Isabel confirming her career aspirations

Orientation gave us many first impressions of our future home here in Cape Town.  We became tourists and also onlookers as we observed the beautiful scenery of South Africa and the rural, more desolate areas.  Throughout orientation, I have picked up on a continuing trend.  Economic inequality is so prevalent here in South Africa.  I knew long before I arrived in Cape Town that I would witness poverty, but I did not expect the harsh distinction between the upper and lower classes that we have witnessed.

           

During the time we spent visiting all of our internship placements, we arrived at a hospital called Maitland Cottage that is doing amazing work for poor socioeconomic children and young adults.  The ironic part of this visitation was that this hospital was far away from any poverty.  In fact, it was straight in the center of an affluent town.  Maitland Cottage  in Newlands was surrounded by beautiful architecture, schoolboys dressed in private school attire, and many small seemingly overpriced boutiques.   This has been a reoccurring theme as we began our journey exploring the depths of Cape Town.

           

Towards the middle of our orientation, we had the opportunity to explore the townships of Cape Town.  Here, homes are constructed of tin slabs tied together and steel storage containers are used as barber shops and furniture stores.  We witnessed great economic struggle as we spent the day passing through townships such as Khayelithsa, Mitchell’s Plain, and Manenberg.  In these townships, kids were struggling with gang violence and brutality instead of worrying about their studies.  Unemployment rates ranged from thirty percent to over sixty percent.  Meanwhile, these areas of Cape Town were just around the corner from neighborhoods such as the one that housed Maitland Cottage Hospital.  You could pass all the economic classes in a ten-minute car ride.

           

The economic inequality in Cape Town seemed to match up with the type we witness back in the states.  The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.  So many countries around the world follow this Keynesian style of economics and it continually has the same effect.  This subject matter is something I am so passionate about and traveling here just makes me want to push even further into my career of economics.  Hopefully change is coming!