It’s summa’ time baby

Culture Questions for Bruce (Paragraph 1)

It is dangerous to assume.  We walked to campus today for Campus Life Festival which was described to us as the Involvement fair at CSB.  So, we expected tables for each club on campus and sign-up sheets to join their clubs.  What we encountered was much different.  The five biggest societies on campus were having a spirit contest with the new nguni style music we learned about in music class.  There were two parts in each chant/song-- one part in two-time and the opposing part in three-time.  The groups sounded great, but I am quite certain that my ear drums were going to burst and the roof of the athletic complex blow off in order to make space for the resounding pressure and huge energy put forth by the students.  If I had to judge between CSB’s involvement fair and NMMU’s campus life festival, I would say that CSB students do a lot of activities, because it’s busy, but there is not nearly the amount of passion.   At NMMU, students may only do one or two clubs, but there is more vibrancy and energy than I could have fathomed for those activities.  Although I did not find the booth I was looking for today, I found a true sense of the African concept of community, with so many voices raised together.

We took a kombi home from NMMU and went to the pool in the beach-side complex front of Langerry.  For those of you skeptical about my use of the pool while I'm so close to the ocean.  I will briefly explain the luxury of the pool.  There is turf to lie comfortably and sun oneself, without sand slicing up one's bod, alongside sea-water pools that are deep enough to fully submerse oneself without the constant thrashing of waves and fear of riptides.  Taylor and I lay out with the occasional dip in the pool for about four hours.  The best part of the day may be the coconut, banana, rum scented suntan lotion which was gracefully rubbed in without the added grit of sand the prematurely shed skin cells, oooo-wee how I love that smell. It was a lovely time.

We returned to Langerry to make salads for a Braai with Norma and Bruce our directors.  We were treated with chicken, coleslaw, peppadews (spicy little South African jarred peppers), Greek salad, these fabulous little bread rolls that closely resemble the ones from the business Bradley helped to establish in the townships but today’s were grilled on the braai, grilled polenta (my 1^st experiment) and a South African adaptation of the “Snicker salad” (Granny Smith apples, cool whip, and snicker bars) that I shall call the “Tempo salad” (Granny Smith apples, plain yogurt + vanilla extract, Tempo bars= my 2^nd experiment) after the candy bars I used.   We all came back to the room full and quite tired from a day in the sun.

I am reading A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela’s political auto-biography, and copying some indigenous South African recipes and ostrich recipes before I return my library books next week.  I also had the good fortune of having a long, meaningful, funny, and much-needed convo with my sissy tonight.  Thanks Al :)