The Final Countdown...

It is the beginning of the end! I still have three weeks here, but this is the last week that I will be in my house... very sad to think about! We have until the 30th and then we are supposedly moving into a lodge in Observatory (and by we I mean Lizzy, Becca, Tim, Ken, and myself... Brian and Sam are going to Church Street and Gray is going to Alma... last I heard). I think this is especially funny because early on in the semester a UCT student was murdered in Observatory and a very hastily written and somewhat incorrect e-mail was written to our parents about the event, which most of us in the program don't really think was necessary... anyhow, in this e-mail, it said something to the effect of 'our students don't spend time in Obs' and it is about an 8 minute drive... FALSE. We go to Obs often enough and it is a five minute or less WALK. And now we are living there for a week? Interesting... I mean I'm not really afraid of being there for the most part, at least not more so than I would be just about anywhere else in the area, but I just think it is great that that's where we are going after all that in February...
It's kind of depressing to pack everything, even though I'm not leaving just yet. It's still weird because this is my house that I've lived in all semester and now I have to go live in Obs. And while I am looking forward to some things about going home (free internet, cell phone, food, people, summertime), it is going to be hard to leave. I think I will miss a few people here more than I thought I would, and there are so many things about South Africa in general that I will miss very much... the fact that I'm not really going home to much just makes it harder... everyone will be gone and I may or may not even have a job.
In other news, there have been several strikes lately... as usual. Apparently there is a wage dispute with the company that UCT uses in it's cafeteria and workers have been striking on campus. UCT says that it doesn't control the wages, but rather the company that they have the contract with... kind of like Sodexo at Transy I would assume. Well people don't care and they are pretty angry! They are all over the place on campus. Today I went to Tugwell on Lower Campus to take a Jammie to Upper so I could take my Xhosa exam and I was stopped and I had to show a UCT ID because a group of protesters went into some of the buildings on campus and vandalised a cafeteria and were harassing people. And since they are all striking, students don't have anything to eat so UCT has been giving them vouchers to use on and off campus. We went to Pick & Pay (a grocery store here) a few days ago and it was COMPLETE chaos.