Telluride Newsletter
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TELLURIDE NEWSLETTER 2007 SPRING VOLUME 94, NUMBER 1 There was no way to ring the doorbell but to shake the gate. The suburb next door had accessible doorbells but walled-in streets. Universities are fortresses, and regular citizens must pay to merely enter their libraries, not to mention borrow books. So while the exclusionary regional planning of apartheid no longer occurs and many blacks have returned to previ- ously white areas, there is an emergent physical separation based on class. Indeed, these barriers turned out to be more obstructive than I realized at the time. In my funding proposal, I had imag- ined I would be able to volunteer with organizations beyond the bank. I did not realize that the bank is an hour from both Johannesburg and Pretoria, in a string of intermediate suburbs and settlements connected by highways. There is no prac- tical public transportation, and I was not old enough to rent a car. Thus, my living situation had to be with someone who could provide daily transportation to the bank, and this turned out to be a brilliant, hilarious woman who worked in corpo- OUT OF AFRICA rate strategy. While we sat in traffic, we would talk about politics, social situa- Report of Yarrow Scholar Eunice Yu tions, and other daily observations. Still, I was subject to her long working hours, This summer, while living in South Af- rest of the world understands it, invest- arriving long before eight in the morning rica, I read a very American novel: The ing in infrastructure projects like bridges, and leaving after six or seven at night. On Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It was irrigation, and transportation. I worked the way home, we would shiver together certainly strange to have found it in in the DBSA’s research arm, evaluating in the early dark of a Southern Hemi- Johannesburg. But the used bookstore upgrades intended to promote privacy sphere winter, and blow through red was on a street that might have been and increase space for voluntary counsel- lights to avoid being carjacked. transplanted directly from the college ing and testing services for HIV/AIDS in For three weeks, another Michigan towns of Ann Arbor or Ithaca, strung with clinics across South Africa. I analyzed student doing public health work lived lights and lined with intimate restaurants survey data of clients, providers, and with me in Johannesburg. Because she (with excellent Cape wines) and bou- clinic managers to document the baseline was able to rent a car, we spent each tiques. Finding the book at the tip of Af- performance of these clinics before the up- weekend traveling. We road-tripped rica, after dinner at one of those restau- grades physically took place. The hope is through scenic Mpumalanga Province rants, was not what I expected when I that more people will be encouraged to (see photo above) and the Drakensberg set out on my summer of adventurous get tested when the contractors finish Mountains, and watched “Pirates of the education. I thought I would be rough- work next year. Carribean” at a multiplex in Durban. We ing it physically, but instead found my- DBSA is headquartered in an impos- safaried at the famous Kruger National self in restlessly comfortable surround- ing brick building in the middle of a veld. Park, and flew to the Cape over a long ings. It was an adventure, nonetheless. Barbed wire tops the tall fence that en- weekend to take in wine tours and My day job was at the Development closes the grounds, and a guard post con- nightlife. It was interesting to travel by Bank of Southern Africa, an apartheid-era trols the gates at its entrance. Security hostel for the first time. South Africa is institution established in 1990 to manage concerns dominate the built environment. certainly a diverse country, with varied the ‘homelands,’ ostensibly independent In Johannesburg and its outlying suburbs, landscapes, languages, and people, and states that served as a sort of rural reposi- gates and walls surround everything but the hostel scene was no different. Along tory for blacks considered unfit for labor the poor settlements. My own neighbor- with many young Dutch men escaped in the proper, white South Africa. Post- hood, where I lived in a formerly-white from college, I met English, Irish, Span- dispensation in 1994, the DBSA got a new suburb with a middle-class black family, ish Basques, Germans, and Flemings of mandate, promoting development as the had open entrances but enclosed homes. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 SPRING 2007 TELLURIDE NEWSLETTER 1 OUT OF AFRICA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 all ages. But for the street vendors, there was sometimes little WIRED indication that we were traveling in Africa at all. Indeed, what struck me over and over while in South Af- MBTA tech gets up to speed rica was the way that things would seem normal, or in my con- text, American, before a sudden pulling of the curtain. Just as I In winter 2005-06, the Michigan Branch Technology Commit- began to accept the intense security level of my suburb, I would tee (TechCom) began brainstorming ideas to improve the tech- hear about a shooting or break-in, and feel ever more vigilant nological atmosphere of the House. After a thorough analysis, about the many locks on my door. I became used to my col- we identified three major projects: renovating the computer lab, leagues’ accents, only to notice that my older Indian, Afrikaans, designing and implementing a website for the House, and digi- and English colleagues’ accents were all different, a result of 40 tizing our application process. During winter ’06 we polished years of group separation. Perhaps most disappointingly, my our ideas and started preliminary planning; during the fall ’06 new life didn’t immediately jar because my existence was ex- semester these projects came to life. ceedingly exclusive. It took me longer to realize how confining this was as well. Although I lived in a middle-class family, the A computer room ‘middle-class’ is in fact a tiny fraction of the population. South The computer lab renovation was born when we realized Africa is an extremely unequal country. that housemembers were not taking advantage of the resources One legacy of apartheid is first-world conditions (drink- we had in our lab. Myriad reasons made the space unpopular: able tap water, if you have a tap; hostel sub-culture, fancy malls worn furniture, excess unused furniture and equipment, obso- and cineplexes, excellent roads), side-by-side with severe third- lete computers, and unappealing décor. world problems (heterosexual HIV transmission, extremely At Convention ’06, we asked for a renovation budget and high unemployment and poverty, poor public services). But this year we acquired new furniture, discarded old furniture with an American accent, light skin, and different clothes, it and equipment, reformatted older computers, and purchased was apparent that I belonged in one part of the country and not new flat-screen monitors. A fresh coat of paint, new carpet, a another. While some parts of the city were genuinely danger- futon, and lava lamps completed the overhaul. ous at certain times of the day, I had trouble assessing real dan- Soon after the renovation, we noticed a shift in the role of ger. I was advised not to leave the house gates after dark, and the computer lab, which became a popular place for commu- keep my doors locked at all times, even on Sunday afternoons. nal studying, hanging out, and committee meetings. A reverse phenomenon was my acclimation to differences. When I first saw the sprawling settlements abutting the mani- MBTA online cured suburban homes, I felt that it was impossible to ignore Incoming housemembers have told us they knew very the mass poverty. But I quickly realized that not only was it little about MBTA before joining. The Association’s website possible, it was easy and commonplace. When the settlements doesn’t contain an updated and detailed description of our became just the film in the movie-screen of a car window, the house, and we have struggled to create an image on campus ignorance became inadvertent. that most Michigan students would recognize. We hoped cre- On the evenings I spent in, I would write blog entries to ating a house website would help solve these problems. post the next day at work, and read books. It was amazing to We launched our website in mid-November: text message my host sister, rent a Pierce Brosnan flick, and www.telluride-house.org. By February, we were getting about buy intellectual novels about a fundamentally different mindset 100 hits per week. Additionally, the candidates we interviewed in a country crippled by wild policy-making on HIV/AIDS, this spring had a better idea about the House than in previous with 27 percent unemployment and 50 percent of the popula- cycles, which translated into more enthusiasm and enhanced tion living in poverty. This dualistic reality was and is still in- ability to engage with us in their applications and interviews. credibly disturbing. While I lamented how confined I felt in the upper-middle-class world that defined my trip, I had to remember that the flip side was much worse. The confinement Electronic applications I experienced was not a joke played on unsuspecting interns, In the past, we only accepted paper membership applica- but a consequence of discriminatory social dynamics inherited tions. This imposed a time-consuming and tedious process on from apartheid. I was certainly not the only one who was un- the office, and it was a cumbersome way for housemembers to able to enter different worlds.