Anxious..

I guess it was about time for me to have one of those days where you just feel weird and off..

Maybe it's the fact that I am finally getting better and forgot what that was like. Or that suddenly I feel swarmed by class selection, law school, honors projects, tons of work looming in the future, and general confusion about where I really want to be in five years.

Or maybe it's the fact that I miss my family and everyone back home. I was talking to my friend Nox today about how hard it is sometimes to be away from the people you love. I mean it helps you grow. It really does. When you are sick or lost or confused you are forced to deal with it on your own, and there is no doubt that I have leanred to do that since I've been here. But sometimes you just need to be reminded of home, and I guess that's what I needed today.

Being in Cape Town has reaffirmed for me the fact that I need to do something with my life that helps people. It's as simple and cliche as that. There is just too much poverty and misery, too much ignorance in this world to forget about it and live and work only for myself. I came here hoping that some sort of door would open up, but I think I have just realized that that same door has been open all along. And I can't ignore it or push it aside anymore. I have seen the effects of what happens when people hate and fear each other, when people are concerned only with self-interest. And I won't be a part of it.

Just one more test until Botswana, which will be a welcome break from everything. I think it will be good to be cut off for a while, because when I get back the whirlwind of stress is likely to take over. And it's about time I looked at things a little more seriously, as if they are actually approaching (which they are).

I have been feeling something lately, something that has been pulling and tugging me. Something that won't stop bothering me. Maybe it's the realization that I am actually an adult now, that nobody is going to tell me what to do and where to go from here. Maybe it's the realization that I'm going to need to let go of some things go in order to really discover what I want to do with my life (like my ceaseless preoccupation with taking advantage of everything in front of me, which, as stupid as it sounds, really compounds my feelings of stress). I don't know.

As for now, one more test. One day at a time. Then break :).

Politics and a dash of culture

It's easy, with all of the amazing things Cape Town has to offer, to forget that this is an election year in South Africa, one of the most important in recent history. It's easy to ignore the thousands of signs posted on poles and lampposts when you are focused on school work and other things. But the fact remains that the county, after April 22nd, is likely to experience significant change.

South Africa has around 14 different political parties, with only 4 actually in contention. Since 1994 elections have been dominated by the African National Congress, the party of Mandela. However, in recent years, the ANC has been plagued by corruption, cronyism, and poor policies. It still holds the majority and it is likely to stay that way, but serious opposition is starting to emerge.

On Thursday I went to a debate hosted by UCT during which four of the major parties were represented (the ANC, the Democratic Alliance, COPE [an offshoot of the ANC], and the Independent Democrats). It was incredible to see how enthusiastic the students were; the place was absolutely packed, and people cheered, booed, and were jumping in their seats to ask questions.

The actual debate was very interesting...a lot of ganging up on the ANC, accusing it of corruption, incompetence, etc. The parties all seemed to agree (despite some minor bickering here and there) about issues like poverty, HIV/AIDS, and crime. Some of the most intriguing debate was around the xenophobic violence that has erupted against immigrants from Zimbabwe and neighboring countries. Also, there has been a lot of controversy around the ruling party's recent refusal to permit entrance into South Africa for the Dalai Lama for a peace conference. There has been a ton of criticism of the ANC, and the way the ANC justified it was absolutely ridiculous. The reality of the situation is that South Africa is a staunch ally of China, nothing more, and didn't want to upset Beijing.

The debate was really, really exciting. The ANC's presidential candidate is a man named Jacob Zuma, who, according to common perception, is incompetent, inexperienced, and corrupt. He has also been accused of rape. In a parliamentary system like South Africa's, though, the way places are set on the ballot is determined by who's been around longest, not who's most qualified. In other words, since the ANC is still the dominant party, South Africa's likely next president will be a man that most people don't trust or believe in. It really is absurd when you think about it.

Yesterday me and a couple people went to a see a play at the Baxter Theater that was part of a month long theater festival. The festival apparently won an award for cultural development, so I was eager to see part of it. The play we saw was pretty bizarre.... half of it was spoken in Xhosa, and it told the story of a white man coming to a village to set up a shop. The story was a little confusing, but the singing and dancing were amazing. It's amazing to see how important singing and dancing are to cultural expression, especially among the Xhosa people.

Luckily, I'm close to feeling better, FINALLY. Only an essay and test left before Botswana and Victoria Falls!

Famous!

From the front page of the UCT website. Most staged picture of all time!

http://www.uct.ac.za/dailynews/?id=6983

Hundreds of Cape Town high-school learners are set to become 'legal wise' as UCT students take a legal-education programme to disadvantaged communities.

Launched last year, the Legal Welfare Community Organisation (LAWCO) is furthering initiatives to educate the youth about human rights and the law.

Workshops have been hosted at Aloe Secondary School in Mitchell's Plain, at Lavender Hill High School in Steenberg, and at the Student Health and Welfare Centre Organisation (SHAWCO) Saturday school at UCT. This has given Grade 10 and 11 students from Athlone, Crossroads, Heideveld, Kensington, Khayelitsha, Manenberg, Mitchell’s Plain and Nyanga basic legal education.

Workshops have also been scheduled for schools in the SHAWCO Student Mentored All Round Tuition (SMART) education project. These will examine civil and political rights, labour law, and family law.

The LAWCO project is funded by LexisNexis and is one of SHAWCO's 12 flagship projects.

LAWCO project leader Rebecca Metz said the organisation aims to create a culture of meaningful student involvement in the community and targets all law students. They not only contribute to community development but gain practical experience while applying their knowledge.

"The LAWCO project adds to the options available to UCT law students when fulfilling their community service hours," said Metz.

Not too much to write on this week. LAWCO went really well again. It was funny because as we were leaving the school to load equipment onto the bus, a group of young kids swarmed us, giving us high fives and laughing with us. And one of them even said they liked my pointy nose!

I have loved getting to know the UCT students in the group. Everyone is really motivated and intelligent. It has also been awesome hanging out with some different people. On Monday I went to a random surprise birthday party that a girl from my glass invited me too where I was the only American for once. It was refreshing, and I met some of my leaders for the Botswana trip, which is going to be just incredible.

On Friday I went with Will and Cami to Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek, two towns along the cape which were both beautiful, except for the fact that I randomly started feeling really sick. I had a pretty bad fever and headache all weekend, which was sooooo annoying.



Today I just started feeling better. I saw advertisements hanging on poles for a Cape Town Festival in the Company's Gardens celebrating Cape Town's 'cultural diversity.' Aaron and I minibused downtown to go, and had a very bizarre day. The 'festival,'; for example, was nothing more than a few shabby food stands and a very awkward concert with people sitting on the grass in the heat. We then passed on the way out what looked like a demon man. He was really short and pale with a huge nose and enormous head. Then, on Kloof Street (which is a pretty upscale trendy street) we were sitting outside drinking smoothies when a little beggar child accosted us. He started begging for money, and when we ignored him he threatened to steal Aaron's phone. When he put it away, the kid sat down and started kicking and shaking the chairs. So we went inside as he swore at us. Later on as we were walking down the street, a teenage-ish girl asked us for money for a cab, and when we ignored her she followed us for a block swearing and threatening us. It was a little unnerving because a couple people on our program have gotten mugged recently in broad daylight.

But this is Cape Town. Always a little bizarre.

Busy Saturday

Saturday we took a group trip the the District Six Museum, a collection or artifacts commemorating District Six, an enormous area that was designated to be for whites only by the South African government. The neighborhood, which at time was a bustling community with an incredible black culture, was virtually leveled. The museum has a collection of street signs, maps, newspaper articles, pictures, and first-hand accounts. It was a powerful place and reminds you that these just weren't collections of houses that were destroyed....they were societies. We only spend twenty or so minutes inside, which as a little disappointing. I would love to go back.

We then traveled to Langa, the first black township in South Africa. It was similar to Tambo Village, just bigger. We did, however, tour one of the hostels, where families would pile into tiny rooms (sometimes 5 families to one room). I can't imagine two families living in one of them, never mind five. Our tour guide compared the place to a prison.

We also got to go inside some of the informal shacks that migrants and really poor families still live in. It was pretty tiny, of course, but we did get to taste a traditional South African beer (which tasted putrid, haha). It felt kind of weird t o be touring a township like it was a zoo or a museum. This is how people live. But at least we were led around by someone who lives there. You could really hear the pride in his voice, even though he was sometimes speaking about how terrible the living conditions are.



After Langa we took a ferry to Robben Island, where political prisoners were kept by the apartheid government. Despite an incredible view of Cape Town, the island is considered the 'hell of South Africa.' And for good reason. The place is absolutely barren, the stone buildings ash gray. The vegetation is brown and parched, and the sun beats down ceaselessly on the sand and limestone. We saw some of places where prisoners were kept, learning about the history of political struggle in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned here for twenty years (his cell was 6 feet by 6 feet).

Robben Island is certainly a forlorn place and represents the horrors of political oppression. But it also symbolizes the struggle and eventual achievement of freedom. That struggle's success is the only reason we were on the island to begin with.

Considering that this was the first workshop LAWCO has ever done, it went surprisingly well. We traveled to a school in Mitchel's Plain, a township about twenty minutes from Cape Town. There were a few glitches here and there, but the students seemed really interested. The tried to answer questions, laughed at all the skits, and were really enthusiastic about the auction at the end (we put on a fake auction to discuss the importance of various human rights in South African society). My role was pretty small...I only have a couple lines in one skit. I am also responsible for leading discussion in groups when different rights are being auctioned off. Again, it was amazing to see how much students were engaged, and I really do think that they learned something. Will it change their lives? Probably not. But it's a start, of course.

I haven't been doing too much this week because I have been pretty sick (with what, I'm not sure). But I have been noticing somethings when talking to foreign students and observing things around campus. It is just amazing to see the influence that American culture and politics has here. Everywhere there are posters advertising lectures on Obama and American foreign policy. American music is played, people watch American movies and TV shows, dress in American clothes. Our culture has also invaded; despite the fact that you gain nothing legally, 21st birthdays are consist of huge themed celebrations that usually take over an entire weekend. One girl was talking about Halloween, and how she had no idea why South Africans celebrated it. She told me about a time when she was a kid she tried to go trick-or-treating at an old white man's house, and he came to the door with a shotgun thinking he was being robbed! This is all new to me. You don't realize until you travel outside the States just how much our society influences others.

Orphanage, Lion's Head

I have been adjusting more every day to life at UCT... people are generally very friendly, and I have met a lot of people from South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and more. I have found that some groups tend to take cliquey to the extreme. I was talking to a girl from Zambia the other day, and she was telling me how intimidated she was by the Afrikaner girls, who all hang out together and look EXACTLY the same. She told me that she usually only hangs out with people from Zambia, and that most people tend to stick with those that are similar to. I mean it makes sense, and it's not like it's that different in the U.S. But here I feel like the divide is a little more serious.

Yesterday I visited an orphanage about 15 minutes away with a pretty big group. One of the girl's on our program has been going every Saturday, so she let a bunch of us tag along. It is impossible to overemphasize how close these townships are to Cape Town, but yet, how easy it would be to never leave the city and assume that 3/4 of the population was middle class and white.

The building was painted green and was pretty shabby. We were led inside by a South African guy Mike who lives on our street and has been volunteering there for a couple years. There was an outdoor play area with a concrete floor, a couple buildings for sleeping, and a kitchen. We met the Mama in charge of the orphanage, one of the sweetest most genuine women you could imagine (easy to see, despite the language barrier). We learned that she started the orphanage from scratch in 1994, and that it has been taking in more and more kids from the area throughout the years. Some have no parents, some were abandoned. There was one child, for instance, who was named, simply, "Gift." It was just incredible to think how much dedication and love it must have taken to initiate such a difficult project, how much motivation and selflessness is must have required to keep it running so smoothly all these years.

The kids, like all kids, didn't waste any time taking advantage of their new group of visitors. We played with children from ages 1-12 for literally three hours, learning their songs and dances, playing games with them, carrying them around, coaching them in a giant one-legged race, hugging them. The kids were fascinated by such simple things, like American girls' hair, or my leg hair, to my friend's beard. None of us seemed to care how dirty and sweaty we were getting. The most amazing part about all of this was that they spoke barely a word of English. That's the thing...with kids, it really just doesn't matter. Kids are kids no matter where they are, no matter where and how they are growing up. Playing, hugging, dancing, are common, human desires, and it doesn't matter if you speak Xhosa or Spanish, if you live in a poor orphanage or a mansion. That, I think, is the most important function of this orphanage. It gives kids a chance to be kids, which we all need.

We spent some times talking to the older kids, who were pretty shy. They spoke a little bit of English, which was impressive, and despite their general quietness, seemed to have so many talents and passions. I had an amazing time there this weekend, and I definitely plan on going back in a couple weeks. I am not going to sit here and pretend that visiting an orphanage is some incredible service to humanity. But seeing their excitement, their joy at having new playmates (even for three hours) makes it worth it for me.

The incredible irony of my Saturday is that when I returned to my flat, I took a minibus down to Camp's Bay, one of the most beautiful areas of South Africa, to meet some people. It also happens to be the wealthiest, and thus, whitest. The contrast was really difficult to reconcile. For a while I felt guilty.... that I can go take a trip into a township and visit an orphanage in my free time, and then just like that leave and forget about it while the kids and people there still struggle to survive. That seems to be the curse of this country. That it is so easy, which it's beaches and restaurants and mountains, to forget what is really going on.



Anyways, the beach was beautiful, and we rushed through dinner in order to get to the Lion's Head trail in time to make it up for sunset. The hike wasn't too strenuous, and Aaron and I broke off toward the top to take a short cut that required you to climb up slippery rocks vertically, using chains and ladders. That is when it got a little more difficult. But it was worth it, because we made it to the top just in time to see the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen. From the top, you can see Cape Town, Table Mountain, Camps Bay and the jagged peaks of the Twelve Apostles, Robben Island, Sea Point. You can see it all. As the sun sank below ocean, the whole area was a beautiful orange/purple, including the clouds that slid like waterfalls down Table Mountain. As the lights of Cape Town began to blink on, everything was covered in a deep shade of purple. It's obviously impossible to describe in words.

We hiked down in the dark with a South African church group, and somehow made it down without any incidents. My Saturday, like much of this country, was really one giant contrast. Like the top of Lion's Head, it is part of what makes this country so beautiful. But it's also what makes this country so, at times, so frustratingly perplexing.