Tourist's Africa- Crocs, Zebs, Snakes, Giraffes, Lions, and ELLIES- with some Zulu too.

I'm tired of writing, but I promised I'd post a few more pictures. Honestly, being in the countryside was just good for the soul. we had a lot of amazing experiences being in nature, seeing God's curious and beautiful animals, and getting a bit more Zulu culture. Here's some of the goods I got out of last Saturday and today (Monday).

PheZulu is a park we went to on Saturday- had Zulu cultural things and then the Croc park and game reserve. Saw Zebras, Giraffes, and Impala in the wild.

So many Crocs!

We ate lunch with a Croc as a fear factor challenge and got a certificate. Here I am petting Walter. 

Green Mamba- Glad this one was behind glass-so poisonous!

Mom and baby- We were right next to these beauties.

When this family came up to us, I got so excited. Such gorgeous,  but bizarre creatures!

Enjoyed some traditional Zulu dancing- the women (bride is in the hat)

The Zulu men

Sam and I with the dancers afterward

Today, we got to indulge in Natal's Lion Park. We didn't see much at first, but then we kept perservering and found these beauties!

Too close for Sam's comfort- I thought it was awesome!

I called him the White Stallion- had some battle wounds and an interesting light color. Gorgeous. 

Lion PDA

Then, the most amazing, tender mercy happened today! Ever since I was a young kid, I've loved elephants. I collected stuffed elephants growing up and they've been my favorite animal as long as I've had one to think about. I honestly thought I'd see an African elephant in the wild when I was nearly dead and spending my kids' inheritance. However, today, God gave me a the surprise of a lifetime since I happened to be in Africa. We really thought our chances of seeing an elephant were slim, and about two weeks ago I had given up on that idea. On the first drive, we seemed to be right. WE DID  see some elephants, but they were really far away. The only close up I got was some old dung on the driving trail. After our first drive, we asked the land owners if there was a better way to see them. They told us to try again. 

On the first drive, it took us 30 minutes to see anything and we didn't know if the elephants could even come over to where we were driving. But only after about 10 minutes, after seeing them afar off, we intercepted them- and they let me get out and touch them. They are NEVER supposed to do that- but the elephant caretaker couild tell I was really disappointed when they wouldn't let me get out of the car to take a close picture. Instead, he yelled spur of the moment and just said "Hurry, hurry!" while the elephant was busy eating. I went over and carefully put my hand on that beauty and felt her rough, fuzzy skin. There was a softness to it though, and I could feel her breathe! She was so beautiful. BEST DAY EVER!! Once the rest are edited, I'll post a slideshow or something. Cheers!

Living on cloud 9.

This is Africa?

People still ask me how it is playing with lions, giraffes, cheetahs, and living in a hut all day. I know that most of them are just being facetious, but honestly many people are ignorant about just HOW urbanized some parts of Africa are. Yes, people here have nice cars, hotels, skyscrapers, cell phones, "real jobs," and are very successful. Don't be shocked- most of them are probably smarter than you are. "Developed" culture is almost as dominant here as it is in the U.S. and Europe. A lot of Americans don't understand how much South Africa (especially Durban) has evolved the last 20 or so years, and it's bringing about an interesting fusion and evolution of  culture that brings about a debate of what's truly considered valuable and important here. In some ways, it's really enhanced opportunity and a more comfortable way of life. In other ways, it's really diminished authentic African values. However, as visitors, we've gotten star treatment here and have had good experiences culturally and just as people who like to have some fun.

Here are some fun pics of urbanized Durban as we've experienced it. 

Running barefoot on the beach- the Indian Ocean is really warm. 

Easting Ostrich like a fine steak over potatoes

Getting ready to Go-Kart hard core at the Gateway

King's Park stadium for Rugby- Sam and I went to a game (left-home of the Springbox) and Moses Mahbida  (right- hosted Fifa World Cup in 2010). if you want to see what I'm going to do in MM in a couple of days, look up bigrush.co.za!!!)

Many people here really are concerned about coming across as successful and cool. The way of SA really is to host well, to have the best quality of everything, and to aspire to more. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. Many of the young adults that I talked to are fairly obsessed with American culture- and I'm not ignorant of the fact that being American may have played a hand in how kind people were to me the past few week. This attitude is seen ALL over the city-you see plenty of fancy cars, sky scrapers, top notch restaurants, etc. and American music is played everywhere.

Driving behind this baby on the way to Gateway. I love hot yellow Lambourginis.

Seen right after the Top Gear show at Moses Mahbida Stadium in Durban. I LOVE white convertables- no matter
the make. This is a Beamer.

But then, you have the "have nots." Poverty is rampant in Durban, and inflation is increasing. Right now, the Rand is 9.92 to one American $. Ouch. People who live in the dense part of the city have to deal with scambling for work, the drug indusry is huge, and theft if a major, famous part of experiencing South Africa. Here are a few examples of things I've seen:

An example of the street market. This looks quiet and peaceful, but most of the time it's a fairly hectic place. 

This is the main source of public transcrpotation. They drive CRAZY! Even though it seems fun, these minibuses can be somewhat dangerous and they drive negligibly. Interestingly enough, I never see white people ride these- again, there is still a cultural divide.

You can see people getting in and out of taxis in a typical part of town. 

Residence halls for some DUT students- in a  sketchy part of town.

Raising a child here in SA would be difficult, but i know that many women and men are strong and do the best they can to uphold values.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a taste of Durban- it may give you another perspective on life. What do you value? What do you think it takes to make a community and your family succeed?

Research Progress and Wrap Up

Let's just say I wasn't made for blog writing. I suck at updating. So here comes 3 more posts before I leave SA :) Here's #1-Finishing up data collection!

Here's a review of our research project objectives:

1. Goal: See if we could use our positive psychology scales in a place like Durban, as we would anywhere in the States or Europe. Objective: Have 500 surveys completed all over campus, and see if they would be responded to naturally and easily. CHECK!

We were always printing- we became fast friends with the copy shop people.

People taking surveys on City Campus

People taking surveys at the cafeteria on Sultan Campus

 2. Goal: See if students would respond to that survey as a possible instrument to measure Ubuntu (serving others, friends, and familiy, empathy, and forgiveness). We had a focus group of people who did the surveys discuss this. CHECK.

3. Do in-depth interviews with a substantial number of students to understand the state of Ubuntu. college-going  emerging adults in Durban (a place in Africa that is constantly changing due to globalization). I completed 32 of these. LOVED EVERY MINUTE.  Life changing. CHECK. 

4. Completed a number of in-depth focus groups to supplement #3. Had 3 with a number with 7-10 Zulu and Xhosa students each. CHECK. I have a picture of this, but for privacy reasons I don't want to post it here. 

There's no way we could have finished our work without our fabulous research assistant friends from DUT. We're all pictured below:

The student dream team: Pam, Bongani, Me, and Sam

To finish things off, Randy had the brilliant idea to finish off our Ubuntu project by a community service project, since we didn't only come to SA just to take data and say "hey thanks." Laralea (Randy's wife) and Randy were picking up their laundry one day and saw a bunch of bags lying around at the launderer's business. They asked the lady at the laundry what all the bags were about, and she said that she had tons of leftover blankets and clothing that she had laundered that people had neglected to pick up for months. She was just going to get rid of it, but Randy decided to pay her for what she had so we could donate it to a number of reputable centers. Here's all the bags we ended up picking up, and it included children's, women's, and men's clothing, soccer uniforms, blankets, sheets, drapes, and more. We were able to sort through them and donate them to a number of centers that would benefit adults in need, as well as some houses that offer services to street children (there are a lot of street kids here- in fact, one of the homes is not far from the picture location with taken with Pam and Bongani above). Here's a few of our picture documenting that experience. We're hoping to deliver some of it tomorrow.

Randy and Laralea looking through the soccer uniforms

Sorted, bagged, and labeled

Us with all of our bags- we fille Ray's office! (Left to right, Sam, Seshnum,and Me). 

The project has been a huge adventure (we were all over the place for two weeks, and plans were tentative EVERY DAY) but my overall impression of doing this kind of work (now after getting through it) is that you can do anything with postive, hard working, patient people. We were able to bust out all of our data collection in two weeks with four people- but it was the collaboration of our facillitators and willingness of people who participated that made it all possible.

While I've been reviewing my notes, I've realized that what I've LOVED the most is getting to know these people. Even though it was just for a 10-20 minutes for each person, interviewing was the bomb.com. They did it with no incentive, and before and afterward we would just chat about life. I got to see a little bit into the soul of each person I talked to- their dreams for the future, what it was like growing up in SA in their families, how they feel the state of Ubuntu is in SA, and where they think things are going in the future. Though they were very honest and ultimately reaslitic, the fact that they were so willing to talk to me and help me out was a sign of Ubuntu toward me. Sure, I got a few rejections here and there, but it wasn't really ever personal. Though I can't share a whole lot of results here, I can say that people would definitely LIKE to keep up the tradition of Ubuntu- but the complex times in SA has made that difficult. Freedoms and rights post '94 have been wonderful, but it's also contributed to a growth in crime, and you've gotta watch your back in SA. Corruption is still rampant. Though people would like to be integrated and friends, there's still a cultural separation. However, I'm hopeful for the people I met and what they'll contribute to their communities.

This seems cliche, but it's true- everywhere you go, there are wonderful, kind people who are more similar to you than different- regardless of where they were born, their skin color, their language, their religion, or spiritual/moral orietation. It doesn't mean that each of those factors doesn't contribute to the uniqueness of each individual, but the fun part is discovering that there's a lot of common ground that we share. We care about our families. We care about our friends. We care about our communities and we do want to empower those who are less forunate than us. We all struggle- none of us our perfect. Sometimes we feel discouraged and don't know how to move on- yet we find the strength to through the power of example and from what I can see as the goodness of God. We're all brothers and sisters as a human family- and a little Ubuntu goes a really, really long way.

Picture of a sunrise from my deck. It reminds me that we're all living under the same sun. 

Sawubona, Durban-Finally some immersion and collection!

This post is so overdue! Here is the update on the project. We finally got FULL collaborative ethics clearance! We had ethics clearance to do research as guests of DUT, but their university was holding off some paperwork that kept us from full collaboration and hiring RAs for two weeks. This slowed us down, but now we're working hard to catch up.  .

Our project involves a number of methods, both quantitative and qualitative. The only thing I have pictures for are our surveys and a focus group we did. I am personally doing one on one interviews (WHICH I LOVE) and also something called a Q-sort (which we're still sorting out) but don't have any pictures to document that yet. I love just chilling with people and talking to them about growing up and what they feel their role can be in their current world. Here is a picture of our first focus group- an awesome bunch of Child and Youth Care students who are Zulu and Xhosa. We've made better friends with Zamani, Bongani, Pamella, and Khanyi since then (they've helped us as RAs).

They were interested in the focus group process and openly told us about ways they hope to give back to the community through their professions (advocating for children in the justice system, helping the youth with drug intervention, helping street kids, etc.). Then they opened up about how they feel about Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a notion or way of being that emerged from Zulu culture that relates to my blog title-it translates to "a person is a person because of others." In other words, you realize that as a part of humanity, you must care for others recognizing that you have been cared for, and that you should expect to be cared for because you are human. However, the true spirit of Ubuntu is that you treat others the way YOU HOPE others would treat you- not necessarily expecting something in return. We talked all about how that was demonstrated in their home life, how it's demonstrated in the community, and whether or not it is misused in society, and whether or not it is increasing, decreasing, or changing to the current generation (but still existent). I cannot give you full details here, but many of the focus group members had passionate feelings about this subject, and interestingly how it relates to social welfare (sound familar to American issues right now?)

We're also doing a bunch of surveys with students (it's all voluntary) and everyone's been really nice. The fact that we're American really does help, but our other RAs have also been really sucessful. It's a 15 minute questionnaire that measures how they feel about serving their friends, family, and people in general, as well as their levels of empathy and forgiveness. Our theory is that, perhaps, these "Ubuntu" related scales that are commonly used in the States may reflect a higher sense of care here in Durban compared to an American sample, since people in SA typically ascribe to a way of life where giving is imperative. However, my own suspicion is that there will be a lot of surprises in the final analyses. Not because people aren't generous (SO generous to us so far) but they are also very blunt on our surveys and we're talking to a new generation  It'll be interesting to get final qualitative feedback from another focus group who will openly talk to us about the surveys later in the week.

As a thank you, we give people the popular "Lunch Bar" chocolate bar. We hide it in our bags so it will be a nice surprise for people- not as an attractor to do the surveys. It's got a full wafer in the middle, crisps, carmel, and chocolate- a Cadburry bar. I think it's kinda weird, but people get excited when they see that they got " a big one" after helping us with no incentive :)  Starving students are the same worldwide- free food is exciting. 

We also recruited from the Residential halls to another focus group and Q-sort (it's a way for us to find out the most common words people use to describe Ubuntu...I have no idea as to how it would go). Here is one of the most popular Res halls- it's HUGE- and kinda in a sketch part of town. They cram four people into each room with only beds and a 'kitchen' area- and it's randomly assigned. I asked one of our RAs if she liked her roommates. She flat out said no, but she had no choice. I'm SO grateful we've gotten to stay with the Anniah's... and I can see why students went on strike for better accomodations earlier in April.

Other than that, we've met so many cool people here in SA. Here is a picture of me with Seshnum, Prof. Bhagwan's lead reserach assistant. She's been an angel and full of smiles the second we got here!

 Below is us with the Bhagwan family with Sam, and Randy and Laralee after a family dinner.

Here's a picture of me and the Anniah girls (minus Bev) right before Grace left to go see her long distance boyfriend in Sweden. 

Me and Kate girl!

We got to go to a baptism last Sunday for 3 new members and it was fun meeting some people. One girl I befriended, Mpume, said that she might be able to take us to the rural areas- or what she called the REAL KwaZulu-Natal. I'm excited. Here's a picture of the new members, the father of one of the mmbers, and the bishop (right). 

Finally, one of my favorite moments thus far last Friday was listening in on some group singing. I think  people just get together in this area every Friday to sing some songs from back home, and I finally felt like I was being apart of something really fun an African. People here try to remember their roots though Durban is getting very Durbanized (especially with American culture). Here is a picture- I'll add the video in the next post. Can't believe there's only two weeks left!

DUT (Durban University of Technology)

Our research plan and process has finally come together, and Sam and I are going to collect data like crazy starting tomorrow. We'll start out with our surveys (since that's the easiest part so far) and then hopefully we can start our serious qualitative work on Tuesday (I get to do most of the one-on-one interviews. So excited!) We are already finding that people have very different notions of Ubuntu, and the richest cultural perspectives that sound anything like our lit review come directly from Zulu students. At first I wondered if we would get any support for our assumption that Ubuntu has been abused or "dying out" because of modern culture (I didn't want to be an alarmist or ignorant, assumptive sociologist) but apparently it is a legitimate concern. It's too bad we can only get college students' points of view because we don't have the funds or time to interview older people. However, I do think we may still get a sense of how people are becoming more individualitstic since these students were alive right around the transition after apartheid. Some students have expressed, however, that while they care a lot about their careers, support between friendships and relationships is very improtant to them. It's not like American students aren't this way, but here it's an imperative to help others with their emotional problems. A lot of these students have experienced trauma or difficult family upbringings. I wonder how empathy in these students will compare to our American data (in terms of numbers). 

Here are some pictures of DUT and our research team. It's a typical college campus, but their resources aren't obviously as good as typical American University. This is a tech college, and though it is a university, it doesn't have the same prestige as University of KwaZulu-Natal. I hope to get some pictures of our DUT staff later this week. In the mean time, here's is the BYU team:

Department office of child and youth services that we have been visting.  You have to get buzzed in for everything- I think you can get a sense of high security here that was especially helpful during lockdown when strikes were happening in May. No sense of violence here- mainly precautions with theft. 

Game planning. 

Us outside of the health sciences department (Dr. Roby, Dr. Day, Laralee (Day), Sam, and Me). 

I took some additional shots of students around campus. It's your typical campus and students just sit around and chill for a while- which makes it easy for us to approach them to complete our survey. Our typical plan for research is to have people take these things systematically in classrooms (it's considered more generalizable in large general ed classes), but the stratification of ethnicities here is actually better by us going to people outside on different parts of campus since most areas of study draw in particular ethnic groups of students.  Our acceptance rate with this approach has been much better with this method. If you genuinely want to learn about someone's culture, it's probably not the best appraoch to throw a piece of paper at them and say "hey do this" when they already want to bolt out. Once you chat for a bit and actually care for them as an individual, they actually get excited. Who knew you'd actually have to be humane with people if you want to study people? Duh.

Students chilling after class. 

People chilling at shops just north of campus. We do our copying around here. Look at the customized Mini in the corner- people are obsessed with their cars here). 

My Mom asked me the other day if I could grab a few shots to make it seem like I was actually in Africa. I grabbed some on our drive down to the Beach front. You'll see a lot of markets like these all along downtown. We haven't been able to go around these much but I expect that we will. This is where you want to be extra vigilant about your purse.

Typical outdoor market

Driving here is nuts. It's a little bit like Mexico or anywhere in Central/South America. "Hooting" is done as a courtesy and annoyance- so it's non-stop :) Randy is very familiar with their type of road system since he's visited the UK so often, but driving is a lot like playing the arcade game Crazy Taxi. People jaywalk whenever they feel like it and you just have to act selfish or else you'll get hit or you'll hit someone. Driving here is not for you defensive drivers. 

Crazy driving!

As for my thesis, it's coming along. I'm sending another copy of my prospectus to my committee tomorrow and I have to defend the sucker on the 17th through Skype. Wish me luck-I really want to graduate in December. I do have to say, for someone who has to work on their thesis in Africa, I really don't mind my office space (below). 

My workspace :)

Anniah's are still treating us around town. I didn't get pictures of go-karting but we did that the other night and it was a lot of fun. They had a whole training video and made us wear helmets which Sam and I thought was weird because SA isn't exactly the pinnacle country for driving safety. We figured it out fast- those little go karts GO. Haha it freaked me out at first- and it was my first experience driving on the left side of a road. The next day Andrew took us for sushi at his friend's restaurant (below). Someday I'm going to persuade him to smile- he's honestly not as serious as he tries to seem ;). 

Sushi platter- complete with Zulu sushi (just very rarely cooked  beef, haha). 

I'll be keeping you updated as we progress this next week!