April is the cruelest month

I miss Hispanic people.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think

I've been thinking about the phrase "you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl" today. Not because I'm from a trailer park, unless you call White Lake Hills -- a, like its name implies, mostly-white-middle-class residential development where the average age was 50 and after 7 p.m. almost all the residents had gone to sleep because that's what old people do -- a trailer park. Which you would not, because it was not. But in the gourmet-food sense, I'm trailer trash. I eat french fries with mayonnaise. I enjoy cheeseburgers. I've been known to eat a potato-chip-peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. I use just your average olive oil, nothing special. And today we went to the South African Cheese Festival, where I was shown, yet again, my gustatory limits.

Yes, an entire festival devoted to cheese. Has there been a better idea, ever? Nevermind the fact that I'm probably lactose intolerant, I enjoy dairy more than anything else in life. And nothing goes with cheese quite like wine. Or ice cream. Or biltong (the South African version of beef jerky, only better), in a variety of flavors: bees (the guy assured me it was "beef", but in Afrikaans), rhino, kudu, springbok, ostrich. Or chili-flavored chocolate. Or salami-flavored chocolate. Luckily for me (and all the South Africans with extremely warped tastebuds who actually like that stuff), these were all in abundance.

Also, let me just say, if my planned career fails to pan out, I might just become a chef. The uniforms are adorable, and I love watching Top Chef, if only to salivate at that pretty blond guy and the weird-yet-powerfully-appetizing dishes they put together. Mango-bacon sausage with parsley? Sign me up.

And, in between all the cheese stalls (call me old-fashioned, but I still love aged cheddar and edam the best) were wine stalls galore. For the price of admission, you could try literally hundreds of wines. Because I had a little wine tasting of my own in the dorm a few nights ago which ended rather badly, I wasn't quite in the mood to be pouring shiraz down my throat, but I took one for the team. (The team = me.) And though I was hoping to, as the semester progressed, become like Paul Giamatti's wine snob character in Sideways -- minus the huge eyes, scarily-receding hairline, annoying verbosity and getting the cute blonde at the end -- I still wouldn't be able to tell a Shiraz from a Pinotage if I met them in a dark alley. I do know pinotage = hermitage + pinot noir. (Note: if I'm wrong, forget I said that.) But I like red wine better than white, and I tend to gravitate toward the pinotage. And only wimps drink rose wine (sry, roommate). Plus, Vitamin C. And higher alcohol content than in beer and cider. Need I say more? Though, to be honest, the whole "hints of freshly-mowed grass" thing... I'm a little skeptical about that. Who's going to call b.s. on your palate?

At around noon, we sat in on a cooking class. Like The Food Network, only live! And this chef was saucy: she stuck her fingers in several men's mouths ("oh, taste this!") and overtly flirted with the middle-aged male audience members she selected to help cook the lamb. She was really obsessed with double entendres, good-quality olive oil, Moroccan spices and parsley. I really enjoyed the highly-inappropriate comments she made about the poor nerdy guy's attempt at rubbing the lamb shank with olive oil: "Oh, wow! Lucky you!" at the wife, while Mr. Glasses gently massaged the meat. Plus, she'd constantly refer to food products as "sexy", especially the apples, which were caramelizing quickly. It almost made me forget how she basically advertised herself the entire time: "This isn't just any sea salt. This is JENNY MORRIS sea salt!" as she handed another unsuspecting audience member his free gift.

And when the stuff was all cooked -- seven dishes in all, including a bread pudding with ricotta cheese, caramelized apples, raisins and honey that has got to be one of the tastiest things I've ever had, even though I'm really not a fan of bread pudding at all -- the audience hurried over, all 80 of them, to partake in what we'd been smelling for the past hour. I don't even enjoy red meat tremendously, but the lamb was seasoned deliciously (also, South Africans enjoy their meat practically still moo-ing; my middle name is "Medium-well, please", so it's been a bit of a learning process) and the cheese/tomato/olive dip was superb. I love the way gourmet cooking makes everything taste delicious, even the ugmo vegetables, like asparagus. I think it was the most delicious food I've had so far.

But the line, it seems, was drawn at some of the weirder goat cheese concoctions. I like goat cheese, but the more aged and sharper it gets, the less I like it. There was one version of particularly soft goat cheese with wine mixed in that was disgusting. Also, the chili pesto (is nothing sacred?) failed to impress. I swear, Afrikaners are obsessed with biltong and chili. And with invading others' personal space. I am so American.

To conclude: in six hours, I failed to get drunk, but I tried some excellent wines, cheeses and bread. It was a little warm and a lot crowded, but I wish I had more days where I could spend hours stuffing myself with delicious-and-slightly-unhealthy food with little to no consequences.

P.S. That's a cheetah in the picture, plus me creeping up on the unsuspecting feline (thus the shadow). Moments later, I had that thing in a headlock.

The Afrikaners' greatest accomplishment

The Findlays, my Scottish ancestors who settled in Wisconsin in the late 1800s, were a resourceful group of people. They had a little log cabin and, if the pictures are any indication, spent a lot of time sitting outside with sour looks on their faces. According to my great-uncle Joe, my great-great-great grandmother Jane, the one my mom's descended from, was intelligent and long lived. Still, let's not mince words here: the Findlays were ugly. Don't analyze that too much; after all, this is fairly recent history, and my mom sort of looks like Jane... and people tell me I look like my mom... if a = b and b = c-- ugh! Moving on.

The Dutch people who moved to South Africa in the 17th century, as I understand it, kind of came here because they didn't have any economic prospects back in the old country. They figured that starting over in a completely foreign place at least gave them an opportunity to live the American Dream. I get it. But as we all know, poor people are ugly, so I'm beginning to think there was another reason they migrated: they couldn't get any action back home. Even generations later, in the Boer War (Afrikaners vs. the British!), despite hopefully some genetic variation over time, it appears the Afrikaners were still ugmos.

That's kind of terrifying. And believe you me, if I saw that going to class every day, you can bet I'd be back in Houston's Bush International faster than you can say "was Rasputin part of the Boer army?"

And though people might rag on Rice for having unattractive people (nerds = unattractive), and this may have skewed my view of things, I highly doubt it. I read a lot of celebrity news. I watch a lot of TV. I'm bombarded with pretty faces constantly. The point is, I know what's hot and what's not. And the Afrikaners of today are hot. When I'm not drooling over the sweater-clad-and-brainy hottie in my modernism class or that sensitive-looking dude who plays guitar Sundays at the Irish pub, I'm amazed by how skinny, blond and pretty the girls are. Most of the guys, if you're into the surfer look/Abercrombie model sans pout, aren't too bad looking, either. So, I'm not sure what happened in that gene pool between the second Boer War (1879-1915) and now (2009), but miraculously, the Afrikaners of today bear absolutely no resemblance to their hirsute predecessors. I feel like there definitely needs to be some serious scientific research about this. Was everyone just ug back then? And how can you go from fugly to f-me in just a few generations?

And let me just say, I know Nelson Mandela is famous and basically universally liked; he seems he can do no wrong (let's ignore his "endorsement" of Zuma and blame it on senility), but I'm pretty sure South Africa's main point of pride, more than the aging Xhosa ex-pres, is the face I've seen on just about every tabloid here. Apparently, South Africa has just one celebrity (the tabloids also seem fascinated with the American "Ange and Brad"):

Charlize is from Benoni, a trashy area near Jo'burg. Yes. This is what South African white trash looks like.

America, we've got a lot of catching up to do. I'm pushing for Beauty Superpower by 2030.

--------------------------------------------
Jan. 2009 Dollar-to-Rand exchange rate:
$1 = R9.98

Feb.-Mar. 2009 DtR exchange rate:
More of the same (hello, $3 dinners)
High: 3/9. $1 = R10.64

Apr. 2009 DtR exchange rate:
4/6. $1 = R8.98
4/17. $1 = R8.96
4/20. $1 = R9.08

Ouch.

T.I.A.

I have an innate distrust of catchy slogans. Things put so simply are rarely true. They allow no room for nuance. M & Ms totally DO melt in your hand. Covergirl doesn't connote "easy" or "breezy" to me. Yet there's a recurring theme this semester that's brief and catchy and yes, manages to cover most of the horrific, hilarious and odd situations you're likely to run across in this country. During the Garden Route Tour this week, while on Tokyo-Sexwale township tour, after our tour guide shared a bit too much about his past, a girl muttered, "TMI."

"TIA," another American responded.

T.I.A. = This Is Africa. Basically it means "don't be surprised; anything goes here, since this place is car-azy!" or something. It's one of those lovely phrases that can be used anywhere, anytime, in either a positive or negative way. Oh, fried caterpillars? TIA. $3 dinners? TIA! (Side note: the dollar is getting weaker, at a mere R9.4/dollar. Tear.)

And "TIA" was perfect for our township tour outside of Jeffrey's Bay, where we spent the last two nights of our vacation. Our tour guide, Cass, started us out with a visit to a guy's home where we drank tea and ate bread. The tomato jam was surprisingly tasty. Then we went to a medicine woman who, Cass said, had been given healing powers from her ancestors. Though these days she's seeing only five patients a week since most in the townships go to doctors, he said she's even worked wonders with AIDS patients. He showed us some pink powder, which was supposed to make one "shine"; "shining", apparently, means able to be taken seriously by white people. I wonder if you can buy that in Stellenbosch...

Then he proceeded to tell us, in excruciating detail, about his circumcision procedure. In Xhosa culture, males at 18 get circumcised by an older male (read: not someone medically trained). Ouch. Then he started talking about his "papa", which turned out not to be his father. Additionally, there were Zuma posters throughout the township, which turned out to be sort of a joke: since Zuma is Zulu, he's uncircumcised and, as the Xhosa see him, still a boy. "We can't let a BOY run the country," Cass explained.

When we toured his house (a corrugated shack he proudly proclaimed he'd built himself) and he asked if we wanted to see his bedroom (the corner of the room), we said yes. Interesting enough. Then he just had to tell us, "This is where the magic happens", pointing at the small pink bed, while we tried futilely to keep gross mental images out of our heads. Of course, it didn't help that he'd pointed out his girlfriend five minutes earlier, an especially heavy woman in bright pink. Cass, by comparison, was stick-thin. And also, more than comfortable telling perfect strangers where he'd conceived his first two children.

We went to two shebeens (bars) where we attempted to drink away the information of the last couple hours. We'd at first gone into a shack where an 8-year-old girl (labor laws?) had poured us a paint can of Xhosa beer, umgomboti. Nevermind the fact that we'd seen beer fermenting in the backyard of a nearby shack with several chickens -- sometimes it's better to just not think about these things -- this beer was thick (no way you could see the bottom of that can) and kind of had random particles and bugs in it. The group of Americans smiled politely and, when Cass turned his back, made disgusted faces at each other, practically imploring, "just how are we supposed to drink this?"

My best friend when I was growing up was from a Cajun family, and so I went to plenty of crawfish boils. I was a picky kid -- I used to hate tomato sauce, so I just ate noodles when we had spaghetti -- and though I loved going to her house, I dreaded eating dinner there. 4:00 snacks were fine, and to this day I have a special fondness for Little Debbie cakes, but once 6:00 rolled around, the trouble began. The problem with them was, it was never just macaroni and cheese or tacos. It was always something weird and spicy, and I had to finish the overloaded plate with minimal (but preferably no) gagging and complaints. My mom actually is quite talented at this (something she'll blame on her poor upbringing), and I'd always swear she enjoyed dinner until later, when she'd wonder how people from Louisiana could eat such odd things. I was rarely successful at finishing the contents of my plate, and usually made up some lie about having eaten dinner already. Still, it's just a matter of politeness, polishing off food that's presented to you, no matter how disgusting the fare. The same with this beer.

The paint can went around the group of Americans, and, ignoring what I hoped were rocks below the surface, I took a swig. Well, a sip. A small sip. It was bitter and smoky, leaving one with the strange sensation of having consumed liquified bacon. Delicious? In one rotation, the contents of the paint can looked unchanged, and Cass was aghast: "Wait... is everyone drinking? This will f*&# you up, you know" as if assuring drunkenness was enough for us to overcome its offensive taste. We looked around, frightened. What next? A drinking game? Was he going to apportion the rest to each of us (accountability)? Finally, one of the group, Bridget (with clear Irish ancestry), squeezed her eyes shut and chugged a little more with the help of Jackie, who held her nose closed. She claimed that not being able to taste most of the beer was a big help.

Cass ended up finishing most of the beer.

And the informative part of the township tour was over, as it launched into bar hopping. I did learn, however, that townships serve 40s (about two or three times the size of a normal cider bottle) for the same price of a normal bottle, R15. Sweet. Somehow, we all made it back relatively unscathed.

The rest of the week was nice -- I saw the Indian Ocean and went to beaches, fulfilling my lifelong dream of reading a book on the beach. Since I was kind of limited in the amount of activities I could do, I had a relaxed vacation for once; this was kind of a foreign idea to me, since vacations with the family are usually kind of stressful. And also, the horses the group used for horseback riding turned out to be crazy and not tame. And the bungee jumping? Most reactions seemed positive, and the bungee company's slogan ("Fear is temporary; regret is forever") has now been adopted by several as their life mantra.

We also visited several ecologically artificial wildlife parks, Teniqua and Monkeyland. Teniqua, as we saw in the orientation video complete with an especially cheesy easy-listening version of "A Whole New World", is all about animals who "have known only human kindness" (translation: have been raised in the park to allow humans to pet them without biting their heads off). The cheetahs were pretty, the caracal was awesome and I attempted to pet a baby cheetah with about the same degree of success that I can dance, play the trumpet and avoid awkward conversations: none. He ran away from me, probably sensing that my five-week-old Beta fish had committed suicide just years earlier. (I'm sorry, Harry!)

Monkeyland was a "refuge" for monkeys from zoos and injured ones in the wild. I learned a few things: monkeys are like children and enjoy taking things from people, looking up at a monkey and smiling is a cue for said monkey to urinate, I'm still scared of suspension bridges.

The accommodation was nice, if by "nice" you mean that I'm going to be way less maintenance upon returning to the States. I don't even use a blow dryer these days! We stayed at several backpackers which turned out to be cabins in the woods four minutes away from the bathroom. Who knew Africa could be so cold at night?

I know when people go study abroad, within weeks they're proclaiming, "I'm so in love with [insert country here] right now!" or pledging allegiance to the beautiful/intelligent/kind/wonderful people of whatever nation. For me, I guess my fondness for South Africa has been slowly evolving over the course of the semester. I definitely was a little culture-shocked at first, and constantly, but I think I can say I love the place. Of course, this is "love" the way I imagine it to be with a person: you know he has flaws and bowel movements, perhaps he doesn't look so good in a bathing suit and forgets to put more than two ice cubes in your drink, maybe his political leader has been accused of 783 counts of corruption. But you still find his gap-toothed smile adorable and hope that he's not going to hell.

Please read: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1165473/He-wives-faced-783-corruption-charges-PETER-HITCHENS-South-Africas-president.html

We will all be happy and like each other

So Stellenbosch's version of spring break is this next week, and with the AIFS program I'm going on a week-long tour of the Garden Route. I think Easter is somewhere in there, but I've been so lax religiously for the past few years, I had to log onto catholicism.about.com to figure out it's the 12th. Thx, internet!

I felt like a diabetic in a candy store yesterday when we were signing up for activities to do. Or like a recovering alcoholic in a liquor store? My physical therapist warns me not to do anything involving vibrations, back-and-forth spinal impact. In plain English, this means I can't do anything fun. Horseback riding? Canopy/zipline forest tour? Bungee jumping? No, no, and no. Though apparently the horses are kind of feral and it turns into some sort of rodeo-type thing. And... I saw some of the videos of past students bungee jumping and it almost made me barf. Why would someone willingly subject themselves to that? And then it costs R1500? Someone couldn't pay me enough to jump off that bridge.

One girl from last semester, immortalized through YouTube, had second thoughts once she was in the harness and at the edge of the bridge. She was all, "No! No! I don't want to! Please, no!" and the guys sympathetically (NOT) shoved her off the edge of the bridge, where she flailed like a piece of bait for three or four minutes. It was kind of gross. The sporadically facial-haired guy who was here last semester assured us that "she ended up really enjoying it". Yeah, I'm thinking I'll pass on that type of "enjoyment" for, like, ever.

The most interesting part of the meeting, though, was the list of ground rules our rather hairy program director had organized. A few of them were legit, if we were like 5 and on a school field trip to the zoo: keep up with your belongings, remember to pee often and early, remember clothes and toothbrushes. And one of them was (I wish I were joking, but alas, I'm not), "We will all be happy and like each other."

First off, this sounds like brainwashing, Barney-style. Second, Mr. Hairy's observation that "over the course of the trip, you may discover you kind of never want to see some of these people again", while having some merits, fails to account for people you already never want to see again. There is that girl I sort of called a bitch on Day 1; I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess we won't be penpals post-Africa. Third, what?!

But really, this is all sort of indicative of the biggest problem with the program. This is what happens when you have an altogether too-large group of people studying abroad: you get cliques a la the 10th grade. I'm not even joking. The rich bitches, the athletic girls who run every afternoon, the people from Providence, the hippies, religious + athletic, religious + not so athletic, beautiful people from New York, the short guy with a Napoleon complex + his unlikely hot hookups, the surfer boys, butterfaces, and that group headed by the girl who hates everyone but little kids (like that Demetri Martin joke, "people who just like kids are sort of saying, 'I like people... but only for a little while'"). Guess which one I'm in! I think I'm in the "spillover from Boston" group that's sort of a catchall for outcasts. I'm surprised we don't have cheerleaders dating football players and contested Homecoming Queen elections. Still, I'm fulfilling pretty much the same role I had in high school (antisocial turbo-nerd, since I like to read and don't really care about impressing people I already sort of think I'm better than) so I guess some things never change. Still, that is my criticism of this program: there are too many people. Schlossman went with a cozy group of eight (?) or so to Poland, and they meshed. Because, even with a cheerleader and a nerd in that group, how many cliques can you possibly form with eight? There is no meshing here because everyone immediately finds a group they "fit" into, because they have that luxury of choice, and it's PHS all over again. Because there are over 60 people on the trip, and lines apparently have to be drawn. I just wish there was a band hall so I could more obviously identify as a nerd, just like in high school. Here, I have to be a bit more subtle about it and relegate my useless fun facts to Trivia Night at the Irish pub.

Subject change! Food complaint:

In Stellenbosch (or, as the residents affectionately dub it, Stellies), we have a McDonald's and a Steers, a more-expensive, barbeque-sauce version of McDonald's. There are milkshakes everywhere you go, and you can order hamburgers even from the "Tex-Mex" place. Craving some nice ground beef the other day, I ordered a hamburger. And, like so many things I pine for and then finally receive, it kind of... sucked. Hamburgers here are not hamburgers. They are meatloaf sandwiches. The meat is all soft and sort of lacks any real form. I don't like meatloaf. And, sadly, it gets to the point where the fast food places are the only decent joints in town to satisfy your hamburger craving. It's very lonely. (Lonely=having a hankering for a good cheeseburger and being unable to realize those desires.)

The moral of this story is, send me a delicious cheeseburger in the mail. Please?

Love,
Sarah