Leanne, Ashley, Marie
Before leaving the states, in the midst of procrastinating packing, I took a look at the personal blogs started by a few of the other students going on the trip -- partly to see if they had any packing suggestions and partly to help me decide if I wanted to keep a blog of my own. In his blog, Tom jokingly expressed a deep curiosity regarding the direction of the water flow in South African toilets. Would the water spin counter-clockwise, as in the states, or clockwise because of South Africa’s relatively southern position on the globe? For some reason, I remembered that post the first time I flushed the toilet here and was amused to observe that, instead, the water floods in from the top of the bowl and is sucked straight down into the pipes. It doesn’t particularly swirl at all. This was something completely unexpected – a third option that I had never considered. I decided then and there that perhaps South Africa is full of these unexpected options - ways of doing things and ways of life that extend beyond my previous conceptions of what life would be like in this country. I’m planning to keep this realization in mind and live life here without expectations -- to take everything as it comes and get the most out of this opportunity to live amongst some of the most beautiful people and places in the world!
We have been to so many places and met so many people during this first week that it’s nearly been a sensory overload! The orientation schedule was fast paced and filled with activities, all of them valuable learning experiences. For me, one of the most strikingly different experiences was learning to ride the mini-bus taxis. The taxis are unlike anything that I have seen in the USA – granted I’m not particularly well traveled. They are big vans with lots of windows, mainly white with a yellow stripe, but some are elaborately painted. The “official” capacity is 16 people but that’s more like a suggestion…people essentially cram in until there is no more space. The mini-bus taxi team consists of a driver who honks the horn and a caller / lookout who hangs out the side window, yelling the name of the last destination on that particular taxi’s route. The caller whistles and yells to people on the sidewalks and sometimes gets out of the taxi and runs down the side streets yelling to people potentially looking for a ride and beckoning them towards the minibus. On my first ride, the driver was blasting techno music and the caller was singing and dancing in between looking for customers. A couple of times, the driver started to drive away without the caller, who then had to run up and leap into the moving vehicle so that he didn’t get left on the side of the road! The extent to which he leaned out the side window made me nervous for his safety, especially when passing parked cars with open doors! I had to keep reminding myself that he knew what he was doing – the rules of the road are quite different here!
From my American perspective, the minibus taxi is an incredibly unconventional form of transportation. This is for two reasons – the chaotic nature of the ride, and the fact that getting in a van full of strange men yelling, whistling and beeping a horn at me is quite contrary to everything that I have been taught about staying safe! Since the minibus taxis are indeed considered a safe form of transportation, and one that I will probably come to rely on, I found that I had to shift my American perceptions of safety and danger to fit with South African standards. I was admittedly apprehensive about my first ride, but now that I have been on a minibus taxi a couple of times, I am comfortable with the experience. There is order to the madness! I can’t wait to try other new things that encourage me to contextualize my American values and to think about my place in this exciting new city!
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