January 26th - Classes, South African Lingo and More

Today we had our first class session with Peter. He lectured for about two hours, we had a lunch break, and then a woman named Pheobe came in and gave a really cool presentation. She is a conservation biologist at SANBI and has done some really cool work. Her presentation was about biodiversity, poverty, and national development in South Africa. She emphasized how ecological health plays a huge role in global economic health, and touched on the topics of ecological connectivity, ecological systems, where we should build homes and smarter ways to design cities.

In addition, she spoke about how negative impacts on ecosystems are often positive for human well-being and economic development or GDP as well as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment she helped with, which is the largest assessment of the health of Earth’s ecosystems. South Africa is one of the leading nations in biodiversity planning. She concluded with stating that a major paradigm shift is needed in economics and land value (i.e. we need to change the way people think and have ecosystems on everyone’s mind).

After Phoebe’s presentation we had another group discussion led by two students about some articles we had to read comparing biodiversity versus ecosystem function. Overall the day was really informative, and I can tell that this class is having a huge impact on me and what I am going to do with my career.

There is some funny South African lingo I have been meaning to share. They like to use the terms ‘now’, ‘just now’, and ‘now now,’ which each roughly correspond to a different time scale. ‘Now’ means later, ‘just now’ means soon like around 10 minutes, and ‘now now’ actually means to do currently. Takes a little getting used to. They also say ‘shame’ and ‘yo’ quite a bit.

I have also been meaning to share some information about my program mates. The two South Africans, Lillian and Olivia Z, are great. Lillian has this rolling laugh that you can pick out anywhere, and Olivia Z has a very cute accent. They are both honors students in the EGS department.

There are two boys from Macalester, Evan and Phalgun. Evan is majoring in geology and Phalgun is majoring in chemistry and anthropology. They are both really fun guys. There is also a guy from Pomona, Skyler, and two girls, Sydney and Chihiro.

Sydney is my roommate and we get along great; she is a philosophy major. Skyler and Chihiro are both environmental analysis majors. Chihiro is an international student from Japan and shares some cool stories. Skyler is a really good, sweet guy. Then there is one girl from Bryn Mawr named Maddie. She is super nice and into food justice.

From Swarthmore there is one boy, Daniel, and five girls, Sara, Mercer, Sophie, Olivia O, and me. Four of us are engineers (Daniel, Sara, Mercer and I). Sophie is a biology major and Olivia O is a math major and very involved in environmental groups especially food groups. Sara, Sophie, and Lillian all play ultimate frisbee. Daniel plays lacrosse at Swarthmore, and Mercer used to swim. Everyone gets along great, and we like doing things as a group.

As I am typing this, the power and wifi are both out. Eskom, the monopolistic electrical company in South Africa, is cutting off power for hours at a time in different areas called 'load shedding' because there is not enough to go around. There is a schedule online, and it looks like we will be having power cut off every day for a few weeks. We had a nice evening and watched a movie again on Sara's projector.