"The Durbs"

I haven't written much since the World Cup ended, because not much has happened. Durban is much, much quieter now; all the tourists have left. I didn't do much over the weekend - I got a little bit sick. I watched the 3rd-4th place match on my mini-TV at home, while nursing some hot tea and Advil. I didn't feel much better on Sunday, but I still wanted to go to the Fan Park. The combination of my fever and the pouring rain was a pretty big deterrent; Jessica and I ended up trying the restaurant/bar across the street from us, News Cafe. They had a large screen set up on the porch (which was covered) outside, so we took a seat there. They had a menu of entirely World-Cup inspired drinks, from cocktails to “Vuvu-Shooters” (shots in glasses shaped like vuvuzelas). The place became pretty packed, and people were blowing their vuvuzelas incredibly loudly, not minding that the porch was an enclosed area seating lots of people with ears – mine were definitely ringing by the end of the evening. It was one of the more lively crowds at a restaurant/bar, maybe simply because it was the final. The match was incredibly exciting. Though I cheered for the Netherlands, I absolutely acknowledge that Spain played some brilliant soccer. It is telling, though, that they were only able to score once the Dutch were down to 10. For some reason, FIFA decided to proceed with the closing ceremonies before the match, earlier in the day, so I didn't get to watch them live. (It turns out it was a good decision not to go to Durban's Fan Park because, despite the rain, there were 40,000+ people there, and it had to be closed off at 6pm because it had reached capacity.)

I had much more work to do this past week at LRC, so I kept busy at the office. School is back in session in South Africa, so we're finally able to communicate with some of the schools that have written to us to represent them in challenging the school funding procedure. It seems as though, now that the World Cup is over, people all over - the office, Durban, South Africa - are back in work mode; things seem to be getting done a lot faster. With the end of the World Cup, however, also brings increased tension and fear of xenophobic attacks over the country. There hasn't been much disruption in the parts of Durban where I mainly preside, but reports of attacks occurring the second the final whistle blew have been circulating around the office and the papers.

Today was a work day different from most: Jessie and I joined with interns from Legal Aid, LHR, The Black Sash (a women's advocacy group) and Children Refugee Group for a "Diversity Training." The morning sessions were extremely beneficial and informative. I, being the only intern not currently in law school, don't have much of a background on International and Human Rights Law, and we spent the morning reviewing things like the Geneva Convention, CAT, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the OAU and the South African Constitution. It may have review for the rest of the interns, but I definitely appreciated the sessions. I even came up with two new debate cases from the things I learned and the case study we all did together. After lunch, we engaged in exercises which were aimed at tackling prejudice, promoting diversity and understanding, and looking introspectively at our core values. I found the exercises to be a bit childish and they reminded me of workshops I led in high school as the head of Brearley's Diversity Committee, but they were somewhat interesting.

The exercise I found to be the most valuable (no pun intended... you'll see why in a second) was when we were asked to rank our own personal values. We were given a sheet of paper with a long list of values - all values that every person thinks are good and sound - and told to rank the 5 values that were most important to us and the 5 that were least. I found the latter to be an easier task, whereas winding the values I cared about the most down to just 5 was more difficult than I had anticipated. In the end, the 5 values I found to be least important were: Inner Harmony, Obedience, Time, Creativity and Location. The 5 values I found to be the most important were: Independence, Ambition, Friendship/Family, Recognition and Leaving a Legacy. When reflecting on my choices, I realized that my values might not make me seem like the best person, but, in the end, realized that those were indeed all things that mean a great deal to me. To make myself feel a little bit better, I thought of "good" people who encompassed these values, and came up with some very good examples, role models even. The exercise made me realize that values, by virtue of being values, are inherently good (because a value is defined as such), but many of them, if not all, can be perverted and transformed into negative harms. Ambition, for example, can lead to selfishness, independence can lead to crassness and loneliness, and cherishing ones friends and family too much can even lead to dependency or frailty. Everything we value, all of our virtues, though when untainted are always good, must be controlled and reflected upon, to avoid the corruption of our character. Without reflection, an actor can act in a terrible manner, but can convince himself he is acting on one of his core values, not realizing that it is no longer virtuous. I suppose the exercise was more interesting than I had originally realized, and maybe even a good exercise for us all to undertake every now and again.

I ate very well tonight: a sirloin steak with creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. An old au-pair of mine, Bente, is in Durban for a wedding, so we went out to dinner together tonight (and Monday as well, to a very excellent Italian restaurant). Tomorrow, Jessie and I are driving to Transkei (The Wild Coast). The excursion started off as an excuse for Jessie to hang out with a friend who will be there as well, but I decided to tag along, as the region is said to be very beautiful and holds some good hiking paths. We'll be back Sunday night.