Much Needed Break

I guess I am just going to dive right in folks, I leave for a trip to Botswana in about 7 hours and I still have to sleep. I miss everyone. You are all on my mind constantly, especially you.

First I will tell you about the upcoming trip, then about my academic program, and then I will catch you up to speed through as many pictures as I can upload (there are 50 set aside). If I was not exhausted I would put a little more effort into being poetic. To be honest, I really enjoy this blogging thing. It gives me a great opportunity to look back on small portions of time and really evaluate what has happened. Anyways, thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoy.


I think it was either my Sophomore or Junior year at OU when I took an Environmental Studies course (Geography I believe?) that was taught by Ted Bernard. He stressed what a wonderful place the Okavango was, and how everyone must visit this place to help understand its greatness in order to further preservation efforts. He showed us pictures of amazing things; untamed wildlife in quantities you have never even seen before. Happenings beyond belief. National Geographic once had an article in an issue with elephants swimming underwater that was filmed there!

Basically it is a river that does not drain to a sea, but into the land. You can imagine what occurs because of this. So this place has been on my mind as a metaphorical Mecca and I finally have the opportunity to go. To fly roundtrip to Maun, the jumpoff point for trips into the Okavango, it would cost $400. Include lodging in the most expensive tourist spot in all of southern Africa and a vehicle rental, not to mention excursions, and you start to get a pretty expensive trip. I saw lodging there for at least $1000/night/person; they show pictures of people getting candlelight massages 50 yards from an elephant. Not exactly in my itinerary.

A Nissan 3.0 L Turbo Diesel 4x4 Camp truck costs 400/six days/ person. It will be just Tom and I. The package includes all the necessities, even a table, chairs, fridge, long distance fuel tank, jerry cans (extra water), shovel, you name it. Tents on the roof people! So your transportation is your lodging, and you get on by paying $3 USD for a campsite for the night. One tenth the price, at least double the experience. We have to be (almost) totally self-sufficient. It takes about 15 hours to get there. You must have a 4x4 to go to the Okavango. I live for this stuff in case you could not tell.

If all goes according to plan, Thursday night we will be staying in Serowe, Botswana, an approximate halfway point. Serowe is east of the Kalahari Desert. On Friday its to Maun, and then who knows. Ted has given me some contacts in the Maun area, where he lived for five years. We will be visiting the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Center (HOORC) and possibly stay in their camp. Chobe National Park, in the northeast corner of Botswana, is also very attractive. We shall see. Wish me luck, on to information about the program. I encourage you to google the Okavango and just see what I am talking about in case the next blog post takes a while! Botswana tourism site is a very good site where we obtained some maps and found out a lot of info.

My program is......much more than I expected. For some reason it did not even cross my mind the amount of work I would be doing. It is good, I love it and I love the challenge, but it has taken a toll and me and all of my classmates. A personal record of mine was set this "quarter," 7 all-nighters and two back-to-back all nighters. And this time, they were not done as a result of procrastination.

There are only 4 full-time students and 2 part-time students in my classes. I only have two classes, one meeting twice a week and one meeting once a week only during the first semester. So my practice course is where we do all of our actual work, and then I have a tough tough theory course. Our practice begun with OpenGL computer language based on Javascript. For a couple weeks we focused on a free program called "Processing." I will not bore you with the technical stuff, but basically Processing allows you to program your graphics card to display whatever the heck you want. By typing lines of code you create shapes, movement, input based on the video camera, anything really. It is all related to math. We basically have a trigonometry lesson while learning a new program and learning programming itself. Yeah, yummy.

At the end of the Processing section we had a visiting artist teaching us and our class how to program, which was really cool. He held a 4-day "Machinima" seminar at Wits and we saw him on a daily basis. Machinima = Machine + cinema + animation. Basically people modify video games and use them as tools to create videos and various interactive artworks. YouTube "Red vs. Blue" to see a good example.

The Machinima seminar was highlighted my a 3d-body scanning demonstration. There was a kiddie pool filled with water and dyed with black ink. A contraption that a person lied onto was slowly lowered into the water and a camera positioned above the pool recorded an image frame by frame. This is then put through a program to connect it all and thus you have a 3-d body model. I did it, but I have not had the chance to compile the image, I will post it when its ready.

So once everyone began to get comfortable with what we were learning, it was on to the next program. After Processing is now Max MSP/Jitter, which is a more visual type of programming method allowing you to intertwine the actions of video cameras, audio, mics, anything USB. Pretty cool stuff. Lots of info about the projects will come after my trip.

The thesis proposal was also due recently. After much stressing and freaking out, I finally decided on a topic. At the moment, the title of my thesis is "Image In Me: Why Current Image Culture Requires Interactivity to Induce Engagement." It will not be a paper about the history of Photography. It will not be a statement saying the image is dead, or that a still image no longer moves an individual. It will discuss how the image has become so commonplace in our lives that new methodologies regarding creation, display, understanding, gathering, etc. are being formed as a result. More later.

The work has wore me down! This one week is the only scheduled break all year, I I have to say it is much needed.

If you have made it this far, I am impressed. You will be rewarded with pictures! They are in chronological order.

This is the security gate by the Theatre and Arts area at Wits.
Security is a huge issue here. I feel like everyone is always looking over their shoulder.

I took a trip to Alexandria. Alexandria and Soweto have very interesting pasts.
Most people here would never go there. The places are nearly shanty-towns, but the people glow with energy and life.




The whole town congregated around an intersection on Sunday night.
Everyone danced.





House music everywhere!
The DJ's here can't really hold it down, but I like the pic.




This is right outside my res. I am amazed by how plants can take root in the most adverse conditions. This was while we were waiting for a ride to Soweto.





Outdoor amphitheater in a park in Soweto








They asked me to take their picture.





Love this one.




Having drinks behind the boutique in Soweto.






A band played there that night.




They kind of sucked, but they rocked out.




These are some of my neighbors. Renji on the right and his neighbor ? on the left.
Good people.





So I bought that new zoom lens. A used one actually, Sigma 50-500mm.

Well I had a lot more to show and say, but the horrible internet here is not cooperating. So, the rest will have to wait until I get back. Thanks for checking in guys I really think that its awesome you are interested.

Catching Up

What has it been now, three weeks? I have to admit I have not been very good at updating the blog or even keeping in touch with loved ones. Sorry! More significant efforts will be made I promise.

For that reason, this entry is quite long. I have put in many more pictures to keep your attention! ha.

How is everything in your own lives? If you are on this list I am sure that I would prefer to stay in touch with you, so drop me a line anytime -- destrovision@yahoo.com. Hopefully all is well.

Also, I fixed the blog so comments can be made if you so desire (I know a couple people had mentioned they could not make comments). Okay, on to the story telling.




As the days carried on since the time of the last post, I was discouraged from updating because I did not even know where to begin in my description of the events that have occurred. The experience is already beyond all of my expectations and there is still so much more to discover.

For the most part, everyone I have met has been very friendly and accepting. Surely there is some sort of underlying stereotype that is incorporated with being an "American," but only one person has been rude to me because of where I come from.

Her name was Georgia.

OF ALL NAMES, GEORGIA!

After being introduced to her by Ari at a Student Life Magazine house party in Greenside, she turned and introduced me to someone else as "The American." I turned to her and explained that I have a name. Then I successfully pissed Georgia off even more when I told her "My little sister has the name of a city in the state of Georgia. Savannah, you ever heard of it?" :)

Shortly after the police showed up. Nobody cared, I think they even cheered. After being there for about 10 minutes with their lights on, the police turned on their sirens and filled the air. This is when I learned that here it is common for the police to do things just for show.

Being on the topic of law enforcement, I believe I can segway into crime. During my preparations I think what I found the most information on was the rampant crime rate in South Africa. From what I read it almost seemed like I might be dodging bullets on the way to class; definitely not the case. Yes, there is a slightly higher crime rate in Johannesburg than in Cleveland. However, the numbers are skewed and it is really no different. Once you know where not to go, what not to do, and how to live safely it does not become an extremely major concern. That is to say that you must of course must keep your wits about you and exercise precautions at all times. Don't go walking around alone in areas you don't know, don't flash expensive items, walk with a purpose, yada yada. Although nothing has happened to me personally(knock on wood), one of the eight students living in the International House on an exchange program from NYU did get robbed. It happened in a very interesting way.

Apparently, I was not with her or the group at the time, but she had separated from the group to go to an ATM that was within the shopping mall of Rose Bank where everyone else was shopping. While using the ATM a man was reaching over her shoulder and repeatedly telling her how to use the machine. Most likely frightened, she quickly grabbed her money, card, and receipt and high-tailed it outta there. It was not until her mother called her that she found out that someone had withdrawn a total of about 10,000 Rand (~$1,000 USD). This money was a majority of her spending money and she now is required to get a job on campus to cover expenses for the semester she is here. My deduction is that the perpetraitor has some sort of card or device that allows him to access any account from an ATM as long as he has a pin number. That would explain why he was leaning over and trying to tell her how to use the machine, so he had an excuse to be close enough to see her put in the pin. Sad.

If these criminals are intelligent enough to come up with intricate strategies, obtain the knowledge to fabricate technical devices and manipulate secured machinery in order rob people blind, why don't they have a proper occupation? Obviously, this is their occupation. But is it the best option for the people? Are these people just not able to get schooling so they have to focus their minds on advancing themselves through criminal means? What is causing this? Obviously the question can not be answered by simply living in a particular town, city, province, country, continent for only one month. More later.

Sorry I just had to get that out of the way. On a lighter note, I have been to a couple very interesting places already. Besides the little towns surrounding my university in Braamfontein -- Ammarentia, Greenside, Newtown, Melville, New Melville, Rose Bank, Linden -- I have been to a couple other venues worth noting.

Went to the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens to watch a theatre performance of Shakespeare's "Much to Do About Nothing." On campus I have watched several cricket matches at the cricket pitch. I was also able to make my way to Pretoria with Tom one weekend for a day trip. It is about 30 minutes away in a car. We did not get the chance to explore the actual city much because we spent so much time in the Voertrekker Monument and the Groenkloof Nature Reserve. The Voertrekker (Afrikaans for "pioneer") monument is a pretty impressive structure placed high atop a ridgeline. Its design and museum outlined and celebrated the history of the voertrekker's settlement of South Africa. Voertrekkers are white people. They fought many battles with existing local tribes and nations in order to claim land as their own along the way. Sound familiar? Understandably, the monument is a very controversial structure.

It has a circular apse that runs from the bottom floor up about 6 stories to the top, where you can look down on the people. After going up a circular staircase for what felt like an eternity, Tom and I reached the circular catwalk surrounding the opening. I couldn't believe it but I was scared shitless! A feeling I never had before! This feeling was beyond vertigo. My hands sweated and my heart raced as I was trying to force myself to look over the edge. It took many attempts but I did it, and the picture is below.

And here is another picture taken from within the structure

After the monument we headed to the nature reserve and went to the main area where the hiking and mountain biking(!) trails come to a head. We used our map that was provided upon payment of the entry fee to plot out a short course that ended before sunfall. Quickly we realized that the map was not too reliable! Either way, we were eventually on the top of a ridge when I spotted something in the distance out of the corner of my eye. Giraffes! One, two, three, four giraffes! Bending and pulling the tops of trees to access live vegetation, it was truly amazing. After observing for about 15 minutes we decided to push off. It was Tom's idea to turn the bend and head up the ridge a little further to get even closer to them. Finally they sprung into vision about 60 feet away! So I am shooting away, and all of the sudden I feel sharp pains in my feet. Ants. Big, small, you name it -- they were all chomping on my feet incessantly. As fast as I could put my foot down they were on me. I didn't know we would be hiking I would have worn pants and shoes!

So there I am, doing a dance trying to take pictures and slap ants off of me while trying to not scare away the family of giraffes. They were meticulously watching me and all crowding around something.... a baby! There it was, hidden by the tall grasses, it's two furry "horns" sticking straight up like a funky hairstyle. The family gathered and waited for the the baby to stand, and then they made their way into the bush. Incredible.

We also saw some other wildlife like the Helmeted Guineafowl (they have blue heads), the Blue Wildebeest, and some Springbok. Nothing compared to the giraffe family. Check out the pictures, sorry about the quality my zoom lens is poor; I might have to buy one while I am here.

Here are a couple more pictures I have taken since my arrival.




This was taken on the way to Pretoria.






These are some taken around campus.


"The Tower of Light" is located on the West Campus of Wits.
Wits bringing in a little West Palm Beach?




The workers that are doing construction on a building in West Campus
live in these structures. This is on campus near the tower.







The next two photographs were taken in the building the men are working on.













An athlete training in Wits' main stadium.





A ticket booth at one of the stadiums on campus.






One of the men's residences.


A parking lot in the northwest corner of campus.






Some "freestyle walking" pictures. South Africans have a name for it that I do not know.

You can catch a glimpse of my res in the back on the left by the trees.





I don't think he landed on his feet.







These birds are called "Haw-tee-daws."
They have to be the loudest, creepiest, most peculiar animal I have ever seen.
Notice how creepy they look peering down on me!




A wall with a light fixture.




A roof and the sky.





Cast shadows.







A classroom in the Umthombo Building.






Another classroom in Umthombo.

One day I happened to be taking pictures at dusk with my tripod when a storm rolled through. Storms quickly roll through here and are always producing large quantities of lightning strikes and rain within a very short period of time. That evening I recorded 18 lightning strikes on my picture plane. I am thinking that I will be able to get a point-of-strike photograph before I leave here.

Here are two of my current favorites from that evening.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you have enjoyed! I have had too much writing and computer work for one day. Soon I will update with everything about my program and tell the story of my short visit to the shanty town of Alexandria; doesn't that sound exciting?

February 1st

It has been a very eventful couple of days. Received final housing assignment on Saturday, got settled in just fine. Finished registering for classes and got my student ID card, not before instructing them that typically you should not shoot up at your subject when shooting a portrait. Ha. You can not get into or off of campus without the id card. You have to swipe it to get into the library, check out books, get into the art building, etc. Unfortunately, the University really stressed that I have a cell, so I purchased a cheap Nokia for $30 USD -- the number is 0788528840 -- if you are going to call be sure to look up country code for dialing, and let it ring!


On Friday while doing all of the administrative hullabaloo I ended up meeting another art student named Tom, who was shadowed by his friend Ari just tagging along for the day. We chatted for a quite a while considering we both had to wait nearly an hour for the same person to return to her office. He talked about my program and how intense it is. A man Tom introduced me to stated that he is doing his Master's in Fine Arts and not in Interactive Media "because (he) want(s) to sleep." Just what I am looking for, a challenge.

So Tom has kind of took me under his wing and I have chilled with him and his friends outside of campus the past couple of nights. Went to the nearby mall and had an ostrich burger at Burger Bar, delicious. While in the car I saw many different areas and towns along the way... If you have been to Chicago, it would be similar to the difference between Wrigleyville, Lincoln Park, Gold Coast, etc.... Every house or business is surrounded by a series of walls, gates, barbed wire, and electrical fencing. The home where Tom lives is a cottage off of a main house. It has a beautiful pool, lush greenery and tennis courts. A nice dig for sure.

We really tied one on Friday night. These guys can drink. What a bunch of drunks! Well most of them at least. Brandy is the drink of choice, or Black & White brand scotch. One bottle is drank during pregaming, along with whatever else is leftover from previous occasions. Good people.

Saturday Tom picked me up and we watched Arsenal end in a draw, then went to this Chinese New Year celebration in ChinaTown. Little kids, drunks, and fireworks... an entertaining formula to say the least. There were seven of us that ended up outside of a Szechuan kitchen, eating delicious authentic cuisine for hour after hour. It was so authentic that the restaurant workers did not even know what spring rolls or egg rolls are.

And today, Sunday, I explored campus for several hours taking photographs. The campus is really coming to life now that students are moving in. The library lawns have large tents set up on them, and they had some traditional African dancers performing, one of which accosted me as I was taking pictures.

I met a young boy and a young girl while out and about. The boy's mother works for Wits. From a distance, I could see him requesting the girl her to take a video on his phone; a video of him acting like a rapper in a music video, conscious of his background setting and all. When I approached them they asked me to take their pictures. When they found out I lived in the United States, they wanted to know if I have ever seen a celebrity. They were enamored with what they believed to be the glitz and glam of Hollywood. The boy could not stop talking about 50 Cent and how he is his idol. He asked if I lived by 50. He asked what it was like "on the West Coast." I tried to convey to them that there is no need to put a celebrity on a pedestal; not quite sure how far that went. They wondered how they could obtain the photographs I took. Can I print them out of my camera right then and there? Do I mail them a picture? After explaining how they can email me and I will return the email with the picture, it became apparent that they did not even know how email worked. hm.

All of the freshmen on campus are required to perform their initiation rite. The residents of the individual halls patrol campus in groups, with the boys going to the girls dorm to sing to them, and the girls doing the same to the boys. This happens at all hours of the day and night, and will carry on for the whole week. All week they must stay with all the people from their residence hall, carooning and doing different activities.

Walking around today I did get a slight sunburn, but I would rather have a sunburn than be dealing with multiple feet of snow. HAHA! Met two Study Abroad students from Japan, Keiko and Renji, who could not have been more friendly. They invited me over for chocolate cake and we chatted for at least an hour. Anxiously I await learning more about them and their culture.

Now that I have caught up on the events, I can begin to break down intricacies of the experience here. As my step-mother graciously informed me prior to my departure, "you know, things are going to be different there." Although it sounded like an extreme understatement, it is the differences in little simple elements of life that are often overlooked that I have become aware of. On a light switch, down is on and up is off. All of their outlets have independent switches for themselves. Faucets are much like how they used to be in the states, one spigot for hot, one spigot for cold. If you want warm water, move your hands back and forth really quickly. USA uses our own measuring system, so when I talk about having 17 inches of snowfall and temperatures around -8 with wind chill, they have no idea what I am even talking about. A 20 oz. soda? What do you mean? 330mL of course. There is no Gatorade, it is Energade. Because there is no "daylight savings time", the amount of daylight never changes. Degrees at Wits are obtained in 3 years. If you are in a fourth year of study, you are getting an Honours Degree. Taxis are vans and cabs are cars. I have never seen so many VW's on the road at one time. Car models, although of the same manufacturer of US cars, are nearly all different in some way. When I went to enter the shuttle from the airport, the driver asked me if I wanted to drive because I was attempting to get in on the side that Americans know to be the passenger side. Alas, they do have a KFC here! Also, the grocery is called Pick-N-Pay; anyone remember those?

Soon I will get Flickr working. I can only upload one photo at a time. I will keep ya posted.