On Thursday I went to sunset
yoga at Clifton beach with Elizabeth, Trista, Isabel, Kayla, Megan, and Maria.
Although it was a bit challenging in the sand, it was such a cool and relaxing
experience. Yoga on the beach has always been one of those paradise-type things
I never thought I would get to do myself, so it was awesome actually
experiencing it. It makes me appreciate being in Cape Town and this entire
program so much more, as I'm doing things I never expected I would.
Saturday was quite a full day:
Old Biscuit Mill in the morning, then a hike up Lion's Head, followed by Cape
Town Carnival in the evening. It was very fun! Biscuit Mill was delicious as
always, and it was good to get outdoors and enjoy the scenery with the hike. I
wish I had gone to Cape Town Carnival earlier to see more of the parade because
I absolutely loved it! I've been wanting to see more of Cape Town's culture and
I feel like I got a glimpse of that from the different groups performing along
with the floats, music, and dancing.
 |
| Mary & Elizabeth, Lion's Head |
One thing I've noticed at these
events is that there are so many white people. Often the racial makeup seems to
be mostly white people attending the event and mostly black people working
there. I've noticed this a lot in Cape Town actually, at the markets, concerts,
cafes, hikes, and more. It really shows the inequality and racial disparity,
and the different ways of life of people. I always wonder how we fit in here
and how I'm playing a role in this.
On a different note, for my Africa
Unite internship I've been working on organizing a community dialogue aroundthe rights of people with disabilities. I contacted many different
organizations to come and the whole process has been a lot of work, but very
good experience. We had the dialogue today in Gugulethu and it went very well!
There were a lot of people with disabilities, community members, NGO's and
other organizations who attended; in total about 70 people. We also got a
journalist to come cover the event. It was interesting hearing everyone's
voices as they talked about the challenges they faced. They brought up violence
in the community, struggles with employment, education, politicians only caring
about disabilities around elections, struggles to stay involved in hobbies like
sports, etc. It was quite emotional hearing people's stories and experiences,
and how some of them became disabled due to xenophobic violence.
We later talked about what we can do
as a community to address these issues. One thing everyone agreed about is that
they wanted more discussions and support groups like this in the future, so I
hope I can help make this a recurring thing. One speaker suggested that they
work to build a community among themselves so they can formally bring their
concerns to the public and outside parties. I think this is a great idea, and I
plan to keep working on this with one of the people I met today. Overall, this
work has made me more interested and informed on disabilities and the struggles
people face, and I hope I can keep working to address this both at Africa Unite
and back home in the US.
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