Education is the most powerful weapon

...which you can use to change the world. Guess who said that. Ok, you’re right.

Sure is, but still I can’t help wondering why would everyone even want to go to the university. This seems to be the case on this side of the world, for example in Kenya, as a colleague told me. University – or nothing, seems like the options are there. That all boils down to not having a middle class, I guess. Getting to a university is a way (the only?) to climb the social ladder, with very sparse steps.

On Monday, we SA-YSSP’ers did our share in spreading the word of education to local schools. We were divided in three local schools with also high grades and with which the university had done co-operation before before. My group went to a scholl in the outskirts of Bloemfontein, almost in rural area. There were all grades from the 7-year-old 1st graders to the almost adult 12th graders, and they were all singing as we arrived to the spot (a bit late, no wonder). The principal introduced us young scientists to the pupils, and then they sang another song. The whole school was answering to my good morning as ‘good morning, sir’, pretty cool.

The idea was to have a chat with the oldest, the 10, 11 and 12 graders. Tell about ourselves, what did we study, what do we do as researchers, what kind of dreams or plans the pupils have, and so on. It was awesom to have this kind of experience, and see a piece of real life. This school was a free school, as the principal told us, the government pays everything from pencils to lunch, even a transport for the kinds (some live as far as 40 kilometres away and used to walk!). Do I need to mention that I saw no white students there?

And again it struck be: Go to university, work hard, and go to university. This was basically the message that our group leader (from Ghana) told to the youngsters. Having seen how the future options are advertised for the Finnish 9th graders, this was quite different. And, as said I mentioned above, I don’t think university is something everyone even considers. (A quick survey among the other two Europeans among us proved my point.) At least recently also professional training in Finland has really improved its status, and, hey, those people are really needed! I need to find out what other options there are here, if any.

My roommate noted that one of the reasons behind this large-scale university go-go, might the fact that universities were in the past only for the whites. Many black people in universities are first generation students and might not have the same kind of support from home, or even knowledge of their possibilities. Again, it feels like there are acctually two societies in this country. That is so wrong.

End of the deep thoughts for now. This Friday we’ll head to Cape Town, more on that later then! Finally, the latest bird observation is a red-and-yellow barbet. This guy is having a carneval season all year round.

Red-and-yellow Barbet (Trachyphonus erythrocephalus) Photo: Steve Bailey

A Saturday Safari

I spend today with a couple of friends driving the nearby city of Kimberley known for it’s diamond mines. We even went to see the ‘Big Hole’ (or acctually just the edge of it), but the best place we found was our lunch pit-stop, a restaurant called Mini Pakistan!

On the way back we stopped at a nature reserve.

Looks like Isla Nublar to me...

...but inside, we only found these furry beasts:

(Yes, it’s through the car window. Apologies for the reflections.)

Other fauna spotted: elands, springboks, kudus, a warthog (with piglets) and a glipse of a meerkat mob on sentry disapperaring as quickly as they can.

The Nordic Solution

Jonas and I finally got fed up with the mosquitoes. The weather has been very hot the last couple of weeks, so one really cannot keep windows shut during the nights. But with some inspiration and a quick visit to the mall, we came up with a solution. This is how it goes:

1. Target

2. Material & tools

3. Process

4. Results

That’s it! Now just waiting for the night and see how this works...

Work & play

Go running. Work. Play football. Work some more until it’s almost midnight. Sleep. Repeat.

Luckily, somewhere around the dots in the previous description are also loads of interesting conversations, laughter, settling disputes between roommates who come from different cultures, going out and – at last – going to the pool on campus. Last week was something like that, and in addition I even got a haircut.

Even though we finally got the access to the pool, the grumpy Finn complains: it’s the chlorine! I don’t know why pool parties would be something really fancy: the water tastes horrible and you have to take a shower anyway. Believe me, absolutely nothing beats a drop in a Finnish lake or a river on a hot day. That’s something to be proud of, and I hope it’ll keep that way. No lakes here, and I’m definetly not going to the river.

Tonight we went to see a football match at the Free State Stadium here in Bloem. It was part of the 2014 African Nations Championship, and Libya beat Ethiopia 2–0. The final is played in Cape Town on 1st of February. We’ll be then there, maybe buying some tickets...!

Avo has a buddy now. No progress, though.

Kalahari pays a visit

 

What the...?

The Beginning

Happy new year 2014! It’s also day 1 for the Avocado! The day of many beginnings.

 

P:S. How can one approximate the mean wind speed decrease inside a wind farm? Maybe I should change my topic again...

Jo’burg and back

 

I visited Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg on Friday with Noora. The two hours spent there gave just a scratch on the subject, so another round on Saturday with my young scientist colleague Nathaniel from the US was well justified. The whole place reminded me of a museum I visited some years ago with Jaakko, the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Both in the impressive architectures and the histories themselves: high unemployment of the ruling population, fear of mixing of populations, desire of ‘racial’ purity, geographical segregation (ghettos vs. townships), both happened in the 20th century, nationalist ideology etc. The apartheid in South Africa didn’t reach a ‘Final Solution’ like Nazi Germany, but I think otherwise the similarities are clear. A frightening distinction, though, is that the apartheid ended (officially) just about twenty years ago.

Nathaniel and I drove back to Bloemfontein on Saturday afternoon. He had been driving around with a friend and  was now also returning, so I also got a cheap option to make my way back. A week’s holiday was well earned and did good. I’m almost eager to start working tomorrow again.

I escorted Noora to the O.R. Tambo International airport on Friday evening and looked her disappear behind the security control (sob). It’d be fun if you would be able to go with all the way to the transport, as is the case with trains and buses (with the wonderful possibility of having a surprise trip to somewhere – although is this case it would have caused a bit too much trouble). It felt kind of funny to talk to and see her through Skype already today, as she just left yesterday evening and had travelled several thousands of kilometres to the Northern side of the globe. Anyway, it was very nice to be able to do that.

Sometimes SMS’s seem not to get through here (locally and globally). I discussed this with Jonas, and the only plausible theory we made up was that the local operators drop some messages on purpose to reduce load on their servers. Maybe.

A bug