Ah yes, that most exciting of topics! To begin, after a month of hustle and hassle and university red tape, we are registered! I can't think of a day in the past thirty that has not included some sort of trek across campus for registration inquiries, and I am beyond thrilled to be done with that process. Penn, next semester, will seem like a scary machine of efficiency.
I am also rather thrilled to report that our classes are...good. YES. I kid you not, and I will also be perfectly honest and admit that prior to the start of the semester, I was rather hush-hush terrified that University life would be sub par. Thus, I am happy and slurping up books like a good smoothie, and as Seb and I are taking all the same classes (a coincidence of interests) we are having a grand old time frolicking through new fields of literature and history.
The run down:
Introduction to Setswana
A loud, boisterous class comprised solely of international exchange students – introduction to Setswana teaches us how to click our “tl”’s and e-e our no’s. Our teacher is a wonderful mix of tolerant and firm, and she is really enthusiastic about our own contribution to the weekly lessons – much of the first hour is often devoted to breaking down and translating the slang terms we horde and reveal in class.
Setswana itself, and the way in which it is taught, in no way align with any preconceived notions of language adoption, but eish, we go with it. I’m not sure exactly how intense the evaluations/tests/work will be, but a little extra free time is never less than a blessing.
Critical Issues in Modern African Literature
Not the most fast paced or rigorous of courses, but with a reading list like the one prescribed, it’s hard to go wrong:
Negritude Poetry
Song of Lawino
A Grain of Wheat
Anthills of the Savannah
The class has been a little bizarre, because even though it’s for third years, the level of class participation usually hangs pretty low. Students here can be surprisingly demure, and often murmur responses instead of raising hands and pronouncing them loudly. However, I’m still having a jolly good time and the pass few lessons have seemed to amp things up a little.
The African Novel
So. so. so. GOOD. Despite the fact that the class is held at 7 am every Tuesday and Thursday (I know I know, only freshmen are stupid enough to fall into that trap) I don’t mind the early hour a bit. Again, like Critical Issues, the reading list would be enough to make a girl happy:
God’s Bits of Wood
In the Fog of the Season’s End
The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Sweet and Sour Milk
However, the cherry on top is the professor. Stately, of comfortable girth, impeccably well dressed, of poetic voice and turns of phrase, and impossibly, class commandingly, captivatingly, sage, this fellow is old school academia embodied. He always has neat tales of a Gabs of yesteryear up his sleeve, and although I can’t understand the jokes he makes in Setswana, they always get honest laughs.
Mfecane and the Settler Scramble for Southern Africa
Never heard of Mfecane? I hadn’t either. Thus, I am really incredibly glad to be enrolled in a course that examines this brief period of great violence, land dispute, migration, drought, etc. in Southern Africa of the early 1800’s. The best parts about the study of this period: the cause behind events is still hotly debated, and theboundaries that arose from the land divisions of the Mfecane gave rise to territories and states that now comprise SADC/Southern Africa. It’s more than wonderful to be able to study the roots of what’s alive around you, and it really helps to give new perspective to current events of the region. What’s more, the teacher is really commanding and knows his stuff, and I feel very welcome in the classroom. He also places an emphasis on discussing news events and the regional political situation, and it was great to briefly debate over Botswana’s actions/stance regarding Zimbabwe and Mugabe.
Politics of South Africa
Perhaps my favorite course. Seb and I signed up for it thinking that it was Politics of SOUTHERN Africa, but the misunderstanding has turned out to be a happy one. I learned more about South African politics, government, and history in the first hour of class than in all my accumulated twenty (one) years. Also, since South Africa is such a powerhouse in the region, their social, political, economic, etc. policies and practices often directly impact Botswana and neighboring countries. Our teacher, of a shiny bald head and flowery, flowing dress shirts, is still finishing up school work of his own (the class was foisted on him two days before it began) but I think it makes him even more intense about the material. Politics of South Africa is one of the only classes that we received a full-blown syllabus for (detailed outline of articles/readings required, and weekly topic breakdowns), and it demands the most in-class participation.
I find the course to be pretty challenging in many ways, especially since Seb and I, as foreigners, have come into it with a bit of a handicap. An incredible characteristic of a lot of people here, especially those studying political science, is a really detailed knowledge of regional politics – thus, we find ourselves uniquely stumped by some common questions about recent history. However, this is only more incentive to read and research. The class also makes me want to know more about my own home country, since I often find that I am called upon in classes to confirm or provide facts about the politics, government, and actions of America. My cheeks have flushed red more than once in stumbling over answers and I’d like to be a better ambassador.
To make sure that I don’t sugar coat things too much, I must once again pronounce my oft-repeated chant: “things are different here.” The classes involve much more dictation and note-taking than I am used to or comfortable with, and the difficulty we’ve had in getting books and reading materials from both the library and the book store is rather insane. A month into classes and some texts still have not arrived on campus. It also isn’t like the states where there are multiple outlets for purchasing texts – if it isn’t in the bookstore, it isn’t in the country. We’ve made do with borrowing materials and JSTOR’ing stuff (thank god for that one), but the near impossibility of finding a functioning printer here has hindered progress as well.
However, for whatever reason, I find that I am pleasantly non-plussed by this mess. Maybe I’ve finally sunk into the popular attitude here, or I’ve adopted a more passive outlook. Either way, it is nice to know I’m stressing less about inconveniences and daily “problems.” There is always maintenance issue that needs fixing, some task that needs completing, some office that needs visiting, and some contact that needs finding. Yet, chances are that on the way to do each of these things (minor annoyances that could be avoided completely if systems actually functioned here), I will meet a new person, laugh at some absurdity, or muse on some new thought, and really, so long as the dilemmas are benign, this isn’t so bad.
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I spent the day lazily (after an incredible night of group dining and dancing) and am feeling a bit of that familiar Sunday crunch – but hey, it’s kind of a comfort since it just wouldn’t be the end of August/school without it. Seb, Daniel, Anna and I also spent the afternoon doing some research and planning for a trip to Namibia (!!) that we’re hoping to take over September’s week long break. I couldn’t be more excited to dust off my backpack in the closet.
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What else to say? Perhaps a meditation worthy of an F-Word meeting. I think the thought that has been bothering me the most over the past few days is something that Daniel put into words: Feminism has yet to hit Botswana. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I am really so insanely uncomfortable here sometimes because of the way men treat me. It hit a boiling point yesterday when I was sitting outside my hostel, reading under a pavilion in the quiet, sunny graduate complex. Not more than a few pages into my book, I was disturbed by an incessant spate of shrill whistling from a window of a slightly visible undergraduate dorm. I looked up to locate the source, and found two men staring directly at me and waving like mad. I lowered my eyes to the page and kept reading, but the sound wouldn’t stop and only grew louder. This went on for about three minutes (which, in real time, is quite nerve-rackingly long). A moment after this round of annoyance finally ceased, a man walked up to me, stopped, inched a few feet closer, stared me up and down with an unnerving intensity, and then went on his merry way. This was followed quickly by the approach of a total stranger, who demanded two minutes of my time (from a far too invasive proximity) and proceeded to attempt to seduce me in a strange mix of Setswana and English. “I want a most beautiful girl,” he moaned, “a very most beautiful girl. Wena. You.” “Not an option,” I replied and smiled, my rage practically seeping through my teeth, and he swaggered into the hostel next to mine.
I am not a piece of meat, an object to buy, or an animal for observation. I understand that I am rather out of place here visually, and that my status as a foreigner often warrants more attention, but I can’t help but feel completely objectified and debased by countless approaches and rude comments. Wednesday, as my friend Brianna and I browsed shelves of hot cakes and bread loaves in a small bakery, a man yelled at me “Hello nice white lady! Will you give it to me?” I was shocked into open-jawed silence, and then blushed and turned away. Yet he persisted in inching towards me and jeering and I had to quickly leave the store because no one else seemed to find his behavior unacceptable enough to censor.
The other aspect of my extreme anger and sadness over this issue is that so much of the problem seems to center around the color of my skin. I honestly don’t think that it’s anything I’m wearing, saying, or doing that is attracting this attention, and it’s not because I’m Helen of Troy that men keep leering at me (this was never ever a problem before my arrival here.) So many times, when I am approached, my skin is brought up in the first sentence, or used in a creative appellation. “I am NOT ‘white lady,’” I want to scream, “I am Ilana and you know nothing about me so there isn’t any way in hell that you can be so intensely attracted as me to warrant your sleazy behavior.” Cultural differences, you might suggest – tolerance is necessary – but really, I’ve had more than my share of this nonsense.
The chauvinistic attitudes of this still extremely patriarchal society make me want to vomit when I hear them in daily conversation and see them in the actions of some people around me (even the educated, and otherwise enlightened,) and it is painful to think that only time and a generation gap of information will help to change things. The craziest thing is that the attitudes that stifle women and disenfranchise the female population here, stand in stark contrast with what I see as the incredible strength, independence, and pride of the women who are my peers. I hold an overwhelming amount of respect for most of the women that I’ve met here, especially for their confidence and bold mentalities, and I only wish that they would be held more highly in the minds of others here.
I don’t really know how to conclude this – no plan of action to change a nation, or real resolution for my own dejection. I don’t want to have to get more aggressive with my responses to unwanted advances, but I feel like I have no choice anymore. Maybe by embarrassing the next man who comes along and wants to solicit sex I can gain some small victory. But to put so much energy into an offensive, rather than just buttressing my defense, is a difficult thing for me to decide on.
The only positive spin I can put on this situation is that going through these daily moments of embarrassment and anger has really made me think a lot about feminism outside of Philadelphia and the comfortable environment I’ve always known. In a way, it makes an issue I’ve always cared about somehow more immediate. I also think that it is good, if difficult, for me to begin to solidify my own boundaries – to decide a bit more firmly how tolerant I will be with disrespect for my person, and to get better at picking my battles. It’s not that I’m looking to be more aggressive, but I think my “ignore it” stance of yore is definitely getting modified.
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