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.