As
I write this, I am flying through the air on my way back to Cape Town from
Johannesburg, where I have spent the past week (with the exception of two days
at Kruger National Park). Though I feel slightly crestfallen as I look out onto
the gridded landscape of Jo'burg, I am very happy to be going back “home” to
Cape Town. I was not expecting to miss my internship and the routine of daily
life as much as I did.
As
I said before, we spent the first couple of days in Sandton, which is not too
far from downtown Jo'burg. We stayed in an excessively nice hotel…far nicer than
any I have stayed in on family vacations. It was also a nice treat to have
consistent wifi, given that many of us were stressing about class pick times. I
was lucky enough to room with Caroline who didn’t mind how messy I can be
trying to get dressed during the day.
We
spent most of our days going back and forth between different museums and
historical sites, which was quite nice, and relevant to our classes as well.
For instance, we got to walk around the Human Rights Day festivities in
Sharpeville after we have learned a little about what happened during the
Sharpeville riots. There’s something very special about being able to connect
the things you hear to the things you see. It was clear that thousands of
people had shown up for the festivities; people representing all different
types of backgrounds and political groups. Also, the day prior we got to visit
the Hector Peterson Museum, which relayed us with a lot of information about
what riots were like for both the rioters and the officers trying to control
them.
I
must admit that when we received the itinerary for the week, I was not looking
forward to visiting so many museums, simply because I feel as though I have a
hard time paying attention/absorbing the material being presented. For me,
however, the HCM in Soweto was so drastically different from any museum I had
ever been to. I really was able to invest myself in the information because we
weren’t only being presented with information from one side of the story.
As
for the Apartheid Museum, I was strongly reminded of the Holocaust Museum in
Washington DC. Though not as big, the approach was similar; you are handed a
card that identifies you as “white” or “non-white” and then you must proceed
through the doors according to the aforementioned identity. It was cool to see
some of the material artifacts, such as the Caspir, because up until I saw it
with my own eyes, it really did not seem real.
We
headed into Kruger on Wednesday, which was an admittedly tough 8 hour bus ride,
despite some of the astonishing scenery that we were exposed to along the way.
Everyone always talks about how big the park is, but until we had to drive an
hour just to get to our camp, I didn’t really realize. Once we got there, we
went on a night game drive and saw a whole slew of awesome animals. I had
already seen some on the Garden Route a few weeks prior, but given that that
drive was through a private reserve, it was totally different to see how
animals acted in a much more natural habitat. The highlight of both of the game
drives was definitely seeing the lions and how beautiful and powerful they
really are. Nothing like the ones you see at the zoo!
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