Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa
Sunday, July 25, 2010
We had quite a momentous bus ride to Bloemfontein today down to visit teh University of the Free State. First a couple people left their stuff in a locked car that wasn't coming all the way with us so we had to wait for the some with the keys to come back, and then we got a speeding ticket. The frosting on the cake was when we stopped for lunch. We stopped at a restaurant called Spurs, a restaurant that has a decor which is a mishmash of various American Indian tribes. There was a lit up totem pole in the middle of the restaurant. Very odd. But the decor wasn't the biggest obstacle it was the fact that 25 people had to order take-away meals and then the power went out for about 45 minutes. apparently this happens all the time. No panic, just needed to go outside because the smoke from the grill was filling up the restaurant since the filter system was run by electricity. Finally we made it to the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. It is in the middle of no where pretty much and until a few years ago was a strictly white, Afrikaans University. In fact a pretty disturbing incident occurred in one of the residence halls a few years ago here is the U Tube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8N-h8anSuE Essentially white students made this video of black workers doing a sort of "fear factor' which ended with them peeing in some food that they fed to the workers. In between the student comment, in Afrikaans, about how this is integration. The trial for the four students is tomorrow in Bloemfontein.
When we arrived we had a very lovely reception with the vice chancellor (a former biology teacher) and graduate students. They had mussels with cheese on them, and tons of fried delicious things including a maraschino cherry wrapped with bacon. And wine. Everyone was super cool and I can't wait to see their presentations tomorrow. Our housing was provided by the University and was in dorms. Verrrrry interesting and I'll leave it at that.
