Taylor's excursion to Jo'burg was one of her favorite weeks thus far

Our excursion in Johannesburg was one of my favorite weeks of the trip so far.  We saw so many amazing historical sites and learned so much in a short amount of time.  I think my favorite place we went to was the Apartheid Museum, I just wish we could have had more time there! There was a temporary exhibit of Nelson Mandela’s life which I think was my favorite part of the day, I got to learn so much about his life before becoming such a world icon.  We also got to see Nelson and Winnie Mandela’s house, which really brought everything we have learned about them to life.  Another one of my favorite places we visited was Constitution Hill, where we got to see the Constitutional Court.  There was so much symbolism and effort put in to the design of the court, and every detail was carefully planned out to represent the values of South Africa.

Constitutional Court

I think seeing the Apartheid Museum, Sharpeville Memorial, and Hector Pietersen Museum in person all helped me understand the history of South Africa and these specific events on a much deeper level.  It is one thing to read and watch videos about these events in class, but it is totally different to see photos and talk to people who experienced the events.  One of the most emotional experiences was when one of the tour guides at the Sharpeville Memorial told us that his grandfather was killed in the Sharpeville Massacre.  Once we had a more personal connection to the massacre, it felt a lot more real.  We also got to visit the actual grave site where the 69 victims were buried, and that was very emotional as well.  Overall, I am so glad we got to see all these sites and museums in person because it gave us a chance to connect with the people and events and see them as reality and not just history.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the week was going to Kruger National Park.  I went on three different game drives, one during sunset, one during sunrise, and one at night from 8-10pm.  They were all amazing and we saw new animals on each drive.  I think my favorites were the giraffes we saw during the sunrise game drive, and the male elephant we saw all by itself during the night drive.  At one point when some people were getting disappointed about not seeing many animals, Rachele brought up that it was actually a good thing, because it meant the animals had enough space to be animals and not be bothered by humans.  When we really thought about it, Kruger is such a big park that we were lucky to even see the animals we did! It felt so nice to spend those two days around so much nature and see more wild animals than many people might see in their life!

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.

Anna enjoyed herself on our fun and educational excursion

Driving through Johannesburg, I expected to see rampant poverty and evidence of crime.  I’ve heard several negative comments about Jo’burg – Cape Town is bad at night, but Jo’burg is always bad.  Maybe we didn’t venture into the “bad” parts of the city, but I never felt unsafe.  We walked through townships and ate at restaurants owned by township residents.  We worked at a thriving Boys and Girls club and visited museums and memorials remembering South Africa’s past.  Interacting with locals definitely challenged my preconceptions of Jo’burg; the city may have a higher crime rate than Cape Town, but the people are still the same welcoming, loving, and caring South African citizens.  Still, there is racism, sexism, and classism evident in Jo’burg just like in Cape Town.  At a steak house, the smallest steak was called “ladies.”  Of course, because we’re feminists, we had to ask the server about this nomenclature.  He said they call it “ladies” so that men know not to order it.  Masculinity is so fragile that men are told what size steak is appropriate for them.

Visiting Constitution Hill opened my eyes to the true tortuous past of South Africa.  We visited an old prison for white, colored, and black men.  I learned that joining a gang was the only way to stay away from harm caused by other prisoners.  If you helped out a gang leader, he would give you a reward.  Many of these men probably did not want to become part of a gang, but it was the only way to survive.  Solitary confinement was another aspect of the prison that stood out to me.  One ex-prisoner described the experience of solitary confinement as being buried alive.  Stuck in a small cell with two buckets, men would not see another human for hundreds of days.  Some were driven to insanity.  Like everything during Apartheid, these men were treated differently based on their race.  Whites, coloreds and Asians, and Africans would be given different meals every day, with whites getting the most vegetables, bread, soup, and other more nutritious types of foods.  Based entirely off skin color, some men were treated much better in prison than other men.

The Hector Pietersen Museum was one of the most interesting yet saddening museums we visited on this trip.  Pietersen was a thirteen-year-old boy who was killed by the police during a peaceful protest against the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in black schools.  Like Constitution Hill, the Hector Pietersen Museum gave real-life testimonies of the atrocious South African environment under the Apartheid government.  Hector’s sister recalls, “Everything was puzzling, it was so confusing.  But I was angry.  How can an adult shoot an innocent child?”  The police had become so brainwashed into seeing black as bad that they shot children without remorse.

On a more positive note, our three game drives at Kruger National Park were incredible.  We saw giraffes, an elephant, zebras, hyenas, monkeys, warthogs, a vulture, wildebeests, a huge herd of buffalo, and two male lions!  I felt like I was in the Lion King.  I like Kruger because the animals have a vast area of land to roam around; the park is larger than the size of Connecticut.  These animals are considered wild, so it was rewarding to go out on a game drive and spot these animals; we never knew what we would be able to see.  

One of my favorite moments was on our sunrise drive when we saw around ten giraffes hanging out with zebras.  It’s cool to see these plant-eating animals coexisting.  Another exciting moment was on the sunset drive.  Two male lions walked alongside our vehicle for about ten minutes as they marked their territory.  Their walk is so regal.  I wish we could have seen rhinos, but there are only two left in the entire park because of poaching.  Rhinos have no natural predators, but because of humans, they are going extinct.  Overall, our spring break in Jo’burg and Kruger was both fun and educational, and I really enjoyed myself.

Sara W taking time to consider lessons learned

After Jo’burg, we went to Kruger National Park. After all of the heartache that was felt from the historical sites in Jo’burg, this was much needed. We saw so many animals and I went on a total of 3 safari rides; 1 sunrise and 2 sunsets. I saw 3 different types of monkeys, wilda beasts, zebras, lions, cheetahs!!!!, buffalos, impalla, wart hogs, giraffes, owls, eagles, other really neat birds, hippos, antelopes, hyenas, kudos, a crocodile, and baboons. It was awesome not having wifi for this weekend. It was a nice break from reality and it allowed me to think a lot more about things I might not have thought of if I had wifi to use.   

One idea that has become more and more prevalent to me through our time here is how wealth and opportunity go hand in hand. For example, I wouldn't be fortunate enough to be on this study abroad experience if I had grown up in a township in South Africa. Although that sounds obvious, it is truly what shapes our lives and what opportunities are available to us as we grow older. This is also the same as at home and all around the world. It seems that the biggest indicator of success between people who care more about changing the world (ie Berney Sanders) vs people who care more about themselves (Trump... Zumba) is money. People buy there way to the top so they can be superior to others. This is difficult because it is not just these big, famous figures where this is prevalent but I also see it with students at UConn. For instance, the people on this trip who want to change the world and have jobs that make an impact (i.e. at an NGO) will make far less money compared to say a wealthy boy who is in a fraternity, voted for trump and is studying business.

It is for these reasons that the wealth gap grows more and more. Although I am aware of these things I still do not know what to do about it. But I am confident that with all of the people who do care we can work together to figure it out to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. If we look up to people who were poor and still made a huge difference, it can help to motivate us. For example, obviously Nelson Mandela. While we were learning about him I tried to read about his upbringing and see how he was able to make such an impact. Although he wasn’t wealthy, he still influenced the world. These are the people we need to look to in order to stay motivated.