Rachel eager to begin applying the lessons learned while in Cape Town

I am writing this final blog post on my way back from JFK. I think during my time in Cape Town I got caught up in the hype of America, because I was so excited to return home. Being excited to return home however, didn’t mean that I was ready to leave Cape Town. Driving through New York I am realizing I missed how green everything looks but I also miss hearing the mini bus drivers shout out the windows, the streets look too empty without them.

 My last week in Cape Town I spent most of the time at the aquarium because it was my favorite place to be in Cape Town. I finally got to finish my scuba diving certification and I am now a certified open water scuba diver! The dinner for our internships was a great time for the girls I had spent my semester with to meet some of my favorite people! I only wish they had met each other sooner.

I am realizing how much I want to talk about racial and gender topics now. My friends have been asking me about the touristy things I did in Cape Town, but I am more eager no to be able to participate in talks about gender and race. I think now I am realizing that it has been one of the best things I have gotten out of this trip.

For my final paper in Marita’s class I had to address how I have become a global citizen and I wrote that my first step was looking at my own internalized racism. I think this is one of the things that allow me to be a better global citizen because I need to start with myself. How can I expect the world to change if I myself won’t? Another thing I have learned on this trip is how to be an activist, and that will make me a better global citizen. I think I understand now that a global citizen is someone who wants to make a positive change in the world as a whole, not just one country. After this trip I am more likely to stand up for what I believe in and to more importantly, do something about it. As I said in my goals, I want to write letters to my state representatives to rid Massachusetts of plastic bags. I want to see the whole world make this change but I will start small. After this class I will be more likely to participate in a march for something I stand for.

Overall my time in Cape Town is one I don’t think I will ever forget. Not only all the amazing people I met and places I saw but the change I saw in my own self. My next step is to constantly apply what I have learned so that I don’t slip into my old habits.

Rachele realizing she has never been unhappy during her time here

This week in Cape Town I have realized there has never been a moment where I was unhappy. Some of my favorite moments have been taking the taxis and walking home after my internship just enjoying the Cape Town weather. In class we were talking about our fears of going home and one of the ones that stuck with me was the fear that we didn’t make the most of our experience here. This stuck with me because I have always felt a pressure to be doing as much as possible here. However, I also realized I am feeling this way because I am comparing my own experiences to other people's. My solution to this was to reflect on some special moments that I had by myself, some moments on this amazing trip that only I had experienced.

This week I went into the aquarium on my off days and did not regret it. I got to feed the two sea turtles Bob and Sandy and put in some good work. It is nice to see how much the aquarists trust me with now, I feel I have really come a long way from when I started. This week I got trusted with feeding two areas and for next week I got asked to take care of the ecosystem area up stairs with all of the frogs and the snakes! I am realizing now how much I love being at the aquarium and constantly keeping busy.

We also had to create goals for one of our assignments and one of mine that I want to pay extra attention to is getting in contact with my local representatives about banning plastic bags in Massachusetts. I have always been passionate about the environment but after this trip I am much more willing to act for causes I believe in. Plastic usage in particular is something that bothers me because most of the time it is unnecessary. Also at the aquarium I have seen first hand how damaging it can be to marine life.

In a crazy turn of events I realized I may be staying for less time than I expected and it was at this point I suddenly realized how not ready I am to leave just yet. The thought of being back at home eating Thai take out with my family is something that I can not wait to do, but I have also realized I know I will always go back to Massachusetts but I don’t know when I will come back to my new home of Cape Town. Something else that was brought up in class was how much we will miss seeing Table Mountain no matter where we are in the city. I cannot believe that this trip is drawing to an end.

            

Rachele enjoyed and learned a lot in Jo'burg but glad to be back in Cape Town

Last week for our spring break trip we took sometime away from Cape Town to see other parts of South Africa. Our first stop was Johannesburg, on Monday we went to the Apartheid Museum. The Apartheid Museum was significant to me because it got me to start to realize how many people lost their lives during the Apartheid. Of course I knew people had died but walking through the physical timeline of the Museum made me realize how long the Apartheid struggle really was. Also, something at the museum that was interesting was the structure of the museum had a lot of symbolism, particularly the entrance. Not only was the entrance separated into a black and white entrance depending of the ticket you received but even a ramp we walked up steadily increased and narrowed to show the struggle of Apartheid.

Later that day we went to Constitution Hill where the Jo’burg Prison was and also where the current constitution court is. It was hard walking through the prison, especially the isolation cells and thinking that actually people were kept here. Prisoners were treated poorly here and human rights were constantly violated, it makes me wonder how prison today compares and if anything has really gotten better. 

I will say that the Constitution Court was one of my favorite places on the trip. There was so much symbolism that went into constructing the court. Outside of the courtroom was designed to look like you are under a tree because in many South African cultures conflicts were often resolved by elders under the shade of a tree. Inside the court is made of the bricks from the old prison where so many human rights and now constitutional rights were broken. The symbolism behind that is that the bricks are a reminder of what has occurred in the past so that it will not happen in the future. I also found it interesting how some of the seats for the public are higher up than the judges, which is atypical for a court room. This is to remind the judges and everyone in the room that we are all equal human beings.

On Tuesday we traveled to Soweto, the largest Township in South Africa. Here our first stop was the Mandela household. It was crazy to see the bullet marks and smoke marks outside of the house where it was often attacked. From there we travelled down the road to the Hector Pieterson Museum. I enjoyed all of the photography in this museum. This museum was dedicated to those who fought for educational rights during apartheid. The Soweto uprising was an uprising by mainly the youth against an Apartheid law that made Afrikaans the language that all schools had to teach in. For Black South Africans, Afrikaans is seen as the language of the oppressor so they rebelled. During the march against this new law, many unarmed people and children were shot by the police, the first to fall was 12 year old Hector Pieterson. There’s a famous picture of his bodied being carried away from the shooting and I spent a very long time looking at it and wondering how it got to the point where children were being shot at.

The next day we took a trip to Sharpville. During the Apartheid people were made to constantly carry passbooks that would identify your race classification. If you were found without your passbook you would be sent to jail. In Sharpville there was an uprising where people marched to the local police station without their passbooks to be arrested, hoping to fill the prison over capacity. It’s said that a young police officer got nervous by the crowd and fired a shot. This started the Sharpville Massacre. 69 people died that day while 180 were injured. Many of the people were shot in the back as they turned to run away from the violence. What happened in Sharpville became very real when we went to the cemetery where all the victims were buried, many of them children.

For our last day in Jo’burg we went to a boys and girls club to help them prepare for a braai.

Friday we headed to Kruger Park! Some of the most memorable animals I saw here were lions, an elephant, giraffes, hyenas, kudu, impala, zebra, jackals, and more! Kruger was a great experience because the animals there were truly wild. I really wanted to see a leopard but not seeing one was reassuring at the same time because it meant that these animals had enough space to roam that they could go their whole life without seeing a human.

           

Overall, I enjoyed my time in Johannesburg. I personally felt like it was different from Cape Town in the sense that I wasn’t as comfortable. Needless to say I learned a lot that week from the museums and experiences I had but, I am happy to be back in The Mother City.

Rachele enjoying each moment while still having so much to look forward to

FireFighters Soccer Club at practice

On Thursday I joined some of the girls to their activist project with the Khaylitsha Firefighters. The Firefighters is a youth soccer program. At practice I had a great time hanging out with the kids and playing soccer, but on my way home I was happy to get to see another side of Khaylitsha. During orientation when we drove through Khaylitsha we had a lot of moments of pity for the people living in Khaylitsha and think only really saw it as a sad place. Taking the mini bus through the township I feel like I got to see Khaylitsha as any other neighborhood. People were taking their nighttime strolls with their families, getting home from work; it was nice to notice the people that lived there rather than the shacks.

This week I got to do my second pool dive! After my first scuba diving class I had felt unsure if diving was for me. I found it very claustrophobic being underwater because of how much more effort it took to breathe through a regulator. But, after my second dive, I can’t wait to get back in the water. When I get back from Jo Burg I can dive in the big ocean tank and I am so excited for that!

This week in Marita’s class we watched a video called I Am. This video is very thought provoking in asking the simple question of why some of us have so much while others have nothing? I really made me wonder when and why did people start becoming so individualized, why isn’t the world a community where we lookout for each other. I think something I really took from this movie was to live a minimalistic life style as much as I can. I want to do this by changing my shopping habits. I would rather have less clothes, but send more on them knowing that they came from a company that does exploit people and labor. The video also spoke about the connection between every living thing and I think that that is something I really see in life and believe in. It is one of the reason’s I am so passionate about climate change, my ideal world is one where we as a species can better connect to the rest of life on the planet.

Next week we head to Jo Burg! I am excited to learn more about the history of South Africa and also compare this other part of the country to Cape Town.