This week has been spent refining our research topics and
searching journals for similar studies that can give us an analysis direction
or point out where we’re lacking data. I’ve gone through hundreds of articles
and have found maybe seven applicable studies, but the ones I have are quality
and I’ve found that nobody has looked at my topic in South Africa before and
published, which is great for me. I’ve settled on looking at maternal anthropometry.
Not as disease-related as I’d hoped, but still an area that needs to be looked
at. Now I just have to continue looking through articles and designing the data
analysis. The expectation of the program is that I’ll have produced a paper of
my own by the time I leave Venda, which is five weeks from now. It’ll require a
quick turn-around once I get my topic approved and figure out how to do the statistics.
I met with the microbiology professor at Univen to
discuss the feasibility of some of my topics on Tuesday. He’s involved in the
science aspect of the MAL-ED project where he and his students test the stool
samples and other collected materials. Some of his graduate students were doing
topics that I was considering and backing them up with lab work they’d been
doing for months, so I had to let go of those. He was such a delightful person
to talk to that I didn’t mind, though. He invited us to come observe his students
work in the lab and examine some of the samples they’re analyzing, which will
be wonderful. We’ll also get the chance to go out to the field a few times next
week to help the field workers and see more of the people whose data we’re
analyzing, so I’m looking forward to that.
We left the office early yesterday to visit the
Thohoyandou Art and Culture Centre with a lady we work with and a UVA faculty
member who is leaving for the States on Saturday. It was basically a place for
local artists to display their work – everything from photographs to sculptures
to handmade paper – and maybe make some money by selling it to tourists. The
majority of the works centered on the local culture, so there were sculptures
of diamond miners and women in traditional dress, paintings of tribal ceremonies,
prints of huts, and bracelets made in the local style. There was also a painting
of George W. Bush, though it looked very out of place.
We pondered over a basket of small but expensive chunks
of wood with little holes poked in them for a while before the proprietor told
us that half of them were elephant bones and are used by the tribal shaman as
divining bones. They’re trained to throw them and read the configuration to
gather information. I hope to be able to witness traditional practices like
this in person sometime before I leave (though I did see some Univen students
practicing some traditional dance today).
The lady who accompanied us showed us some sculptures
there that her dad had carved. We ended up meeting him afterward and saw a
half-finished but already intricately-carved wooden drum that he made from one
piece of tree trunk with a chisel by working 8am-5pm every day for three or
four months. Eventually a piece of animal hide will be stretched over it and it
can be used in traditional dances and ceremonies. I wanted to buy so much of
the art there, especially since all of the money goes back to the artist, but
luggage limitations and the worry that they’ll break in transit kept me from
getting any of the beautiful items. There were even some tortoise carvings I
had to leave behind.
We went with the water filter team past Louis Trichardt
(another town about 140 km away) to a lodge called Shilivari to meet some architecture
students from UVA for dinner last night. It was somewhat expensive (R160 which
equals about $20, so not expensive in the U.S., but expensive here), but was
absolutely wonderful. They served a butternut soup, pasta and vegetables for
the vegetarians, and lemon tart for dessert. I never really liked butternut squash,
but I’ve had it quite often here and turns out it’s pretty great. That lodge is
800 times more luxurious than Acacia, but I think I’m ok “living rough” in
Thohoyandou since I get a better feel for the area and living on my own. Of
course we’re covered in dirt all the time just from walking outside, people
keep taking our porch furniture, we have to use a pocket knife to cut
vegetables, and there’s the risk of lizards crawling through our bathroom
window, but it’s a lot less touristy than putting up in a nice hotel for two
months. I even hung a complex clothing line system outside our cabin this
morning (trying to avoid the spider egg sacs everywhere) and we’re going to do
our laundry in little buckets once the sun comes back out (it’s drizzly and
overcast today) and hope no monkeys steal our shirts.
I came here in anticipation of monkeys that are to this
area as grey squirrels are to the U.S. and was disappointed for more than a
week at seeing none, even though I could hear them prancing on my roof. Then,
on Monday morning, we walked outside and the monkeys were everywhere. They were
fighting, sunning, scratching, climbing trees, digging in the trash, and just
generally being the most adorable animals ever. I’m not sure the species, but
they’re little grey ones that are out around 8 a.m. and then disappear for the
rest of the day unless someone leaves the lid off the trashcan. If not for the
threat of rabies, hemorrhagic fever, parasites, and monkey fangs, I’d try to
befriend one.
The language I thought was Dutch is actually Afrikaans. I
knew that descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa are called Afrikaner,
but I never put that together with the language. Apparently the difference
between Dutch and Afrikaans is like the difference between American English and
British English, which is why I identified it as Dutch. I’ve watched some soap
operas in Afrikaans and someone attempted to teach me some words, but I’ve been
having a language overload and keep mixing them up in my head. This area uses
English, Afrikaans, and Tshivenda as well as a number of other native
languages. So far I’ve only been somewhat successful in picking up Tshivenda
(more than the last time I wrote about languages!)
My faculty advisor at Univen grew up on the western side
of the country and speaks Xhosa, which is one of several languages
that incorporate clicks and other sounds made in the mouth. Her name actually
uses a click, but I’m not comfortable saying it that way yet. She has explained
that there are four click-incorporating languages similar to hers that she can
understand despite not knowing them fully. The other native languages used in
the Venda area, though, are different enough that she can’t use them. I’m not
trained in picking out the different languages and just assume
everyone’s using Tshivenda (which is a decently safe assumption in this area.
Most people know Tshivenda on at least a basic level). The soap operas based in
Johannesburg will often use a mix of an unidentified language and English,
supplementing with subtitles for anything they think English-speakers won’t
understand. We’ve actually gotten pretty hooked on one called Isidingo, which
has eight plot lines at once and likes to cut off right when something is about
to happen.
I met my advisor’s son who is in primary school and interested
in robotics and singing, according to himself. He could speak English really
well, which is apparently a result of watching American TV (he was watching the
Disney Channel when we walked in). His mother said that he insists upon using
English at home and had an aversion to learning her native language for most of
his life, so he would ask her to use English if she tried speaking in a
different language. More recently, he’s been teaching himself Spanish just for
kicks. A very precocious boy, for sure.
I’m not sure if we’re doing anything cool this weekend
(besides living in a country halfway across the world!), but there are
certainly many places to visit in the area, if only I had transportation at my
disposal. There are a lot of minibus taxis around, but I don’t trust them
because they like to break the already lax traffic rules and drive on the
sidewalks and they’re just really annoying to be around. Our main transportation
provider is leaving on Saturday, so we’ll have to try to arrange other methods
of getting to Univen, the store, and attractions for the rest of our stay.
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