My life has obviously changed a bit since my previous ‘day in the life’, and my first two months in South Africa have rather flown by without me really getting the chance to talk about how I’m finding it. What follows is my attempt to give you a flavour of my life so far in Jo’burg.
Courtesy of UJ (the University of Johannesburg) I’m currently staying in a guest in Melville, a moderately well-to-do suburb about 5 km or so west of the slightly less well-to-do Central Business District. As we’re on a hill, and because almost every morning since I’ve arrived has dawned bright and clear, as I leave for the University I’m treated to a nice view of the Jo’burg skyline, with the surprisingly green and hilly suburbs stretching away in all directions. This vista seems far removed from the virtual war zone depicted in some of the more sensationalist news reports about this city, which is not to say that I see no indications that a lot of people who live here are a little nervous. It’s about a 15 minute walk to the UJ campus, the first half of which is along a leafy residential street. Virtually every house is hiding behind secure gates and high walls topped with barbed or electrified wire. The only decorations are the signs for numerous security companies, who have clearly been making a mint in the last few years. There’s fear. then, even if Melville is still a place where you can sit in a cafe or restarurant which is open to the street.
Next on my walk I join a larger road, on which traffic is speeding past with a careless disregard for speed limits, particularly the ubiquitous minibus taxis, which chatter amongst themselves through enthusiastic use of their horns. Having traversed an intersection at which I’ve already witnessed the aftermath of three or four collisions, I enter the campus via a smart-card activated gate, which in most countries would seem more consistent with a military installation than a university; yet another reminder that security is taken very seriously here. The campus itself must have been built in the 60s or 70s, when unadorned neo-brutalist concrete was the style du jour. The grounds themselves are very nice, though, and the mix of students here is in pleasing contrast to what it must have been like prior to the collapse of apartheid, when this was an Afrikaaner stronghold. And, after 5 years of being an annoying 30 minute bus ride from the main campus in Southampton, I’m quite enjoying feeling that I’m actually part of a University again.
I normally reach my office between 8 and 8.30. Because most of my papers, notes and textbooks are still on a ship somewhere (a legacy of my panicked last minute packing), I can’t really say it feels like I own it yet. I am starting to regrow my organic filing system though; vague piles of papers and notes are starting to build up on every available work surface, though I’ve yet to get to the stage where I need to employ the floor. I generally spend 30-40 minutes checking e-mail, blogs and things before I start work, although flirting with the catalyst of procrastination that is the Internet is probably not the most sensible way to start the day. When I do drag myself away, I have several things to occupy my time. I’m getting myself up to speed on South African geology, particularly the late Archean (3-2.5 billion year-old) sequences I’m going to be mostly working on. I also have some preliminary paleomagnetic data to play with, which shows some promise, and I’m writing some new scripts to help with the processing and analysis of this and the data I’ll be starting to gather quite soon. And, because you never really get away from your old projects, I still have some loose ends to tie up from my time in Southampton, which at the moment mostly means trying to rewrite certain papers so that they meet with less howls of protest from the reviewers. So I have plenty to do, although I’m looking forward to when I get to go out in the field and start drilling; until then, part of me doesn’t feel that I’ve properly started.
The department here is a lot smaller in Southampton; in fact, it’s almost redundant to say that I’m attached to the Paleoproterozoic Mineralization Research Group*, given that the group pretty much is the UJ Geology department. It’s in a state of flux at the moment, with me being only one of several arrivals and departures; but I’m starting to get to know everyone, and it’s nice to realise that here, this is actually an achievable objective. My only gripe is that the only easily accessible coffee is of the instant variety (my cafetiere also being on a ship somewhere, and replacements hard to come by). Ugh.
As I don’t have net access at home anymore, I finish up the day with a bit more web-surfing and blogging, usually walking back home around 6-6.30. My current abode does not contain a TV (although from what I’ve seen elsewhere, I’m not missing much), so I’m getting a good amount of reading done in the evenings.
The key question, of course, is have I settled in? In some ways, certainly. The brain seems amazingly good at quickly transforming the new and exciting into the normal and mundane; although just two months have passed since I was walking across the Itchen Bridge every morning to the Oceanography Centre, it almost seems half a lifetime ago. But there’s also part of me which hasn’t yet got used to the idea that Jo’burg is now my home, rather than a place I’m just visiting. It’s not that I’m pining for the life I’ve left behind, although obviously I miss all of my friends back in the UK; it’s just that lost sense of familiarity, of feeling comfortable because you know the places to go and how to get there, and how everything works when you arrive. That, for better or worse, isn’t a process that you can shortcut.
*Yes, so I’m not actually studying Paleoproterozoic Mineralisation. At least now I’m working with people who are interested in rocks rather than algae.
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