The Lily Issue

After another walk in the Botanical Gardens where I felt like a private detective snooping around taking photographs while couples lounged in the sun, I was pleasantly struck by the amount of lilies that populated the waters edge. This thought then led to the realisation that this meant an increase in beggars or hawkers who would be selling these handpicked lilies on the side walks. This then led to a smile because of how grateful I felt toward the hawkers who take their time to pick flowers from the edge of any water source in Grahamstown. This would mean that I could finally afford to buy flowers to brighten my dreary room.

My boyfriend, after handing over a bunch of flowers and witnessing the love that suddenly poured out of me, asked what the fascination is with flowers. I replied that it was a cheap and easy way to remind us of how much you care and so forth. He scoffed at this because he said that the bouquet had cost him R100 and so would not be able to continue this gesture on a regular basis. I realised that once again the ‘love’ industry has managed to exploit something that we should be getting for free and so although the hawkers exploit the natural resources for their own gain, at least it is only costs us R5 or R10. But I know that the price should be the least of our concerns and that we should all begin to learn to love flowers in their natural environment because there is so little left.

Emotional and physical hangover

One night out in Grahamstown and a severe hangover later, I am walking desperately (at seven in the morning) in an attempt to get away, to move, to do something to distract myself from my physical and emotional hangover. It's only about the fifth time that I have gone out in Grahamstown and every morning after, I feel the same isolation and desperation. It honestly takes a night out in this place to remind you that you need to get out of here, pronto! A night out is destined to leave you hanging in some way or another, either because you have consumed too much alcohol just to survive the repetitive bull or because you realise how very depressing the culture of drinking is and the individuals that are spawned from it. I am no better than they because I too fall into my tequila with haste and every time promise myself that this is the last, but then do it again and again without a moment of hesitation. I do not know if my feelings are that of admiration or disbelief toward the students who diligently go out every single weekend. The way I feel right now renders me speechless because if I had to subject myself to such physical and emotional abuse on a regular basis I would not survive.

I guess that I understand why this is the norm because technically that is all you can do at Rhodes and as research has shown there is practically no activities for students who prefer to walk the straight and narrow. But it is so frustrating that our options as students are so limited but what's even more disappointing is that the majority of us don't seem to mind and so are destined to wake up with emotional and phyiscal hangovers. I just worry that this is what students live for at the end of every week. Is the system to blame or are us students as pathetic as everyone thinks we are?