Molweni!
Here are some random tidbits from the past couple weeks (including the overnight stay in a township):
Friday 9/3/12: Today after school I stayed late to go to a Women’s Professional Network society meeting, which was definitely an interesting experience. I had been emailing one of the members on the executive committee to see when and where the meeting would be. She told me that it would be at 5:30 on campus. Since I have a tendency to be on time or early I assumed that I should get there a little before 5:30 and then the meeting would pretty much start on time. However, did that happen? Of course not. The meeting actually ended up starting around 6:30. Beforehand they were blasting music and everyone was just dancing and hanging out. Once the meeting started they began by discussing where the society wants to go and how they want to define themselves. There were only about 15/20 people there so they really wanted to get our feedback and get everyone involved in how the society wants to move forward, which I found really cool. After that we took a break from the meeting and played some icebreaker games. People got really into them and were getting very competitive about who was out and who wasn’t. Finally at 9 the meeting ended. I couldn’t believe how long the meeting lasted, meeting for clubs in the U.S. probably last only an hour or maybe a little more. It was also interesting because about a third of the people who showed up were guys, which I wasn’t expecting from the Women’s Professional Network. It was cool because they were contributing a lot to the conversation.
Saturday/Sunday 10-11 March: This weekend we did an overnight in Gugulethu, one of the townships in Cape Town. The overnight in Gugulethu was one of the most interesting experiences that I have had in Cape Town thus far. It is also one of the first times that I feel like I have been truly exposed to some of the culture here in South Africa. On the first day we visited an orphanage and a nursing home. Both of these visits really brought home some of the suffering that occurs in this country. At a first glance the nursing home was really nice. Everything seemed clean and the reception area was pretty. When I first walked in I thought we were there to talk with the ladies and keep them company for an hour. However, we were actually there so that they could tell us how corrupt the management is that is running the place. The ladies at the nursing home were mentioning how they have no security at their complex and their rent keeps getting raised, but there are no improvements at the home. At the end of the month they usually run out of electricity. The women who live there were abused in their previous homes but if they get sick and need to be cared for they are forced to return to those homes. In addition, they don’t have anyone who takes care of them at the nursing home and several of them go to an elderly daycare around the corner for the programs that it offers, since their nursing home doesn’t have any. It was really sad to hear that these women came from abused homes and still don’t feel at ease in the nursing home. When someone asked if they are happy there they responded that they know it’s better to be there than at their previous homes but that they just try to make it through. The orphanage that we went to was a lady’s home where she has eight children staying with her. She mentioned a lot the fact that she only gets R3,000 a month to look after the kids and how she is in the process of trying to get a government grant to get more funding. It was interesting because it didn’t sound like she was trying to find families to adopt the children; she is just permanently looking after them. Another interesting piece of the homestay was the actual overnight. Adrienne, Alexia, Honah, and I all stayed with Mamma Shasha. I was surprised to see how well off she is. I wasn’t expecting to stay overnight in a tin shack but I also wasn’t expecting to stay in a two-story house and eat off of gold-plated plates. In addition, there were several helpers there who cooked and cleaned. Soon after we arrived at Mamma Shasha’s house a group from her church came because recently she was sick in the hospital and also she lost her daughter not too long ago. It was a group of men who came and preached and also sang. It was interesting because at some parts one guy was shouting and if he hadn’t been smiling I would have thought that he was angry. I wish I could speak Xhosa so that I could have understood everything that they were saying. For all of this I felt sort of out of place because we weren’t really included, we merely observed. Also at one point Mamma Shasha asked us to serve the men snacks and drinks. At the very end they were trying to convince us to come and join their church. I found this especially interesting because before that they made no effort to try to include us. Another interesting piece to our homestay was dinner. The four of us ate in the dining room off of gold-plated plates by ourselves. It was strange not to eat with the whole family because I wanted to use that time to get to know Mamma Shasha. It almost seemed like we were just there to eat and sleep, not to actually learn more about the culture and how people live in Gugulethu. However, the night was still fun because Mamma Shasha’s son and his cousin hung out with us. We just walked across the street to the park and got to know them. It was one of my favorite parts of being here because we got to know some natives South Africans.
One thing that I noticed during the overnight stay is that a lot of people have gold teeth. I was wondering if that it a sign of status or it just reflects lack of oral hygiene. Another observation I had as we were standing on the balcony with Mamma Shasha is that she knew almost everyone who drove by. I found that interesting because back home in the United States if I stood in my front yard no one in the cars driving by would wave at me. Another thing I noticed is that Mamma Shasha did not seem to have a husband, which reminded of the fact that many children in South Africa don’t have a prominent male figure to look up to in their life. This made it especially interesting that one of Mamma Shasha’s son’s friends brought his two-year old son with him when he came to hang out with us. I shocked to see that he seemed to be the one taking care of his son and I also found it interesting that he would bring his son out that late at night to hang around with 20 year-olds.
The next morning after breakfast we all went to a church in Gugulethu, which was also an interesting experience. The service was in Xhosa (except for random words or phrases that they said in English) and involved a lot of singing. It seemed like almost half of the service was everyone singing. The girl in front of us was really nice and lent us her book so that we could sing along with everyone else. At one point an older woman was speaking and it seemed to be very emotional and sad, I wish I would have been able to understand it. Throughout the service I noticed that many of the kids and teens in attendance were distracted. Several of the kids onstage were playing a game of throwing their purses and trying to get it to stay on the chair in front of them. The teens in front of us were talking a lot or on their cell phones.
Sunday 18/3/12: Even though I’m not religious, today I decided to go to church with Lindsey to check it out. It was really interesting because the service was on campus and was mostly younger people. Everyone at the church was really friendly. The service consisted of a band that sang songs and then a preacher that talked a little bit about prayer. It was cool to experience because I have never been to a church service before that is so open and engages the congregation so much.
Monday 19/3/12: Today in my Italian conversation class our teacher split us into two teams. One team had to convince her to vote for the ANC and the other team had to convince her to vote for the DA. I was on the ANC team and it was interesting because we struggled to come up with good reasons why the ANC was better. The other team completely crushed us, especially once they made the point that all of our arguments were things the ANC did in the past but for the present time they aren’t doing a lot. From the start everyone knew we were on the losing team.
Saturday 24/3/12: Today was Cape Town Carnival that several of us went to. I knew that it would be a parade but other than that I wasn’t really such what to expect. There was a big crowd of people there, which was more than I expected. Also the floats were really cool (they had one that had fake minibuses driving in front of it, which was funny), but there was at least five to ten minutes of no parade between each float.
Tuesday 27/3/12: Today I went to dinner at my friend’s house. Every Tuesday she hosts dinners and usually Chelsea, Lindsey, and I go. Today’s dinner was really nice because not as many people came so we got to have more in depth conversations. We also placed a game called 30 Seconds, which was a lot of fun. You have to try to get the people on your team to guess the names/place/etc on the card in 30 seconds.
I now have and hour to kill before my last class before break! I will be sure to update about all of the Cape Town happenings during that week.
Cheers.
