My learning and living experiences in Cape Town have been nothing less than absolutely tremendous. I participated in a case study which focused on the issue of gender-based violence (through which I was able to conduct extremely interesting street interviews) and was given a quite shocking introduction into the role it plays here in a society where it is unfortunately all-too-prevalent. I was able to attend an event called “The Table of Peace and Unity” on Table Mountain celebrating South Africa’s “freedom day” (April 27th, 1994- the day when free elections were first granted to those of all racial and ethnic groups) where I met and spoke with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and watched a performance of the “Circle of Life” by Mara Louw- the woman who sings the original version in Lion King. And in my free time, I traveled to the beautiful Cape Point- the very southern tip of Africa, and to Simons Town nearby to see the penguins that migrated here some 20 years ago. My free time also allows me to go to Robben Island this weekend to see and learn about the site where Nelson Mandela spent his years of imprisonment during apartheid.
In the relatively short amount of time I’ve had hear, I’ve felt that I’ve been given the opportunity to hear many voices–from the oppressed and recovering to the enlightened and hopeful. And even from the spiteful and bitter: an older white South-African taxi driver who resentfully looked upon the state of the nation, who considered his own inability to secure a higher-paying job a product of ill-formed national policy, and expressed to us his views on the “natural affinity of doves and pigeons in how they disassociate themselves from one another in flight”–which was, essentially, a poetic attempt at disguising his racism.
As my time with the International Honors Program (Health and Community) comes to a close, I’ve started to think about all of the terrible injustices that I now have seen and understand to exist. Though there were times when feelings of hopelessness and despair just crashed over me, I came to remember the wise words given to me by a high-school teacher of mine. He had passed at a time when I was unable to understand the meaning of his words, but now it is exactly what really puts my experience into perspective…
“To love the ugly world is to find yourself at its center,
and to let it be enough,
to refuse to be saddened by it; to let it end.
That’s where it all started for me, at the end.”
