It is my final week in Cape
Town. Although I am trying to live in the moment and enjoy the last few days I
have here, the thought of packing it in and getting on that plane is constantly
in the back of my mind. I am thinking about how different it is going to be
when I get home, and how different I am going to view the world around me. That
thought is exciting, yet brings some anxiety with how my life will change. I’ll
just have to take it step by step when I get home.
I’m trying to cross the last view
things off my Cape Town bucket list. Yesterday, we went to a rugby game which
proved very interesting. The actual rugby was awesome, even if it took a while
for me to catch on to the rules of the game. The fans were so passionate, and
there was constant screaming, whether it was celebratory or disappointment. One
of the things I found interesting is that women can not play rugby here. At
home, I know so many more female rugby players than I do male. I don’t know the
statistics, but I could guess that there are more female rugby players in the
US than male ones. But here, they consider it a “man’s sport,” not for women.
Additionally, there were cheerleaders at the game directly in front of where we
were sitting. Their outfits were smaller than ones I am used to seeing, and
throughout the crowd men would yell out “I love you” and “you’re beautiful” at
the women as they danced. I couldn’t put my finger on why this instance made me
more uncomfortable than other games I’ve attended where there were cheerleaders,
but it did. I think it was because the game of rugby is so aggressive,
and I was seeing outright violence celebrated as strength, next to
submissiveness celebrated as beauty, directly next to each other. It was pretty
distracting, to be honest.
This week is Freedom Week at my
internship, organized around Freedom Day (the anniversary of the first
democratic elections in 1994), and should be a very busy one. At the beginning
of the semester, the State of the Nation and State of the Province were
happening, and I was able to attend and help plan a ton of protests and
demonstrations. It was definitely my favorite part of the internship, and I am
excited for my last week to have a little bit of that in it. Our supervisors
are also planning to take Bryan and I out on our own separate dinner to see us
off. I’m very grateful that they care about our experience and how we feel
about the internship so much.
Although I am excited for bagels,
iced coffee, and New-York style pizza, I am going to be missing Cape Town every
day. Hopefully, I can put that thought in the back of my mind in my last week
as a Capetonian.
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