Ye olde and new Pretoria

I'm here in Pretoria, South Africa this week for a conference at which I presented some of the preliminary results of my research work and pimped the HIV/AIDS project that I am currently running (the need for funding here is a never ending endeavor). I'm also here to get some research work done (not to mention get in some quality writing time) at the University of Pretoria and have a bit of R&R (this is my first serious trip outside of Lesotho in the 7 months that I've been in Southern Africa). Well, the conference went really well and I now have a slew of contacts, mostly South African, who want to talk to me, I am getting a lot of work done at the Uni, and I have managed some R&R. I think the conference and the feedback from my peers has strengthened and revitalized me and I didn't realize how much I needed that until the end of the conference.

Believe it or not I might acutally cut this trip off by a few days and return on Friday with my colleague who gets back from Lusaka on the same night. Despite some of the frustrations that I've had so far with my work, I honestly miss Lesotho with its lack of fences and barbed wire, the friendly people who greet you wherever you go, and the communal sense of pride that the Basotho have despite the shocking levels of poverty that you find. Well all of that, plus I'm freezing my ass off at the backpackers! I miss my hot water bottle!

Pretoria is an interesting city and in some respects represents what I like and admire most about South Africa and also what I find most disturbing about this country. Granted I have only been in this city twice so my observations are based on scant experience. One of the most interesting aspects of this city is the mix of different cultures and their sense of identity vis a vis each other. Walking around the University of Pretoria campus is sort of a smaller version of Pretoria in many respects. First of all, the university is more heavily guarded than the Pentagon (not too shocking for South Africa but shocking for anyone that has been on a university campus anywhere else in the world...this place makes Harvard's analness about access look downright amateurish!). The university itself has two main languages: Afrikaans (a language that originated from Dutch with heavy influences from English, Malay, French, and several local languages) and English. When you walk around campus you generally hear Afrikaans from most of the professors, administrators, and white students and a mixture of English, Sesotho, IsiZulu etc.. from the black students. People from these different backgrounds/linguistic groups generally don't mix (this also happens to some extent on U.S. campuses where folks seek out folks from their own background).

There seems to be some debate about the use of Afrikaans on campus and around Pretoria in general. I'm not too much tuned into it and my knowledge of the language is limited but it was interesting to note all the signs on campus promoting the language and to see bumper stickers on cars and other posters plastered across the city stating "Pretoria praat Afrikaans" (Pretoria speaks Afrikaans). I sense this is tied into the identity crisis that I have also noted in the Free State with white Afrikaans speakers. English is a lingustic juggernaut wherever it takes root and now is the lingua franca across most of South Africa. The cultural roots of most white Afrikaans speakers is deeply tied to their "taal" (language) and I quite honestly wonder how long this culture will endure with the amount of out migration, the widespread use of English, and this sense of rootlessness in the new South Africa that I get from many members of this particular community. Of course, I have several readers of this blog who are members of this community, so they can tell me to go jump off a cliff if they think I'm way off the mark ;-)