Happy Nelson Mandela Day!

Today, July 18th, is Nelson Mandela Day, aka his 93rd birthday. The campaign calls for 67 minutes of service to social justice during this day in honor of the 67 years Mandela has put into social justice in South Africa. We didn't get to actually volunteer today but we learned about it and I purchased a cupcake, for R10 (or 2ish USD) from some people in the market, who were selling for Mandela Day, and the money went to St. George's Cathedral's night shelter. So there you go, Hannah's Mandela Day contribution. :-)

And it was real good.

On to today's festivities:

We had a visit from the US Consulate in Cape Town this morning to discuss life in Cape Town, government and safety issues. She was awesome and super informative but for time's sake I will condense into a few sentences. The United States is involved and helping South Africa combat HIV and work on improving education of HIV and just education in general. South Africa as a country is ruled by the African National Congress (ANC) which is the party Mandela represented, but Cape Town is the only province ruled by the Democratic alliance. The ANC was for equal rights for all races and they did abolish apartheid but the past few Presidents have not been too hot in the public health and education realms, which can be seen across the country. South Africa is a country of disparities in resources, money, education, crime and healthcare between the wealthy whites and disadvantaged colored and blacks. [describing people by their race is completely acceptable and actually the norm here- unlike in the US where we often ignore race. I believe race is something to be proud of now, and since blacks and coloreds were discriminated against for so long because of the color of their skin it became part of the culture to identify oneself based on ones race].
Crazy fun fact: South Africa spends 24% of the GDP on their education system (while the US only spends 3%) but the education system here is mostly horrible, due to a lack of teachers, money in the correct places, organization and resources. They are working on reforming it now.
The consulate also spoke about safety, one thing I wanted to share [that is applicable to MU students] is, she told us not to step into other peoples confrontations because things can be set up just to con tourists and situations get ugly fast. Long story short, no green dots in South Africa. :-(

Following the Consulate the whole group went on a bus tour of the city! (we also added two more people to the group today: Kathryn and Molly) Our tour guide, Sedeeq Levi was amazing and I will get to a surprise about him later. But we left our hotel at 13h00 and got back around 17h00, so it was a lengthy tour, but completely worth it. See how I'm using 24hr time? When in Cape Town, do as the Cape Townians.
We drove around the town for awhile before heading up a mtn, so I will describe in sequential order :-).

• Cape Castle was built by the Dutch Military in the later 1600s, it is the oldest building in Cape Town and it is now the home of the Cape military and museums. 
• District 6 was a part of town prior to apartheid that house many people of many nationalities, it has been called a mini United Nations and all kinds of people lived in peace and harmony for years. During Apartheid the government wanted to segregate people based on race and therefore relocated everyone to townships and bulldozed the district 6. It is still basically empty because no one wants to rebuild because it is too painful. Our tour guide lived there, was relocated and still seems shaken up about the whole situation. Understandable. 
• We saw the Slave Lodge where slaves working for the Dutch East Indies Trading Co. lived and worked. Many Slaves also lived in the neighborhood we are staying in now, which has completely turned around and is now quite posh (as Mr. Levi would say) :-) He used that word about 12 times during our tour.
• We drove by St.George's Cathedral (where my money went to this morning) which is massive church that has been quite progressive throughout its past. Desmond Tutu, an influential ANC leader during apartheid was the archbishop there. They host HIV awareness and education events all the time, which is tight. 
• We also drove by Long St. which is heavily populated with bars and restaurants. Aka, the place to go if you are cool and living in Cape Town. So we decided we would probably hit that up as some point!
• We them proceeded to drive up a large hill called Signal Hill, and after a quick (or not so quick) stop because the van OVERHEATED, we were on the way as safe as ever! This mountain and the view around it are completely breathtaking. You will get photos, do not fret. We noticed that one side of the mountain (known as Table Top mtn) is predominately poor neighborhoods of colored and blacks still recovering from apartheid and relocation while the other side of the mountain consists of rich, affluent white neighborhoods and fancy beaches. It is utterly amazing that such disparities can reside just around a mountain from each other and there really aren't words to describe why this is still a problem except that it is. Which brings up an interesting point the Consulate made today, South Africa just passed Brazil in having the largest disparity of income in the world last year. And this is a developed nation.

• Finally we drove back to the waterfront or Warf and walked over to the Robben Island prison museum and jetty 1 (or where prisoners to loaded onto ships to be taken to prison). This was shocking because a huge part of the adult, black and colored, male population at the time of apartheid ended up in prisons all over the country and finally many were sent to Robben Island to get them out of the anti-apartheid movement. Our tour guide then sits us down and begins to tell us his story, which until then we did not know included two years on Robben Island. It was so moving to hear this man standing in front of us telling of his struggle. He barely got involved with much political movements because he was young and he was imprisoned for helping transport food to the townships where his people were relocated, and for peaceful protests against apartheid. He spent two years in solitary confinement. He was so inspirational. Although he was concerned that the young population in South Africa don't understand the struggles he fought against, he still preached for the young peoples involvement in the future of the world, and he made jokes throughout the day and he was just a special man to have been able to meet, really. I had a moment with him while we were watching the Robben Island tour boat pull in on the dock. He said that the boat was the actual boat he took to prison and the small peepholes down near the water line that are now filled in used to have glass in them and they tied all the prisoners together and if you got sea sick, you got sea sick. He said they were pretty bad memories. I thanked him for sharing his story with us and he said he was happy too, to inform us. I don't know how he can be as happy as he was with all the pain in his past -that amazes me, but I am glad I got to meet him and I will remember today. 

The Malay neighborhood. Malay people are considered colored here. 

World Cup Stadium!

our bus! and the fancy neighborhoods

the water was freezing. that's all.

The Robben Island boat

Mr. Levi

To wrap up the day, we all met and debriefed and then some of us went out to dinner at the Manhattan Cafe (we are pretty sure its a gay bar, based on the names of the desserts, haha) It was delish!