At least I'm not in Madagascar...

The good news is that I did not in fact decide to study in Madagascar. Apparently there was a military coup there this week, and all the Americans studying or living or whatever there got pulled out and sent home. Which would be really unfortunate. There's another SIT group there who all had to go home, and they don't get credit for the semester, which is even more unfortunate, because then you can't even graduate on time. Of course, I should not speak too soon, because elections here are coming up on April 22, and things are pretty crazy. The last elections were totally violence free, but KZN is a stronghold for the IFP, (the Inkatha Freedom Party) which is the major opposition to the ANC, the ruling party (African National Congress- think Nelson Mandela). Here, you vote for a party, not a candidate, and legislative seats are then assigned based on the percent of the vote won by party, and the winning party gets to assign the president and executive cabinet. All the parties are actually horribly corrupt, but the ANC will win for sure. Which is sort of unfortunate, because Jacob Zuma, their presidentially candidate, has been on trial for rape (the circumstances he got off on were a bit questionable), has no formal education, and is currently on trial for corruption and graft or something. It's widely believed that if he wins (there's no way he won't, the ANC usually gets about 2/3 of the vote nationwide), he will change the constitution so he cannot be prosecuted. And, Nelson Mandela has been campaigning for him. Its great, really. We've been told to not go to polling places if we will still be in KwaZulu Natal, and to stay out of the streets. But we're really not too worried about there being violence. The ANC actually split this year, because their previous president, Thabo Mbeki, who "resigned" (and also was crazy and an AIDS denialist and told people not to take their ARVs, but to eat African Potatoes, Beetroot, and Garlic instead), was also corrupt. Wheh the ANC kind of pushed him to resign, a chunk of the party broke off and called themselves COPE. But they haven't been too successful in getting a lot of support for their party. It is a little odd that people keep voting for the ANC, because they have actually accomplished very little of what they've promised, but they do, probably out of loyalty for ending apartheid. So, in case you were holding some falsly optimistic view that things in South Africa have been great after 1994, you're wrong.

Instead of updating my blog, I'm actually supposed to be writing at 40 page research paper on zulu masculinities, which is not going well at all. This is reallly the only thing academic we have done so far, and its really the only work we have to do for an 8 credit class, but I am still procrastinating.

In other news, I think I found my independent study project. We have the month of April to go anywhere in SA we want and study something health related. Yesterday, I got permission to hang out at the Bhekuzulu Self Sufficient Project, which is an NGO in a very rural village about 50K outside of Durban, which works with HIV/AIDS doing community outreach, education, prevention of mother to child transmission, care of orphans and vulnerable children, and youth projects. Translation- I can play with really cute kids for another month, and call it academics. The downside- there is a very good chance I come home having adopted multiple children. Just so you've all been warned. And, there is a peace corps volunteer working there who I can either live with, or live nearby. I'm working on tracking down her contact information, because sometimes speaking with native english speakers is helpful when planning stuff.

Okay, I've exceeded the amount of time I can actually procrastinate on writing this paper and still get it done this weekend, sadly.