This week has been incredible. For the most exciting, on
Sunday I went skydiving! It felt so good to check something off my bucket
list, and it was amazing to see Cape Town from double the height of Table
Mountain. I actually went first of everybody, which is not something I thought
I would have the guts to do! But it was amazing and I would go again tomorrow.
This week, my activist project was especially
interesting. Every week I have interesting talks with the kids, but this week
was a little different. The kids were drawing this week, and one of the girls
didn’t know what to draw. I went over to help her, and she asked me, “Is it
okay if I draw a gun?” I was pretty taken aback by the question, and wasn’t too
sure how to react. I asked her why she wanted to draw that, and she just kind
of looked at me and laughed. She ended up drawing something else, however I
wondered how often she sees guns that she would want to draw it in a coloring
activity, whether real or drawn. That isn’t something I ever really heard as a
kid or come across when working with the kids in the states.
Later, I was talking to one of the boys, and he
brought up transgender people in South Africa. He didn’t understand why someone
would want to be a gender they “weren’t,” and I tried to have a conversation
with him about it. I tried to ask him when he realized he was a boy, not when
he knew his anatomy but when he knew what it meant to be a boy.
However, it was the end of the program and I only had 5 minutes with him, which
wasn’t enough time. I think these conversations are really important though,
especially when kids have less inhibition and are willing to talk about these
things.
We also went to first Thursday last week. It was
really fun to see all the food and the art on the streets of Cape Town, and I
wish that I had gone earlier. As the weeks wind down (only 2.5 now, what!), I
am thinking back on everything I have learned and everything I still want to do
while I am here. I have a feeling that I will be missing Cape Town immediately
after touching down in America.
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