It is already Sunday again. Time is flying… Actually it is no surprise that every week seems to pass with a snap. Every day, from dawn till dusk, is filled with new experiences and memories that we will never forget.
One thing that we will remember for sure is our way to university. It follows one of the most beautiful coastlines I have seen: Sandy white beaches, followed by bushland with thousands of species of Fynbos (the South African heather) and continued along rough rocky shores. The waves look different everyday and everyday we try to find a word for them but we keep struggling. Where we have to watch out for deers or rabbits in Germany we have to be aware of monkeys crossing the road. And when we are really, really lucky we can even spot a whale. To remind you: That is our almost daily way to uni.
Nelson Mandela University (NMU) itself is situated in the middle of a nature reserve which means you can just go for a hike after or in between lectures and watch birds, bucks or even zebras. To contrast between this nature reserve with its wide open bushland and the brutalistic architecture of the main campus with its 18-story main building is quite impressive. It is also very impressive that people find their way through the campus without a map. We could easily fit Wismar Campus into North Campus, which is only one of the many campuses NMU has. We were lucky enough to always have at least one with us who knew the way (or at least had a rough idea of where to go). And since Friday we are not only officially registered students of Nelson Mandela University. We also have a map.
We all met on Monday for a „formal introduction“ to the Short Learning Programme and a quick update of how everyone „survived“ the Sunday.
The first seminar started on Tuesday and gave us an outline of informal settlements, the characteristics, the difference of formal and informal and a walkthrough of the history of human settlements. On Thursday we connected to that but concentrated more on the urban perspective. The problem was that the four of us had only one, brief experience with and in the township. It was interesting but we could not really relate to what we were listening to. This changed after we met Kusta again on Thursday evening to show him his new cart and when Kevin took us for a tour through Walmer (or Gqebera) Township on Friday. (Link)
But it was not just a historic and informational tour. We also got to see the sites where we are going to do the projects and we got to know the people for whom we are going to do it.
After this we were glad to have a weekend off to sort out ourselves, think about everything and catch up with the things we put aside for so long.