Rahcele's extremely busy week

I have finally started my activist project! Took us a while but finally me and Karen have started volunteering at the PDSA, The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals. Last Friday we mostly just shadowed some of the veterinarians and nurses around the hospital to see how the place ran but next week we are going to be doing more cleaning and helping out. The PDSA is a low-income veterinary hospital where people have to make under a certain amount to use their services. I really admire the work being done here and also all of the staff. There are a lot of families that own animals and veterinary care is expensive, I think the PDSA is a really important resource. Animals I think are very pure and don’t care how you look , how much money you make, etc. They care how you treat them and I think a place like the PDSA maintains the health of domestic animals who really enhance the lives of their owners.

           

This week I feel as if I didn’t make a lot of an impact at the PDSA. I personally benefitted a lot from being able to watch some surgeries, but I am hoping next week I will really be able to use my skills to help the nurses and veterinarians there. Karen and I also hope to start a fundraiser to help the PDSA continue to serve low-income families. The facility has a need for a lot of supplies to keep their prices low.

This week my family also came to Cape Town! It has been amazing having them here and finally being able to show what I have been up to for the last few months! I have discovered that it is impossible to show them everything I want them to experience here but these last few days have been jam packed with some of my favorite and most important things in Cape Town. Sunday night they came from their flight to dinner at Marita’s place and I think it was the perfect way to start their Cape Town experience. Monday they got to do the community tour with Vernon and really see all of Cape Town. Tuesday they came and visited me at the aquarium, they got to do a penguin encounter and after that they took a visit to Robben Island. Wednesday we didn’t have anything planned but decided last minute to go surfing at Muizenberg. Today, Thursday we visited Aquila private game reserve and it made me more excited to experience Kruger National Park.

 

Rachele (far right) introduces her visitors to the penguins.

This week in Marita’s class we had a guest speaker Tony. Tony had been classified colored during apartheid but because of his lighter complexion he was often mistaken for white or received benefits. Tony was describing how on the same day at the beach, his brother with a darker complexion was chased off the beach, while Tony blended in with the white people there. I think it is important to mention that Tony talked a lot about not really noticing what was happening to him during apartheid. It was something he was born into and grew up to just accept as the norm. So far on this trip I am finding a common theme of not just accepting things because they ‘have been that way for a while’ or ‘everyone else thinks that way’. What I have really gained from this experience is being able to step back from society and say, ‘why are we doing this?’ This makes me eager to go home to the states and look more into what I have been going along with there, even though I morally know that it is wrong.