This morning started out with two speakers: the reverend of the church and Kenneth from the Truth and Reconciliation Campaign. They spoke about the life after Apartheid and what that means in terms of leadership as well as some personal back ground about themselves. What I enjoyed most of all was the discussion our class had after-word. I didn’t say anything during this discussion because I was so absorbed in what everyone else was saying and then my mind started going into high gear thinking about what I have experienced so far. A major part of the discussion revolved around the reverend’s words, “there is no place in this world for black people.” He, being a black person himself, thought this statement was very true which surprised us all initially until we really thought about what that meant. My classmates had really great comments about how Apartheid was driven by white people in a predominantly black country. Kate even commented about her time she just recently spent in Kenya and how she was so highly respected because she was white and even people in positions of leadership would listen to what she had to say and grant her more privileges than the actual citizens of that country. I thought that was really interesting. I started thinking about our current trip here. I feel like American/European culture is so dominant in the area we are staying in and that the African gift shops make the country appear as merely a tourist attraction in itself rather than a place where people actually live and have a completely different culture. The reverend even commented that it is more likely that black people will have jobs in the kitchens and in other places out of sight. You hear a lot about racism in the United States and such, but I found it surprising to hear about racism against people in their own native country. There was so much more to the conversation and so many people had such insightful things to say and I wish I could remember it all to share with you (I couldn’t write down everything at the time because I was so engaged in what people were saying and it was heated and fast).
After the lecture we got the pleasure of listening to a local band play some amazing music at the community center named Siyaya. They played a variety of African music such as jazz and had great vocals and dancing. They were supposed to perform for us on Thursday but they are leaving on a music tour in the United States – we found out that they will be in Minnesota in July so we all might go check it out!
Lunch was the best meal I have had so far on this trip. The cooks in the community center cooked us the food that they normally cool for the people in the community and it was so good. They made homemade chicken, vegetables, potatoes, and these rolls that were out of this world.
Later, we went on a bus tour of the townships. The pictures I have posted here are of some of the shacks that people live in. The town is huge with over 200,000 people. No one is really sure of the census because it is too hard to count people who move around so often. We were able to stop at one shack and look inside to see what their homes truly consist of. The shacks are extremely small and usually headed by a teenager or young child because their parents have passed away (many from HIV/AIDS). There were a lot of schools each with separate uniforms and even more churches. There are also homes in this area, which are also very small but are actual houses rather than shacks – the houses are what we will be staying in with our host families this week.
Finally today we were introduced to the kids that come to the after school program to get help with their homework until 5:00. The woman giving us the tour was explaining the poor education systems in the town ships in that one 3rd grader’s homework can be equivalent to a 5th graders homework at a completely different school and vice versa. She was also saying that it is difficult to find properly trained teachers to teach the children and that many come to the program with no idea how to do their homework and that some of the program faculty find it difficult as well (she said they have to look a lot of homework questions up on the internet so the adults can understand the students’ homework assignments). We spent some time with the students and discovered that the younger kids really enjoy getting their picture taken and looking at themselves on the screen of our cameras. We will be working at this after school program all this week. I will most likely spend my time with the older students – high school – because they are a little more attentive. A lot of my classmates are great with the kids, but I have a hard time getting them to focus and not get distracted (Em, this would be a great program for you instead of me), so I’ll stick with the high school math most of my classmates are trying to avoid!
Well, this is my last entry until Friday when I have internet access again. Mom and Dad can sleep easy – I will be safe where I am and I am leaving all of my valuables locked up in our regular house that has a security system, haha. Talk to you then!
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