ICTM Conference Part 2

I apologize for the delay in the second part of this post!  I have managed to catch my first African cold!  I’ve been somewhat bed-ridden and I cannot readily access wifi from my room where I’m staying.  But a number of colleagues here have helped me find good South African medicine.  All the brands are obviously different, but I think some of the active ingredients also have different names here.  It is just so cold in Grahamstown this week, and no buildings have central cooling or heating.  The cold just never ends!  It is down in the 40s Fahrenheit each night and is very windy and dry.  Makes it tough to get better when you just can’t ever warm up!  But I’m feeling much better today compared to the first days of this week.

So the conference began with presentations in East London.  We then were bussed to a town called Alice, which is the location of the main campus of University of Fort Hare, our host.  We only stayed there during the day one day and then moved on to Hogsback, which is a really beautiful mountainous region in South Africa.  Though it was winter, most of the time it was warm enough to leave the space heater off.  It was quite mild, almost like Appalachia in the late spring (intentional Aaron Copland reference).  The lodge where I stayed was called "Away with the Fairies," and all the buildings were named after characters in Lord of the Rings by Tolkein!  Supposedly (although he is of English descent) he was born only a short distance from Hogsback, and the mountains in this area are cited for helping to inspire him to write about "Middle Earth."  Don't be too jealous, Mom!

There is a hot bath built into the mountain side for guests at
Away with the Fairies.

By this time in the conference, I had made friends with some really cool people presenting at the conference.  Pictured left to right here are Marie-Christine Parent, Zack and Jocelyn Moon (a married couple from Seattle!).  Here we are standing outside our hostel in Hogsback enjoying some coffee we brewed in our own filter in our room.  Here the default is instant coffee, so if you want actually brewed coffee, you must specify “filter” coffee.  But even then it isn’t always good or cheap.  So these friends and I invested in a portable filter that mounts on a mug, as well as some of our own coffee to use to make really strong, good coffee.  It was a bonding moment!

Jocelyn Moon is a PhD candidate for Ethnomusicology at Univ of Washington, presenting on a trend of learning Zimbabwean Mbira music via YouTube.  Pretty cool!  Her husband, Zack, is an accomplished musician and a “dependent scholar”- he has no post-secondary degree but is incredibly learned in ethnomusicology, as well as an avid performer.  The coolest part about these guys is that they are both presenting in Tanzania at the conference to which Diane and I are going!  Then they are going to the same festival in Chamwino, TZ, and then are also going to Zanzibar afterwards!  Finally, they are going to Zimbabwe to do preliminary interest research on Mbira music.  Point being, we have almost the exact same travel route up until I go to Kenya and they go to Zim, but we never met until we got to Africa!  It is exciting to have two American travel buddies to just be able to relate to and hang out with.  And they’ve both traveled in Africa before, so they also have some experience.  I am so thankful for them!! 

There were lots of great presentations in Hogsback about Ethnomusicology & Public Policy, a university with a ground-breaking Bachelor’s in African Traditional music & dance, and others.  Our last night there, we even got a presentation from Dave Dargie again on a special tradition of overtone singing that is currently only carried on by two women, as far as experts know.  It was a cool experience! 

The conference closed up and we headed out to Grahamstown, where I’ve been for the past week.  Grahamstown post to come!!!

ICTM Conference Part 1

Music Building of Univ Fort Hare in East London

It has been a week!   In Africa, it feels like a month.  I’ve had the privilege of attending the International Conference of Traditional Music Applied Ethnomusicology Study Group this week.  This is a sub-group of a large organization that specifically convenes to discuss ways that studying different music cultures can be applied to our world and our society in ways that can improve the lives of those affected.  Specific people are invited to come and present their most current research to the group to hopefully push the field forward. Most of these people are well established in the field of ethnomusicology (unlike me) and have or are about to have a PhD (unlike me).  I was the token undergraduate at the conference. 

Photo from a boat cruise on the Nahoon River on
one of the evenings of the conference.  Trio on the right:
Jean-Claude (originally from Congo), Jennifer K. Newsome
(Australia), and Gregory Melchor-Barz (Vanderbilt Univ)

There were literally professors from every continent except Antarctica.  And there were only about 30 people there, so I genuinely got to know these people.  Some were directors of programs, one wrote a grade school text book on African music (Mandy Carver!), another edited an internationally famous book on ethnomusicology (Shadows in the Field, Gregory Melchor-Barz), another was the first to discover and document a specific music culture in South Africa (Dave Dargie).  It was unreal!  These people are a big deal, and I am so lucky to have even been in the same room as them!  I know some of my professors will be envious. 

I really enjoyed hearing from all these professors about the different projects each has coming up.  I particularly enjoyed the presentation by Prof Diane Thram, the professor with whom I am interning this summer.  It was cool to hear our plans presented by her to her colleagues, and to hear their reactions!   I had no idea what I was signing up for!  It is really an exciting project. 

This week was a great time to get to know Prof Thram a little bit more as well.  We spoke many times, I was able to help her out in some different tasks throughout the week, and we have plans to start meeting and preparing next week for our trip(s).

Andy Morris and I on my last morning
in East London

The conference started in East London.  I said goodbye to the Chins as they headed back to America, and I moved in with Gwen and Andy Morris.  Andy is pictured here.  They were incredibly gracious to me, bent on my fully experiencing the joys of South Africa.  They even went so far as to prepare some Ostrich steaks one night.  Ostrich is red meat!  Figure that out!

The conference then migrated to a place called Alice, where University of Fort Hare is based.  We got to see a number of cool archives and buildings there dealing with ethnomusicology- including the archive of the ANC political party, dating back to South African independence and earlier.  We also heard an incredible keynote address by Angela Impey of the University of London about on-going fieldwork in South Sudan.

We then moved on to stay the night in a place called Hogsback, which is up in mountains.  More to come!

Goodbye Gonubie!

I'm saying goodbye to an incredible little family I've had the chance to be a part of for the weekend.  Here I am, posing for what looks like could be a family Christmas card (it is winter here, after all!).  The people in this are- from right to left- Miss Laura, her daughter Shirley, Taylor Chin, me- next level up- Miss Barbara, Miss Beth Chin- next level up- Mr. Don Chin, and finally Miss Shelley!  Laura and Barbara are two sisters that have been hosting myself and the chins for the past few days.  They have been incredibly generous and sweet to not only the Chins, but a complete stranger like me!  We have enjoyed some great meals and lots of laughs.  They are like the sassy grandmas with English accents that you wish you had.

It is sad to say bye to my friends, the Chins, but they get to go back to America tomorrow to see family and friends!  They have really helped me settle in so well, from teaching me lingo to helping me get a phone plan to helping me get some last minute passport photos to even finding me accommodation for my time in East London after they leave.  All this while trying to move their whole life back to the United States in 15 suitcases!  They are pretty amazing, and I feel so blessed to have had them here to be my greeting committee.

Tomorrow I will be attending my first day of my first conference- the International Conference of Traditional Music.  It starts at University of Fort Hare located here at the East London campus.  Wednesday we will be bussed to a small town called Alice where the next two days of the conference will meet.  We'll actually be sleeping in a town called Hogsback that is nearby.  It is up in the mountains and is supposed to be absolutely beautiful.  Then Friday we will head into Grahamstown, where I will be for the next 10 nights.  Don't know when I will next have wifi.  Cheers!

East London... and/or Gonubie!!

Been a couple days since a post!  It has been tricky tracking down wifi here in South Africa.  But I have had possibly the best first three days that anyone could ask for.  I am staying with the Chin family, Jacksonville natives that have been in East London as missionaries for the past year and a half.  Ironically, my first days here are their last before they head back to the states.  So thankful for them hosting me and helping me around the city to prepare for my stay here.  

I spent the night in the Johannesburg airport Thursday night.  It was pretty miserable.  After many warnings from different friends, I decided to stay awake all night, so as to not put my bags at risk of being stolen.  I ended up making a friend that I hope to see again when I travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania!  By the way, Mom, you were right- it's Tan-zane-ee-uh.  Ugh.  My mother is ALWAYS right.

I have spent the weekend in a town called Gonubie, which is an incredible beach community outside of East London.  As Miss Beth Chin says, South Africa has very stark contrasts between areas of first world and third world.  I have spent my weekend in the former.  I have too many breath-taking pictures of this area to post.  Because the Chins are leaving tomorrow for the States, they have already moved out of their home here.  We are all guests in this unbelievable home that is on a point surrounded by the Indian Ocean.  Each day there are dolphins and whales in the water in front of the home.  It is quite surreal.

This morning I got to attend church with the Chins, as well as go lead a Sunday school class in a nearby township called Mzamomhle.  It is a community of extreme poverty in which they have been serving for the past year and a half.  And- you know me- if there are cute children around, I'm taking selfies!  The children were incredibly sweet, although they understood very little of what I had to say.  We exchanged drum beats and grins.

The community was built to host 1200 people but has since become a home to over 40,000.  These are some pretty standard "homes."

It has been really moving to get to be here with the Chins as they say their farewells to all of their friends in Gonubie, East London, and Mzamomhle.  I am so blessed to be here with them at this time!  And although they are leaving tomorrow, they have even made housing arrangements for me for after they have left!  The ICTM conference starts tomorrow at University of Fort Hare in downtown East London.  I will be staying with Gwen and Andy Morris- more people the Chins and I know from Jacksonville!  It is incredible to have friends to host and support me all over the world!

From the O.R. Tambo International Airport!

I have arrived in South Africa!  I got onto my 7:33 PM ET time flight yesterday in Atlanta, Georgia and I arrived today in Johannesburg at 5:00 PM Local Time (6 hours ahead).  The flight was just over 14 hours in total.  Everything went very smoothly!  It was a Boeing 777 and I was economy class.  Bonus points~ I was by the window, a man was by the aisle, and there was NO ONE IN BETWEEN. Those 14 hours could have been a lot more miserable with the third person!  Thanks again, to Shelby Ellis and her incredible parents for not only allowing me to use their standby flight, but also for constantly strategizing with me to make sure I got on the right flight!  Love you guys!!

On the plane, I sat a seat away [not necessarily next to! :) ] a man by the name of Charles Eisenhower.  He was a grandfather, and electrical engineer, and currently works for the state department of the US inspecting the physical security of Embassies all over the world!  He was on his way to Jburg to connect to Swaziland, where he will actually be meeting up with his brother to work on his next project.  We had some great conversation, and he had incredible insight for my travels, as he has seen much of the world in his work.  It turns out that 8 generations back, he has a common ancestor to the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower.  I meant to thank him for our Interstate Highway System...

I was able to move my next flight from Saturday @ 10AM to tomorrow @ 8:30AM local time.  This way I only have to spend one night in Jburg.  I can check in my check bag at 4 AM, so I'll probably hang around until then, check my bag, go through security to the gate, and then try to take a nap before my flight.  It's about 8 PM as I write this.  More later!

Side note:  the O.R. Tambo is possibly the darkest place ever. Makes me feel REAL safe.  PSYCH.

Flying out a day early!!!

My flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg is a direct flight through Delta.  But one of my best friends let me use her parents' airline benefits to fly standby on the flight for a reduced cost.  It is an incredible blessing, and it made other parts of the trip possible with less financial constraint.

HOWEVER.

Standby flights mean you only get to fly if there is a vacant seat on the plane.  When we initally booked my flight for Thursday at 7:33 PM, there were 48 seats vacant on the plane.  When we checked it again yesterday, there was only 1 vacant seat left!  And I was the third priority standby passenger!!  There are some cancellations typically, so I might have been able to get on the flight still, but it is a risk that could have cost me over $1000 in re-booking flights.

My friend figured out an incredible alternate plan!  She looked and saw that if I got the same flight, but on Wednesday (a day earlier!), there were still 40 seats available on the plane!  That means that I had a really great chance of getting on that flight.

It took some serious hustle to get all my errands done yesterday that I was planning on splitting over two days.  But I did it!  Even more treacherous- my mother and step-father just got in from working for a year in southeast asia, and we had planned on them driving me up to Atlanta on Thursday so they could see me more in the car.  Well now, after flying in at 6 PM, running errands with me, and then sleeping only a few hours, they are still about to drive with me up to Atlanta!!  So ridiculous!  They are unreal.

So I stayed up all night packing, and now am getting ready to meet up with them for the long haul up to the ATL!  Here's to hoping I didn't forget any crucial items on my to-do list that will prevent me from being able to get on the plane!

On the News!

I'm sure many of you already saw my Facebook or Instagram post, but Monday, June 23rd, I was on First Coast News for my fundraising website through gofundme.com !  Apparently FCN (the local NBC affiliate) was planning to do this story about gofundme, so they contacted the marketing director of gofundme to suggest to the reporter some exemplary projects from the Jacksonville area.  Last week, I got an email from this marketing director, asking if it was alright if they gave the reporter my information for an interview.  I, of course, said yes!  But I also clarified that I was leaving within the next week and asked if they could pass that information on as well.  The staff from gofundme was so nice!

Then on Monday, I had just finished speaking for an orientation session on campus when the reporter called me, asking if she could come interview me that afternoon!  It was about 3 when she called, and she said she would be there to interview me at 4:15.  She said to make sure I brought a guitar.  I didn't have one with me, so I had to call a friend to bring me one, as I no longer live on campus.  The reporter showed up, I spoke about my experience with gofundme, they took some shots of me playing, and then they left!  I feel like the whole interview lasted about 10 minutes.

ANYWAY.  Link is attached!

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/features/2014/06/24/jacksonville-go-fund-me-campaigns/11296949/