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Mariko at Maiden's Cove |
The initial settling in and plane rides have officially
passed, but my anticipation of what the next three months will hold is still
building. While I’ve left the country before, I have never felt as I did when
arriving at the airport last Thursday morning to embark on a journey with a group
of students who were essentially strangers to me at the time. Considering I now
feel closer to a lot of the people on this trip than I do to some of my friends
at home, it’s odd to think back to how nervous everyone was sitting in the JFK
terminal on the first day. It’s amazing to me how easily the lack of strong
wifi here can generate a steady flow of conversations that rarely arise amongst
my peers back at home due to our “face in the phone” culture. I also attribute
the ease of making new connections to the one major commonality amongst the
students in this group, compassion.
Upon flying
into the Cape Town airport, I was already overwhelmed by the views, but
couldn’t help but immediately notice the disparity. Before our plane even
touched the runway, the shadows cast over Cape Town’s beauty by current and
past policies were obvious. A quick glance out the plane window revealed
mansions with swimming pools fit for Hollywood homes, while seconds later, the aerial
view exposed expansive lots of metal shack rooftops. Despite the likely sobering
effects of this program, the house we are staying in falls more in line with
the aforementioned Hollywood-like homes than the township residences. I was
expecting it to be very difficult to live comfortably in a house with 17
students, but so far it has been one of the coolest experiences I’ve had in
college. Aside from struggling to fight jet lag until a reasonable bedtime and
unpacking our abundance of suitcases, we didn’t physically do much on the day
of our arrival. Mentally, on the other hand, I was busy trying to grasp that I
get to call South Africa home for the semester. Being able to see Table
Mountain from my bedroom window definitely helped with the realization that I
have finally arrived.
The following
first couple of days of orientation went by in a flash because we did so much
(tour of Rondebosch, UCT, District Six Museum etc.) in such a short amount of
time. The tour around the Peninsula was definitely my favorite so far because
Cape Town’s coast trumps all others in the world; and as long as I’m by the
ocean, I’m happy. However, I repeatedly
notice the juxtaposition of beauty and oppression throughout the city. On the
tour of the Peninsula, Vernon pointed out the Ocean View Township, where we
will be doing our homestay. He quickly
added that this community has no actual view of the ocean, but is rather a
clutter of poorly funded housing units, pushed away from both the city and
beach. Although a seemingly minor point, it’s significant in teaching us to
understand how easily manipulative language can mask discrimination, allowing
the corruption that exists here to be visible only to those who pay attention. I
cannot wait to meet more people here and get a feel for my upcoming role as a
student-intern in the next couple of weeks.
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