This past week we travelled to
Joburg, a city like no other! After our day of traveling we arrived to the Park
Inn Sandston hotel, which was a lot nicer than I anticipated but was also a bit
high tech for me. In order to use the elevators you needed to put your card in
and enter a floor number instead of pressing buttons like usual. It was only a 6-floor
building so I deemed it a bit unnecessary but it wasn’t the biggest deal. The
following day we went to the apartheid museum, which I absolutely loved. I
thought it was cool how they randomly assigned you to go through the first part
of the museum as a white or non-white South African in order to highlight the
different experiences these people faced. This museum was unlike any of the
others I’ve been to because it was one that distributed you with sadness and
anger. The parts that made me very emotional were the constant videos
they had playing throughout the museum of the vicious police brutality people faced.
Watching men, women, and children having their bones broken by the police and
being dragged through barbed wire shocked me as it portrayed the lack of
humanity the officers had and exposed me to a very physical display of
racism. In addition to this I was horrified to listen to how the leaders
of the apartheid justified their actions and laws they passed and it reminded
me of exactly what Donald Trump is currently saying. The same idea of
superiority and fear of difference is still prevalent across different borders.
The museum also reminded me of how recent this atrocity was and made me wonder where
and WHY the rest of the world was essentially just watching. Especially since
this became increasingly worse after the holocaust and many of the leaders of
apartheid supported the holocaust and Hitler’s ideas. Also things became
increasingly worse for black South Africans while Americans were celebrating
and establishing black civil rights in the US. These are just a few examples
that show the gap between where the rest of the world was while the apartheid
regime was getting stronger.
We also went to the Hector Peterson
museum, and Constitutional Hill, which was a prison during apartheid that Gandhi
and Winnie Mandela were held for some time. I learned a lot about Gandhi’s work
in South Africa and his philosophy of satyagraha which is to find inner and
political freedom through non violence. What was most shocking to me about him
and this philosophy that he actually enjoyed prison because it gave him more
time to focus on himself, which is something I could never imagine. It was
difficult to learn about the horrific living conditions the prisoners and black
wardens had to endure however towards the end of the tour I realize dhow they
made this old place a beacon of hope as they used parts of the old prison to
build the country’s new Constitutional Court, which is the highest law of the
land.
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| Amelia with her new friends at the Boys and Girls Club in Soweto |
We also went to the Boys and Girls
Club in Soweto which was super exciting for me because I used to be in a Boys and
Girls Club in the Bronx. The kids there were so sweet and every time I interact
with children here I’m always amazed by how friendly they are and how much love
they show strangers. After organizing their bookshelf I saw a few girls
standing around with nothing to do and decided to teach them a dance I learned
to Sorry by Justin Bieber. They were great dancers and loved it so much they
hung out with me for the rest of the day. I made a special friend named
Palisa who was super cute and kept my energy up all day. It was nice to be with
bright and fun kids all day but I was really sad leaving them since I had a
crew of like 10 girls asking if I would return the following day, knowing I
could probably never return. But I did get some of their contact information so
I’m hoping to hear from day one of these days!
We headed to Kruger the following
day which was filled with amazing animals, breathtaking sunsets/sunrises and awesome
huts we got to sleep in. Overall, it was a great spring break.
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