My New Office

Today Nkidi picked me up about 9 and we headed in to the office. We needed to take care of getting my personnel number, a library card, and access to the internet. To accomplish this, we met with Cycil, the department head to get a letter confirming my position as a visiting faculty member. He was genuinely warm and welcoming and eager to get to work, but insisted that I should get settled in first. So Nkidi and I went to check out my new office. She had organized some office supplies to get me started, opened the window so I could see the view of the courtyard and get some fresh air, and then we were ready to head over to the administration building with my letter. Betty was lovely in copying the letter and letting us know that I should have my personnel number and card next week. We met a few other people in the building and then returned to the office so we could get some work done. Of course, I had it much easier since all I needed to do was read a couple articles that I had brought along. It wasn’t long before Nkidi called to let me know that Linda was already making tea, so I joined them in the break room. As they were explaining their current program in terms of credits, we were joined by a member of the psychology department and the conversation moved towards the kinds of names that people have. Linda is a storyteller and she was laughing about some of the Afrikaans names and their meanings and how well they did or didn’t fit the people who possessed those names. That led to a conversation about the meanings of African names and how those were selected and the differences in name selection across different groups of people.
In introducing me to her friends Sharon and Theresa, the three women agreed that we all should get together for coffee or tea. Nkidi went on to explain that in the days of township living women would pull their money together to support one another in times of trouble or joy. She said they liked to bring that tradition with them and enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate major events and get together. I need to get more on this tradition, but it certainly sounds like my adventures with my “wise women” friends who enjoy getting together to provide emotional support through extended conversations and food.
As the day progressed, I actually finished reading my articles, checked my email on Nkidi’s computer, met briefly again with Cycil, and got my own computer connected and ready to go. By the time we left, I was amazed at how “at home” I felt thanks to the friendliness of all those I had met.
One of the challenging things about being in a new country is that, even though things look familiar, they are actually different. Tomorrow is the day I MUST find out how to make an outside call from my telephone. I watched Nkidi do it this morning, but I couldn’t make it work this evening when I got home. I bought a hair dryer yesterday but when I tried to plug the South African hair dryer into the South African outlet, I found that I still needed a round adapter rather than the kinds of adapters I had already purchased. Then there’s the telephone. I took a walk to the shopping area and visited the MTN store. The lovely clerk checked out my sim card and discovered that the phone number encoded on the card had expired. She called to get that number renewed and told me to come back tomorrow so she could enter my registration information. Then I will be able to purchase a modem (that looks like a thumb drive), buy air time for the phone’s sim card that I then convert over into a 2G bundle so that I can operate the modem. I plan to stay in that store tomorrow until she makes sure that I’m doing everything correctly!
Since I’m living on my own, I’m trying to take advantage of watching what I eat, walking around the area which is lovely and part of the campus, and reading rather than watching tv. Of course, I did feel compelled to watch Oprah while cooking my supper that should last 2 more nights, but after that I moved on to reading Constructing Grounded Theory by Kathy Charmaz. I’m hoping to get a research project underway soon, but need to hear from the other members of the department as to what they are doing and where I’m most needed.
Check out the videos of my place at work!
My Office:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/teresatharris7/videos/5/

The view from my office window:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/teresatharris7/videos/6/

The main hall of my building:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/teresatharris7/videos/4/