avelog

What’s going on in Canada? I’ve heard nary a word of news from Edmonton nor, for the most part, from Regina. Liz regularly tells me what’s going on in her life, but that’s pretty well limited to grad school and the joys and stresses of a new city. I’ve had one short email from the folks who raised me, but no news from anyone else! I’m not psychic here!

Our mongoose friend who has twice visited the house and refused to leave. I think he’s cute and cuddle, but certain others (I’m looking at you Rebecca) feel otherwise.

Of course, who am I to criticize? I use a lazy form of mass communication here. The vast bulk of the effort put into this thing was almost a year back when I designed it. Now it sits here for 28 days a month, idle but for your occasional visits to discover that nothing has changed; that Kieran is being neglectful again (although I actually think I posted once in February, so there goes that theory).

After the excitement of Kruger National Park, it’s been mostly work, work, work, which is my excuse for not posting an update. What am I supposed to tell you? You’ll fall asleep I’m sure, as I ramble on and on about the massive batch of pasta sauce that I made last week and have been eating ever since (eight days running?). I salute the freezer.

Last weekend was actually pretty exciting, since Rob and I got to put our new mountain bikes through their paces. After much deliberation, both of us decided to buy the cheapest decent new bikes we could find and try to resell them at the end of the trip, since the used bike market here is quite pricey. Our co-workers, Ernita and James, invited us along for a ride early on Sunday morning, an opportunity to get off campus! Yay!!

It was quite the exciting time, with Ernita car running out of gas on the way out, and then her bike chain breaking halfway through the ride. We mostly stuck to dirt roads east of the city, alternately rutted, hilly, rocky, dusty, and jarring. It was a lot of fun with the sun beating down, and we really put the bikes to the test, coming out dusty, with their inaugural scratches. We got back to the city three and a half hours after we hopped on the bikes, and sat down for a hearty breakfast at a local cafe.

On Wednesday last week, we made our first trip into Johannesburg, although we definitely did not have a representative experience. Rebecca, Rob and I accompanied our colleague Nikki to a science and technology conference where she was to give a little talk about the water resources work underway at the CSIR. It was held at the Sandton Conference Centre in what I’m told is the wealthiest part of Johannesburg. We spent some time walking around the conference and chatting with people at the interesting booths before sitting down in the Speaker’s Corner to watch Nikki’s talk. Unfortunately, midday attendance on Wednesday seemed to be low, and the only other audience member was the guy who validated our parking for us!

After visiting the children’s section of the conference and spending quality time with such things as the brainwave tug-o-war, we spent an inordinate amount of time on foot trying to find Nelson Mandela Square, which in the end was right beside the conference centre. Our final route to the square involved walking outside on the street… in Johannesburg (*gasp*)! OK, so nothing happened. We ended up finding the square (which actually seems to be above street level), handed my laptop battery in at the Apple store so that they can exchange it in the exploding-battery recall (four to six weeks delivery), got some ice creams and sat down on the step beside the giant statue of Nelson Mandela. Nikki informed us that he doesn’t usually have quite such a strange expression on his face in real life.

Nelson Mandela in statuesque majesty; and the horny cow in nearby Sandton City mall

Apart from work, the rest of the past week has mostly been spent trying to organize my future. I’m applying for an NSERC scholarship again this year, and trying to get stuff organized for grad school applications in the next couple of months. The NSERC application kind of torpedoed any other plans this weekend, although I’ve still managed to get to the gym twice. Yes, that’s right. I came all the way to South Africa, and all I did this weekend was work and go to the gym. Responsibility appears to be quite boring.

Now, should I take the GRE in the next few weeks on the off-chance that I want to go to grad school in the States? That means finding the test centre in Johannesburg…. I don’t think my bike will do as transport in that regard.

Our household’s first visitor of the year prompted a trip to Kruger National Park last weekend. For those of you who don’t know, Kruger is one of the foremost places in the world to see big game, and is only a (approx.) five hour drive from Pretoria. In order for Rob, Rebecca, her American friend Bob, and myself to take this fantastic trip, we rented a car locally and headed down the highway. Being that there was apparently a shortage of cars at the rental company, contrary to our agreement and the price that we paid, we received a tiny little blue car that was officially a four-door, but with two guys over six feet (not me!) and no air conditioning in 35 degree Celsius weather, it wasn’t always so comfortable. I offered to drive, being the only one with drive-on-the-left experience, and therefore mostly avoided the space constraints (yay for driver exemptions from bickering over the front seat!).

Driving down the N4 motorway into the morning horizon-softening haze (read smog) at 120 km/h (I swear that’s the speed limit!), we passed townships, factories, informal settlements, power plants, coal mines, cows, and many people (all Black) waiting on the side of the highway for kombis (minibus taxis, for those of you too lazy to read my other posts). After turning off onto a scenic route recommended to us by a co-worker, we stopped briefly for fuel (read crepes) before winding up through over mountains and through Long Tom Pass. The mountains in this area aren’t readily recognizable as mountains for someone from Canada, as they have no snow, and the only trees are those planted as a renewable resource in some of the valleys.

At the top of Long Tom Pass

After a couple of stops to look at the scenery, a couple more to get gas, and one at a random police checkpoint where they had a group pow-wow to figure out whether or not my Saskatchewan driver’s licence was legit, we finally arrived at the park gate, got our pre-booked park pass and drove under the boom gate. We’re in Kruger Park!!

The park regulations are perfectly suited to those who want to drive around slowly looking for wildlife, and not very well suited for much else, hence the need for a rental car. The speed limit is either 50km/h or 40km/h for paved or dirt roads, respectively, meaning that I could actually spend some time looking around for wildlife with the other guys rather than simply staring at the deserted stretch of road ahead. Accomodation in the park comes in the form of camping spots and cabins, both clustered inside fenced tourist camps in order to provide a measure of safety against all the dangerous animals. Of course each camp we stayed at had a variety of antelope and monkeys inside, and it’s common knowledge that leopards can easily hop the fence.

There are numerous routes from one camp to the next, with the option of taking paved or dirt roads. We had the most fun and luck on dirt roads, as there was far less traffic and consequently (at least it seemed that way) there was more wildlife. Our first night was booked at a camp a little to the south, estimated to be 2.5 hours away at 25km/h (to include wildlife watching). At the sight of our first antelope in the sparse woods, we all went crazy with joy and took many many pictures! Of course, by Monday, antelope were the most boring thing in the world, as there are far far more of them than anything else in the park. We spotted a giraffe or two and a herd of elephants that crossed the road in front of us, but once we turned down our first dirt road, things really picked up. While we were gawping at a giraffe to our left, a rhinoceros wandered out of the bushes ahead and onto the road, causing havoc in the car and frantic grappling for the binoculars. We followed him (or her) down the road for a while and concluded that it was a White Rhino by the shape of its jaw (this was to be our only rhino ). Then as we were approaching our first night’s camp (Pretoriuskop), we came upon a massive troop of baboons travelling down a path parallel to the road. They were spread out over a couple of hundred metres, and we ooohed and awed over them for a while before finding ourselves right in their midst as their path converged with our road. We therefore had quite the fun time taking photos and observing many different baboon behaviours before we turned into camp after nearly 4.5 hours of driving in the park (remember, the official park estimate was 2.5!)

Various photos from our first day in Kruger

Considering our pace on the first day, our second day looked daunting, at an official estimate of 8.5 hours driving, so we got up at 5:30am and headed out as quickly as possible. It was a good thing we did, since after a slow start to the day wildlife-wise, we saw an amazing number of zebras, our first lone lion, a pride of lions, ostriches, many many giraffes, wildebeest, lots of varieties of antelope, some hippos (in water), elephants, monkeys of various types, and water buffalo.

Various photos from our second day of driving in Kruger

Once we got into our second camp (Olifants), which has an incredible location on top of a cliff at a bend in the Olifants river, we went on an astronomy tour, during which we were trucked out to a sunset viewing point, then wined and snacked while being taught about the skies of the Southern Hemisphere and being shown various galactic bodies in the telescope. All-in-all a chock-full and quite satisfying day.

Views from the Olifants tourist camp

The next morning was our scheduled river walk. Accompanied by guides armed with rifles, we took a truck down to a humanly deserted stretch of river and wandered around in the grass and among the pools on foot, coming within smelling distance (on his part) of an old bull elephant, and spending quite a bit of time staring at the two dozen or so hippos occupying a small pool. The guides spent quite a portion of the trek telling us about how each animal in the park could kill us if we looked at it wrong, and how water buffalo don’t even need that for an excuse.

The river walk, including our guide showing us why elephant dung is so easily recognizable

Day 3 again involved a long drive back south. We opted this time to take an alternate dirt road most of the way, where we found our first self-discovered lions (the previous times, people had been stopped to look at them already). More wildlife sightings, including warthogs, and we arrived at our third camp (Skukuza), the largest and most touristy camp in the park. We immediately embarked on our scheduled sunset game drive, in which 26 people get in an open-sided safari truck and cruise around the roads at dusk and after dark looking for those elusive cats that tourists often miss on their own: leopards, lions, and cheetahs. Unfortunately, after 45 minutes of cruising, and nothing sighted besides antelope, the first clouds that we’d ever spotted in South Africa decided to open up on us, unleashing a furious and spectacular electric storm, with wind-driven rain whipping through the truck and everyone cowering under the 1-to-2-people ponchos with which we’d been provided. Another rain-soaked hour later and the driver finally conducted a poll to see who wanted to turn back to camp instead of continuing to wander fruitlessly around in the dark. Of course, as soon as we set foot back on solid ground, the rain ceased and ten minutes later the beautiful stars were shining down on us once more.

Various photos from our third day of driving in Kruger; the last is a puff adder, the only thing of interest on our sunset game drive

Our last morning in Kruger was spent making a last-ditch and fruitless effort to find a leopard or cheetah before we left, dashing from place to place to follow rumours of cat-sightings. We were sad to leave and it was quite a shock to drive back into the real South Africa. On leaving the park, we were immediately confronted with tacky country clubs, vast swaths of farmland, and factories and power plants belching smoke in the distance.

Three photos from our last day in Kruger, and one of the citrus orchards east of the park

Everything about in South Africa, both human and natural, is so raw and powerful.

It’s almost been a week and things are settling down a bit. Projects at work are coming into focus and I’ve met most of the people with whom I’ll be working. Although we haven’t yet ventured outside Pretoria, this weekend presented the first real opportunities to get off the CSIR campus.

Views of the Entabeni residences

Friday night, my new Dutch aerospace engineer PhD friend, Remko, to tag along with him and a couple of his colleagues as they went to a rugby game. The struggling local team, the Blue Bulls (Bluo Bulle), were playing a home game against the winless Pumas. We were picked up on campus by another engineer and drove fifteen minutes to Loftus Versfeld Stadium, capacity 45 000, and earmarked as a venue for the 2010 World Cup of soccer. Parking was haphazard at best, with cars parked at all angles on any clear space that wasn’t the road itself (sidewalks, lawns, boulevards). One of the tip-based security guys directed us into a spot in front of a massively fortified house, and we walked over to the stadium a couple of blocks away. There were many people scalping tickets or selling Blue Bulls merchandise as we approached the stadium, with Remko quickly buying a big flag. We were frisked on our way in, found our seats, bought some refreshments and settled in for what turned out to be quite the romp, the final score being 63 to 3 in favour of the local team. Because of their recent losses, the stadium was barely a quarter full, but the most remarkable thing about the game was that the crowd was virtually 100% white. Apart from the security personnel and vendors, I saw only five people of colour, all in one group. I knew before hand that rugby and cricket are far more popular among whites, while soccer is more popular among blacks, but considering that South Africa is only 11% white, I was expecting slightly more diversity.

Saturday morning heralded a surprise visit from a gorgeous peacock who wandered right up to our sliding door, and was not frightened in the least when I clumsily snuck out to take photos of it. Although Rebecca, Rob, and I had made plans to walk down to the grocery store together, Remko came by around noon wanting to head downtown for some sightseeing. Having asked a number of people their advice about using the Kombi minibus taxis to get around, we walked twenty minutes down to a major road and signalled for a ride from the first one to come along (index finger pointing up). Public transit in South Africa is in fairly poor shape, and the quickest and cheapest way to get around is via Kombi, although anyone who can afford a car seems to avoid them at all costs, as they follow unofficial routes, are overcrowded, are often unroadworthy, have no seatbelts, and are involved in more road crashes than any other vehicle. This means that the population who use Kombis are overwhelmingly black (haven’t seen a white person aside from us in one yet). Government initiatives in recent years have met with limited success in trying to increase the safety measures and regulation of the industry, and it is therefore incumbent on the user to be careful in chosing a vehicle and driver.

Morning visit from a bold peacock

The four of us had a bit of bad luck in our first choice, and as we piled into the initially-empty minibus (three benches), I noted the rust on the door and torn cushions. It was only when the driver started up again that it became obvious that this was one of the unroadworthy ones: the gearshift was finicky and often took two or three tries to get into gear; the door could only be opened using a wrench, and there was a rusting hole through it; the interior filled with fumes; and the van drifted sharply when the brakes were applied. Careening towards the city centre, we stopped to pick others up on the side of the road until the van was packed, with everyone passing their seven Rands up to the front and change going back the other way.

We arrived safely at Church Street, and us four whities hopped out straight into the lively Saturday markets. Since we’d gotten a fairly late start, we decided to skip most of the market browsing and head instead through Church Square, where thousands of pigeons threatened to poo on the big crowd gathered to watch a street performer near the somewhat controversial monument to Paul Kruger, leader of the Boer resistance to Britain, and president of the Zuid-Afrikaan Republiek (ZAR) at the end of the 19th century. We headed to Kruger House, the man’s residence in Pretoria and now a little museum, and wandered around inside for an hour or so.

Church Square; church across from Kruger House; back porch of Kruger House; Paul Kruger as a menacing bust

Remko on Kruger’s train; various at Kruger House

We took a different route back to the city centre, passing City Hall and a couple of museums, but most places had closed by that time. We stopped for a bite to eat and some groceries before heading for the two-block-long line of Kombis waiting for passengers. We were directed to a particular Kombi by a fellow running up and down the Kombi line. The driver’s father, Fred, sat in the seat beside him and negotiated a slightly higher rate with us for drop-off right outside the CSIR gate. As a result, and contrary to our intention, a few blocks into the ride he asked the other passengers to vacate the van so as to get us there as quickly as possible. He then proceeded to try to form a working relationship with us in order to get our business in the future, and gave us his son Poi’s mobile phone number so that we can in the future call if we need to go anywhere. All-in-all the day was exciting, and the ride back a pleasant experience, as the second Kombi was in good condition, with nice seats, and an excellent sound system over which Poi blasted South African music (it sounded like that of the movie Tsotsi). Our co-worker took us out to Hatfield, home to restaurants and bars, for food and drinks in the evening to cap off the day.

Three housemates in front of City Hall; looking out from City Hall (Remko taking photos

Today was much lower-key, with my first walk to the grocery store (half an hour there), and a run down to the office to use the internet.

I hope that the pictures are interesting even if my ramblings aren’t! I haven’t yet found a source of malaria medication for Rebecca’s planned Kruger Park trip next weekend, but I’ll be working on that early this week as I delve deeper into my projects at work.

Here are the photos that I promised. I’ll try to expand this quite a bit this weekend, as thus far my only photo opportunities have been before and after work, meaning early morning and just before dusk, and only on the walk to and from work. Enjoy!

My building at CSIR; various views of CSIR campus, including guinea fowl (easily frightened). Note: all photos are taken along walking route to/from work (about 1.5km)

And a few miscellaneous photos from pre-South Africa:

Landing in Calgary; the Corner Gas set in Rouleau, SK

The building that house IRES at UBC; walkway nearby

A few days on a new continent and I’m already feeling restless. Living in a walled compound, large as it is, feels like a prison. The only glimpse that I’ve had of the world outside was the brief ride from the airport into Pretoria.

Rob and I flew into the Johannesburg airport, halfway between Johannesburg and the nearby executive capital Pretoria, two days ago. Our marathon thirty-eight hour flight was made slightly more bearable by the fact that we were sent on Singapore Airlines, definitely the most pampered I’ve ever felt in Economy Class. A short hop down to San Francisco from Vancouver on Air Canada was followed by a twelve hour flight across the Pacific to Seoul on Singapore Airlines. Rob and I were booked into adjacent seats, but quickly realized the folly of staying within talking distance since we are to live in the same room for the next six months. Being that there were only about ten people in the back third of the Boeing 777 (leaving almost a hundred seats empty, Rob moved over to an empty trio of seats and we both settled in for the long haul). Only a few seconds off the ground the gracefully attired stewardesses came around with the first offering of refreshments, of which I chose the white wine (definitely the best Economy Class white wine I’ve had, although that’s not saying too much). Five minutes later they were back with more; and again in another five; and another five (starting to get the picture?). By the time I was allowed to turn on my personal entertainment system I was already feeling the buzz (I swear I was just trying to get some sleep on the plane!!). Something in the order of fifty full-length films, seventy television episodes, nearly a hundred full-length albums, and numerous games and puzzles were on-demand at my fingertips for no extra cost (alright, so Singapore Airlines is a bit more expensive than your budget carrier). They soon handed out a hospitality baggy with toothbrush, toothpaste (handy because of the ban on gels), a airplane socks with little rubber grips on the bottom, for which I was thankful as all I had worn were flip flops. Lunch consisted of two options crafted by top chefs, one the normal American fare and one a culturally-relevant fare for the route (this being a spicy Korean dish; best Economy Class airplane food ever).

Several movies, episodes of The Office, games of the original Super Mario, numerous snacks, a wonderful supper, and a few hours of blissful wine-aided sleep in my three seats of window-side luxury and we landed in Seoul-Incheon Airport for a quick hour’s turnaround and back on the same plane. The six-and-a-half hours to Singapore were quite similar to the previous flight, with the same ten people in our back third of the plane, the same great service, and as many movies as I could want to fall asleep watching.

After another hour’s turnaround, the ten hour flight to Johannesburg was slightly more trying. The plane was full this time, and we shared our section with a very large man, but sleep was possible if fitful (I didn’t really feel like more wine at this point) and the stewards and stewardesses performed admirably in the face of such overpopulation.

Landing in Johannesburg, we were met coming out of customs by a lab assistant from CSIR, diverted from regular duties to pick us up in a rental car. His English was fairly poor, but we could all understand eachother if we tried hard, and he drove us the half hour to the CSIR compound efficiently if slightly erratically. I couldn’t understand what he said when I asked about his first language, but he did say that they all speak Afrikaans in the lab.

My first impressions of South Africa were of the incredibly parched grass, cut very short, and of the heavy haze hanging over Johannesburg and surrounds. Along the highway, new developments of huge mansions in razor-wire neighbourhoods were sprinkled over the hills, interspersed with swaths of industrial lots containing vast fields of shiny luxury cars under tin roofs, ready to be sold to the rich and protected by armed guards, razor wire and electrified fencing. South Africans drive on the left, and we passed many a car stopped on the side of the highway, and many a ragged-looking man or woman trudging along the shoulder looking for a ride. I saw a police car pull up lights flashing to one such man, but had no time to see the result. I’m not sure whether hitch-hiking is illegal in South Africa, but all I know is that it’s probably not a good idea for tourists. The radio informed us of the morning’s road fatalities and car-jackings as the early sun baked us inside the car.

We pulled into CSIR’s huge compound in Pretoria (more than fifty buildings and lots of green space), through a gate in the razor-wire, laser-gate, and electrified fence, past the armed guards, and stopped at Building 21, my workplace for the next six months. We met some of our new co-workers and my supervisors, visited our sparse new office and were introduced to our new officemate/housemate, American Rebecca. She immediately proved useful by lending us her laptop to check email and send home messages of our safe passage. The woman who had arranged our acomodation and transport from the airport went the extra step and showed up with a few days’ worth of groceries so that we could settle in before having to find our way to the shops (public transport is apparently a nightmare). They then took pity on our jet-lagged selves and gave us a lift to our new home, a fairly spacious two-bedroom brick house at the Entabeni (meaning ‘on top of the hill’ in Zulu) residences within the compound. They’re situated on top of a hill about a twenty-five minute walk from Building 21, in the middle of gardens and adjacent to parks, tennis courts, volleyball courts, a tiny swimming pool, a soccer field, and a very small pub. Who knew that interns could live in such luxury? The house is very cold in the morning since South Africans don’t have much need for central heating. Rob and I are sharing a room containing two single beds. We seem to have done fairly well getting along thus far considering that we’ve been together for a week and a half now (hotel in Vancouver plus long long flight and two days here). We’ll have to see how long that holds out now that we’re also sharing an office and have a third to contend with, although she sleeps in another room.

There’s a gym on campus as well, meaning that I could easily only ever leave the compound to make the half-hour walk to the grocery store, so it’ll be a big challenge for me to get out and about, meeting different people and experiencing different things. We’re trying to organize bikes and a guide for the minibus taxis (mixed opinions from the CSIR employees on whether we should take them, as many don’t appear roadworthy and they’re often involved in crashes). We visited the local pub our first night with some of the guys from the residence, including two Dutch guys, one from Botswana, and one from Johhanesburg. Yesterday I started taking my painkillers again and put on my new extra-wide running shoes for a game of pickup soccer on the floodlit pitch with the same guys from the pub.

Things will only get warmer here in the coming months and work should pick up now that I’ve a computer set up and once I get involved in some projects. I’m really looking forward to getting out and about and seeing some of this reportedly incredible country. Rebecca is already trying to organize a trip out to Kruger National Park when her friend comes to visit in a week and a half, but I haven’t decided what to do about the whole malaria thing. The Mefloquine I have with me would likely make me a bit psychotic for six weeks and therefore may not be worth it for a weekend. I’ll have to look into getting some Malarone from the local clinic, as psychoticness isn’t a reported side-effect, and it’s more cost-effective for short trips.

I hope that everything is well in Canada, and that those that are starting school for the fall are doing so in high spirits! I hope to post some photos in the next day or two.