more helpful in describing the place as I’ve never encountered anything of the like before. While it is a delightful little place now, when I arrived. I was rather horrified.

The bedroom I walked into was absolutely filthy. There was a coat of dust on everything: the table, the closet, and even the walls. I had no electricity and the water coming out of the taps looked dubiously light brown. The assurance of bedding I was given a few months ago wasn’t so assuring anymore: the bed had a light blue sheet with mysterious looking stains that I prefer not to wonder about. I walked in to the tiny kitchen and bathroom wanting some reassurance but alas, my luck had run out. The kitchen and bathroom floor were sticky with grime stains on the walls, the few dishes were coated in dust, the stove didn’t work, and there were a few roaches scuttling around (Wasn’t thinking of taking pictures before the cleaning so you’ll simply have to use your imagination: the pictures below are post cleaning). Since the apartment was in a rather sorry state and I was too hungry to clean, I decided on finding food. Thankfully Marius, my landlord, was in a wonderful mood that day and took me to get electricity and dropped me off at a store where I could get food and a phone. Let me tell you, I have never been so happy to see a ham and cheese sandwich and an outdated phone: they were my means of sustenance and communication!

Below are some before and after pics of my room =]

Well the worst is over: it was all uphill from there. I got some intense cleaning solution and scrubbed down everything in my apartment. My hands didn’t appreciate the blisters that appeared the next day but my god, I can’t describe how happy I was to have a clean apartment! I slept on my towel until I could go buy bedding a few days later. I fully stocked my tiny kitchen: it took multiple trips as the grocery store is about a 2 mile walk and you can only buy what you can carry home with your hands. It’s amazing how little you can survive on. I certainly missed my nice touch screen Droid and having internet and a working stove and such but it’s really not so bad. I compare the little I have here to what I have at home in the U.S. and can’t help but wonder if everything I have there is absolutely necessary.  After I got settled in, I was able to look around and appreciate this beautiful country that I’m in.

Sorry, but you’ll just have to read on to the next blog post to find out more =].