Maia Abroad: UWC Waterford

It took two days to get to Makhanda. It felt a lot longer. We put fifteen theatre and music students into a very small bus and drove from eSwatini to the Eastern Cape, and I think it was a more arduous trip than any ocean passage. I’ve developed some passionate thoughts about the relative merits of different petrol stations. We stopped for the night in Ladybrand and everyone, (even the Norwegian!) agreed that it was excessively cold. The next day we made it to Grahamstown/Makhanda and immediately headed to the box office to pick out some tickets for the next few days. We were in town for the Grahamstown Arts Festival – the largest arts festival on the continent which runs for eleven days in the college town of Grahamstown (recently renamed Makhanda at the recommendation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, although in Xhosa, the town is called iRhini.) Makhanda is home to Rhodes University and a large number of schools, institutes, and museums. The town is also currently u...

(This was written about two weeks ago but I've been without internet! I'll hopefully post soon about my time exploring the Makhanda Arts Festival.)  It is often hard to get a chance to take a breath at Waterford. Life usually progresses at a frenetic pace and we have to run to keep up or risk getting run over. My friends and I were joking that there's no relaxation time - you're working or you're sleeping. It's a weird phenomenon here, that it's nearly physically impossible to relax, because if you're not concentrating on something, you fall asleep. If conversation flags a bit if you're spending time with someone, it's not unusual to just fall asleep on each other. Unintentional naps are a bit of an issue. This past weekend, my friend from New Zealand invited me and another friend to spend the weekend with her link at a game reserve a few hours from the school. We were staying at a ranger's house and there were dogs...