University of Pretoria (again)

The following blog post was written on the evening of the 23^rd July. Due to technological restrictions it was posted at a later date.

We went back to the University of Pretoria today for a few briefings…but since we were a little early for our meetings we had some free time on campus to eat and hang out. It was definitely some interesting people watching.

Until the 1930’s English was the primary educational language of the institution, but during the 1930’s growing Afrikaans nationalism led to the deletion of English from the institution. It was not until the 1990’s that courses began to be taught in English again. Following the end of apartheid in 1994 the campus began to admit Black students. Now, the campus seems to be fairly integrated-although, after sitting and watching for a few hours you begin to notice that most of the students sitting in groups by race in the student union eating.

The students seemed considerably wealthier than at the University of Free State-Qwaqwa, which we visited a few days ago. In fact, it felt like a lot of American University campuses I’ve been on: Mike found the invitation to the Drinking Olympics, we saw a guy on a unicycle, and there were some guys wearing strange uniforms.

Our last meeting of the day was with Tony (sorry, missed his last name) who discussed with South Africans water concerns. He was an energetic speaker who gave us new information about topics we’ve been discussing throughout the past weeks while in South Africa and Lesotho.

Southern Africa is incredibly dry, only 1% of rain water becomes part of the stream system in an area that gets very little rain. This part of South Africa (Joburg/Petoria) differ from the other major cities around the world in that it wasn’t built on a waterway. Most cities used coastal areas or rivers as natural locations for cities, using the resources the water provided to build up the city. This part of South Africa, however, was never planned but grew out of the mining industry. In fact, Joburg (which is the largest city in the region) was only meant to be a small mining stop but with the discovery of diamonds all that changed. Today, although Johannesburg provides 25% of the countries employment opportunities, it is 100% dependant on external sources for water. For these reasons, the Lesotho Highlands Water Authority and the water provided by it is incredibly important.

Another thing we learned is that although South Africa is dependent upon Lesotho for the water, Lesotho is dependent upon the dam project for the electricity is provides-making it impractical for Lesotho to try to withhold water during any potential conflicts that could occur between the two countries. In addition, water recycling, desalination, and potential dam projects were all discussed.

Overall, it was nice to listen to somebody who was so obviously passionate about his job. He did a great job stressing the importance of creativity and innovation in order to solve the water shortage problem.