While writing this I’m sitting on the floor of Cape Town International Airport, waiting for my flight home. Our flight has already been delayed by forty-five minutes, which makes me really nervous about our connection in JFK. Hopefully everything will be ok and I won’t lose my luggage. Anyways I didn’t get a chance to blog yesterday and I do have some notes about what happened and so I’ll start with yesterday…
First thing in the morning we went off to the UCT campus again to talk with Steve Vosloo(spelling?) and Maryanne Walton. During this talk we discussed key points from our research and had a conversation about the feasibility of what we’re trying to do. Which all and all was great conversation that challenged us to defend what we’re doing. Afterwards we had lunch at the UCT café and afterwards we had another conversation with a guy named Gary Marsden. He was a really interesting fellow who is trying to invigorate the gaming industry in South Africa. He’s sort of like the Ann of UCT, and even had a center called the ICT4D (I’m not sure my notes are correct in this but I have it meaning, Information Communitive Technology for Development). We had a great talk about the mobile market here in Africa and really how viral things can be amongst the townships. What was really funny was that he said that he had spent some time in New Hampshire, and when questioned about it I found out that he worked for Story Land!!! Haha I just found this pretty funny, and sort of strange about just how small the world really can be.
Afterwards we returned to 40 Winks to have a talk with a lady (whom I forget her name at the moment) who is deeply involved with animators around Cape Town and is trying to invigorate the industry here as well. What I really took away from this talk was, not only more information about how we could possibly go about our game, but we also talked about how big and hard this project really is. She called us “brave” which I thought was pretty interesting.
I’ve found in many of the conversations we’ve had with academics her e in South Africa, they are sort of taken back by our objectives and goals, but also equally as taken back by our findings and our knowledge of gaming and learning.
First thing in the morning we went off to the UCT campus again to talk with Steve Vosloo(spelling?) and Maryanne Walton. During this talk we discussed key points from our research and had a conversation about the feasibility of what we’re trying to do. Which all and all was great conversation that challenged us to defend what we’re doing. Afterwards we had lunch at the UCT café and afterwards we had another conversation with a guy named Gary Marsden. He was a really interesting fellow who is trying to invigorate the gaming industry in South Africa. He’s sort of like the Ann of UCT, and even had a center called the ICT4D (I’m not sure my notes are correct in this but I have it meaning, Information Communitive Technology for Development). We had a great talk about the mobile market here in Africa and really how viral things can be amongst the townships. What was really funny was that he said that he had spent some time in New Hampshire, and when questioned about it I found out that he worked for Story Land!!! Haha I just found this pretty funny, and sort of strange about just how small the world really can be.
Afterwards we returned to 40 Winks to have a talk with a lady (whom I forget her name at the moment) who is deeply involved with animators around Cape Town and is trying to invigorate the industry here as well. What I really took away from this talk was, not only more information about how we could possibly go about our game, but we also talked about how big and hard this project really is. She called us “brave” which I thought was pretty interesting.
I’ve found in many of the conversations we’ve had with academics her e in South Africa, they are sort of taken back by our objectives and goals, but also equally as taken back by our findings and our knowledge of gaming and learning.
We were also able to finish off the night at this really neat “Cuban” restaurant down “Long Street,” which seemed to be pretty perfect for our final night here in Africa. The food was good, the atmosphere was amazing, and there couldn’t have been more smiles… or dancing… Ann always seems to work that into whatever trip we go on!
Ok as far as today goes we woke this morning to venture up Table Mountain. The morning was a bit too foggy to go all the way to the top, and so we went parts of the way up and took some pretty awesome pictures overlooking Cape Town. From there we went to this awesome like Harbor area where there were several street venders selling goods and a guy with a Seal… no joke a guy hanging out with a seal.
Afterwards we went to a Rape Crisis clinic, which was both good and bad. I’m not sure I’ve shared in the past how much crimes of rape and child abuse bothers me, but it does… ironically after taking on this project huh? Anyways we got some really great information, and insight as to why such things happen and the culture enabling it. From there it’s a pretty easy story, lunch, grabbing luggage, and well now I’m here at the airport. It’s raining like crazy outside, I just saw a luggage box blown off of it’s cart, and yea… it’s just a little bit cruddy. I’m still nervous, flights to where we’re headed go every three days… so yea this could be interesting!
I’ve been really trying hard to put into words how exactly this trip has been but in all reality there is no possible way I could describe that this trip was like. I was talking about it last night with Keith and Brian about this trip and how its really turned this project into something else for all of us. This is no longer just a flaky concept, this has become real for us. I can’t help but feel like it’s bigger then “just a game” and much bigger than any of us. We now have a face to Africa, and it’s exciting how much we all feel for it now. I still find it somewhat scary because, in my opinion, we can’t let this fail. Too much is at stake and too much good can come of this to let it slide. This is so far different than anything we’ve ever done (of course I’m making generalizations about the group), but this is bigger than any sort of class project where a grade is at stake. Thinking about returning to school and starting a new semester seems somewhat silly, as important as school really is to me, this is just… well I don’t want to say more important because I don’t want anyone to get the wrong opinion, I’ll still be diligent about my work at school, but this is something that will seep it’s way deeply into my life and has already seeped it’s way into who I am.
Before I left I blogged about changing, I knew that this trip would be pretty big, and I knew that I didn’t know just how big it was going to be. Epic would be an understatement about the scale of this trip, I’m still reeling with finally having a moment to try to think about some of the information we’ve received. I’m not going to lie, Its been a tiring journey because we’ve done so much in such little time, with no real time for processing all of this information. It should prove interesting these next couple of weeks as we all begin to really think about it all and remember things we didn’t pick up on while we were here. I’m beyond lucky in life, and this trip… has meant a lot to me in my own personal journey. As much as we learn about others, sometimes it’s good to recognize how much we learn about ourselves. So much this week I’ve introduced myself as a Senior Artist at Champlain College… I’m a Senior… This is it… what will I be in two semesters? Who will I have become? Will I have a job? Will I leave these amazing projects behind? Could I really?
As it is now I should finish up this post, I’ll probably be posting this by the time I’m already back in the states. I feel like I should say thank you or some other words of insight here but words have escaped me…
Thank you South Africa.
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