When we came here mid-January, I had many high
expectations for the dream experience that I was going to have (cue adventure
music). In the hype of Marita’s pre-departure class and the words of the
symposiums, I was expecting to have the experience of all these very different
people combined into mine.
I am glad to say that Cape Town has made its own
impact on me in a unique way not detailed in these information sessions. There
is nothing like the people of Cape Town and their unrelenting spirits.
I will never forget our first week here when we went
to the District Six museum and one of my co-educators asked Joe (our guide) how
they stayed so strong during the forced removals, and he said, “With the
mountains, it is hard to have low spirits.” The strength of table is so much
more powerful than I could have ever thought.
This trip has really made me re-evaluate and think of
they ways in which I view and think of poverty and in my very minimal travels,
no matter how dire the situation, the people of Cape Town have this perseverance
and tenacity to push through. This may be the sheltered view I have had of the
people, but I think this is exampled by the people who create their own crafts,
Tuck shops, street stands and road businesses wherever you go. The people try
to take control of their situations to better themselves and their families.
Unfortunately, not all have this ability to engage in
entrepreneurship because of traumatic events that have led to PTSD and
substance abuse. These people are victims of a system of racial classification
and segregation that has been in place for hundreds of years before their
births.
When Charity and I visited the Castle of Good Hope
with Lucy and saw the Khoi exhibit, the true weight of van Riebeeck’s
refreshment station sank in. This was not just a beautiful fort, but one where
many indigenous people and animals took up residence. What would it be like if
someone came to my home and told me to move in a language I did not understand
with weapons I could not fathom existing?
Similarly, the
forced removals of the 1950’s provided this same movement of indigenous
populations to areas where they did not have the same family ties or land
access points that made them the people they were.
When touring the Bo Kaap area, the brightly colored
houses right below Signal Hill, there were people out on their porches drinking
coffee and children running between houses, as their connections stemmed from
their own families who had been their for years and years. This vibrant
neighborhood brings so much warmth and happiness to Cape culture, and would not
be this way had forced removals occurred here.
To look at the neighborhoods, or “townships” that were
created as new places to stay like Athlone where my activist project was or
Hanover Park where I worked, there is rampant unemployment, increased gang
violence and substance abuse. This displacement still has incredible impact on
these people’s lives. The women I work with at the community center often
remark at how the people fighting in the gangs senselessly die for the unknown
problems of their grandfather’s. This
war that takes so many lives of broken communities can be reached back to the
violence that was imparted on the people from the first removal of the
indigenous people in 1652.
If this trip has taught me nothing else, it is that
you never realize the impact you have on others lives, be it positive or
negative. The kindness I have received from the amazing people of Hanover Park
that I work with and communicate with at FCRC inspire everyday to complain a
little less and appreciate the beautiful world around me a little more.
It has been a great experience Cape Town, you will
truly be missed until the next time!
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| Elizabeth with her amazing co-workers |
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