Today was a traditional work day. I finished my development plan finally at work… At work my goals are the following: first, to increase flexibility and just go with the flow. Relax and don’t stress. Second, to expand knowledge on the education debate in South Africa. Understand the current education system and how it has evolved since apartheid. Find out what the government objectives and emphasis on education. Interact with students, parents, and teachers. And third, to develop and improve research skills by completing research within the 9 week period. Off the job, my goals are to learn to share, keep a positive attitude, and be respectful of differences. The subset of these goals as a means to accomplish them are to stop cursing, stop complaining, spend more time listening and observing, at home learn to share space with roommates, engage with different people, learn and reflect on experiences by talking to others and writing down thoughts. Another priority/goal is to get to know Cape Town: I plan to accomplish this by having new experiences: be adventurous while being street smart (safety!), developing relationships (get to know the natives, listen and talk to people), and document interesting points in blog. I had to turn this development plan into my supervisor with more detailed description on how I am going to accomplish and monitor my goals.
The highlight of the day was my night at the R Kelley concert. Well at first I had the battle of trying to figure out who was going to go with me because it is not safe to travel alone, and no one wanted to go… not even my roommates… So I was talking to some people at work about what my plans were for the day and they happened to be going!!! Unfortunately the tickets in their section were sold out. So I had to buy floor tickets…. Bummer right… The concert was supposed to be sold out but it was nowhere near being sold out even though that was what the sponsors published in the media the day of the concert. While I was standing in my assigned section which was pretty close for me because my first concert was the Lil Bow Wow Christmas tour in DC where I was in the nose bleed section… I was feeling pretty privileged. I spent about $40 dollars on the ticket. As luck would have it, a bouncer was walking around giving some people in my section red bracelets to be located right in front of the stage. I was one of the lucky ones!!!!!!! I was literally 2 feet away from R Kelley. He even jumped into the crowd where I was standing about 3 times. He came over to my section and was giving out free hugs!!! I rubbed his balled head and I even held his hand for a second. He was crazy though because the men in the audience that were next to me were man-handling his face. He was brave for coming out into the crowd. The people here are some really R Kelley fans. They knew the words to all of his songs, songs that I had never even heard of. One man next to me kept saying “I love you” and “we forgive you” (for his jail time) while he was on stage. R Kelley also threw is towel right on to my head and I almost got my head ripped off. Everyone was fighting over the towel. Finally I just let go because I was like what am I going to do with a towel…… At the end of the night I met a journalist named Myrna from Johannesburg that invited me to the after party with R Kelley. But again no one wanted to go with me So I called it a night.
I later found out that R Kelley was here for a lawsuit concerning money laundering…..
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, we woke up late after a long night and went on a late tour of Robben Island. Visiting Robben Island is something everyone must do when they come to Cape Town. It highlights the political activists of the apartheid era. The Robben prison has been often been compared to Alcatraz in San Francisco. Today people still live on Robben Island which mostly includes the tour guides and their families. Children in elementary and middle school have school on the island. We took a 45 minute boat out to the island and then had a 2 hours tour with a guide that was actually a prisoner in the jail during the apartheid era. His name was Michael Ntando Mbatha. The political activists were regarded as more dangerous than murderers and rapists. I thought the tour was an amazing experience but I was a little disappointed in my guide. His presentation was very impersonal and sounded too rehearsed. He used words like “in conclusion” and “thus” that were just a little awkward for the type of speech I expected. He talked little about himself so I really could not tell you about what he was actually in prison for… Most of the information he gave highlighted Mandela. This was frustrating because many people already know something about Mandela before going on this tour and therefore, I was more interested in learning about the other people that were in the prison. After the tour we had lunch on the pier and happened to see fight at the restaurant at the bar next to us. They were fighting over a soccer game....silly... Anyways while we were waiting for the cab to come pick us up I thought I was going to have to use my mase. This man was begging for money but we said no and I gave him some food instead. But then he got mad and jumped at us and swung his arms in our faces. He was speaking another language so we could not understand what he was saying. We all got up real fast and ran off...
We later had dinner with Jessica and her friend Ntombi. Jessica cooked for us at her house. Ntombi works with Jessica. I met her at church my first weekend there. She lives in Gugulathu. Ntombi also invited us to an R Kelly concert before the night was over but we will see if we can get tickets for this week. We stayed there for a couple hours and then went home and watched a movie. Sarah, Liese, and I were all tired but we stayed up all night talking after the movie, knowing the next morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn for a wine tour.
Sunday, We got up at 8am to leave for a 10+ hour wine tour in the surrounding suburbs of Cape Town. The Boogie Bus took us around to the wineries. The Bus is a taxi/cab service that was referred to us by my advisor at school. Our driver’s name is Steve; he is a character….He gives us really cheap fares and does not try to rob us like most of the cab drivers here. I cannot tell you how many times I was cheated out of money before I met him. Luckily most things are cheap here so cheating me out of money means like I paying $12 opposed to $8 for cab fare. Steve took my roommates and I and a group of Notre Dame students to 5 farms in three different small towns. We also went to a cheetah farm. I got to pet an adult cheetah. Cheetahs are endangered because of poaching but mostly due to the evolution of its habitat. There is only 850 cheetahs left on the continent of Africa. Cheetahs also only live for about 8 years. Later we continued to go from farm to farm wine tasting. To test about 5-8 different kinds of wine; it costs around $2-4. I found that wine is very much an acquired taste. Most of the wine tasted like finger nail polish remover to me… I learned today that I only like the sweet wines which were mostly desert wines. I also prefer white wine. We finally got home around 8pm. We were all tired and some of fell asleep on the Boogie bus. Sarah's head was on Emily and it was kind of funny because we had just met her and the other Notre Dame students that morning and we had grown so comfortable over the course of the trip. We got home we talked to Janine about our day and then went to bed...
We later had dinner with Jessica and her friend Ntombi. Jessica cooked for us at her house. Ntombi works with Jessica. I met her at church my first weekend there. She lives in Gugulathu. Ntombi also invited us to an R Kelly concert before the night was over but we will see if we can get tickets for this week. We stayed there for a couple hours and then went home and watched a movie. Sarah, Liese, and I were all tired but we stayed up all night talking after the movie, knowing the next morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn for a wine tour.
Sunday, We got up at 8am to leave for a 10+ hour wine tour in the surrounding suburbs of Cape Town. The Boogie Bus took us around to the wineries. The Bus is a taxi/cab service that was referred to us by my advisor at school. Our driver’s name is Steve; he is a character….He gives us really cheap fares and does not try to rob us like most of the cab drivers here. I cannot tell you how many times I was cheated out of money before I met him. Luckily most things are cheap here so cheating me out of money means like I paying $12 opposed to $8 for cab fare. Steve took my roommates and I and a group of Notre Dame students to 5 farms in three different small towns. We also went to a cheetah farm. I got to pet an adult cheetah. Cheetahs are endangered because of poaching but mostly due to the evolution of its habitat. There is only 850 cheetahs left on the continent of Africa. Cheetahs also only live for about 8 years. Later we continued to go from farm to farm wine tasting. To test about 5-8 different kinds of wine; it costs around $2-4. I found that wine is very much an acquired taste. Most of the wine tasted like finger nail polish remover to me… I learned today that I only like the sweet wines which were mostly desert wines. I also prefer white wine. We finally got home around 8pm. We were all tired and some of fell asleep on the Boogie bus. Sarah's head was on Emily and it was kind of funny because we had just met her and the other Notre Dame students that morning and we had grown so comfortable over the course of the trip. We got home we talked to Janine about our day and then went to bed...
Friday , June 26, 2009
Experiencing different culture is the best thing I would say about visiting new countries. The other day I visited the mall to pick up some rain boots and I learned that South Africans call rain boots “wellingtons.” I also stopped at the food court where I ordered food and then was sent to a table, where they brought my food to me on glass plates with silver utensils. It was an odd experience because in America everything is made “fast” with plastic utensils and Styrofoam or paper containers for the food. It was like dining at a restaurant except it was actually “fast food” that was being served. I went to a place called Steers, a burger place, which many Americans consider the Wendy’s of Cape Town. The differences in culture is evident everywhere. I can observe it from simply shopping at the local grocery stores, which are commonly known here as PicknPay, Checkers, or Woolworths. I tried to buy peanut butter and jelly and the peanut butter I bought was “smooth” but it ended up being hard as a brick and the jelly had actual grapes in it. Everything was a little off from the traditional American PB&J. South Africa also has very unique languages. I had my first Xhosa lesson Thursday. The gap year students at SAEP that we teach gave me a private lesson. Xhosa is the hardest language I have ever tried to learn. I could not get any of the clicking right and I feel so silly trying to speak. The students were laughing at me. That is how bad I was. I told them I would practice over the weekend but I do not know how far that I will get….
I had my first cultural Cape Town social outing today. I went out to dinner with my two roommates Sarah and Liese and Sandile who was supposed to room with us but ended up living a couple blocks away. Sandile is a graduate student in the International Policy Studies Program at Stanford. She picked us up in this beat up old bug that she rented to get to and from work. It is actually quite comical, it sounds like the car is dying, and each push on the gas sounds like its last gasp for air. But it got us to and from where we needed to go. We met with two people, Alex and Sharon, for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Yes, I ate Ethiopian food, first time ever! Alex graduated from UCT in engineering but currently works in consulting. He talked to me a lot about nuclear power because he used to be one of the primary engineers for the nuclear plants hear in SA but now he is interested in development and eventually using his business expertise to start a project/business to build better infrastructure in the townships. Sharon is also engineering major. She was the former runner-up to Miss South Africa in 2004. She explained her involvement in the pageants as pure luck. She had not had any trainers, never put make up on before the auditions, and had no idea what she was getting herself into. She said she got sucked into the modeling world but realized at the end of her pageant days that modeling meant nothing and in the long run would not take her very far. African families often see pageants as a sign that a woman is not doing much with her life…her dad was so angry with her for trying out and kept reminding her that he had paid school fees for her to education and that she was wasting his investment…
Alex and Sharon took us to a club called Jade in Green Point, this is down town Cape Town. The music and people in the club gave it a very European feel. When I got into the club, I felt very much out of place because I felt so young and out of touch with this type of scene. I went to the bar and I did'nt even know what drinks to get. There was no menu either…. I was just supposed to know….Alcohol for the most part to me tastes like poison, so I want the closest thing to juice! I was successful in finding that but I do not know what it was that I ordered…..Everyone in the club looked like a model and the club was very conservative. No one was grinding on each other. Being traditional westerners, we stood out clearly as non-natives on the dance floor. We were chanting for Michael Jackson and dancing in a circle. Other American in the club started to flock to us. We tried to start a soul train line but no one really understood what that actually was.lol I guess that’s an American thing…. When I heard the first MJ song of the night, it was kind of sad, recognizing that it was the end of an era. But after that all his songs were a celebration. I still cannot believe he died and why did it have to be on Christmas….
After we left Jade, Alex and Sharon got us into this other club for free called Fashion TV. This club was more my type; it has more college aged people. Although I saw some guy who was at least 80 years old, yea this was a little odd. They had a hair straightener in the women’s bathroom that you had to pay a couple cents to the machine to use for 10 minutes. I didn’t see why anyone would need a straightener in a club… It had all the American R&B and Rap music. They also played some South African house music and some MJ. I danced on stage most of the night because I didn’t want any drinks spilled on me or someone to burn me with their cigarette on accident. I met some guy name Emannuel that was from Belgium, him and his friend Damien spoke to me in French while I was there. My French was awful but I needed the practice… unfortunately I could barely hear him most the time. Anyways the night was fun!
I had my first cultural Cape Town social outing today. I went out to dinner with my two roommates Sarah and Liese and Sandile who was supposed to room with us but ended up living a couple blocks away. Sandile is a graduate student in the International Policy Studies Program at Stanford. She picked us up in this beat up old bug that she rented to get to and from work. It is actually quite comical, it sounds like the car is dying, and each push on the gas sounds like its last gasp for air. But it got us to and from where we needed to go. We met with two people, Alex and Sharon, for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Yes, I ate Ethiopian food, first time ever! Alex graduated from UCT in engineering but currently works in consulting. He talked to me a lot about nuclear power because he used to be one of the primary engineers for the nuclear plants hear in SA but now he is interested in development and eventually using his business expertise to start a project/business to build better infrastructure in the townships. Sharon is also engineering major. She was the former runner-up to Miss South Africa in 2004. She explained her involvement in the pageants as pure luck. She had not had any trainers, never put make up on before the auditions, and had no idea what she was getting herself into. She said she got sucked into the modeling world but realized at the end of her pageant days that modeling meant nothing and in the long run would not take her very far. African families often see pageants as a sign that a woman is not doing much with her life…her dad was so angry with her for trying out and kept reminding her that he had paid school fees for her to education and that she was wasting his investment…
Alex and Sharon took us to a club called Jade in Green Point, this is down town Cape Town. The music and people in the club gave it a very European feel. When I got into the club, I felt very much out of place because I felt so young and out of touch with this type of scene. I went to the bar and I did'nt even know what drinks to get. There was no menu either…. I was just supposed to know….Alcohol for the most part to me tastes like poison, so I want the closest thing to juice! I was successful in finding that but I do not know what it was that I ordered…..Everyone in the club looked like a model and the club was very conservative. No one was grinding on each other. Being traditional westerners, we stood out clearly as non-natives on the dance floor. We were chanting for Michael Jackson and dancing in a circle. Other American in the club started to flock to us. We tried to start a soul train line but no one really understood what that actually was.lol I guess that’s an American thing…. When I heard the first MJ song of the night, it was kind of sad, recognizing that it was the end of an era. But after that all his songs were a celebration. I still cannot believe he died and why did it have to be on Christmas….
After we left Jade, Alex and Sharon got us into this other club for free called Fashion TV. This club was more my type; it has more college aged people. Although I saw some guy who was at least 80 years old, yea this was a little odd. They had a hair straightener in the women’s bathroom that you had to pay a couple cents to the machine to use for 10 minutes. I didn’t see why anyone would need a straightener in a club… It had all the American R&B and Rap music. They also played some South African house music and some MJ. I danced on stage most of the night because I didn’t want any drinks spilled on me or someone to burn me with their cigarette on accident. I met some guy name Emannuel that was from Belgium, him and his friend Damien spoke to me in French while I was there. My French was awful but I needed the practice… unfortunately I could barely hear him most the time. Anyways the night was fun!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Today when I woke up we had had another power outage. The wind and the rain have been so bad that the power has been constantly going out. I couldn’t get to work today because my driveway was surrounded by water. I really need some rain boots but they are sold out everywhere. Luckily, Janine is the best landlord ever and just drove me to work. Work was pretty much slow today because I did not go out to the crèche, and instead worked on my development plan for the summer. The rain has destroyed my freshly permed hair too. I look like a frizz ball at this point but I am getting my hair braided and it only cost R250 (about $25); I feel like I am robbing them because the price in the US would be more like $250.
Later the interns at my job had a Christmas party at their lodge in honor of the cold weather and because June 25 marks exactly 6 months, half way point, until Christmas. Everyone was supposed to make a dish or bring something. Me and another intern, Hannah, made ginger bread cookies from scratch. While we were making cookies my roommates finally arrived in Cape Town!!! Thank goodness. Life will be so much easier, cheaper, and safer with more people. My roommates names are Sarah and Liese, both go to Stanford University as well. By the time we had all arrived to the Christmas party, everyone was really drunk and only one full chicken and some gravy was left….We ate the chicken and had the ginger bread cookies as our sides…yum…We also had a gift exchange with a R20 ($2.50) budget. Me and Hannah picked out a goldfish for someone and named it Rudolph. The gift exchange was finished early after a boy threw up as he was opening his gift…..Liese, Sarah and I left shortly after…
Later the interns at my job had a Christmas party at their lodge in honor of the cold weather and because June 25 marks exactly 6 months, half way point, until Christmas. Everyone was supposed to make a dish or bring something. Me and another intern, Hannah, made ginger bread cookies from scratch. While we were making cookies my roommates finally arrived in Cape Town!!! Thank goodness. Life will be so much easier, cheaper, and safer with more people. My roommates names are Sarah and Liese, both go to Stanford University as well. By the time we had all arrived to the Christmas party, everyone was really drunk and only one full chicken and some gravy was left….We ate the chicken and had the ginger bread cookies as our sides…yum…We also had a gift exchange with a R20 ($2.50) budget. Me and Hannah picked out a goldfish for someone and named it Rudolph. The gift exchange was finished early after a boy threw up as he was opening his gift…..Liese, Sarah and I left shortly after…
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
So much has occurred since the last time I have written. My first day of work was on Monday and it was not the best “first day” I have ever had. There are a couple things that I need to keep in mind as I assess my first day, one is that I am in the third world and second I am working for a non-profit organization. My first day consisted of my mentor for the summer handing me over a 200 page binder in a 20 minute meeting to explain what I am doing for the summer and then I was sent to work in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Office. The office is very small and has 2 computers and one phone for 8 people. The desks are pretty much broken and no one really has their own space. There were two people speaking only Dutch in the office, another girl from Zimbabwe (Tracy), a girl from a small school in Maine (Emma), another girl from Switzerland (Nora), two girls from Yale (Adanna and Ellie), and me. Everyone was friendly but this was not the welcome I was expecting. I was not given any specific directions on how ECD works as a subsection of SAEP. I did not get information on how to use the phone or computers. I was basically left to figure things out on my own. It was truly frustrating as I was left to read 200 pages of research while I heard Dutch in one ear and a side-bar conversation in the other. Everything was just so slow, that was the worst part. The internet would go in and out and sometimes I couldn’t access certain sites. The work environment was just very laid-back in the sense that people kind of just do whatever they want. Interns work at their own speed. I have never worked at a non-profit before and this experience really highlights the patience and dedication people need to work in such an environment.
Tuesday, I got to start doing some hands on work. It was a much better day relative to the first one but filled with frustration. I went out to my first crèche (pre-school/kindergarten), which was called Sakhingomso Educare Center. About 6 of us got in the car that morning, just the interns, and we drove out to the township known as Phillipi and dropped everyone off at their assigned crèches. I was a little uneasy about this because we were just dropped off in the middle of this township by ourselves to work for 2-3 hours. Again I saw more surprising things as I drove through the townships a second time. I saw more farm animals in this residential area. There were kids playing in the dumpsters. I would often see little kids that looked about 2 or 3 roaming the streets alone. The stray dogs are also somewhat wild. They kept running up to the car in attack mode. We almost killed a couple as we were driving to the crèches. I believe I have become more cautious sense I been here because of horror stories I continue to hear. In a previous summer, two Dutch interns have had their stuff taken from them while in the crèches. Again, no one accompanied me in and there were no formal introductions, it was just straight to work. When I first walked in, about 25 kids came up to me and surrounded me. They all wanted to talk to me but I did not understand a thing they were saying. The teacher of the crèche is named Constance. She has spent all of her like in Cape Town, and she grew up in Gugulathu, where I went last Sunday for church. Constance speaks really great English. She told me Constance is not her real name but her African name is too hard for people to pronounce. We did not speak much until later on. I just mimicked what she did with kids.
The things that noticed in this crèche were very different. The entire building was made out of literally all tin-can material, therefore, there is no insulation and the room is extremely chilly. The kids must wear their hats, gloves, and coats the entire time. Even with all of this on it is still extremely cold. The school is only one room and there is only one working light. The toys they have are extremely old and very dirty. The floors are made with patches of different carpet and all of their backpacks hang from nails. The bigger children must go to an outhouse to use the restroom but many of them are still potty training and they use the bathroom inside the classroom into a small yellow plastic toilet that Constance empties every couple hours. This was the most disturbing for me as kids were playing right next to kids who were using the restroom on this yellow toilet. I had to hand the girls that were using the bathroom toilet paper as they were using the little yellow toilet. Then there is nowhere for them to wash their hands afterwards and if there is no one does…. The principal’s office is located in the same room as the kitchen where they make lunches for the children. There is also a small room for infants. However, the infants I saw in the cribs were so much infants anymore unless they just run really large here. It looked like they had 2 or 3 year olds in cribs. It cost about R200/month (a little over $20) for infants and R100 (a little over $10) for kids 5 and under to be cared for in this crèche. This is very cheap compared to American kindergarten/preschool programs but often it is too much for these African families to afford. Many times crèches feel bad about not being able to care for children due to financial burdens for the family so they allow them to attend anyway. This causes a lot of problems as the crèches are very small and overcrowding strains many of their resources.
The kids looked very sick. Most of them had runny noses which could have been caused by the cold rooms but many were coughing as well. One boy had sores in his mouth so we could not feed him certain food. Several of the boys have sores on their heads that look greenish in color. Some interns said it might be ringworm. Many of the kids in these crèches cannot receive medical care because they do not have birth certificates. By law any person receiving medical attention is required to show this document. I am still wondering why I chose ECD instead of high school students. The girl, Hannah who has been interning in this crèche for the last month has been sick for the last month…. Luckily for me, most of my work will be interviewing principals but in my spare time they want me in this crèche. Overall my first day at the crèche wasn’t so bad.
That night I went to my first professional rugby match with some friends at work. It was the Lions (the UK) vs. South African Springboks. I do not usually like any sports that imitate football but it was really great. Janine told me it would be a truly South African experience. However, I think the UK brought the entire kingdom with them. The stadium was filled with people from the UK. They were all dressed in crazy costumes. There were not many South Africans because the weather was soooo bad. I ate bvorst with my friends and went to the bar and hung out with the British guys in crazy costumes. I have to say that I did get ripped off at the match. I guess there is a first for everything. The people at the bvorst shorted me change but I guess I will learn the next time around and be more careful. The game ended in a tie. The next night we went out for Chinese in Observatory and I had my first taste of sushi. Never again….. I have really been experimenting with my food since my arrival; I am looking to have crocodile next.
Tuesday, I got to start doing some hands on work. It was a much better day relative to the first one but filled with frustration. I went out to my first crèche (pre-school/kindergarten), which was called Sakhingomso Educare Center. About 6 of us got in the car that morning, just the interns, and we drove out to the township known as Phillipi and dropped everyone off at their assigned crèches. I was a little uneasy about this because we were just dropped off in the middle of this township by ourselves to work for 2-3 hours. Again I saw more surprising things as I drove through the townships a second time. I saw more farm animals in this residential area. There were kids playing in the dumpsters. I would often see little kids that looked about 2 or 3 roaming the streets alone. The stray dogs are also somewhat wild. They kept running up to the car in attack mode. We almost killed a couple as we were driving to the crèches. I believe I have become more cautious sense I been here because of horror stories I continue to hear. In a previous summer, two Dutch interns have had their stuff taken from them while in the crèches. Again, no one accompanied me in and there were no formal introductions, it was just straight to work. When I first walked in, about 25 kids came up to me and surrounded me. They all wanted to talk to me but I did not understand a thing they were saying. The teacher of the crèche is named Constance. She has spent all of her like in Cape Town, and she grew up in Gugulathu, where I went last Sunday for church. Constance speaks really great English. She told me Constance is not her real name but her African name is too hard for people to pronounce. We did not speak much until later on. I just mimicked what she did with kids.
The things that noticed in this crèche were very different. The entire building was made out of literally all tin-can material, therefore, there is no insulation and the room is extremely chilly. The kids must wear their hats, gloves, and coats the entire time. Even with all of this on it is still extremely cold. The school is only one room and there is only one working light. The toys they have are extremely old and very dirty. The floors are made with patches of different carpet and all of their backpacks hang from nails. The bigger children must go to an outhouse to use the restroom but many of them are still potty training and they use the bathroom inside the classroom into a small yellow plastic toilet that Constance empties every couple hours. This was the most disturbing for me as kids were playing right next to kids who were using the restroom on this yellow toilet. I had to hand the girls that were using the bathroom toilet paper as they were using the little yellow toilet. Then there is nowhere for them to wash their hands afterwards and if there is no one does…. The principal’s office is located in the same room as the kitchen where they make lunches for the children. There is also a small room for infants. However, the infants I saw in the cribs were so much infants anymore unless they just run really large here. It looked like they had 2 or 3 year olds in cribs. It cost about R200/month (a little over $20) for infants and R100 (a little over $10) for kids 5 and under to be cared for in this crèche. This is very cheap compared to American kindergarten/preschool programs but often it is too much for these African families to afford. Many times crèches feel bad about not being able to care for children due to financial burdens for the family so they allow them to attend anyway. This causes a lot of problems as the crèches are very small and overcrowding strains many of their resources.
The kids looked very sick. Most of them had runny noses which could have been caused by the cold rooms but many were coughing as well. One boy had sores in his mouth so we could not feed him certain food. Several of the boys have sores on their heads that look greenish in color. Some interns said it might be ringworm. Many of the kids in these crèches cannot receive medical care because they do not have birth certificates. By law any person receiving medical attention is required to show this document. I am still wondering why I chose ECD instead of high school students. The girl, Hannah who has been interning in this crèche for the last month has been sick for the last month…. Luckily for me, most of my work will be interviewing principals but in my spare time they want me in this crèche. Overall my first day at the crèche wasn’t so bad.
That night I went to my first professional rugby match with some friends at work. It was the Lions (the UK) vs. South African Springboks. I do not usually like any sports that imitate football but it was really great. Janine told me it would be a truly South African experience. However, I think the UK brought the entire kingdom with them. The stadium was filled with people from the UK. They were all dressed in crazy costumes. There were not many South Africans because the weather was soooo bad. I ate bvorst with my friends and went to the bar and hung out with the British guys in crazy costumes. I have to say that I did get ripped off at the match. I guess there is a first for everything. The people at the bvorst shorted me change but I guess I will learn the next time around and be more careful. The game ended in a tie. The next night we went out for Chinese in Observatory and I had my first taste of sushi. Never again….. I have really been experimenting with my food since my arrival; I am looking to have crocodile next.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
More surprises…. I did not come here with any expectations, so if you ask me if Cape Town is what I expected, I really do not know. I honestly just came with a really open-mind. However, my one assumption would have been that there is a lot of unhappiness. The pictures that I see of African people are usually of African children starving and the stories that are told are often of the widespread disease and poverty, so a grim picture is often painted. But despite the fact that all of this does really exist the things I have seen in the past two days are of people that are happy and getting through what we as Americans would see has extreme hardship. It is really funny because American do everything possible to make themselves comfortable, whether it is by buying things or avoiding situations they do not want to be in. But the people here cannot do that, they do not have the luxury. People here just cope... I do not know how yet, but I think it just finding joy in what they already have.
For the past two days I have been hanging out with Jessica Vernon, a Fulbright Scholar and Stanford graduate. She has spent the last year in Cape Town doing research and working. On Sunday, Jessica took me to church in the township known as Gugulatu. The townships were like nothing I ever have seen before. I saw people buying chickens to be slaughtered at home and eaten, stray dogs that looked like they hadn’t been fed in months, and horses roaming freely in the residential area. I saw playgrounds made from scraps and children in the streets with bare feet. I witnessed people living in overcrowded shacks the size of my room at Stanford. Women were standing outside squeezing their breasts at the passing cars. I am assuming that they were prostitutes….This is just the beginning of what I know I will see much more of. The church was very nice. It looked brand new and had fresh artwork maid by the manager of the church. The sermon I could barely understand, as it was given in Xhosa and some parts in English. However, from the limited parts that were in English the message I got was that the people of SA need to stop enslaving themselves and take responsibility for themselves. He stressed the importance of self-empowerment and a move away from dependence on others to improve the people’s circumstances. Church is an important part of everyone’s life in the townships. There was at least one church every 2 blocks we drove. There were even people dressed in all white gowns celebrating their church in an open field on their knees in a circle.
We went to church with four children that Jessica works closely with. When I told them I did not go to church as home they were in shock. They were really bright, one of them ranks 2nd among high school students in Cape Town. All of them go to schools that offers the best education in the area, all that was made possible by the organization that Jessica works with, which is run by a white Afrikaner. Jessica says that in the year she has worked in Cape Town she has only come across only three Afrikaners that take steps to improve the circumstances of the African people, all of which work at her organization. She cannot understand the rationale behind this but assumes that the white Afrikaners believe themselves to be separate from the African people and view themselves as the target of black crime. This is sad to here as I believe that white Afrikaners should be the primary people assisting in the development of African communities. This makes me think of the Amnesty that was granted to people after the apartheid era as a means of reconciliation, many of which were white Afrikaners. It makes me think that the Amnesty should have been tied to the condition of required involvement in the development of Africa communities that were so deeply torn apart by white Afrikaner apartheid system.
The kids were really intrigued with me. They thought I came from the show America’s Next Top Model. They said we received a lot of stares while in church because they thought I was someone famous. Janine says it was my straight hair, which is uncommon among the African people here that fascinated them. The people here are really into American celebrities. The children knew all the facts about celebrities, more than I knew about my own American celebrities. They asked if I had met any celebrities and if I wanted to become a celebrity. I told them that I once tried out for America’s Next Top Model. Jessica later said that she thought the kids believed that was the “coolest” thing they ever heard. I really enjoyed hanging out with them because they are so amazed by everything you tell them. All the things that my friends in America would never care to hear, they wanted to know all about. I have to admit, I was very much scared to meet them. The thing that continually ran through my head was, what do they think of me? I did not want to say or do anything to offend them, but within minutes of meeting, they started asking me all sorts of questions.
These kids go through a lot. Jessica tells me that the youngest one was kidnapped but was able to get away. Her sister, suffers from cerebral palsy and on her way home from school, the handicapped bus was hijacked and all the kids were left on a street corner. In my eyes, there is so much for them to fear as children. To my surprise, despite these circumstances, they all are such happy kids and excited for the next day. My fear of spiders seems ridiculous in comparison. I guess it would not actually be a life if every day was lived in fear.
For the past two days I have been hanging out with Jessica Vernon, a Fulbright Scholar and Stanford graduate. She has spent the last year in Cape Town doing research and working. On Sunday, Jessica took me to church in the township known as Gugulatu. The townships were like nothing I ever have seen before. I saw people buying chickens to be slaughtered at home and eaten, stray dogs that looked like they hadn’t been fed in months, and horses roaming freely in the residential area. I saw playgrounds made from scraps and children in the streets with bare feet. I witnessed people living in overcrowded shacks the size of my room at Stanford. Women were standing outside squeezing their breasts at the passing cars. I am assuming that they were prostitutes….This is just the beginning of what I know I will see much more of. The church was very nice. It looked brand new and had fresh artwork maid by the manager of the church. The sermon I could barely understand, as it was given in Xhosa and some parts in English. However, from the limited parts that were in English the message I got was that the people of SA need to stop enslaving themselves and take responsibility for themselves. He stressed the importance of self-empowerment and a move away from dependence on others to improve the people’s circumstances. Church is an important part of everyone’s life in the townships. There was at least one church every 2 blocks we drove. There were even people dressed in all white gowns celebrating their church in an open field on their knees in a circle.
We went to church with four children that Jessica works closely with. When I told them I did not go to church as home they were in shock. They were really bright, one of them ranks 2nd among high school students in Cape Town. All of them go to schools that offers the best education in the area, all that was made possible by the organization that Jessica works with, which is run by a white Afrikaner. Jessica says that in the year she has worked in Cape Town she has only come across only three Afrikaners that take steps to improve the circumstances of the African people, all of which work at her organization. She cannot understand the rationale behind this but assumes that the white Afrikaners believe themselves to be separate from the African people and view themselves as the target of black crime. This is sad to here as I believe that white Afrikaners should be the primary people assisting in the development of African communities. This makes me think of the Amnesty that was granted to people after the apartheid era as a means of reconciliation, many of which were white Afrikaners. It makes me think that the Amnesty should have been tied to the condition of required involvement in the development of Africa communities that were so deeply torn apart by white Afrikaner apartheid system.
The kids were really intrigued with me. They thought I came from the show America’s Next Top Model. They said we received a lot of stares while in church because they thought I was someone famous. Janine says it was my straight hair, which is uncommon among the African people here that fascinated them. The people here are really into American celebrities. The children knew all the facts about celebrities, more than I knew about my own American celebrities. They asked if I had met any celebrities and if I wanted to become a celebrity. I told them that I once tried out for America’s Next Top Model. Jessica later said that she thought the kids believed that was the “coolest” thing they ever heard. I really enjoyed hanging out with them because they are so amazed by everything you tell them. All the things that my friends in America would never care to hear, they wanted to know all about. I have to admit, I was very much scared to meet them. The thing that continually ran through my head was, what do they think of me? I did not want to say or do anything to offend them, but within minutes of meeting, they started asking me all sorts of questions.
These kids go through a lot. Jessica tells me that the youngest one was kidnapped but was able to get away. Her sister, suffers from cerebral palsy and on her way home from school, the handicapped bus was hijacked and all the kids were left on a street corner. In my eyes, there is so much for them to fear as children. To my surprise, despite these circumstances, they all are such happy kids and excited for the next day. My fear of spiders seems ridiculous in comparison. I guess it would not actually be a life if every day was lived in fear.
Friday, June 19, 2009
My fellowship requires that I have a development plan while I am here in SA. I have thought about it a little and have jotted down some goals. The purpose of this blog is so that as I work to complete my goals I can get feedback on my experiences from my family and friends on what I could be doing different, general thoughts, or any other constructive comments. I have yet to develop a sold plan. I think I am going to wait and see how my first week goes to see what goals are feasible during this 2 month time frame on the job and off the job. One thing that is definite is that I plan to keep up with the local news to increase my awareness about local life as well as events that relate to my volunteer work. Today in the Cape Town Daily it reported that 1 in 4 South African has admitted to raping a young girl! This number is insane. This statistic was a part of an article about the celebration of Youth Day on June 16, in commemoration of the student uprising in Soweto during apartheid. A girl was taken from her school on this day and was found raped in killed in a bush. People really do know how to spoil a special holiday…..
Today was my first day visiting the job site. They told me I didn’t have to come in until Monday but I was just too anxious to meet my new coworkers. I sat down with the head of the organization, Norton Tennille, who gave be a run-down of the goals of the Early Childhood Development Program. I will be working closely with this program. He shared also shared some of his concerns about coming year at SAEP. Next year all the schools will be closing down for the FIFA world cup that is taking place in Cape Town. Mass construction has been taking place to prepare the city to host, to include an extensive subway system between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Norton foresees two problems with the event: first, volunteers for SAEP will have difficulty finding housing in Cape Town and the cost of living will go up for them which could discourage volunteer participation and second, is finding time for the kids to make up the schooling that is missed which could have detrimental impact on the metric (testing), that already suffers from low scores.
As far as work assignments go, I think I am going to have a really awesome project, however, my skills set for the assignment do not seem to match but I will work it out. My mentor, Isabel, wants me to spend time evaluating the progress of the crèches (early childhood development schools). New crèches have recently been opened, and my job will be to do research on both the old and new crèches and to make some kind of conclusion on how all of them can be improved in general and how the new ones can get caught up. Isabel said I will be doing a lot interviewing of people out in the townships to aid in my understanding of the progress. I am most excited about this as interacting with the people should be an extraordinary experience. My office has over 25 interns and there are large clusters from different schools. There is a large group from UNC, another from Duke, and Yale. The there are two Stanford Students and one girl from BYU. My first day meeting all of them they declared the first office outing, a Happy Hour at a bar called MOJO in Observatory. It was a lot of fun and my first time hanging out at a bar other than when I have been with my family. The only time I can remember going to a bar before was when I was in Japan with my aunt. We went to an ice bar and I think I drank juice!
Today was my first day visiting the job site. They told me I didn’t have to come in until Monday but I was just too anxious to meet my new coworkers. I sat down with the head of the organization, Norton Tennille, who gave be a run-down of the goals of the Early Childhood Development Program. I will be working closely with this program. He shared also shared some of his concerns about coming year at SAEP. Next year all the schools will be closing down for the FIFA world cup that is taking place in Cape Town. Mass construction has been taking place to prepare the city to host, to include an extensive subway system between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Norton foresees two problems with the event: first, volunteers for SAEP will have difficulty finding housing in Cape Town and the cost of living will go up for them which could discourage volunteer participation and second, is finding time for the kids to make up the schooling that is missed which could have detrimental impact on the metric (testing), that already suffers from low scores.
As far as work assignments go, I think I am going to have a really awesome project, however, my skills set for the assignment do not seem to match but I will work it out. My mentor, Isabel, wants me to spend time evaluating the progress of the crèches (early childhood development schools). New crèches have recently been opened, and my job will be to do research on both the old and new crèches and to make some kind of conclusion on how all of them can be improved in general and how the new ones can get caught up. Isabel said I will be doing a lot interviewing of people out in the townships to aid in my understanding of the progress. I am most excited about this as interacting with the people should be an extraordinary experience. My office has over 25 interns and there are large clusters from different schools. There is a large group from UNC, another from Duke, and Yale. The there are two Stanford Students and one girl from BYU. My first day meeting all of them they declared the first office outing, a Happy Hour at a bar called MOJO in Observatory. It was a lot of fun and my first time hanging out at a bar other than when I have been with my family. The only time I can remember going to a bar before was when I was in Japan with my aunt. We went to an ice bar and I think I drank juice!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Travel
The trip to South Africa was a long one, probably the longest journey I have ever made overseas. I started in San Francisco, then to Atlanta, Dakar, and then Cape Town. The first day of travel I gave up my seat on my original flight that was supposed to connect in Atlanta in exchange for a free night in the Hyatt, free breakfast, 2 airport meal vouchers, and free ticket on Delta!!!!! However, I didn’t use my free night in Hyatt and stayed the night with about 15 other US soldiers and military families on the floor and the couches of the USO. This reminded me why I love the military and all the support I have been given throughout my life. They fed us, provided pillows and blankets, and even gave me a personal tap on shoulder for a wake up call at 4:30AM for my 6AM flight the next morning. It was overall a very easy 20 hour trip. However, I did experience some temporary but excruciating side-effects from the shots I was given. Other than this slight uncomfortable situation and the less than edible food on the aircraft everything was great. I sat next to a college student named, Colin, from the University of Oregon. He is in the graduate school for sustainable business. He is spending 2 months in Madagascar in a tent in a region currently undergoing mass civil unrest due to recent elections. For both me and Colin, this would be the first time that we would step foot on the continent of Africa. A couple of things I noticed on the flight to Cape Town, was first, the different accents and languages being used but secondly and the most interesting was when we stopped in Dakar. All the Africans on the plane got off in Dakar. The only black person left on the plane was me. I thought this suggested a lot of the current racial dynamics of Cape Town as well as the implications of a lingering colonial identity.
Arrival
My first two days in Cape Town, South Africa have been full of surprise and excitement. My first site of South Africa was of beautiful grasslands and mountains for miles. I was welcomed on a Thursday evening to my new home for the next two months with pumpkin soup that my landlord made for me. Her name is Janine and she is a white female from Zimbabwe. I emphasize her ethnicity because it plays an important role in understanding her comments and beliefs on South Africa. She has never been to the US. She says Zimbabwe’s economic system has totally collapsed and turmoil plagues the country. I told her I did not understand why people still wanted to live and visit places in such a state of instability. She responded by explaining that her mother refuses to be moved by these circumstances because Zimbabwe is her way of life and the only thing she knows. I guess I will never be able to understand this rationale as my family only knows of how to make a home by adjusting to new people, atmospheres, and cultures. Janine and I sat for over three hours discussing everything from politics to entertainments over our bowl of pumpkin soup. It was a really great conversation and confirmation of the knowledge I have acquired on South Africa over the past six months of studies.
Some of the most interesting things she shared with me are the following: She asked me if I thought there was corruption in the American government to the same extent of the South African government. I thought the question was kind of funny because we definately have corruption. I thought to myself, did she miss the last 8 years of the Bush administration. Then she proceeded to share some facts that I was somewhat familiar with but still was caught with some surprise. The recently elected president, Jacob Zuma, she shared that she truly disdains as a leader. He is the man that claimed to the people of South Africa, that after he knowingly exposed himself, unprotected to a colleague with HIV that he took a shower afterwards that shed the virus from him. Janine believes that if leaders, like Zuma, who have such a large following would stand up and say to the people that unprotected sex is causing this HIV/AIDS endemic to encourage the use of contraceptives, he could truly impede the spread of the virus. She explains that , Zuma is part of the Zulu tribe, which is traditionally known as the most aggressive and “manly,” and therefore Zuma in that regard does not believe real men use condoms. Currently, he continues to claim to the public that he has tested negative for the virus. Janine continued to explain the truly broken leadership that is running the country of South Africa. The last President Thabo Mbeki had a health minister that told the people that vegetables would prevent the contraction of HIV. Janine said that there are men affected with HIV/AIDS that truly believe that if they rape young virgins they can also rid themselves of the virus. I asked her why people like herself who didn’t agree with these statements and government stances on HIV/AIDS didn’t stand up against it. She responded with simple answer, people were just too embarrassed to deal with it.
Janine also later shared that she had a maid that was affected both by AIDS and Tuberculosis. She offered to help her with medical expenses but she refused. Her maid did not want to tell her family because the discussion of HIV/AIDS continues to be taboo subject and is rarely openly spoken about. Her maid eventually died because the TB accelerated the affects of the AIDS virus. It is ironic that with the widespread degree of the virus in Africa that the people are still silent. Is it that they do not care? Do they not understand the outcome of the disease? How long will the people take to understand that silence is not the solution?
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