Isabel's constructive work week followed by fun adventures

This week Josh and I have made a huge amount of progress in our projects at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR).  Even though the organization is split into different programmes, the office remains very integrated, which is something I really enjoy as I step into a new environment.  On Monday, we sat in on Press Club, which is a meeting the office staff holds every Monday before they drive into their own agendas.  The facilitators state the biggest news stories in South Africa and then afterward there is a debate about the topics they bring up.  I found this portion of my week the most educational.  As some may already know, the Constitutional Court in South Africa has declared that Zuma has not upheld the Constitution in a hearing last Friday.  Therefore, the Democratic Alliance (DA) tabled a motion during the hearing to impeach him.  That motion was then voted on this Tuesday and the DA lost.  We see the headlines all over the press and hear about them in class, but it was even more interesting hearing about current events from local South Africans. 

I am currently working under a woman named Ayanda.  She works for IJR in their Policy and Analysis Programme.  She has given me a project that is under her over arching work on inclusive economies.  Ayanda has created a Theory of Change to progress youth participation in South Africa and I am currently writing a narrative along with complying a diagram for this theory.  I am learning a lot and I already feel very incorporated in IJR.  I look forward to my remaining time there, even as the weeks go by so quickly now.

 After a week of internships and coursework, it felt so good to get back to my activist project at Heaven’s Nest Child Care Centre on Friday.  We started early and went to a hardware store for the supplies we needed in order to paint a wall in their driveway.  We were able to paint a priming coat and the background colors for the mural we hope to create.  It already has brightened up the place and by the time we are finished we hope it will create a better marketing strategy for the organization, as they do not have any clear indicators that the child center is located there currently.  It was also great to see the kids.  They know us pretty well by now and I have grown very attached to them.  I can’t wait to show everyone a finished picture of the project and get started on our next one shortly.

 

This weekend has been spent relaxing and checking the final few things off our Cape Town bucket lists.  Amelia, Meghan H., Meg O., Kayla, Mariko, Libby and I spent another glorious day at Muzienburg Beach on Saturday and the weather could not have been any better.  I have never seen the beach so packed and it was a very good place to do some people watching while catching up on my podcast.  We traveled down to Kalk Bay via the seaside walkway after the beach and got confronted by many many crashing waves.  We were all a bit soggy by the time we got there, but the ice cream we were after was very worth the journey.  

Sunday, Eric, Meg O., and I all decided it would be the perfect day to finally paraglide and it was amazing!  By the time you land, it feels like you were only in the air for a couple of seconds.  The views were incredible though and the whole ride you just smelt the ocean water below you.  It was an indescribable moment and I am so glad we found time to do that before the weekend ended.  We are all relaxing by the pool now and soaking up the rays of sunshine before we start another workweek.  I am excited to begin again at IJR and hopefully find even more to love about Cape Town in the coming days.