Meaningless Mutterings About the University of Stellenbosch

I have been spending my days at the University of Stellenbosch’s main library where I work on job applications — a full-time occupation — and do research. I get a free ride from Athlone to Stellenbosch and back every day and try to make the most of it. The campus is a pleasant and seemingly quite a privileged place. The students look like and have the same mannerisms and habits of students in North America, where I taught for six years, with one exception — some of them come to campus barefoot! At first I saw a few males stumble about without shoes but always thought they were on some type of mind-altering substance or that it was an initiation rite of some sort. Today, I saw three female on separate occasions students slouch around without shoes on. (Can one actually slouch barefoot?) In the US I have had students walk into class wearing pajamas pants. Barefoot in winter, really? These were apparently not poor kids. They were, well, white kids with all the de rigueur middle class accoutrements: cell phones, expensive designer shirts, the one with the little guy wielding a long-stemmed mallet while ride a horse, frat buy sunglasses and silvery wristwatches.

Anyway, two things that have stood out have amazed me, and another has been terribly annoying. I forgot just how predominant Afrikaans was at the University of Stellenbosch and how central rugby was to the institution. I am enjoying the immersion into Afrikaans. In the student centre Neelsie, rugby matches are constantly replayed on television. Intermittently around campus I see burley young males walking on crutches which in my mind conjures images of my own pitiful attempts at being a scrumhalf all those years ago and being tackled by rather earnest fellows without front teeth names Gakkie or Dullah or Gregory. I would get up every time and watch them run off grinning with delight while I would wipe a streak of snot and tears across my face.

What has been terribly annoying is that I have not been able to get access to the internet. Even the basic access to the university catalogue is painfully slow and restrictive. I can get onto scholar Google but very often beyond that I am blocked by what the balding fellow with thick rimmed glasses might call a “firewall”. Today I tried to access a dataset from an economic research institute in the US. I got to the site via scholar Google, but had to register. I entered my email address but the balding-guy-with-the-thick-rimmed-glasses thingy said I couldn’t do that! So, I am looking for a job but can’t check my email anywhere at a publicly funded institution, nor can I access research resources completely.

Now there are many large issues to be concerned about or to get mad about in the world, but I really can’t prevent the United States’ next war. I can, however, make the point that a publicly funded institution should have at least some public access to resources. Maybe I have become spoilt. Maybe the direct access to public resources I have had elsewhere in the world was an aberration. At my last place of employment any member of the public could walk into the library, sit down at any computer and use it to their heart’s delight. Well, that’s not entirely true. There was a set of Macs reserved for Media students; there would be, wouldn’t there not? But the point is that at my former place of employment any member of the public could enter and use any of the resources, get onto the internet, check out a DVD (watch it on a large flat screen TV in the library) and print out free of charge up to three pages at a time. Just like that! And THAT was a private institution. Of course, when essay deadlines loomed or during exam time, the large guy with the mouldy beard wearing sweatpants and an I Heart Jesus t-shirt who does research on UFOs, was asked to move to a desktop reserved for the public. At Stellenbosch I can’t get onto the internet, and two days ago it took two librarians/attendants 20 minutes to take a payment, enter it into the cash register and crash the damn thing then walk over to the where I could print out the THREE PAGES, for the grand sum of R1.20 (the paper jam caused by the cash register malfunction probably cost that much to operate) and explain to the student at the information desk that: “Hierdie meneer kan maar drie bladsye print.” Phew.

Connect me to the internet! I have to be registered as a student. I am no longer a student. I am doing research for a paper that I expect to present at a conference (at Stellenbosch) and I am working a job application which will be submitted to Stellenbosch! Whatever happened to the “Visiting Scholar” thing that was so easy in other parts of the world? But seriously, there are worse things in life…. I just wish someone would tell me what the fascination is with going barefoot in winter. I grew up really poor, but when I had shoes and it was winter, I wore them. I remember them well; they were black Bata Toughees (was that the name?), and at one point they were held together at the back with copper wire. Those were the days. I don’t miss them.