Waterford is somewhat unique among other UWCs in how the living arrangements work. At most UWCs, including Pearson on Vancouver Island, you have multiple roommates from a variety of different countries and cultures. At Waterford, most people are in small single rooms called 'QBs.' They're simple - a bed, a closet, a desk, and a shelf. The IBs are housed in two hostels; Elangeni and Emhlabeni. They're affectionately known as Ela and Emhla (Em-fla.) Emhla is more central to the rest of campus, and considerably larger. It houses about 120 students. It's one building that has been split into a girls' side and a boys' side, connected by a common room and small kitchen. It's also older than the other hostel, so the rooms are a little more run down, the furniture and amenities are more basic, and the kitchen is - sadder.
I live in Emhlabeni, in a corridor called 'Utopia' along with 10 other girls. The corridors are all given names - on the girls' side, there's corridors called 'Beehive' and 'Hollywood'. The boys' side has names like 'Redemption,' 'Insomnia,' and 'Red-Light.' 'Red-Light' was thought to be an improvement on the old name, which was 'Red-Light District.'
My corridor has a bathroom, a kettle, and a sandwich press. If I want to use a toaster I go over to Beehive, because for some reason we don't have one. We also don't have a broom, although other corridors do.
Elageni is smaller and more modern. The hostel is broken up into 'blocks' which are actually separate houses that have about 10 rooms each. The blocks share two common rooms and two kitchens. It houses about 70 students.
In Emhla, we have 4 washing machines and 2 dryers, which means that doing your laundry can be something that takes several days to accomplish. Despite having three showers in my corridor, the water pressure doesn't work in the others if more than one person is showering. The kitchen is also a bit sad, so most people keep a stock of ramen packets and biscuits in their room for when the cafeteria food becomes too depressing.
For all that, hostel life is fun. Our check-in time to return to the girls' side or the boys' side is 10:30, (the earliest of the UWCs) but I often stay up with my corridor mates, drinking tea and talking about our days. The ritual of tea is important here - people are forever asking you to come in for a cup of tea and some biscuits, and I find it comforting. It reminds me of coming home after school to have a pot of tea before I started my school work. The tea has to be made with creamer, cause only a few IB2s have mini-fridges, but it adds to the things we can laugh about. The hostel has started to feel like home, and I can understand people who feel homesick for Waterford on the holidays.
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| The view from the Ela common room |
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| My desk |
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| My snack shelf |
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| My closet |
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| My bed |
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| Late night tea party |
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| The view from my window the morning after I arrived |
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| Emhlabeni |
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| Hostel friends! From left to right, they're from New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Brazil |
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