It’s been a hectic week! This is the
first time I’ve really sat down since we’ve been doing so much all week. Half
of the group is on the homestay so it’s pretty quiet here at the house.
Thursday night, a group of us went
to First Thursday, which is when a group of art galleries in the city
center stay open late so that you can walk to each of them and see the artwork
while enjoying the food stands that are set up. We went to many different
galleries, and it was really great to see the different styles of art that are
in the area. We went to two galleries that I particularly liked; they were both
dedicated to showing artwork that made a statement or critique about society
(such as the picture included). One of the galleries held artwork that showed
people that were painted into inanimate objects to represent how they are
silenced because of their identity categories. The second is where I took the included
picture and made statements about social media and big business, consumerism
and poverty. I really enjoyed being able to enjoy all of the different artwork
and see how the artists worked current issues into their pieces.
On Friday I was finally able to
meet up with my friend who goes to Trinity College and is also studying in Cape
Town! A group of us went to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens for the day to
explore the beautiful plant life. I was so, so excited to see the canopy walk
because I thought it was a long walk at the tops of the trees over the garden.
Little did I know, it was pretty short, but it was still beautiful! We saw
trees that looked like they were upside down, the stone carving pathway, the
desert greenhouse, and more! It’s such a beautiful place to spend the day and I
can’t wait to go back there for the Of Monsters and Men concert!
Yesterday we spent the morning at
Old Biscuit Mill, eating more food than you could possibly imagine, and then we
attempted to hike to the Woodstock Caves. I say attempted because we never made
it there…it was supposed to be an hour hike up to the caves but we ended up
hiking for 5-6 hours and did not find the cave. Oops. Instead, we explored
really great hiking trails and somehow started at the base of Devil’s Peak and
ended up at Table Mountain. Once we realized we were in the completely wrong
place, we decided to follow a trail up a ravine. It was so steep and involved a
lot of steps and climbing; it was definitely one of the hardest hikes I’ve been
on! In all, we ended up hiking 10 miles, according to my phone health tracking
app. You can understand why my legs won’t let me move today…
Something that I wanted to share
that we encountered yesterday was a conversation with our Uber driver. We have
gotten into the habit of discussing current issues or where they are from
because most of the Uber drivers we have met have really interesting
backgrounds and opinions. This one was from Zimbabwe and was telling us about
the crisis and why he thought it was bad that they used the US dollar as their
currency. He was telling us how expensive living was because of a combination
of Mugabe, a failing economy and other factors. It was sad because he was
giving us examples of how bread would cost $1.50 and other examples that we
couldn’t exactly relate to because of how we are used to the dollar. It was so
interesting to see his perspective on this, especially since I don’t know very
much about Zimbabwe. I really love to talk with our Uber and taxi drivers
because of this new perspective that they offer. This weekend, we also had an
Uber driver who was telling us how hard it was to work so that he could pay for
his brother to study at UCT, and how he was contributing to the 50,000R his
brother needed. It was definitely eye-opening, since that is about $3,500; My
mind automatically jumped to the thought that it must be nice to pay such a
small amount for college, but then I reminded myself of the difference in
salaries and such from the US. Having conversations definitely makes you
recognize the privilege that so many people, including myself, have taken for
granted. Just the fact that all of us can be on this program right now is a
huge amount of privilege that so many people don’t have.
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