Windy Travels on the Cape

Saturday we experienced the first period of not perfect weather. It was beautiful outside, but it was a tad chilly and got SUPER windy during the daytime and then progressed to gloomy and really cold by early evening. 

Saturday morning we got up early and began our journey to Cape Point, aka the most southwestern most point of Africa. The trip to and experience at Cape Point was beautiful and led to a lot of bonding because we were all together all day and the subject matter was light and easy! This was a nice experience because we have all been focusing on Cape Town and its differences and challenges so we were all able to let loose and have loads of fun!

After stopping in the outrageous wind to take a quick pick to commemorate our location at the Cape of Good Hope, we traveled on to walk up a mountain, basically, and take more pictures of the stunning view. We took pictures with a baboon, the views and each other! Rebecca got her sandwich stolen by baboon. I then hid my sandwich and power walked to the van- won’t be having that. Then we proceeded to go hang with the penguins at Boulders National Park on the coast. So great!! I love penguins, so it was fun. I left early because I had to get on a bus and travel to Plettenburg Bay, which will be in a later post.

SO WINDY

right outside our van!

Cape of Good Hope

For mom :-)

Overall, the day did not involve a lot of introspection because I was happy to be seeing the beautiful scenery and having fun with my new group of friends! I thought the change of pace was needed and we all had a great time. 

Khayelitsha

Today we visited Khayelitsha, the largest township in Cape Town. 

Here we performed the programs we prepared yesterday. My groups’ presentation consisted of an ice breaker (telephone telephone), a skit (The Felicia Show about teen pregnancy and empowerment) and a debriefing Q & A session. 

my group!

For the telephone telephone ice breaker we gave them this sentence: "I'm going to Cape Town to buy condoms for R24". They giggled the whole time, but everyone participated and it was so cute! 

We gave the hour long presentation to two groups of learners, grade 10 and 12 in Bulumko High School. This school is located inside the township and it holds lots of students. The school is public, but the students have to pay a couple hundred Rand, and uniforms to attend it. The parents often pay for this and it shows that the parent community knows the importance of getting an education. The school itself is pretty rundown, but the learners were all excited to be there, it seemed. We presented in a science classroom and I found these in the teachers office: 

This made me smile

This entire day was extremely humbling for me. The learners were super participants and brought up important questions and concerns. They were really in tune with their environment and how that affects their day to day life. One learner expressed his concern with bullying to and from school with neighboring gangs. We didn’t know what to say, but we listened. The take home message for our program was to encourage using barrier methods to prevent unwanted pregnancy and HIV, and to increase empowerment for young men and women to take initiative in bringing up using barrier methods. All the learners understood our presentation and they actually ended up teaching me more about their lives and culture than I taught them.

Another way this experience was humbling was how happy and motivated all the learners were. This has been a theme throughout the trip so far. And I don’t know why I expected many of the South Africans who were oppressed, imprisoned and are living in poverty to be bitter or unforgiving. Maybe because I have never experienced anything like that and thought I might be bitter or unforgiving in those situations (even though I would hope I wouldn’t be). I can’t put myself in their shoes, but I can learn from their graciousness and humbling attitudes.

 After leaving the school we stopped by a Braai, which is South African barbecue in the township. I did not partake, because they were cooking large chunks of meat that had been sitting out beforehand, but other people said it was tasty. These Braai are really really popular places to hang out and build community. 

The Braai

Me, Chava and some of the UWC HIV/AIDS peer educators!

Then, we went to TAC or Treatment Action Campaign. This organization is located all around the country, but they have multiple sites in Cape Town. One is located in Khayelitsha. They give out free condoms to all the house holds, arrange for testing and treatment of HIV/AIDS and work closely with Doctors without Borders. There are 750,000 people living in Khayelitsha and 20,000 of them are receiving ARVs for HIV treatment. 

Shopping Market

View of some of the township

We debriefed as a group in the amazing apartment that some people moved to. It's so cool. I will take pictures soon, cause I want to go to there.  These are from the roof:

When clouds over Table Mtn like this they are called "Table Cloths"! yes.

Cheers!

Day 5

Today was a low key day, BUT we did have a swell time! We got up early and took our trusty bus to the University of Western Cape to meet with the HIV/AIDS unit, aka the SHAPE of UWC. They are awesome people and they do sooo many great things geared toward spreading awareness, reducing stigma and educating UWC student and younger learners in the community about HIV/AIDS and other sexual health topics.

 First we got an introduction to their program and its crazy cool. They design posters, organize free HIV testing all. the. time. (and they usually get 200-300 people each day for free testing), they go into schools in neighboring townships and teach, they do drama programs around UWC, and so much more. They are super organized and train their peer educators intensively. They also get about 200 applicants for the program and accept only 40.

hehe

Also I really like how they are using multiracial advertisements. I didn't realize until I came here and noticed South African ads, but US ads are really white. Mix it up, US. 

  I truly enjoyed meeting these peers and their coordinators. We then chatted in a roundtable about each of our programs and what we are doing in our own schools and sharing ideas about the future and brainstorming. Man it was great. They really are SHAPE at UWC and we communicated super well with each other.

  After lunch we got into three groups and planned a lesson that we are giving tomorrow at Khayelitsha (the largest township in Cape Town) to 9th and 10th learners (Cape Tonians say learners instead of students, and I like it). My group is doing our lesson on teen pregnancy and healthy sexual practices.  I will let you know tomorrow how that goes! :-)
We were all exhausted and hungry so we went to dinner right after we got back. We walked to this cute little square by the market and had a lovely meal. I had ratatouille. yum. Then we went to the market to get more medication and cake:

this is where it's at.

Also, some of the people-not me- moved to an apartment today (it is part of the same hotel- this place owns like half of the neighborhood) it is swanky swanky. we will be hanging out there, and it has a rooftop lounge:

the view!

cheers!

Power Walking and History Lessons

Whoo man today was quite the lengthy day! First, it started very early, which wasn't great for me because I caught the cold Kelsey is getting over, because we are rooming together. Yay for me. But I have lots of medications and it's not too rough.
All 15 of us walked from our hotel to the District Six museum- which is the best museum I have ever been too. It is beautifully organized and displayed, and the men and women who lived there contributed all the artifacts and photos, created the actual museum and also work there to provide first hand accounts of the cosmopolitan life of District Six, the demolition and life now. Our tour guide made it clear that though the relocation and demolition of the melting pot were heart breaking and horrible, the people do not blame white people, they blame the system of apartheid. Many white people, well all people, to this day will not build on the land, which is why it is still an empty field in the middle of a city. I left feeling slightly disheartened because its amazing that throughout the whole world, people do not live like they did in District Six. All races, all walks of life, lived together in harmony. And not just harmony, but thoroughly enjoyed sharing their lives, religions and customs with neighbors. I just haven't seen or heard of anything like this before, and it was torn apart.
I also don't have pictures of the morning excursion because I left my memory card in my computer this morning. :-(

Then we walked over to Green Market Square, which is basically a huge flee-type market where you have to haggle for prices and you can buy pretty much anything stereotypically African. Its hard to tell if any of the goods are authentic, but I assumed they were not. So I didn't purchase much at all. But it was a new experience for me, and that part was kinda fun. This was followed by some serious power walking and lots of jay walking (both of which are complicated when walking with 15 people) to get back to our hotel to drop off some things and then off again to the waterfront to catch the Ferry to Robben Island. This basically was the South African version of Alcatraz Island. Throughout its history Robben Island (which literally means “sea” island in Dutch) has been used in the past for exiling people suffering from Leprosy, imprisoning hard criminals and most recently imprisoning political prisoners during Apartheid. This is the location where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years for high treason.

The island is located about 11km from the coast of Cape Town and we took a large ferry boat to get there.

After arriving we went on a walking tour of the prison and then a bus tour of the island itself. The prison is quite large and it is divided into sections: solitary and community living, and by race. The prisoners, who were in prison due to their political involvement fighting against apartheid, were then segregated even more once they arrived to Robben Island. Black Africans were given the least clothes, food and privilege, followed by Indians and Coloreds. For some reason, this notion shocked me; why is it necessary to segregate an already excluded maximum security prison? The walking tour was very impactful, some of the prison cells had their inmates’ picture and story in them, and as I walked around I found myself feeling uncomfortable realizing that men were forced to live in those conditions for long periods of time. 

Nelson Mandela's cell. He did have to sleep on a blanket on the floor until the mid 80s when everyone in the prison got a cot. 

view from one courtyard

So all the cells have barred windows, but the view is of a concrete wall...

Our tour guide is an ex-prisoner, as are all of the tour guides of the prison itself. He shared his story with us and I was overwhelmed. This man has been through hell and he comes to the island everyday to share the stories, to teach the world and younger populations so that atrocity will not happen again. But shockingly none of the ex-prisoners are bitter about their experiences, they are embracing the past in order to teach for the future. This mindset is inspirational and I think more people in the world should be awesome like these men and women. 

Following the walking tour we boarded a bus and drove around the island itself, which is home to three other prisons (built before and after the maximum security prison) and used for political prisoners and hard criminals. Our tour guide was an awesome man, with an awesome accent and he spoke about the meaning behind apartheid, that it was not about just physically separating the races by relocating them to townships and segregating them on a daily basis, but about creating mental divides between the races of South Africa. This notion is deep within the society and still peeps its head, through stereotypes and assumptions. 

We got off the bus at a viewpoint of Cape Town and took a few pictures

Ferry back to the mainland!

Cheers!

Day 3

So today began rather early, and a few of us walked down to the market to get coffee and bakery items. Bother were heavenly and I love being able to walk a couple blocks in the beautiful morning sun to get a coffee. Love it. 

So this is really close to my hotel. It's gonna be a problem.

We then all piled onto our trusty bus and went to the University of Western Cape! It was about a 20 minute ride and we passed through some informal housing, or small townships, on the way. More on that later, because it was amazing. But not in a good way, like the “wow, I’ve never experienced this before” way.

   The University of Missouri system and the University of Western Cape (UWC) have a 25 year collaboration, which began in 1986, eight years before apartheid ended in 1994! This is really cool because UWC was a historically colored university (meaning only people of mixed race could attend the school during apartheid) and somehow out of nowhere the UM system befriended them and then formed a partnership to exchange funds, experiences, knowledge and opportunities. So awesome! That’s where this program was born and many other faculty and student exchange programs our school has. Jan Parsens, the director of International Relations for the UWC spoke to us about the UM-UWC partnership and the school’s history in general. The UWC has been through some rough times, they fought apartheid by challenging laws and hosting protests, and really being the leading organizing force for protests. Fun Fact: through this collaboration there have been many joint publications between UWC faculty and UM faculty like Lois Pierce (one of our advisors) and Nancy Shields (someone my dad knows!)

Then we walked around the campus with some of the graduate Social Work students! They were all really nice and it was fun getting to know them and seeing their beautiful campus. The campus is smaller than Mizzou’s but it is still decent sized. Some of the buildings are super modern while some are really old and are basically mobile buildings. Most of the students looks just like American college students, which makes sense, but it’s also noteworthy to realize that young adults around the world all act, dress and grow overall similarly. Another Fun Fact: UWC has free condom packets in every public restroom. So awesome! 

UWC Student Union

It was called the Condoman Condotainer!

On our way back into town we drove back through the informal housing, which are built right up to the highway. This is when the disparities really hit me. Along one road, ONE ROAD we saw vast areas filled with informal housing, shacks, outhouses and basically slums followed by areas of apartment complexes then finally entering the town again we saw basically affluent neighborhoods with nice houses, security protection and tourism. Besides these descriptive worlds, I really can’t describe how this felt. I have never seen such disparities in one short car ride. Yes, most big cities in America have homeless people, poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods back to back, but not shacks, not huts literally built out of extra wood and siding, not slums where the tenants have to steal electricity from their slightly less poor neighbors and walk to a community outhouse by the side of the highway. This scene just opened my eyes. It was amazing.

The next stop of the day was supposed to be a cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. This view is supposed to be great great great. We arrived and the cable car is closed until August 1st for maintenance, which happens every year. Not a huge deal, because we can come back after August 1st, BUT our trip included this expense, and after the official program is over they can't pay for it. And its like $40 USD. We will see what happens. You can also hike up to the top, which sounds intriguing, but I have heard its kinda a rough hike (and we know I am NOT the next woman vs. wild over here) and there have been some robberies including stabbings on the mountain recently. Its something we will have to discuss and work out. But we got to see a partial view from the take off point of the cable car: 

The exhaustion has finally hit us, since we are go go going all day and we stay up blogging and checking in with the real world and home and then wake up early to start a new day so missing the cable car wasnt too bad because we were able to head home and relax before our traditional African dinner with the whole group! This dinner was soooo cool! The food came out in little portions so everyone tried everything and you could ask for more of the yummy stuff. Most of the food was really tasty! We tried things like Cassava Bread (baked tapioca cheese and yogurt flat bread), the House style vegetable soup (which was wonderful!), Samp and beans (like baked beans and corn, also really good), Mussel Curry, Ethiopian Aib (white curd cheese with herbs), Mozambican nut mayonnaise (African hummus), Xhosa Imifino Patties (spiniach and mielie- like potatoes), Vetkoek (fried bread balls- yes fried bread), and carrot cake! Everything was really good! The women also came around and painted our faces with fun traditional flower patterns while we waited! The entire restaurant was beautiful and really fun! The employees also came by and sang and danced after our meal. The place was very touristy, obviously traditional Africans wouldn't go to a place like that, but I believe the food was authentic and that was fun to try, and the face painting and dancing was a new experience too. So I enjoyed the evening, despite the slightly stereotypical atmosphere. 

"flower face hannah"

Wall decorations

 Shava, from Clark Atlanta

Mussels with coconut lime curry. Really good.

the food list was on this little boat

song and dance

SHAPE group in Cape Town

Hope everyone is doing well wherever you may be! Tomorrow will be another big day so I must be getting some sleep! (as the South African's say)   Cheers!