Although I am very happy to be “home” in Cape Town, I really
did thoroughly enjoy our excursion in Johannesburg. We started off the week
touring museums and historical sights which is honestly not my favorite thing
in the world to do, but I learned so much while being there and listening to
the accounts shared by people who had encountered Apartheid atrocities. Walking
through museums such as the Hector Pieterson Museum, it was heartbreaking to
read about how these people were simply protesting the fact that they were all
of a sudden being forced to learn in a foreign language and many lost their
lives because of it. That is like having
to learn in Spanish for only English speaking students and there is no way of
getting around it…that boggles my mind. Something that also hit home was
walking through the Black Only cemetery in Sharpeville. I have been to
cemeteries in the US and some in Israel for fallen soldiers, and these are some
of the most beautiful places with granite headstones and beautiful flowers
lining every single one of the graves. Meanwhile, walking through the cemetery
for the victims of the Sharpeville Massacre was like walking through a landfill.
There was trash lining the graves instead of photos or flowers, many people
didn’t even have headstones to identify who they were or their life and that
utterly broke my heart. I wanted so
badly to fix up the place, plant some grass, flowers, remove the trash, and
give these people a proper resting place because they don’t deserve anything
less.
Later was the Kruger National Park excursion which was even
more incredible than expected. Seeing all these wild animals in their natural
habitat was so peaceful because I am only used to seeing animals locked up in a
zoo with no freedom to roam. On one of the excursions we saw a female lion with
many cubs as they were trying to cross the street. There were obviously many
cars and trucks stopped in the road to see this amazing sight, so one of the
cubs got lost and separated from the group and was clearly scared and
attempting to roar for the mother to hear.
The mother came back to look for the cub and was eventually reunited. My
heart melted. The next night, we went on another game drive and within minutes
we witnessed three female lions attacking a water buffalo for that night’s
dinner. The cubs were close by, almost taking note of how the mothers were
doing it. It was the most beautiful and disturbing thing I have ever witnessed.
I started crying because of the noises the buffalo were making in its last
minutes of life, almost screaming in pain. We were standing by with cameras out
and it felt very awkward to watch something die, but on the other hand I
realized it is only the circle of life and this needs to happen in order for
the other animals to eat and survive. The cubs were amazing to watch, they were
so timid and waited a very long time until the moms essentially said it was
okay to eat. As sad as it was, I am so grateful I got to witness that type of
nature with my own eyes because I am almost positive I will never see something
like that in my life ever again.
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