It's been a day for fire.
It started this morning (8 am!) when I met with the Dean, and two English-translating people, Victor and Doris, about the redesign of the university's website. Nicolas asked me to describe the process we might use - and I immediately launched into a description of human-centered design (a review for him) and how we might do it. AND how we might involve the Masters students in the process - helping them to learn AND getting the job done well. He's excited about this as am I!
Doris and I spent the morning planning (or should I say plotting?) We mapped out the early steps in some detail - more to be done next week. I need to confirm this with Karla of course, but overall, I think it's going to be great. PLUS Nicolas agreed that we could use one of the walls in the main hallway for the data analysis phase. The tentative plan is to do a visit study and collect field data. Then, we'll do the analysis. We're going to do affinity diagramming followed by paper prototyping, usability evaluations and, of course, additional iterations as needed (expected). You know me - I love colors - so we'll use many colors of sticky notes and by doing it in the hallway, the rest of the faculty will be able to see how it looks. The colors are natural attractants.
I'm floating about 10 ft above the ground! I'm so happy to get to work with Doris and Elba and the other Masters students - and I'm thrilled that I can help them with this task.
Elba had classes today but we had planned to grab a bite to eat together after work, so we left kind of late. As we left the building we smelled smoke, and as we drove through the gates of the university, we saw dense smoke up on the hills. Then, much to our horror, we saw that there were huge flames leaping into the air. I thought at first that it was my apartment building but luckily for me it was not. But the flames were huge and the smoke was billowing, filling the valley in an almost surreal way. There was a traffic jam that we thought might be related to it and at that point, Elba wondered aloud if perhaps they were evacuating a nearby area - the homes behind the Super99 market. Way too close for comfort! Mentally I started an evacuation checklist.
By the time we got to the pizza place, though, the flames seemed to have been tamed at least a little, and not only were the other diners seemingly unconcerned, so also the TV, which was on, did not have any breaking news updates.
So we relaxed, ordered and ate a delicious pizza.
Then Elba left me at my apartment. As soon as I got upstairs, I had another look and now, the fires appeared to be building again. One seemed to be leaping up to the top of the ridge, while another had cloned itself, and the two fires were blazing adjacent to each other.
So there I was: An American with very limited Spanish on the 18th floor wondering what I should do. And being very scared.
However, the Girl Scout in me thought "Be Prepared" so I put my essential meds into a bag, and packed up the contents of the safe (passport mainly), packed up my briefcase (while charging phone and computer) and I decided to keep checking on the fires. I checked frequently for about several more hours as the fires morphed and ran and damped down only to rise up again in an adjacent spot. I decided that if the fires got close to the homes across the way, I would go downstairs with my "bail bags" - but then what? I have no car nor do I have any place I can go, except perhaps the University - but surely the doors to our building would be locked. And it's not very far away either, so surely it, too, would be at risk in such a conflagration. I considered calling the Embassy, but realized that they are in Clayton, far away from where I am, and, unless there was something broadcast by the fire department, they were unlikely to have any more information. I also considered going to the Embassy if the fire advanced and I had to leave, but again, wondered how I would get there, assuming that all the taxis would be full.
It was tense. And scary!
Luckily, there was a happy ending for me anyway. Over the course of many hours, the flames finally were quenched and have stayed quenched for the past hour, so I feel comfortable going to bed. At last!
However this experience made me realize that I need to have a plan in the unlikely event that something like this happens again. I looked up the number for the Duty Officer at the Embassy and will definitely call them should anything similar happen - and I need to figure out what I can do to get to safety. I recalled being in Cape Town during the xenophobic riots in 2008 when we were doing an ethnographic study in both the Townships, Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain, and in the rural Transkei. We were told to shelter in place - but the violence was far from our hotel and, although we had to cancel our final visits in Khayelitsha that weekend, we were pretty much fine. It also made me realize how incredibly lucky I have been not to have to face this kind of violence - of people or of nature - with any frequency.
So now, dear friends, your exhausted chronicler is heading to bed. I expect I'll be asleep almost before this posts.
And tomorrow, I'll post some photos.
And now, adieu until tomorrow (or rather, later today)
