Have you ever glanced down at your fingernails and noticed that they are oddly blue? Most commonly this would occur in colder climates—places such as Minnesota in the winter, but it can even happen here…in AFRICA. Whatever perceptions anybody from America could have of Africa, Cape Town will without a doubt quickly eradicate from your mind. No one walks around in bright colored clothing, except for the in-fashion girls wearing striped plastic rainboots or pink suede Eskimo boots. There are no elephants or lions roaming around, although I have caught sight of a few monkeys…nowhere near as many as in Matheran, India though. And it is COLD! I have been trying to tough out winter with happier thoughts of spring and live without a coat, but some days are challenging. At night I sleep under three blankets, and two are doubled over. My toenails are not yet blue, thanks to the bright green socks I got from South African Airlines on my way here, but they’re getting there. Maybe South Africa is called the rainbow nation not because of the range and diversity of skin tones, but rather because of the amazing amount of colors white skin can turn over the seasons. Doubtful, but nonetheless it’s been a cold day and catching a glimpse of my fingernails sparked me to write a blog.


So while I’m at it, let me tell you all a little bit about how the University of Cape Town is set up so you can gather an appreciation of the adventure I embark on every day as I dutifully and excitedly make my way up the mountain to attend lectures. UCT is located on the slopes of Devil’s Peak mountain. The campus spans from about 300 feet, or approximately a football field’s length, west of where I stay and continues on directly up the mountain for about a mile. There is a lower, middle, and upper campus, but it is upper campus, at the VERY TOP, where almost everyone’s lectures take place. So every morning I wake up around 8:27, have a breakfast and begin my hike. To break up the walk I stop at middle campus to use the international center’s computers to fill my daily email needs, and then 7 minutes before class I rush up the rest of the way to my psychology lecture, which is always and without fail amazingly interesting. All 311 steps to get there are worth it. It would be great for Macalester to get a critical psychology course that could deconstruct mainstream psychology and pull out the more marginalized voices and views and see that psychological studies, findings, and theories really only, or mainly, apply to white men in the Western world. It’s a fascinating class to take here and ties all my interests in very well. This is oftentimes my only lecture of the day on upper campus so I then go to the library and try to navigate books and extract information from them, and if I happen to check them out for that necessary purpose of writing a paper, I will next time remember that check out time for books here is only a week before fines begin building up. No warning. Nothing. And I will also remember that as an undergraduate student, I may only check out 6 books at any given time, but of course that also is contingent upon me not having late charges. :) Ah, the life of a foreign exchange student…forever trying to figure out the system in which they find themselves. And after telling you all this, I have to say that I, as a foreign exchange student in Cape Town, have it superfluously easy. That has been one of the only downfalls I have identified in making the choice to come here. It is a very specific experience of “Africa,” where the living is easy and very cosmopolitan. It’s nice, but I definitely hope to get out more. P.S. for a beautiful view of upper campus, go to www.uct.ac.za.


Before I end I want to send out a special HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY to my likkle brother, Mason, or as I call him, Skinner. When he was about to be born my parents asked if we had any suggestions for his name and I promptly suggested “Britt…an, yeah Brittan.” And when that idea was rejected, I came up with “Bunny Ears” and “Mr. Petecloud.” However, neither of those was chosen either, and so somewhere in his growing up stage I came up with Skinner and thanks to the invention of nicknames I’m able to call him that without his official name being changed. But anyway, he’s that special age where he will soon get to start driving a car, which I’m sure he is all too excited about. The last time I was home, he would hang out with us (me and my buddies who came home with me) until we went to bed, and then he would swiftly make his move into the garage to work on his Thunderbird, a car he bought from my great aunt Ada. I would walk by the kitchen and notice the light shining in from the garage and just chuckle. He was loving every minute of whatever little thing he was doing. It’s been so fun to watch him grow up and grow into his body and personality. It was already nearly four or five years ago that he passed me up in height. He now looms over me, but he is still 15 inside. Although I don’t see him much, I always love the time when I can come home and hang out with him. He has a gentle spirit and a fun personality and he allows me to pull him into my circles of friends, where he has a way of catching on to inside jokes and joining in. And I can’t overlook his fabulous DDR skills. DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) is an X-Box game where the player stands on a dancing mat and places their feet wherever the screen instructs. He has become a master and creates such a fun atmosphere when playing the game. So yeah, Happy Happy Birthday, Mason. His email is mclynk818@hotmail.com to send any birthday greetings.


His birthday is also the day I have decided to sign my Bahá'í declaration card, declaring that I am Bahá'í! If you haven’t heard about the Bahá'í Faith, it’s very interesting and you can read more at www.bahai.org. Although many Bahá’ís already think I’m Bahá'í and I feel I’ve been living my life according to the teachings almost since forever, I’ve just decided that now is the time to actually sign the card. The card is really only for administrative purposes, but because it can also personally be a spiritually significant thing, I thought it would be cool to sign on Mason’s birthday because, as my little brother I feel he’s brought out a lot of my spiritual qualities and has inadvertently taught me a whole lot about love, patience, hope, as well as unknowingly let me practice some parenting skills, although I definitely let my parents take over most of the time. When I was in 9th grade, I wrote a story about Mason called, “Boy, What a Pet.” We were supposed to write about a pet we’ve had, but never having had a pet, I had to write about having a little brother. It was then that I realized how lucky I was to have a little brother/pet like him. So two exciting things in one day!

Lastly, don’t forget that I love hearing from people at home! So drop me a line at blynk@macalester.edu, or even better send a letter to me at
Brittany Lynk
#1 Florence Villas
9 Nursery Road
Rondebosch
South Africa
7700

“Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.” That used to be such a cute little phrase, but it now has a whole new meaning. Last night, the bugs went marching one by one, and with each hurrah took a little bite out of my flesh. By my right ankle I have a semicircular line of about 7 bites perfectly distributed. The rest of the bites tended to be more random, but the bugs successfully took a bite out of crime, although I’ve still not been read my Miranda rights and told what I did wrong. But hey, no worries, it makes me laugh and that’s worth something.

So about this time last week I was heading to Durban—land of people, pretty beaded things, and pollution. After being in Cape Town for a month I had forgotten what South Africa might look like without a majority of white folks. Then upon arriving in Durban I was faced with the interesting predicament of trying to decide if I had landed in Ghana or India. Durban advertises itself as “South Africa’s Playground” (I don’t know why) and also “The Gateway to the Zulu Kingdom,” I think it should also honor the heavy Indian influence and have a motto like, “The Gateway to India’s Playground.” The Indian population in Durbs is second in size only to India itself. It was really awesome to see the cosmopolitan environment of the city and surrounding areas where everyone could “be.” It’s not like Jamaica where people are mixed and “Out of Many, One People,” but there are all kinds of people moving in every which direction, creating a lively pace of life. I really enjoyed being a part of that as I visited my Macalester friend, Rachel Tenney, who was in Durban for the summer on a research grant. She is from New York and so is very city-savvy, something I most definitely am not, so I followed her confident pace all around the city, to the lovely, but windy beach, and to adventures galore at her two homestay families.

The family we stayed with most and the family with whom she’s lived the whole summer was a “coloured” family in Wentworth, which was originally a community set up for coloureds during Apartheid. If I were to explore for 20 years the intricacies of what it is to be coloured or what coloured is, I still would not be able to get a complete idea of it, because although coloured has been established as a strong social construction, it is still just that: a social construction. My basic understanding is that coloured is a unique racial category that includes any number of people of mixed “races” (the quotes denote the false nature of race), originally dating back to when the first whities landed in the Cape and created offspring with the Hottentots, or the original inhabitants of the land. Since then it has obviously become immensely more complex than that, pulling in myriad versions of what a Coloured person is and creating just as many exceptions to any defined rule denoting who’s in and who’s out. It is a fascinating subject matter really, which I am trying to write my first paper on, but have yet to figure out a way to narrow down and tackle. I have 7 days to do that. Wish me luck. So anyway, In this house there were three generations of cool folks that I had a great time with. If I explained the coolness and details of all of them you’d be reading forever, so I’ll continue.

The second night we went to Rachel’s other homestay family in another area. These guys were Sotho and Zulu and very awesome as well. As my amazing luck would have it, their neighbor was having a traditional 21st birthday celebration on Saturday. This was a huge deal and included the making of hundreds of scones (which I helped with) and even included the slaughtering of a cow, which I watched from start to finish with wide eyes and mixed emotions. The next day brought lots of music, dance, food, people, and energy. I even got in on some of the action and started busting a few moves—some I knew from before in practicing my Jamaican dancehall moves, a few I had learned in my African dance class, and the rest were ones I tried to pick up and I am sure I butchered quite badly. I would have loved to see how I looked, but I had people cracking up for as far as I could see. Whether they were laughing at me or with me, I may never know, but I sure had an amazing time. On both a personal and anthropological level, the whole thing was amazing to experience. And don’t let my continued use of the word amazing take away from its power. I could write on and on about this celebration, as I did in my daily journal where I write about what I do each day, but then y’all would stop reading, so this much of the adventure will have to do for now.

Also while I was in Durban, I was able to get together with the Bahá’ís, one of which I met in Cape Town when he was here visiting. Remember close to when I first arrived in Cape Town, I wrote about having a Bahá’í moment where random people from one side of the earth know random people from the other side of the earth that I know as well? Well, Durban was Bahá’í moment central, with everyone I met in the Bahá’í community knowing at least one person I knew, reaching up to a 7-person connection. It was pretty awesome. I also got to go with a few Bahá’ís to the big township called Umlazi, which was fun. Often there’s no chance of getting to go to a township unless you know people there, so I was lucky to have a connection. The only not so lucky part of going was that somewhere along the line, my special wallet fell out of my shallow pockets. Yet although it was a big bummer at the time, detachment soon came.

The last cool thing about Durban that I’m going to talk about is my awesome opportunity to use the sign language I knew with a 10-year-old boy named Michil, who was the cousin of the kids at the house in Wentworth. I was chillin with the two girls, Jody and Cody at Jody’s place one night (where I was staying) when we decided to go to Cody’s. They told me beforehand that her brother was “deaf and dumb.” Uff, after taking Deaf Culture classes I get a pang in my heart and cringe every time I hear the old school phrase describing someone who is deaf to also be dumb. Obviously someone who is deaf is not dumb just because they cannot produce words that they would have learned if they could hear. Not hearing does not create a mushy brain, but old habits die hard and the term was still in use there. So when I went and started signing to him, he shied away a bit at first, but quickly warmed up and started signing with me a bit. There are some differences in signs, but it didn’t matter because we were still communicating regardless of whether we knew exactly what the other was trying to communicate. It was a very cool experience and I realized at that moment why I had learned sign language…to be able to communicate in a very special way with people otherwise placed on the margins. That little boy had so much love to give and his smile just radiated as he joined in the card games and was able to understand. Precious.

My sincere apologies at the slowness of the posting (and writing) of my blogs. Hope y’all are well!

Note to reader: This is a long one, so you might want to take it in chunks, or thirds. The third Monday of classes has come and gone as well as the whole month of July. I am not quite sure where it went but it has snuck out the backdoor and hopped the next flight to the Seychelles for an 11-month holiday. I wouldn’t mind doing the same except that time does not stop for anything and I would miss too much. But, I’ve been thinking maybe there’s a way to get around that. We just have to change our concept of time and its relation to our lived experiences. I’ve been reading about it in my critical psychology book…Academic disciplines have created mainstream thought too much around Western thoughts and culture making findings and discoveries inapplicable to the greater world, so we need to bring out the marginalized knowledge and ideas for life to be explained more accurately for the majority of people. Are you guys in? There’s a whole other world out there—shining, shimmering, splendid! Stunning even.

So I’ve gotta tell y’all about the amazing days I experienced before my body told me to STOP WITH THE FUN ALREADY.

Saturday: The Guys arrive. The capital G is intentional. When I say “the Guys” I am referring to two of the coolest guys I’ve met in a long time with rip-roaring energy and perfect synergy, characteristic of people who have seen the best and worst in each other and have flourished together as a unit because of it. If you can imagine two fireflies emitting the brightest light you’d seen fireflies emit flitting around a world balloon, you might be able to imagine these two. They had me laughing for hours, which I know for sure is not good for keeping strep throat at bay. And they have the storytelling vibe down so well that each guy knows perfectly when to let the other pick up certain details and then when to switch back. A little more history on these Guys: Pouya and Shahin aka John and Shane are two Persian Australians who have been friends for a long time and where having a reunion with two other buddies in Namibia for a week or so. They then had a few days before going home where they decided last minute to come to Cape Town. Shahin and my roommate Anisa knew each other from when they were doing service in Haifa, Israel together recently. So they get here and immediately start expounding on these amazing adventures of riding on the sand dunes like in Napoleon Dynamite, being stuck between the Zambian and Namibian borders after both gates had closed, the crazy coincidence of being able to see Victoria Falls on the night that the moon was full creating a perfect rainbow in the dark, whitewater rafting with crocs, among other stories. Unbelievable—all in 7 to 10 days. Now they were saying they had 48 hours in Cape Town and wanted to continue the adventures. I was in. I wanted to see Cape Town too and how could there be any better opportunity? So Saturday, we went to a fireside and learned about EQ: Emotional Intelligence for a long time and got in touch with our Primary and Secondary processes, aka our feelings. Then we rushed to the Waterfront, one of Cape Town’s great attractions for some dinner at 10:17. Everywhere we went the kitchens were closed. But thankfully we came armed with four pretty girls (two of which are my beautiful roommates) who somehow convinced a place to open the kitchen. So dinner was on! And that was the first day.

Sunday: WHOA! Woke up, followed by a gathering of friends, and then off to the famous Table Mountain: a huge, flat mountain rising above the city, which is a great place for climbing. We were on a time crunch as I needed to be back by 3 to babysit and I had forgotten my phone to contact anyone if we were running late. We started our adventures around 12, and rushed through them with the utmost enjoyment. Just getting there presented its first challenge as we swerved left and right, eventually pulling over, as we tried to figure out if we were being followed. As the white truck sped past us, we breathed a sigh of relief and were off once again. We rushed up in the cable car, pounced around the top of the mountain looking at the absolutely STUNNING, blessed view of “the spot, and the house, and the place, and the city, and the heart, and the mountain, and the refuge, and the cave, and the valley, and the land, and the sea, and the island, and the meadow where mention of God hath been made, and God’s praise glorified.” (Bahá’u’lláh) With just a few triple jumps, one could move from looking at one side of the world to the other. And the amazing thing is that the day was perfect. Cape Town winters have completely unpredictable weather, often complete with rain, clouds, gray skies, and other such conditions that keep people locked in the house. But it was beautiful. We only stopped once, to watch a little animal devour old cigarettes. The little guy must have been addicted or something. We then quickly made our way to the place of descent where we were instructed to start climbing down. Never having grown up around mountains and never having the experience of mountain climbing, or rather mountain running-down, this was a fun hour prancing down the rocks while trying to keep my eyes up to enjoy the views. Each level brought a whole new beauty and as we noticed ourselves keep saying over the days was, “This must be one of the most beautiful places on earth.” With each step I felt more energized, more amazed, more shaky in the knees. But the soreness the morning after is the best kind. We stopped very few times, trying to beat the clock ticking over our heads, but the waterfall toward the bottom was too much to just pass by. After much exhilaration, we did make it back, and only a few minutes late. From there I babysat, which was fun, and then came back at which time one of my roommates, the amazing MONA, the Guys, and I headed up to Signal Hill where the night view of the city can blow a person away. Just hope it blows you backward instead of forward, because the edge is right there. We stared in amazement for quite a while then got in the car to check out the top. Uh oh! We pulled up into the parking lot, but then spotted three guys approaching to our right with torches (the more fear-inducing word the rest of the world uses for flashlights) so Shahin, the dramatist, sped away to position ourselves perfectly in front of the only other car on the strip for security, even if we happened to disrupt a special moment with our rear beams. The guys with torches soon were approaching again, but walked straight on past through the night. That ended the second day.

Monday: This was the day the guys were supposed to leave, however after rushing to the airport and giving back their rental car, they weren’t able to get on the flight because 1) their tickets were for a different day and 2) the flight was full so they couldn’t leave early. They were quickly back in the swing of their usual go-go-go energy and went with Mona on a day trip to Robben Island. I couldn’t go because as you all may remember, I am actually here to take classes. From what it sounded like, they had a great time, even creating a small protest proclaiming to, “Free Mandela. Free Mandela.” That was about the extent of that day.

Tuesday: Another day that conjures up immediate feelings of calmness, joy, and appreciation for all the unexpected hapinesses of life. It started with class and ended with sleep, and was filled in between with hours of living to the max. After I returned from class, Mona, the Guys, and I were off to town via a kumbi or very crowded taxi bus thing. We were on our way to rent a car and then drive to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Point via Fish Hoek, a place Shahin never thought he’d get to go. The rental process took a lot of our energy, but seeing as energy is never lost or destroyed, we were able to recover a bunch through the natural elements of the earth and each other. So we were off on a beautiful car ride along the coast down to the south eastern-most point of the continent, one of those labels that could be given to anything, like, “the most southernly point above the 51st and 52nd latitude lines,” or something like that. Along the way we stopped to look at vicious little penguins, excited monkeys, and to begin the picture collection of the day with a number of shots of those one-of-the-most-beautiful-places-on-earth places. We eventually made it to the star attraction, and begin the hike up to Cape Point where the lighthouse is located and where you can see the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean meet. It’s said that there’s a line where they meet, but my eyes weren’t able to see it. As often happens when climbing mountains, it feels like you’re getting to a top point and once you get there you see a further/higher point ahead. Such was the experience when we got to the Cape Point…we saw another path down a ways that led out even further. Pouya was determined to go on the path less traveled, so we found the path and continued discovering more hidden treasures and reaching more of those points. Shahin and Mona stopped at one of those top points and Pouya and I continued, only turning back because we were beginning to run out of time to finish everything before the park was going to close. We all rushed back down to where the care was, at which point Shane and Mona hopped in the car and Pouya and I started making our way down the path to the Cape of Good Hope, where we’d meet the other two. We started at a running pace, bounding down the path, but slowly got stalled by the views of the world before our eyes and all around us. We were making good time until a path down to the beach was discovered. Whoosh. I flew down those steps, threw off my shoes and was running down the sand to the water like I was auditioning for a position on Baywatch. The waves were incredibly powerful, crashing against the big rocks to the left and the right. The waves would roll in and cap, and the momentum would continue up the sand right onto our previously dry pants. We were soaked to the upper thigh before we knew it. And before I could take a breath that could properly absorb the crisp sea air, the strong undertow would be yanking the sand from around my feet and pulling it back out. Water is the strongest and most humble element in the world. I became entranced by the sounds and the views, but was pulled back out by Pouya now assuming Shahin’s position and telling me we needed to get moving. Back on the road again, but this time with bare feet, I let my body become weightless, only realizing my inability to do that when I would have to walk across a bunch of small pointy rocks. So I put my shoes back on and zipped on ahead to the summit, and which point I started to worry that there was no exit point to where Shahin, Mona and the car were. After all, this was the absolute top point. Whew. I eventually spotted the path down, but watched the sunset from the top as Pouya made his way to the top as well. Pictures were a must, followed by enjoyment of the splendor, and then a mad rush (well…not really) to the car, which was oddly driving from one side of the parking lot to the other every 7 or so minutes, first to look at the sunset and second to look at the mountain. As the last car left in the park, we figured we should probably make a move before we got stuck there for the night. I was laughing at the prospect, but others were quite worried. Worry aside for two minutes, though, as we spotted a few ostriches just chillin and had to hop out for the all-important pictures. On the road again, we eventually made it to the exit point and were able to leave without a hitch. The hitch came about 37 minutes later as we were nearly home when two people ran toward our car while we were stopped at a red. Shane and John were absolutely convinced we were about to be hijacked, but then the police guy happened to pull up beside us. Me? I’m not so sure about this concoction of a story, but those two love it, so it’s all theirs. We made it home for a breather at which time the guys went for dinner with a couple they met earlier and the rest of us got ready for a big good bye party the guys were throwing for themselves. Of course, all the kitchens were closed by the time we all got coordinated, so we ended up finding a karaoke place called Dizzy’s. By this time, my throat was coming into full effect, so I wasn’t going to participate, but uff, it looked like SO MUCH FUN that the last song I just had to join in (Maroon 5…This Love). We all had so much fun! And without any alcohol if you could believe! Quite a crew. And as we were about to call it a night, we walked outside and ran into a homeless woman, or rather she ran into us….over and over again, smacking her lips and teetering over. She was either very drunk or had a whole different mental reality. She was approaching all of us as taking grabs at people saying she wanted to get married, etc. It is only funny for me looking back on it, but at the time it was very uncomfortable. We could hardly get in the car without her blocking the way. And once we did get in the car, she began taking a coin and tap tapping the hood with it, eventually just throwing the coin at us as we left. Thankfully no harm was done and I think the others got more amusement out of the situation. The ride home was one big medley as we sang any song we could think of at the top of our lungs. I knew I was sacrificing my throat, but figured it was worth it. After sacrifice is giving up something lower for something higher and we were pretty naturally high that night.

Well, I think I’ll leave it at that. Wednesday the Guys left in the morning for a stopover in Singapore and then on to Australia, and I got bed-ridden in the afternoon. Life goes on. Today it’s Monday and although I’m not back to 100%, I’m on my way, and as you’ve read, those 4 days of fun were most definitely worth it.