Hello again,

Living in the Windermere is SO NICE! It's great to have some freedom--to eat what, when, and if you want, and to cook it yourself!

This week I've been working on getting interviewees and secondary literature to begin working on my ISP. I have interviewed representatives of the Durban Lawyers for Human Rights--the legal implementing agent of the UNHCR in town, and the Mennonite Central Committee, which provides social services for refugees. Basically LHR provides free legal counseling for refugees with or without documentation, and can help them get official refugee or asylum status. This is very important for Zimbabweans becaue the nature of the political conflict and the way it is perceived in South Africa makes it difficult for them to prove they are in fact refugees, rather than just economic migrants. But to the LHR, "a refugee is a refugee." The Mennonite Central Committee is also funded by the UNHCR, but their mandate is to help only refugees with proper documentation from the Department of Home Affairs. For this reason, they don't deal with Zimbabweans too much. These two organizations partnered to host a workshop this coming Wednesday to educate their clients on a change in policy which allows refugees (with proper documentation) to access the highly controversial social grants, which were previously only available for South African citizens. Anna and I will be attending this workshop, so I'm excited to get some first-hand insight into how these organizations work, and how they collaborate with eachother.

In other news, Anna, Hiwi and I have become something of a "refugee trio," as all of our ISPs relate to refugee issues. We have decided that we will accompany eachother to interviews and meetings in order to better ensure our safety and get the most out of our ISP experience. Because of this, I have gotten to go with Hiwi to "Ethiopia," which is what we call the block on West street which is the center of the Durban Ethiopian community. People are generally surprised to see Anna and I (two white girls) eating at the restaurant where Hiwi conducts her interviews, but all the same very welcoming. This has been a highlight of my week.

I have yet to conduct any interviews with Zimbabweans, but I am going to the Pastoral Refugee Center at Emmanuel Cathedral this evening with Anna and Hiwi to hopefully set up some interviews for this weekend. Unfortunately I won't be able to disclose any information I collect in my interviews due to ethical issues, but once I finish the ISP write-up I will be able to share anonymous bits and pieces if anyone is interested :).

Aside from all that, I have also enjoyed taking public transportation. While it's not the safest thing, if you know what you're doing you can avoid trouble. Pretty much every day we walk to the street outside our apartment and hold up an index finger when the kombis (mini bus taxis) drive by--this indicates that we want to go into town. The kombi pulls over, we say "workshop?" (just to be sure) and they say "sharp sharp workshop" (which sounds more like "shop shop workshop"). The fare is 3 rand (around 30 US cents), which gets you a lively ride to the center of town accompanied by blaring house music (the most popular form of music in South Africa). Once you get to the workshop, you have to walk to various unmarked taxi departure points to get kombis to other areas of town--ie. West street, where "little Ethiopia" is located, Victoria Street Market, Emmanuel Cathedral and the Pastoral Refugee Center, etc. This gets a little complicated because they leave from all over the city center, and it's not always easy to find the right one. We are constantly consulting our program staff to help us get around--we'd be lost without them! If we want to return home to North Beach, there is another hand signal-- which is basically an L-shape with the thumb and index finger. There are probably 5+ maybe more different signs which indicate different routes and locations around the city, but I have yet to learn any of the other ones. We have also taken the Mynah buses and the Durban Transit buses, which are other modes of public transportation which are a bit cheaper than the kombis. It sounds (and is) pretty complicated, but it's not that bad once you get the hang of it...and it feels good being able to navigate the city for a much cheaper fare than private taxis!

That's all for now I suppose, miss you all!

~Jenny <3

Ps: I'm coming under the influence of South African english, and finding myself using words like "lift," "sort," and "howzit?"...and spelling labor "labour," color "colour" organization "organisation"...it's bad. I'm pretty sure I don't remember what it feels liek to drive on the right side of the road and I can't avoid using random Zulu vocabulary in my daily conversations! Who knows if I'll even be able to function at all upon returning to the states!