Eric's memorable excursion week in review

Sunrise at Kruger National Park

Greetings from Kruger National Park! I am writing this post as I recuperate in bed from our 4:30am game drive this morning. We only arrived in Kruger yesterday afternoon, but have already been on two game drives: one at sunset and one at sunrise. Between the two, we saw the likes of impala, warthogs, wildebeest, buffalo, zebras, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, and lions. Last night we actually got to see a lion and lioness engage in mating behavior, but this morning we had an even better lion experience. As we looked out at one particular section of bush, we spotted a lioness and six cubs bounding and playing all around her. We tracked them to the road where they crossed right in front of us, but tragically, one cub was separated from the pack. It then let out this adorable growl as it called for its mother, and sure enough mommy came back to the road to fetch her little one. It is one thing to see wild animals in a zoo, but I feel so lucky to say I was able to see them in their natural habitat some 30 yards away from me.

As memorable as these past two days have been, we spent the majority of our excursion in Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. Johannesburg and Cape Town are to South Africa what the “East Coast and West Coast” is to the United States. Johannesburg, like the East Coast, is fast-paced, commercial, and composed of massive skyscrapers. By comparison, Cape Town, like the West Coast, is slower, relaxed, and surrounded by oceans and mountains. I knew that when our first dinner only took 2 hours, we weren’t in Cape Town anymore.

 

Sharpeville Garden of Remembrance

This week we immersed ourselves in South African history by visiting landmark sites in the struggle for freedom. The Apartheid Museum was filled with pictures, videos, and anecdotes highlighting the gross human rights violations committed under the apartheid regime. I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe one group of human beings could possibly subject another to this kind of treatment. The Hector Pietersen Museum in Soweto showed that the National Party and its police forces did not stop the violence at adults; children protesting Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools were shot at and killed on 16 June 1976. Through the sorrow I felt for the victims, I found it inspiring that the youth time and time again stood up to the government to fight for their rights. Youth movements in the United States seem to be few and far between. On Human Rights Day, 21 March, we traveled to Sharpeville, the place where Human Rights Day has its roots. On that date in 1960, police opened fire on a group of Pan-Africanist Congress supporters who were handing themselves over for arrest for not having their passbooks. (Passbook laws were enforced on blacks the most; if one did not present his or her passbook to security forces when asked, one faced imprisonment.) Sharpeville was buzzing with political groups marching through the streets in their different colored shirts. As Vernon said, if they got along peacefully, it would physically and symbolically represent the Rainbow Nation. From the ANC to the PAC to the EFF to the DA, the alphabet soup of parties looked to garner support on the eve of local government elections. Visiting the cemetery where the Sharpeville victims were buried and hearing personal stories of racist treatment from our tour guides were harrowing reminders of the freshness of South Africa’s wounds.

Eric, Mariko & Collette at Pinville Boys & Girls Club in Soweto

Not all during our week in Johannesburg was somber, though; we met some of the cheeriest, happiest, and funniest kids at the Boys and Girls Club in Pimville. After I helped reorganize the library with Emily, Amelia, Charity, and Molly, we got to go outside and play a variety of games with the children. We played basketball, soccer, and a lot of dancing and singing games. Each one of the UConn students seemed to catch the attention of certain children, so for about 3 hours or so I acted as a human jungle gym for several boys and girls. At the end of the day, I was absolutely exhausted, but I felt a renewed sense of hope for the youth of this country after spending the previous few days dealing with subjects that don’t allow for much positivity.

Though I cannot say that Johannesburg stole a place in my heart like Cape Town has, it helped me synthesize a lot of the material I had learned in Marita’s class, Vincent’s class, and in my nonfiction book, What’s Gone Wrong? by Alex Boraine. In addition to the more obvious race and history lessons, the two poets (one male and one female) we saw perform at a jazz restaurant called The Orbit touched on gender and gender expectations during a discussion with the audience between sets. The male poet talked about how he is sometimes ridiculed for writing “soft, emotional” poems, while the female poet discussed how, as a woman, she constantly has to work harder just to prove that what she is saying deserves to be heard.

With just over a month left of my South African journey, I will be balancing my free time between my two awesome activist projects and the items left to check off my bucket list. Though I miss my family, girlfriend, and friends, I am nowhere near ready to go home.