We have come back from our weekend
at Goedgedacht Farm. There was a lot of mystery surrounding the weekend so I
really had no idea what to expect. When we picked up the other participants in
Cape Town, I was surprised to hear they also had really no idea what to expect
either. I found it comical hearing how they just signed up for this weekend
training despite having no real idea what they would be doing… I’m not sure
that I would be so brave. When we got to Goedgedacht Farm I think we were all
very pleasantly surprised to see that we were staying in beautiful hotel-like
lodging. I was anticipating staying in a summer camp cabin.
A highlight of the weekend was
definitely getting to interact with young people that came from all over
Africa. We discussed human rights issues in all of our respective countries and
it was interesting to see similarities across all of them. I think most of my
co-educators and I were shocked by how much each of the participants were
already doing to work for human rights in their communities. I spoke to one man
from Malawi who had already started his own organization working to help make
anti-child marriage laws more cohesive. He explained to me that the
constitution had one age defining what is deemed child marriage but local laws
had another, making it difficult to prosecute perpetrators.
On Sunday of our human rights weekend was
my birthday. Originally, I really wasn’t looking forward to my birthday because
I was honestly a little bit sad to be away from my family for it. However, I
honestly was blown away by all of the kindness my co-educators showed me. I
started my day off being sung to by all of the participants at the human rights
training. Despite being slightly embarrassed by the attention, it was very kind
of everyone. Then when we came back to our house, the boys in our house cooked
us all a delicious chicken Parmesan dinner and gave us each a rose. Then I
finished the night with one of Marita’s infamous birthday cakes and reading
kind notes we each wrote to each other for Valentine’s Day. I am really amazed
by the thoughtfulness of all my co-educators and am so happy we have all grown
so close in a short amount of time. I am continually amazed by their
intelligence and compassion, but most of all their humility
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