And so continues the process of preparing for my travels to Cape Town.
Ozayr has agreed to be my mentor for my trip. I'm really happy about this as he's very knowledgeable about South Africa having grown up there and extremely helpful. My sister Julie also recommended that I speak with Myron Orfield, who she had as a professor here at the U's law school. He is also the head of the Institute of Race and Poverty at the U, and he studies many of the issues that I want to research in Cape Town - segregation, revitalization, housing, etc. Looking at his work on the website, it's really interesting. There's a ton of information about the Twin Cities area - maps showing standardized test passage rates of segregated high schools, percentage of school children eligible for free lunch, race by area of high crimes... basically a lot of stuff that I find interesting. (I wrote my junior paper for high school on the topic of racial segregation in public schools.) I spent quite a bit of time perusing the information online for the IRP and it's SO what I'm interested in. Speaking to Myron should be helpful in terms of establishing the framework of my research. In other words, clarifying exactly what I'm going to be doing: what questions I am going to ask and how I am going to do it. I plan on meeting with him soon, hopefully in the next week or so, as well as with Ozayr.
I found out that at least one of my fellow architecture students that I mentioned in my last post will be coming to South Africa after her work in Malawi. It's not for certain yet that she'll come to Cape Town (she may go to different cities), but if she does it will be fun to show her around. Also, another girl I know from soccer back in Winona is there now studying at UCT and will be there when I arrive, so hopefully we'll meet up.
It was my mom's birthday today, so I called her to wish her a good one. We talked about my trip, and that I might be missing some important family events (seeing my niece who will be born in May if my brother and his family come to Minnesota while I'm gone, my sister's graduation from law school, a family get-together on the Fourth). Of course I'm sad to maybe be missing these. My mom said that while it's unfortunate that I may have to miss these significant things, that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Yes, I realize that, but it was good to hear her say that herself. When I first told her I won the fellowship, she was concerned about me going completely alone to South Africa of all places. (A few years ago she was extremely concerned when I drove to Indianapolis completely alone because she was worried for my safety.)
Today my group from my housing class met to work on the project. The project involves going around a St. Paul neighborhood (we have the Sunray - Battle Creek one) and evaluating foreclosed homes. We have to rate each house's physical quality for things like foundation, doors/windows, roof, siding, etc. The information we collect is going to be used by the City of St. Paul, so that's cool. Anyway, it was crazy some of what we saw. Some of the houses were in VERY rough condition. One even had the front door off its hinges and literally hanging wide open. We could see into the interior of the house. It was crazy. I'd be willing to bet that house has seen some drug activity.
Many of the houses have sat empty since they were foreclosed upon, but others have since been repurchased and are now occupied. I found it really interesting because this isn't stuff I saw growing up in Winona. Plus, the fact that these houses are completely empty and have been for years - but so many homeless go without shelter; it is a sad irony. I recently read that the number of foreclosures in many metropolitan areas in the US outnumber the homeless. That's crazy! It is a crazy epidemic, foreclosure, and it leaves the question - what is to become of these houses? They have been unoccupied, even during a huge housing boom with record sales. Now that the market is in strong depression, their chances of being repurchased and occupied are even lower. Something is going to need to be done with these houses - it's going to come down to a huge need for neighborhood revitalization. That's one of my huge interests... and it's exactly what I'm going to be studying in Cape Town.
I have a million more things I could write about, but I'll save them for my next post.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment or contact me about this all at any time.
