More recent update

Again, I'm utilizing emails sent to others to update those of you who might be checking this blog even though we haven't had personal email correspondence for a while.

This is a letter from today to former professors at St. Olaf:

24th March, 2011

I hope everything is well on the hill. I can't believe its been almost a year since the class of '10 graduated and dispersed around the world. I think the seniors must have had 100 days march recently, I hope they're really enjoying and taking advantage of their last months at St. Olaf.

Life in Cape Town has been exciting and stimulating and full of beautiful spaces and people. It is truly an amazing place to live, if you ever get the chance to visit, definitely take advantage of it. it is particularly interesting from a sociological and anthropological perspective. I have been attending the University of Cape Town Social Anthropology weekly seminars and have really enjoyed the academic, sociological lens that provides when looking at my surroundings here. It is an amazing department - last week the seminar was visiting professors from University of Chicago Jean and John Comaroff, who spoke about policing the post-colony, and the patterns of crime in the post-apartheid state. I am constantly struck by how recently the constitution was changed and how much has happened since.

I am currently looking for future positions (for after the Fulbright) - hopefully in an entry level position working with survivors of sexual and domestic abuse (following my extended work with SARN). On a related note - this morning I attended the Western Cape on Violence Against Women's general meeting where the topic was sex trafficking and sex workers. It was such an amazing experience to be in a room full of those working for women's human rights, representatives from the SA government and police force, and a number of sex workers as well, all in what was intended as an open forum and platform for discussion surrounding the issues faced by sex workers and to address sex trafficking. It was particularly important to me to see those that are usually marginalized in society (the sex workers) given a voice and a space to express their concerns.

I am doing well with my research, the questionnaire has been distributed and I have about a 50% response rate, which I am hoping will improve after I make follow up phone calls tomorrow. I am in the process of planning my interviews and travel plans as I will be conducting follow-up interviews around the country, this is truly the exciting part of research, when I get to connect with people and hear their stories. I am beginning data entry and preliminary analysis as well - less exciting personally, but potentially very interesting results to come!

I hope things are starting to warm up in the Northern hemisphere - the weather is just starting to cool down here after a wonderful summer. I can hardly believe I have been here over 6 months, the next 3 will surely be a whirlwind with the most intense parts of my research as well as write-up. This has been such a wonderful experience, with a very steep learning curve!

In peace,
Sarah