We have officially gotten back from
Joburg! I had a great time seeing another part of South Africa but I am
definitely very happy to be back in Cape Town. While in Joburg, we went to many
different museums. My favorites were the Apartheid Museum and the Hector
Pieterson Museum. The Apartheid Museum was a very emotional experience for most
of the group and myself. While in the museum, it was very easy to get a sense
of what South Africa was like during apartheid. We saw news clips that
completely normalized the whole regime. The constant need for black people to
carry identification was justified as being for their own safety. While I
completely disagree with the reasoning and found it absurd, it was very easy to
see how everyday South Africans would have been able to remain a bystander in
apartheid, as it was continually justified to them. Honestly, it can be very
difficult to swallow this type of information because it makes you realize that
often times problems are only clear in retrospect. It makes me nervous thinking
what students 25 years from now may see as a clear travesty in our generation,
but may be one that I am entirely a bystander to without second thought.
While I really enjoyed the Apartheid
Museum, the Hector Pieterson Museum was my favorite. Hector Pieterson was a
young boy who was killed while protesting Afrikaans as the language of
instruction in schools across South Africa. One of our professors here equated
this experience to if the U.S. suddenly started teaching all of our high school
courses (math, history, etc.) in Spanish. Thinking of this happening absolutely
mind boggles me because there would have been little to no room for the
students to actually be able to learn in a language they don’t understand. The
fact that a student was killed for protesting against an infringement on his
right to education is horrifying and that’s what this museum aimed to explain.
Understanding this terrible occurrence is difficult when also knowing that very
few apartheid perpetrators were punished for their actions. A quote in the
museum read, “Whatever we failed to say is stored secretly in our minds.” In a
way, I think that because of the lack of punishment for perpetrators, the
victims of apartheid will always feel that they haven’t reached closure and
that they will have issues stored in their mind that they had wished were said
aloud.
Our last day of Joburg included us
going to a Boys and Girls Club which was SO much fun. Children are always so
welcoming to us and make us feel like home wherever we are. Running around and
playing games with the kids was easily one of my favorite days of the
excursion. We ended our last day in Joburg by going to Orbit Jazz Restaurant.
This was such a unique restaurant because there were poets who read their work
while jazz was playing in the background. I really love poetry and it was so
interesting to see the ways in which the scars of apartheid were very prevalent
in the poet’s work. One quote that really stuck out to me was, “Why are they
asking for the crumbs on our table? Can’t they see they’re interrupting our
feast?” I thought this quote really beautifully summarized the wealth disparity
in South Africa.
Overall, our time in Joburg was
great and definitely put in perspective a lot about the apartheid era. It was
nice to get a break from our schedules and see another part of South Africa,
but I am glad to be back and have another month here in Cape Town.
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