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!