Shopping, Sight-Seeing, and Braai's... Oh My!

The title makes it sound like we had a very leisurely Sunday. In reality, we are all working hard to prepare for this week's workshops and while the cultural outings are great fun, we are spending the vast majority of our time collaborating with NMMU and preparing for our workshops. The next three days will be intense, with full days for us all. The cultural parts of Port Elizabeth pretty much ended today, and we will focus entirely on our work. We are not upset by this at all, because we all seem to be very energized by this collaborative professional experience and look forward to each day's agenda. It has been heard more than once on this trip, "I may look to do my dissertation (or a post-doc) at NMMU."

We did get in some nice weekend cultural immersion today. We went shopping at Wezandla, a city center craft store where local artists are featured. Looking at the art, carvings, bead work, etc was like walking through a museum. The opportunity to afford some things on our graduate student income was nice as well. We all seemed to enjoy the store:

After our shopping, we walked for a while downtown and also stopped by a beautiful park filled with sculptures and local art.

We then went to the waterfront and shortly stopped by a flea market. I heard an American accent by another shopper and asked where she was from. She told me New York. We started a conversation and she introduced me to her wife (yay for marriage equality in New York). Anyway, it turns our she is a professor at a small SUNY campus in education! She did a Fulbright Fellowship at NMMU, knows of Dr. Austin (she said that she did her fellowship a bit after Dr. Austin left), and comes back to NMMU for three months every year to teach. Her specialization is in special education. It is a VERY small world!

Everyone worked most of the afternoon to prepare for our workshops this week. The teaching and learning group met twice today to plan for our upcoming days at NMMU and to receive constructive feedback on Friday's workshops.

We were treated to a Braai (pronounced like Bry) tonight by our NMMU colleagues! The large fireplace at the B&B is called a Braai:

This is an amazing way to BBQ (S Africans don't really use the term BBQ). NMMU worked with the B&B hosts we are staying with to help prepare the Braai. The evening started with a drumming circle:

And was followed by an amazing meal and conversation with several of our NMMU colleagues and their families.

This was followed by continued late night prep for tomorrow, but well worth the sleep sacrifice!

Our first day as a group

I don't think any of us were fully aware of what today would be. We went onto the NMMU campus for the first time today and joined a group of fourth year students (called their honor year which starts after their third year of undergrad) and we all went through a very interesting module around "The Champion Within" which results in a pledge that each of us will work to carry the lessons of Nelson Mandela within ourselves, our lives, and impact our community.

We all enjoyed getting to know the students:

Tonight was our township tour. I know I'm not alone when I say that the images of poverty brought me to tears. Here are just a few of the pictures:

These men are buying fresh beef.

The number of shacks seem to go on for miles!

We were able to give a little by purchasing african art and jewelry at a small craft shack on site: 

We then went to dinner in the township and had amazing local entertainment:

It was definitely an unforgettable day!!

(I promise there will be more insightful blog posts and  other people blogging on this starting tomorrow... I just didn't want a day to pass without sharing/showing what happened today and it is very late here).