So it has been a little while since I last wrote a blog entry. The middle of the quarter has hit and I had three papers to write this week so my recreational writing and interesting activities have both decreased a little bit. This will basically serve as a recap of what I’ve been doing while I wasn’t blogging!
Overall I have been doing a lot of hanging out in cafes using internet and writing my papers, but I did receive some great news on Monday night that some of you may already know, but I’ll mention it here for people who haven’t been following me on facebook. My summer plans have been fully funded by a Stanford grant and so I’ll definitely be in Tanzania doing research this summer! The big part is that Marlene will be there as well and we’ll be working on the same project! I think I mentioned some about the project in the very first entry I wrote on here, but I’ll describe the research again here.
Diarrheal disease is a huge problem and one of the leading causes of mortality in children under 5 throughout the developing world. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much improvement in this area in the last twenty years in Tanzania. The larger project that we are working on is trying to use behavioral change interventions to try to get mothers of children under 5 to wash their hands as this can greatly reduce the incidence of diarrheal diseases. Marlene and I will be running focus groups to try to understand a little bit about why mothers don’t wash their hands even if they know that it can help prevent disease. I would be happy to send you more about it if you let me know and I’ll be blogging all summer too!
Last night, I went up Lion’s Head, which is one of the mountains surrounding the city of Cape Town, at sunset. When you get to the top you can see 360 degrees around Table Bay. We got up there pretty quickly and watched the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean (weird for anyone in the US?). It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and the views are something that simply cannot be captured on camera. I’ll try to post some pictures when I get more internet because I’m almost out of my allotted internet for the month.
I hope all of you are having a great week and I’ll post some more on the blog when I get done with this week of papers!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
House Building in the Townships
Today I did something that was perhaps one of the most ethically challenging things I have done here. It wasn’t something that most Americans would have a problem with at all. I went into a township and helped build a house with an Irish nonprofit. People go on Habitat for Humanity building projects all the time in the United States. Being here was very different, but also very much the same. It has kind of reshaped my perceptions of even Habitat for Humanity building projects in the States. Before I get into my thoughts, I want to start at the beginning of my day.
When our bus arrived at the building company, we were one of the later groups there and were rushed in and given T shirts to wear. They pretty quickly began calling out teams and splitting us up. Our group was supposed to be split up and paired with other students from South Africa on the project. This worked out well for most people, but they had inadvertently crossed off my name and so I wasn’t placed in one of the teams with anyone from Stanford. I waited until the end when I went up to the front and was sent off with a group that included no one from the United States. This was definitely a blessing in disguise as I didn’t have the opportunity to stick with people I knew; I was forced to engage with people from different cultures.
My group was quite diverse. In it we had a family of adults who were coloured, several white South Africans, a group of Germans, as well as a small group of black women who actually live in Khayelitsha, the township I work in with Philani. I quickly made friends with the coloured family and one of the women from Khayelitsha. We spent the morning mixing lots of cement and carrying cement blocks to the building site while several skilled laborers placed the bricks. While we were working we had a bunch of interesting conversations with the other people in our group. I was talking with a coloured woman about how expensive the tickets for the World Cup are for South Africans. She said that she just couldn’t afford it. Though she has grown up in Cape Town, she hasn’t ever been to Robben Island or up to the top of Table Mountain because they are simply too expensive. I didn’t tell her that I had been to both of those places yesterday, but I definitely felt guilty about it. Here I am - just some rich American who can enjoy more of South Africa than locals simply because of financial reasons.
Our conversations wound between everything from what houses are like in the United States to relationships and favorite foods. It was fun to work with them for the day and get to know some people very who come from a much different background.
I had no problems with the people that I was with most of the day, but I definitely left questioning who this project is really about. We worked in the morning, stopped for lunch, and then for a little while in the afternoon as well. Both of the sessions were broken up by the directors bringing popsicles and candy around to the sites which caused everyone to stop working for a period of 15 minutes while we ate. In addition, it seemed like our large groups were actually slowing down the house-building. When we asked how long it normally took just the workers themselves to put up the houses, they told us that they could do one house in a day. Despite all of our efforts, we put up only about half of the house. Every time that one of the actual workers would take over one of the tasks we were doing, it would be done twice as quickly. When we left, we were required to take all of the tools from the building company leaving the workers (who didn’t leave when we did) with no tools to continue working on the house. We left a shovel with our group just because it didn’t seem fair to leave them with nothing, especially if they are being paid by the house-building company. Overall, it felt like this homebuilding project was being marketed for us, the homebuilders, and not for the community. One of the other people in our group was talking with one of the Xhosa speaking members of his group who overheard groups of people from the local community along the roads we walked on to the houses talking about us. He said that they didn’t understand why we were here and thought that we should go back where we came from. It didn’t seem like the organization really had much good contact with the community. It was mostly a group led from the top down with the mentality that ‘we are doing something good for you so you should just like us’ instead of actually allowing the community to be part of the work. On top of all my other frustrations, there was a fee charged for volunteers to work on the houses. Stanford paid for our work and got a discounted rate, but the charge is usually R1000 per person which is almost $150. To me, this seems like a scheme to raise money through volunteers for the purpose of executing a project which is not well accepted by the community.
Experiences like this really make you contemplate what it is really like to be a part of development work. Yes people in this community do need new houses, but is this really the right way to do it? I don’t think it is. What about the developmental tourism that I engaged in today? I don’t think that is the right way to do it either. You cannot just show up for a short period of time and expect to understand what the community really wants and needs. It is unrealistic to think that what I did today actually made a difference. The houses would have gone up just as quickly if I was not there. This experience today was about me, not about building a house or helping this community. Is a Habitat for Humanity build any different? Can someone with no real construction expertise hope to actually make a difference on the project and in the lives of a community?
When our bus arrived at the building company, we were one of the later groups there and were rushed in and given T shirts to wear. They pretty quickly began calling out teams and splitting us up. Our group was supposed to be split up and paired with other students from South Africa on the project. This worked out well for most people, but they had inadvertently crossed off my name and so I wasn’t placed in one of the teams with anyone from Stanford. I waited until the end when I went up to the front and was sent off with a group that included no one from the United States. This was definitely a blessing in disguise as I didn’t have the opportunity to stick with people I knew; I was forced to engage with people from different cultures.
My group was quite diverse. In it we had a family of adults who were coloured, several white South Africans, a group of Germans, as well as a small group of black women who actually live in Khayelitsha, the township I work in with Philani. I quickly made friends with the coloured family and one of the women from Khayelitsha. We spent the morning mixing lots of cement and carrying cement blocks to the building site while several skilled laborers placed the bricks. While we were working we had a bunch of interesting conversations with the other people in our group. I was talking with a coloured woman about how expensive the tickets for the World Cup are for South Africans. She said that she just couldn’t afford it. Though she has grown up in Cape Town, she hasn’t ever been to Robben Island or up to the top of Table Mountain because they are simply too expensive. I didn’t tell her that I had been to both of those places yesterday, but I definitely felt guilty about it. Here I am - just some rich American who can enjoy more of South Africa than locals simply because of financial reasons.
Our conversations wound between everything from what houses are like in the United States to relationships and favorite foods. It was fun to work with them for the day and get to know some people very who come from a much different background.
I had no problems with the people that I was with most of the day, but I definitely left questioning who this project is really about. We worked in the morning, stopped for lunch, and then for a little while in the afternoon as well. Both of the sessions were broken up by the directors bringing popsicles and candy around to the sites which caused everyone to stop working for a period of 15 minutes while we ate. In addition, it seemed like our large groups were actually slowing down the house-building. When we asked how long it normally took just the workers themselves to put up the houses, they told us that they could do one house in a day. Despite all of our efforts, we put up only about half of the house. Every time that one of the actual workers would take over one of the tasks we were doing, it would be done twice as quickly. When we left, we were required to take all of the tools from the building company leaving the workers (who didn’t leave when we did) with no tools to continue working on the house. We left a shovel with our group just because it didn’t seem fair to leave them with nothing, especially if they are being paid by the house-building company. Overall, it felt like this homebuilding project was being marketed for us, the homebuilders, and not for the community. One of the other people in our group was talking with one of the Xhosa speaking members of his group who overheard groups of people from the local community along the roads we walked on to the houses talking about us. He said that they didn’t understand why we were here and thought that we should go back where we came from. It didn’t seem like the organization really had much good contact with the community. It was mostly a group led from the top down with the mentality that ‘we are doing something good for you so you should just like us’ instead of actually allowing the community to be part of the work. On top of all my other frustrations, there was a fee charged for volunteers to work on the houses. Stanford paid for our work and got a discounted rate, but the charge is usually R1000 per person which is almost $150. To me, this seems like a scheme to raise money through volunteers for the purpose of executing a project which is not well accepted by the community.
Experiences like this really make you contemplate what it is really like to be a part of development work. Yes people in this community do need new houses, but is this really the right way to do it? I don’t think it is. What about the developmental tourism that I engaged in today? I don’t think that is the right way to do it either. You cannot just show up for a short period of time and expect to understand what the community really wants and needs. It is unrealistic to think that what I did today actually made a difference. The houses would have gone up just as quickly if I was not there. This experience today was about me, not about building a house or helping this community. Is a Habitat for Humanity build any different? Can someone with no real construction expertise hope to actually make a difference on the project and in the lives of a community?
Friday, April 23, 2010
Robben Island and Mexican Food in Africa
Wow it has been quite awhile since I last wrote a blog entry. I tried to write one a couple of days ago and I got distracted and didn’t finish it. As such, I’ve decided to try to get back to writing a little bit after such a whirlwind of a week.
Today we traveled as a group to Robben Island just off the coast of Cape Town. This is where Nelson Mandela was held captive for almost 20 years as a political prisoner before the end of Apartheid. It was an interesting tour, but something about it felt extremely commercialized. We went to the island on this yacht with flat screen TVs showing something much like an airplane safety video and then a short documentary. When we arrived, we were shuttled onto buses for a tour of the island with a tour guide before we were allowed to take a walking tour led by a former political prisoner who had been imprisoned there. I think I was particularly upset by what had been done to the prison itself. All the walls inside were whitewashed and the only cell with anything inside it was Mandela’s former cell where items were neatly folded. It looked sterile, nothing like I imagined it when reading Mandela’s autobiography. It just seemed so disconnected from what the prison must have been like.
The former inmate who was leading us through the prison was a really interesting person to talk with. We talked with him for a little while after the end of the tour and almost missed the ferry back! His memories of this place were very vivid to him. It seemed like there was always more than what he was telling us. It was interesting to think about him in this job of reliving those times of his life every day. Many of the former prisoners who work there were basically forced to work there. Though they would have a hard time finding work elsewhere because of the 40% unemployment in the greater Cape Town area, it seems to unfair to force him into a place that had such bad memories. In a way, he is still imprisoned here by his job.
After leaving the island we took the cable car up Table Mountain. The views were incredible and no photo could possibly do them justice. Despite being a very warm day in town, the top of the mountain was cold and windy and so we didn’t spend too much time up on top.
Back in Obs we went to what we have been told is the best Mexican restaurant in the Cape Town area. Though you can’t quite call it actual Mexican food, it was very good. The burritos were very square and looked almost identical to the enchilada, just in a different shape. The ‘flautas’ were also interesting because it was basically one ‘flauta’ in the same shape as the burrito. We had two Mexican girls from our program at the meal and they were surprised when the waiter didn’t understand the correct pronunciation of arroz con pollo. I’m pretty sure that there were no Mexicans working in that restaurant, but the food was good and very filling! I would definitely go back.
Today we traveled as a group to Robben Island just off the coast of Cape Town. This is where Nelson Mandela was held captive for almost 20 years as a political prisoner before the end of Apartheid. It was an interesting tour, but something about it felt extremely commercialized. We went to the island on this yacht with flat screen TVs showing something much like an airplane safety video and then a short documentary. When we arrived, we were shuttled onto buses for a tour of the island with a tour guide before we were allowed to take a walking tour led by a former political prisoner who had been imprisoned there. I think I was particularly upset by what had been done to the prison itself. All the walls inside were whitewashed and the only cell with anything inside it was Mandela’s former cell where items were neatly folded. It looked sterile, nothing like I imagined it when reading Mandela’s autobiography. It just seemed so disconnected from what the prison must have been like.
The former inmate who was leading us through the prison was a really interesting person to talk with. We talked with him for a little while after the end of the tour and almost missed the ferry back! His memories of this place were very vivid to him. It seemed like there was always more than what he was telling us. It was interesting to think about him in this job of reliving those times of his life every day. Many of the former prisoners who work there were basically forced to work there. Though they would have a hard time finding work elsewhere because of the 40% unemployment in the greater Cape Town area, it seems to unfair to force him into a place that had such bad memories. In a way, he is still imprisoned here by his job.
After leaving the island we took the cable car up Table Mountain. The views were incredible and no photo could possibly do them justice. Despite being a very warm day in town, the top of the mountain was cold and windy and so we didn’t spend too much time up on top.
Back in Obs we went to what we have been told is the best Mexican restaurant in the Cape Town area. Though you can’t quite call it actual Mexican food, it was very good. The burritos were very square and looked almost identical to the enchilada, just in a different shape. The ‘flautas’ were also interesting because it was basically one ‘flauta’ in the same shape as the burrito. We had two Mexican girls from our program at the meal and they were surprised when the waiter didn’t understand the correct pronunciation of arroz con pollo. I’m pretty sure that there were no Mexicans working in that restaurant, but the food was good and very filling! I would definitely go back.
Monday, April 19, 2010
A New Direction and a Discussion
As I will come to do at the beginning of every week, I went with my AIDS class to the township of Dunoon this morning to for the field work portion of the course. It looks like we finally have some direction for the project we will be doing there. Our work will be to set up a database based on a map of where patients are located. To do this, we will be going out in the community to all of the patients’ houses and making sure that we have correct information about them. This will allow us to locate them all on the map and look at how they are divided among home based care workers. Right now the patient database is out of date and there is no easy way to add people to the program. As a result, the specific patients which are seen by the community health workers aren’t always recorded accurately for the NGO’s records. Our work will hopefully help them keep track of the patients and their respective workers and allow for easier admission of new patients.
After returning from Dunoon, the class went to a cafe to debrief the fieldwork and for the classroom portion of the course. Our discussion focused on why people do acts of service for others. We focused particularly on defining the term compassion and whether it holds weight as a concept. Through our discussion, we seemed to break it down into two main sides of thought. One side thought that there was a moral obligation of members of society to serve those around them. That is to say that everyone ‘should’ serve others through acts of ‘compassion.’ The other side disagreed with that argument on the premise that not everyone – such as those with mental issues such as PTSD or developmental differences has the actual capacity to be empathetic. It is unrealistic then to say that everyone should do something when some are biologically unable to do so. They argued instead that people perform acts of ‘compassion’ for some benefit to self or their community, whether that is their immediate family or their city or even their country. It is natural to feel good after you have provided an act of service to another. One of their big questions is why often the religious community has gone overseas to build orphanages despite the common knowledge that children who grow up in an orphanage lag behind in virtually every aspect of society. Their point was that this provides a nice pretty picture of an orphanage with cute kids to take pictures of and makes everyone in the religious community feel good, even though it doesn’t really help the situation.
The discussion we had in class really stuck with me all afternoon because it has really profound implications for my life goals of working in and NGO meeting the medical needs of an underdeveloped community. It was really interesting that we had this conversation today because just yesterday I was listening to a sermon called “Justice” by Timothy Keller (you can find it on Itunes podcasts) about the how Christians are meant to live a life of service. I had already been wrestling with these things for a day and so this just added more thoughts to my head. I think I definitely believe that there is a moral obligation for service. There is just something inside me that repeatedly says that service can’t be just selfish. There is definitely something deeper than a desire to get the brief moment of joy from serving someone else. Though I think this is a definite reality and oftentimes people do service for this reason or others like it, I tend to believe that there is such a thing as compassion that springs up out of a moral imperative. Though religious communities may be partially doing their work in building orphanages for the moment of joy they experience, I think it is highly improbable that all such actions are simply for this selfish reason. I suspect that many of them are just not informed and though their desire for action may come out of a sense of moral obligation, their actions may not be the best for the community they seek to serve. It is harder to deal with the case of PTSD and other patients with mental disabilities because they biologically can’t empathize. I think my answer to this is based on my idea that though there is a set moral obligation that we are meant to fulfill and God judges according to that standard, there was another way provided by the person of Jesus. I believe that Jesus bore the inadequacies and wrongdoing of the world in his death so that we can be restored. All of us will ultimately fall short of the moral obligation we are called to uphold, but the person of Jesus erases that failure to live up to standards unattainable by humans requiring simply that we seek to live like he lived. Our honest convictions in our core are what matter and these are ultimately expressed in our behavior. This is what is required and as a result, people with PTSD are not judged on the ability to meet a moral standard they are unable to meet, but are judged based on their own condition and their efforts to change their condition to more closely reflect the life of Jesus.
It is ultimately impossible to try to argue for a moral obligation without invoking a particular view of it, but I also think there is a really powerful concrete example that supports it. There are people who show for a small time what it means to really act out of moral obligation and not for any kind of selfish gain. During the Holocaust, people in Europe who sheltered Jews in their homes risked everything. If they were caught they were likely to be sent to concentration camps to be killed along with those in their families. These people risked their whole world – all that they have and all of their loved ones – for others. There is no personal benefit. People who sheltered Jews personally disadvantaged themselves for the sake of others with no expectation of a return. How can this not be done out of a moral imperative?
After returning from Dunoon, the class went to a cafe to debrief the fieldwork and for the classroom portion of the course. Our discussion focused on why people do acts of service for others. We focused particularly on defining the term compassion and whether it holds weight as a concept. Through our discussion, we seemed to break it down into two main sides of thought. One side thought that there was a moral obligation of members of society to serve those around them. That is to say that everyone ‘should’ serve others through acts of ‘compassion.’ The other side disagreed with that argument on the premise that not everyone – such as those with mental issues such as PTSD or developmental differences has the actual capacity to be empathetic. It is unrealistic then to say that everyone should do something when some are biologically unable to do so. They argued instead that people perform acts of ‘compassion’ for some benefit to self or their community, whether that is their immediate family or their city or even their country. It is natural to feel good after you have provided an act of service to another. One of their big questions is why often the religious community has gone overseas to build orphanages despite the common knowledge that children who grow up in an orphanage lag behind in virtually every aspect of society. Their point was that this provides a nice pretty picture of an orphanage with cute kids to take pictures of and makes everyone in the religious community feel good, even though it doesn’t really help the situation.
The discussion we had in class really stuck with me all afternoon because it has really profound implications for my life goals of working in and NGO meeting the medical needs of an underdeveloped community. It was really interesting that we had this conversation today because just yesterday I was listening to a sermon called “Justice” by Timothy Keller (you can find it on Itunes podcasts) about the how Christians are meant to live a life of service. I had already been wrestling with these things for a day and so this just added more thoughts to my head. I think I definitely believe that there is a moral obligation for service. There is just something inside me that repeatedly says that service can’t be just selfish. There is definitely something deeper than a desire to get the brief moment of joy from serving someone else. Though I think this is a definite reality and oftentimes people do service for this reason or others like it, I tend to believe that there is such a thing as compassion that springs up out of a moral imperative. Though religious communities may be partially doing their work in building orphanages for the moment of joy they experience, I think it is highly improbable that all such actions are simply for this selfish reason. I suspect that many of them are just not informed and though their desire for action may come out of a sense of moral obligation, their actions may not be the best for the community they seek to serve. It is harder to deal with the case of PTSD and other patients with mental disabilities because they biologically can’t empathize. I think my answer to this is based on my idea that though there is a set moral obligation that we are meant to fulfill and God judges according to that standard, there was another way provided by the person of Jesus. I believe that Jesus bore the inadequacies and wrongdoing of the world in his death so that we can be restored. All of us will ultimately fall short of the moral obligation we are called to uphold, but the person of Jesus erases that failure to live up to standards unattainable by humans requiring simply that we seek to live like he lived. Our honest convictions in our core are what matter and these are ultimately expressed in our behavior. This is what is required and as a result, people with PTSD are not judged on the ability to meet a moral standard they are unable to meet, but are judged based on their own condition and their efforts to change their condition to more closely reflect the life of Jesus.
It is ultimately impossible to try to argue for a moral obligation without invoking a particular view of it, but I also think there is a really powerful concrete example that supports it. There are people who show for a small time what it means to really act out of moral obligation and not for any kind of selfish gain. During the Holocaust, people in Europe who sheltered Jews in their homes risked everything. If they were caught they were likely to be sent to concentration camps to be killed along with those in their families. These people risked their whole world – all that they have and all of their loved ones – for others. There is no personal benefit. People who sheltered Jews personally disadvantaged themselves for the sake of others with no expectation of a return. How can this not be done out of a moral imperative?
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Mzoli’s Meat
A group of us traveled to Guguletu this afternoon to visit a relatively well-known establishment called Mzoli’s Meats. It’s a restaurant of sorts in the township which attracts both tourists and locals from all around Cape Town. As you walk in, you are asked to purchase meat by the kilogram which you then bring to a group of people cooking the meat over wood fires. The room was pretty dark and unventilated, so there was just smoke all around. After you have dropped off your meat to have it cooked, you wait outside under a large group of pop-up tents outside. There was a DJ playing music and everyone went to the shops nearby to get drinks for their meal. After waiting for almost an hour for our meat to cook, we started eating. There were no utensils, so either your hands or a piece of bread served as eating implements. It was probably some of the best food I’ve had so far in my time here. The meat was cooked perfectly and it was seasoned with a spicy sauce that really brought out the flavor of the meat. It was excellent.
After our meal, we decided to start dancing out next to the DJ station. Our whole group just basically started a dance party. We were quickly joined by a bunch of Africans of all ages. One woman was 60 years old! We spent the next several hours just dancing with a bunch of Africans in Guguletu. I don’t know if I have had an experience more fun than that. It was so good to actually be able to socialize with Africans in their community. I think I will definitely have to go back there because this was such a display of how the community interacts. It was so much fun.
After our meal, we decided to start dancing out next to the DJ station. Our whole group just basically started a dance party. We were quickly joined by a bunch of Africans of all ages. One woman was 60 years old! We spent the next several hours just dancing with a bunch of Africans in Guguletu. I don’t know if I have had an experience more fun than that. It was so good to actually be able to socialize with Africans in their community. I think I will definitely have to go back there because this was such a display of how the community interacts. It was so much fun.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Tour of the Peninsula and Pictures!
Today the whole group went for another tour of the area surrounding Cape Town. This time we explored the peninsula coastlines all the way to Cape Point. I’ll try to explain it, but I think the best way to describe what I saw was through pictures so I’m going to post them on Picasa again, though in lower quality as I have limited internet. You can find the link here.
During our travels, we went from Observatory through Camp’s Bay, to Hout Bay. Then we crossed over and drove to Kalk Bay. We passed Muizenburg, Fish hoek, and Simonstown on our way to Cape Point. On the way back we stopped in Simonstown to see the penguin colony there! That’s the very short itinerary.
One of our key stops was in Kalk Bay where we ate at this restaurant right on the waterfront. The eating area we were sitting in was actually out on the water a little bit and waves could come crashing almost up to the building. It was such a nice view. Because I was on the coast, I decided that I should eat seafood and I had tiger queen prawns. The lemon butter they had with them was incredible and I was so full afterwards. Not too full to have some gelato for dessert though! I had a mix of chocolate and Amarula, which is made from a type of berry here. It is also made into a pretty sweet liqueur that is traditionally served after fancy meals in South Africa.
We also stopped at Cape Point as well which was a beautiful view. We hiked almost all the way to the end and had to stop because the trail was closed. We could see the end though so I think that must count for something. On our way back we stopped at Boulder Beach to visit the penguin colony. It was mating season so most of the penguins were paired off with one of the couple lying over the egg on the ground and the other protecting the young. We even got to see one of the babies! There were no fences and we could basically just walk right up to the penguins. Don’t worry, there’s a picture in the post about it!
During our travels, we went from Observatory through Camp’s Bay, to Hout Bay. Then we crossed over and drove to Kalk Bay. We passed Muizenburg, Fish hoek, and Simonstown on our way to Cape Point. On the way back we stopped in Simonstown to see the penguin colony there! That’s the very short itinerary.
One of our key stops was in Kalk Bay where we ate at this restaurant right on the waterfront. The eating area we were sitting in was actually out on the water a little bit and waves could come crashing almost up to the building. It was such a nice view. Because I was on the coast, I decided that I should eat seafood and I had tiger queen prawns. The lemon butter they had with them was incredible and I was so full afterwards. Not too full to have some gelato for dessert though! I had a mix of chocolate and Amarula, which is made from a type of berry here. It is also made into a pretty sweet liqueur that is traditionally served after fancy meals in South Africa.
We also stopped at Cape Point as well which was a beautiful view. We hiked almost all the way to the end and had to stop because the trail was closed. We could see the end though so I think that must count for something. On our way back we stopped at Boulder Beach to visit the penguin colony. It was mating season so most of the penguins were paired off with one of the couple lying over the egg on the ground and the other protecting the young. We even got to see one of the babies! There were no fences and we could basically just walk right up to the penguins. Don’t worry, there’s a picture in the post about it!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Nobody Wants Her Except the Dogs
Tonight I went to a play entitled “The Train Driver” which was written and directed by Athol Fugard. It was based on a news story from Cape Town several years ago that told an awful story and one that is all too common. A mother with a child on her back committed suicide by walking in front of a train. The driver of the train was traumatized, but the worst part of the story was a simple line that stated that no one had claimed the body. The play followed the train driver who was seeking out the grave of the woman and her child in order to find peace after the accident. He spends a lot of time interacting with the gravedigger of the no-name graves. One of my favorite sections came from near the end of the play:
"Wouldn't you also want to go and stand on a railway line and wait for the next train if that is all life had to offer you and your baby? And then to make it worse... she ends up here... in one of your ingiwabas (no-name graveyards) or whatever you call them. And why?.. Because that is still not the end.. Because the big happy ending is that Nobody Wants Her! ... Except the dogs. Remember what it said? Nobody came to claim her! Nobody wants her! And when we start looking... even we can't find her."
This passage really hit home for me. It reminded me of the enormity of the problem that is faced by those in the townships around Cape Town. The woman is just one of a million others struggling to make it. Struggling because they have no hope. Every person in those towns is facing hardships just because they were born into a region filled with poverty. I can’t help but think of some of the women I met at the Philani clinic on Tuesday who either had no income or one that is very limited and must be used to take care of far more people than it can adequately feed. What can you do in that situation? How can you be expected to pull yourself out of poverty when there are no jobs, limited income at the jobs that are available, and no support? Wouldn’t you lose hope too in that situation? I think it is great that there are organizations like Philani that are really working to make a difference in these communities, but the problems are just so big. Even the combination of all the NGO’s and government work in these cities makes just a small dent in the scope of the issues faced by these communities every day. How do we keep from losing hope in front of a seemingly insurmountable problem? How can you look someone in the eyes and tell them that there is hope for them? I think the way most people get by this is on the premise that if they make a difference in one or two lives, then that is enough. I agree with that most of the time, but tonight I feel like dwelling on the larger picture. Though it is overwhelming, it is important to see. I hope when you read the lines of that play that your heart just breaks as much as mine does. I pray that we can find people like her and that we can help restore her hope when we do.
"Wouldn't you also want to go and stand on a railway line and wait for the next train if that is all life had to offer you and your baby? And then to make it worse... she ends up here... in one of your ingiwabas (no-name graveyards) or whatever you call them. And why?.. Because that is still not the end.. Because the big happy ending is that Nobody Wants Her! ... Except the dogs. Remember what it said? Nobody came to claim her! Nobody wants her! And when we start looking... even we can't find her."
This passage really hit home for me. It reminded me of the enormity of the problem that is faced by those in the townships around Cape Town. The woman is just one of a million others struggling to make it. Struggling because they have no hope. Every person in those towns is facing hardships just because they were born into a region filled with poverty. I can’t help but think of some of the women I met at the Philani clinic on Tuesday who either had no income or one that is very limited and must be used to take care of far more people than it can adequately feed. What can you do in that situation? How can you be expected to pull yourself out of poverty when there are no jobs, limited income at the jobs that are available, and no support? Wouldn’t you lose hope too in that situation? I think it is great that there are organizations like Philani that are really working to make a difference in these communities, but the problems are just so big. Even the combination of all the NGO’s and government work in these cities makes just a small dent in the scope of the issues faced by these communities every day. How do we keep from losing hope in front of a seemingly insurmountable problem? How can you look someone in the eyes and tell them that there is hope for them? I think the way most people get by this is on the premise that if they make a difference in one or two lives, then that is enough. I agree with that most of the time, but tonight I feel like dwelling on the larger picture. Though it is overwhelming, it is important to see. I hope when you read the lines of that play that your heart just breaks as much as mine does. I pray that we can find people like her and that we can help restore her hope when we do.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Clinic Tour of the Townships
Today was jam packed full of activities. I was out of my room from 8 am until 6 pm working and as a result I’m pretty tired, but I wanted to make sure to update all of you on what happened today because some of it was very exciting.
I left the house at 8 am to go to my service learning placement with Philani. I got into their main office in Khayelitsha early so that I could be picked up and transported to several of their clinics to assist the doctor, dietician, and community health workers. It turns out that there are actually two clinics running on Tuesdays in two different townships. We first ran a clinic in Crossroads and then moved to Phillipi. Both of them are near the Nyanga township which I have been to before. I’m really getting my way around the townships lately and I’m excited that I’m getting so much exposure to all of them. So now it looks like I’ll be going to Dunoon on Mondays, Crossroads and Phillipi on Tuesdays, and then Khayelitsha on Thursdays. Though I do wish I could get a little more immersed in one of the communities, I really think that this is also a good alternative because I’ll gain exposure to a variety of different experiences. One good thing is that they are all black townships and thus share a certain amount in common with each other.
We got picked up from Philani’s Khayelitsha office by the dietician who we would travel with throughout the day. She has been working with both Philani and another organization in the area on similar outreach programs over the past 2 years and I think she is going to be a great resource to draw upon for knowledge of living situation faced by the mothers and children that come to the clinics. Once we got to Crossroads, a fellow student and I got a crash course in our duties for the day. We were responsible for recording the weights of all the children coming into the clinic and plotting them in each of their files in preparation for seeing the doctor. After they had seen the doctor, we were responsible for distributing the proper type of formula or food to the mothers for their children and making sure that they knew when to return to the doctor. I was very impressed with the record keeping of the organization and of the individual mothers. Every child had its own folder at the center and the mothers had a form that they brought with them detailing their child’s growth and any medical aid they received. For the most part these were very up to date and very useful to the doctor in seeing if the child was healthy.
One of the really cool aspects of my time in the clinic this morning was actually getting to shadow the doctor for a portion of the day. When we were in Crossroads, I got to shadow the doctor while the other student performed the necessary administrative duties. In Phillipi, we switched roles. It was really interesting to see and hear how the doctor-patient interaction actually works in South Africa. And I even got to listen to a few children’s lungs! Most of the kids had problems with getting good enough nutrients and almost every mother walked out with vitamin supplements for her child. I was really surprised by the number of HIV positive children that passed through the clinic. I would say that more than 50% of the children were HIV positive or had a mother who was HIV positive. On top of that, it seemed like a comparable number of them had someone with TB living in their household or they themselves had the disease. South Africa is really struggling with both of these diseases and my experience in the clinic today really reinforced the magnitude of the problem here. Several of the children also had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and it was apparent that drinking was also a major problem in the community. The last two children we saw in Crossroads were a particularly sad story. They were siblings who were being cared for by a mother who didn’t put them as a high enough priority. I was told by the doctor after she had left that she had urged the mother to get her children immunized. The mother “never got around to it” and as a result her children were both suffering from relatively severe illnesses. One of them had meningitis which had been treated, but then the mother hadn’t followed up with the clinic and as a result the child was not completely recovering. The other child had a respiratory condition that needed to be treated, but the right medicine wasn’t available at our clinic. Despite these severe conditions, the mother had not taken her children to the clinic in Crossroads. She is unemployed and takes care of her children through a government grant. Instead of seeking work, she is spending time with her friends drinking and not taking care of her children.
I was absolutely stunned by this story. There is so much I want to do, but not much that I can actually practically do. We did what we could in providing what medicine we could and the food and formula they needed, but beyond that there isn’t much we can do. This story also highlights the state of almost every mother I saw in the clinic today. Most of them are supporting their children on government grants, but are otherwise unemployed. This means that the families are living on R500 a month which is equivalent to about 70 USD. That’s all they get in a month to support the mother, a child or two, and possibly some other family members. I could easily spend that in a week. The poverty in the clinic was heartbreaking. Many of the mothers were different from this last mother and they truly wanted to care for their children in the best way possible. One mother in particular stood out from the rest. Her first born child who I met in the clinic today has cerebral palsy. Obviously it is hard enough to raise a child in this town, but raising a disabled child is even harder in these communities. Her child was initially born with low birth weight, but has since really rebounded and is returning to a normal growth curve. This mother is really making the best of her situation for the benefit of her son. Despite his disability, she is pouring herself out for her child.
We returned from the clinics at around 4 pm, just in time for my archeology class back in Observatory. I’m excited to do this every Tuesday. I think it will give me a real picture of what it is like to practice medicine here and hopefully give me a sense of direction in my future career path. At the same time, I also hope that I can help out with the best that I can offer and really help make a difference in the lives of these children and mothers.
Tim
I left the house at 8 am to go to my service learning placement with Philani. I got into their main office in Khayelitsha early so that I could be picked up and transported to several of their clinics to assist the doctor, dietician, and community health workers. It turns out that there are actually two clinics running on Tuesdays in two different townships. We first ran a clinic in Crossroads and then moved to Phillipi. Both of them are near the Nyanga township which I have been to before. I’m really getting my way around the townships lately and I’m excited that I’m getting so much exposure to all of them. So now it looks like I’ll be going to Dunoon on Mondays, Crossroads and Phillipi on Tuesdays, and then Khayelitsha on Thursdays. Though I do wish I could get a little more immersed in one of the communities, I really think that this is also a good alternative because I’ll gain exposure to a variety of different experiences. One good thing is that they are all black townships and thus share a certain amount in common with each other.
We got picked up from Philani’s Khayelitsha office by the dietician who we would travel with throughout the day. She has been working with both Philani and another organization in the area on similar outreach programs over the past 2 years and I think she is going to be a great resource to draw upon for knowledge of living situation faced by the mothers and children that come to the clinics. Once we got to Crossroads, a fellow student and I got a crash course in our duties for the day. We were responsible for recording the weights of all the children coming into the clinic and plotting them in each of their files in preparation for seeing the doctor. After they had seen the doctor, we were responsible for distributing the proper type of formula or food to the mothers for their children and making sure that they knew when to return to the doctor. I was very impressed with the record keeping of the organization and of the individual mothers. Every child had its own folder at the center and the mothers had a form that they brought with them detailing their child’s growth and any medical aid they received. For the most part these were very up to date and very useful to the doctor in seeing if the child was healthy.
One of the really cool aspects of my time in the clinic this morning was actually getting to shadow the doctor for a portion of the day. When we were in Crossroads, I got to shadow the doctor while the other student performed the necessary administrative duties. In Phillipi, we switched roles. It was really interesting to see and hear how the doctor-patient interaction actually works in South Africa. And I even got to listen to a few children’s lungs! Most of the kids had problems with getting good enough nutrients and almost every mother walked out with vitamin supplements for her child. I was really surprised by the number of HIV positive children that passed through the clinic. I would say that more than 50% of the children were HIV positive or had a mother who was HIV positive. On top of that, it seemed like a comparable number of them had someone with TB living in their household or they themselves had the disease. South Africa is really struggling with both of these diseases and my experience in the clinic today really reinforced the magnitude of the problem here. Several of the children also had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and it was apparent that drinking was also a major problem in the community. The last two children we saw in Crossroads were a particularly sad story. They were siblings who were being cared for by a mother who didn’t put them as a high enough priority. I was told by the doctor after she had left that she had urged the mother to get her children immunized. The mother “never got around to it” and as a result her children were both suffering from relatively severe illnesses. One of them had meningitis which had been treated, but then the mother hadn’t followed up with the clinic and as a result the child was not completely recovering. The other child had a respiratory condition that needed to be treated, but the right medicine wasn’t available at our clinic. Despite these severe conditions, the mother had not taken her children to the clinic in Crossroads. She is unemployed and takes care of her children through a government grant. Instead of seeking work, she is spending time with her friends drinking and not taking care of her children.
I was absolutely stunned by this story. There is so much I want to do, but not much that I can actually practically do. We did what we could in providing what medicine we could and the food and formula they needed, but beyond that there isn’t much we can do. This story also highlights the state of almost every mother I saw in the clinic today. Most of them are supporting their children on government grants, but are otherwise unemployed. This means that the families are living on R500 a month which is equivalent to about 70 USD. That’s all they get in a month to support the mother, a child or two, and possibly some other family members. I could easily spend that in a week. The poverty in the clinic was heartbreaking. Many of the mothers were different from this last mother and they truly wanted to care for their children in the best way possible. One mother in particular stood out from the rest. Her first born child who I met in the clinic today has cerebral palsy. Obviously it is hard enough to raise a child in this town, but raising a disabled child is even harder in these communities. Her child was initially born with low birth weight, but has since really rebounded and is returning to a normal growth curve. This mother is really making the best of her situation for the benefit of her son. Despite his disability, she is pouring herself out for her child.
We returned from the clinics at around 4 pm, just in time for my archeology class back in Observatory. I’m excited to do this every Tuesday. I think it will give me a real picture of what it is like to practice medicine here and hopefully give me a sense of direction in my future career path. At the same time, I also hope that I can help out with the best that I can offer and really help make a difference in the lives of these children and mothers.
Tim
Monday, April 12, 2010
Back to the Class Routine
Today was a beautiful day in Cape Town. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was around 80 degrees. If this is fall in Cape Town then count me in! Overall the weather has been great, though we’re supposed to be getting more rain as winter approaches here. No sign of that yet…
I only had one commitment all day today, so there isn’t much to write about. The class I’m taking on the AIDS epidemic’s impact on vulnerable populations met officially for the first time today. We took a bus into the township of Dunoon this morning to start off the class. Dunoon is a relatively new township, having been formed in 1996 which is after the end of Apartheid. It was formed mostly because of the influx of rural populations to Cape Town in search of jobs. It looked very similar to most of the other townships I’ve seen so far. As a part of the course, we are going to be working with a non-profit which is funded by both the government of South Africa and Chevron to provide home-based care to the communities. Our time with them was mostly an introduction and a chance for us to ask questions about what they do and how we can help. The organization was run entirely by Africans from the community of Dunoon. Six women had started the organization and gotten it organized. They began using volunteers to cook food and bring it to sick individuals in their community. From there they expanded to include not just food delivery, but also provision of basic home care services and became linked with a government program. Currently Chevron has funded the construction of a new building with a kitchen for them which we saw today.
It was really interesting to hear what some of the nonprofit staff members were saying about their organization and also to observe what was really happening. We had been recruited to this project previously because it appeared that the work was not being conducted adequately and wasn’t being recorded very well. We knew coming in that there were some issues that needed to be resolved. Our job is to figure out what those issues actually are and respond to them. Because I was looking for problems and areas that needed to be fixed, I saw a lot more than I would have otherwise. For example, we were told by one of the staff members that community health workers go between their 10 patients between 9 am and noon every day. Today we happened to be there from around 9:30 until noon. During that time, we saw several of these home-based care workers who were just sitting in the office. Some of them never left the office during that whole time. Obviously they weren’t actually visiting the houses that day, but why not? That is the real question. Some of them looked extremely tired and worn out. Is there something going on in their own home that is limiting their ability to go out and care for others? These are the questions that need to be asked and I’m excited that this class is going to give me a chance to ask those questions and learn what it really means to run a community based care program in a place where even your workers have struggles you may not understand.
After returning from Dunoon, we had a discussion section of the class and talked about what we had observed before moving into a more lecture based format of the course. I’m excited to see where these ten weeks take me in this course as well as the others I’m in. Tomorrow I’ll be at Philani for most of the day working in their remote clinic. I’ll let you know what my experience is like tomorrow!
Tim
I only had one commitment all day today, so there isn’t much to write about. The class I’m taking on the AIDS epidemic’s impact on vulnerable populations met officially for the first time today. We took a bus into the township of Dunoon this morning to start off the class. Dunoon is a relatively new township, having been formed in 1996 which is after the end of Apartheid. It was formed mostly because of the influx of rural populations to Cape Town in search of jobs. It looked very similar to most of the other townships I’ve seen so far. As a part of the course, we are going to be working with a non-profit which is funded by both the government of South Africa and Chevron to provide home-based care to the communities. Our time with them was mostly an introduction and a chance for us to ask questions about what they do and how we can help. The organization was run entirely by Africans from the community of Dunoon. Six women had started the organization and gotten it organized. They began using volunteers to cook food and bring it to sick individuals in their community. From there they expanded to include not just food delivery, but also provision of basic home care services and became linked with a government program. Currently Chevron has funded the construction of a new building with a kitchen for them which we saw today.
It was really interesting to hear what some of the nonprofit staff members were saying about their organization and also to observe what was really happening. We had been recruited to this project previously because it appeared that the work was not being conducted adequately and wasn’t being recorded very well. We knew coming in that there were some issues that needed to be resolved. Our job is to figure out what those issues actually are and respond to them. Because I was looking for problems and areas that needed to be fixed, I saw a lot more than I would have otherwise. For example, we were told by one of the staff members that community health workers go between their 10 patients between 9 am and noon every day. Today we happened to be there from around 9:30 until noon. During that time, we saw several of these home-based care workers who were just sitting in the office. Some of them never left the office during that whole time. Obviously they weren’t actually visiting the houses that day, but why not? That is the real question. Some of them looked extremely tired and worn out. Is there something going on in their own home that is limiting their ability to go out and care for others? These are the questions that need to be asked and I’m excited that this class is going to give me a chance to ask those questions and learn what it really means to run a community based care program in a place where even your workers have struggles you may not understand.
After returning from Dunoon, we had a discussion section of the class and talked about what we had observed before moving into a more lecture based format of the course. I’m excited to see where these ten weeks take me in this course as well as the others I’m in. Tomorrow I’ll be at Philani for most of the day working in their remote clinic. I’ll let you know what my experience is like tomorrow!
Tim
Sunday, April 11, 2010
From Philani to the Southern Tip of Africa
Hello Everyone!
Sorry I haven’t written in a few days! Things have been pretty busy around here and I was out of Cape Town for the past two days so I have a lot to write about. Let’s start back at Friday…
In the morning, I got to go and visit my service learning site to work for the first time. I spent three hours at Philani Child Health and Nutrition in the township of Khayelitsha. The morning was very hectic as everyone important in the NGO has meetings on Fridays. As a result, we were sent to work right away and told we would meet with the director later. Jenny and I were sent off to weigh the children in the preschool that is run here. It was really fun to see all of the 4 and 5 year old kids behave just the same as any in the United States. All but one of the children had a good weight for their age. It gave me hope that Philani is really making a difference in the communities. After we were done weighing the children and plotting their weights on a graph, we went to go see the director of the NGO. Unfortunately, she still was not in and she had quite an excuse. She was meeting with Desmond Tutu. I figured that was an ok reason to be late to work. We were sent to entertain the children and give the teachers a little break and then finally after our transport was already there, we got into a meeting with the director. In our meeting we found out that we would be working in their remote clinics which are run on Tuesdays and helping with weighing of children and preparing patients for the doctor. I’m so excited that I get to work in a clinic because it was exactly what I was hoping to do this quarter. I’ll be sure to keep you updated as things move forward, but for now the plan is that I’ll go in on Tuesday!
The rest of Friday was taken up with ultimate Frisbee up at UCT and preparing for my weekend trip. A group of ten people rented a couple of cars for the weekend to drive along the southern coast of Africa. The main destinations were De Hoop Nature Preserve and Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa.
We left Saturday morning for the 4ish hour drive to De Hoop. For about the last hour we were driving on dirt roads in our rental cars desperately hoping that flying rocks wouldn’t dent the car or a pothole wouldn’t do something worse. We got there fine though and spent the afternoon in probably the most beautiful place I’ve been in quite awhile. First we stopped and made sandwiches for lunch right next to this awesome tree that would serve as quite the treehouse. We quickly jumped into the tree and began climbing around. It fit 5 of us comfortably. We kept climbing around until a man from the hotel came out and told us that there had been boomslangs, venomous snakes, living in the tree. We weren’t sure if he was kidding or if he was telling the truth, but we decided it was a good idea to get out of that tree anyways. We hiked around the visitor’s center a little bit and saw ostriches, zebras, and some impala relatives.
After that, we got back into our car and drove a little further on to the coast which was one of the highlights of the trip. From where we parked we had two options in front of us. Turning right led us to several miles worth of sand dunes while turning left led us by an even longer distance of tide pools. All of this was set on the edge of the Indian Ocean which was surprisingly warm. It was so gorgeous. I’ll try to post pictures tomorrow showing the views, but it was absolutely stunning. We opted to first try out the sand dunes. Each of us took our turns rolling down them. The sand was so smooth and it was incredible how vast the dunes were. After we were tired of running up and down the dunes, we went to check out the tide pools on the other side. They were equally as entertaining. The tide was coming in though so it was hard to venture very far out into the water. In fact, as I was wading at one point, a really large wave came in and got me soaking wet. Fortunately it was warm out and the wind dried me off relatively quickly. As the tide came in it was really cool to watch the spray off the rocks. Some of it went up to 30 feet in the air!
As the park was about to close, we drove off to our hostel in Cape Agulhas for the night. Most of us were tired, so we grabbed food at a local restaurant and then went to sleep. In the morning, we woke up leisurely and enjoyed some eggs for breakfast before heading to the southernmost tip of Africa. There was a little monument set up there to indicate the southernmost tip, though there were lots of rocks just offshore that I might count those as farther south. It just gave me an excuse to climb out as far as I could. We drove a little farther down the road to a shipwreck just off the coast. The water was filled with rocks and there were more tide pools here as well. They were much more interesting because the tide was lower and more had washed up on shore. There were tons of abalone shells, some coral, sea sponge, kelp, jellyfish, crabs, small fish, snails, and things that looked like small Portuguese Man’o’wars. We spent quite awhile exploring all the different tide pools and taking pictures of the ship that had washed onto the rocks.
After our time there, we began the drive back and took some smaller roads back. We stopped at a town called Stanford for lunch and we traveled by Danger Point (which was boring), Pearly beach (which was more like kelp beach), and Hermanus (which looked like a really nice beach) on our way back to Cape Town. We got back just in time for dinner and now I’m just relaxing writing this up.
Whew! Done with the last three days. I hope that catches you up. It’s time for me to get some sleep…
Tim
Sorry I haven’t written in a few days! Things have been pretty busy around here and I was out of Cape Town for the past two days so I have a lot to write about. Let’s start back at Friday…
In the morning, I got to go and visit my service learning site to work for the first time. I spent three hours at Philani Child Health and Nutrition in the township of Khayelitsha. The morning was very hectic as everyone important in the NGO has meetings on Fridays. As a result, we were sent to work right away and told we would meet with the director later. Jenny and I were sent off to weigh the children in the preschool that is run here. It was really fun to see all of the 4 and 5 year old kids behave just the same as any in the United States. All but one of the children had a good weight for their age. It gave me hope that Philani is really making a difference in the communities. After we were done weighing the children and plotting their weights on a graph, we went to go see the director of the NGO. Unfortunately, she still was not in and she had quite an excuse. She was meeting with Desmond Tutu. I figured that was an ok reason to be late to work. We were sent to entertain the children and give the teachers a little break and then finally after our transport was already there, we got into a meeting with the director. In our meeting we found out that we would be working in their remote clinics which are run on Tuesdays and helping with weighing of children and preparing patients for the doctor. I’m so excited that I get to work in a clinic because it was exactly what I was hoping to do this quarter. I’ll be sure to keep you updated as things move forward, but for now the plan is that I’ll go in on Tuesday!
The rest of Friday was taken up with ultimate Frisbee up at UCT and preparing for my weekend trip. A group of ten people rented a couple of cars for the weekend to drive along the southern coast of Africa. The main destinations were De Hoop Nature Preserve and Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa.
We left Saturday morning for the 4ish hour drive to De Hoop. For about the last hour we were driving on dirt roads in our rental cars desperately hoping that flying rocks wouldn’t dent the car or a pothole wouldn’t do something worse. We got there fine though and spent the afternoon in probably the most beautiful place I’ve been in quite awhile. First we stopped and made sandwiches for lunch right next to this awesome tree that would serve as quite the treehouse. We quickly jumped into the tree and began climbing around. It fit 5 of us comfortably. We kept climbing around until a man from the hotel came out and told us that there had been boomslangs, venomous snakes, living in the tree. We weren’t sure if he was kidding or if he was telling the truth, but we decided it was a good idea to get out of that tree anyways. We hiked around the visitor’s center a little bit and saw ostriches, zebras, and some impala relatives.
After that, we got back into our car and drove a little further on to the coast which was one of the highlights of the trip. From where we parked we had two options in front of us. Turning right led us to several miles worth of sand dunes while turning left led us by an even longer distance of tide pools. All of this was set on the edge of the Indian Ocean which was surprisingly warm. It was so gorgeous. I’ll try to post pictures tomorrow showing the views, but it was absolutely stunning. We opted to first try out the sand dunes. Each of us took our turns rolling down them. The sand was so smooth and it was incredible how vast the dunes were. After we were tired of running up and down the dunes, we went to check out the tide pools on the other side. They were equally as entertaining. The tide was coming in though so it was hard to venture very far out into the water. In fact, as I was wading at one point, a really large wave came in and got me soaking wet. Fortunately it was warm out and the wind dried me off relatively quickly. As the tide came in it was really cool to watch the spray off the rocks. Some of it went up to 30 feet in the air!
As the park was about to close, we drove off to our hostel in Cape Agulhas for the night. Most of us were tired, so we grabbed food at a local restaurant and then went to sleep. In the morning, we woke up leisurely and enjoyed some eggs for breakfast before heading to the southernmost tip of Africa. There was a little monument set up there to indicate the southernmost tip, though there were lots of rocks just offshore that I might count those as farther south. It just gave me an excuse to climb out as far as I could. We drove a little farther down the road to a shipwreck just off the coast. The water was filled with rocks and there were more tide pools here as well. They were much more interesting because the tide was lower and more had washed up on shore. There were tons of abalone shells, some coral, sea sponge, kelp, jellyfish, crabs, small fish, snails, and things that looked like small Portuguese Man’o’wars. We spent quite awhile exploring all the different tide pools and taking pictures of the ship that had washed onto the rocks.
After our time there, we began the drive back and took some smaller roads back. We stopped at a town called Stanford for lunch and we traveled by Danger Point (which was boring), Pearly beach (which was more like kelp beach), and Hermanus (which looked like a really nice beach) on our way back to Cape Town. We got back just in time for dinner and now I’m just relaxing writing this up.
Whew! Done with the last three days. I hope that catches you up. It’s time for me to get some sleep…
Tim
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Stories from the Townships
Today we went on a long tour of the townships and met with people along the way. This post is dedicated to the stories that I heard today from our guide and from locals we met.
We started the day traveling around District 6 which is very near the Cape Town city center. This was a rather diverse neighborhood, but had a large coloured population. During the set up of Apartheid all non-whites were relocated from Cape Town itself. District 6 was a location of resistance to relocation and was the site where Colleen, our guide, lived. She told us stories of how the police were required to hand out 3 notices to homeowners before their house could be demolished. When the police were coming, she would run to a local store to phone her parents and tell them not to come home. She said that as a result of the attempts to relocate, she lived in 29 houses during this period before she was finally relocated. When at the District 6 museum, she showed us pictures of the neighborhood before and after the relocation. If you Google pictures of Richmond Street in District 6 before and after relocation you can see how powerful the Apartheid regime was. As soon as the police had distributed a third notice, they would come and demolish the home regardless of whether the owner’s goods were still inside. It was really interesting to see Colleen interact with the museum and neighborhood that she once called home. She knew everyone in the museum and even some of the guests who were wandering back in. This was her home that was forcibly destroyed by the Apartheid regime. I think we often picture the Struggle as between blacks and whites, but seeing Colleen’s coloured neighborhood facing the same damaging regime. Her whole childhood was wiped out and her only memories can be found in this museum. Colleen knows everything on display and everyone who walks through the doors. She told this story about one of the men who is the shopkeeper at the museum. During those times men would apparently bet on carrier pigeons in races. They would teach them to race home and then release them. One day after he had been relocated, he released his pigeons. The birds flew away and he couldn’t find them. Finally, he went back to District 6 and there on the foundation of his house were the pigeons. They had gone home to a place he could no longer call home.
After leaving District 6 we went to the townships and traveled through Longa and Nyanga to Guguletu. The story we heard there was not a recent one, but one from near the end of Apartheid. We stopped on the side of the road near a gas station to hear this story. Amy Biehl was a 26 year old Stanford graduate on a Fulbright Scholarship in the early 1990s. She was working on voter empowerment leading up to the election in 1994 in and around Cape Town. On August 25, 1993, she was driving a friend home to the Guguletu township. When she got there, a mob of Africans was just leaving a political rally. Seeing her white face, they began to throw stones at her car and smashed the windows. She got out of the car and ran, and was chased to the gas station where we had stopped where she was stabbed to death by four African men. These men were convicted initially, but in 1998, Amy Biehl’s parents argued for their release and pardoned them. They founded the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust to attempt to keep Africans off of the streets in the townships where their daughter was killed. In fact, they went so far as to meet the killers and actually began to build friendships with them. They have actually taken in one of the men who killed their daughter he never leaves Linda Biehl’s side. I don’t know how they found it within themselves to forgive when so much was taken away from them. I can only hope that I would respond in the same way. This is what it means to love your enemies, to serve the ones who have done you the most harm. I can only hope to learn from this example and do the same in my own experiences.
After leaving Guguletu, we headed to Khayelitsha, the largest township surrounding Cape Town. There are 1 million people living in mostly tin houses here and it stretches in every direction as far as the eye can see. It was the most concentrated form of poverty I have ever seen. Most people were living in very tight living conditions made entirely of temporary materials and trash littered the streets. There were very limited water sources and bathrooms were basically non-existent. We were told that in some areas of Khayelitsha unemployment reaches 60%.
In amidst this huge city of poverty lies Philani Child Health and Nutrition. This is the nonprofit I will be working with this quarter and I am very excited about my time with them. We had a chance to actually stop at their site and it is an oasis in the midst of the chaotic sand dominated shanty town. They started in 1970 and have been working ever since. Though initially they dealt mostly with child malnutrition and in providing enough food, they now work with both kids and mothers. The mothers work on craft projects which allow them to learn a skill and make money to support themselves. They do a variety of weaving and dying of fabrics as well as construction of small items from used cans and other things. Kids are able to attend kindergarten here which is not normal in this country as well as receive dental care and food. I am going back tomorrow to meet my supervisor and to start work there. I will let you know when I find out what I’m doing!
We stopped for dinner at a restaurant in the Longa township. It was quite a fun time as our group of around 30 was the only group there. We were greeted by a live marimba band and a very energetic woman who had lived there since 1960. They prepared 26 different African dishes for us to try in a buffet style. I was very full by the end of it as they allowed us to go back to the buffet as much as possible. After finishing our meals, several of us went and got to play the drums with the band and though we didn’t play anything complicated it was still a fun event.
The last story I want to tell is not a story of tragedy, but a story of hope, though it may not seem like that initially. In the township of Khayelitsha, we met a woman named Beauty. The first thing she told us when we walked into her home is that she is HIV positive. Not many people here will divulge that information and she is one of the few who will do it openly. In fact, she keeps her Antiretrovirals (ARVs) on her mantle so that anyone who enters her house can see that she is positive. She wants people to know that HIV is not a death sentence. For a living, Beauty runs a bed and breakfast, but also sews garments. She is particularly good at making formal dresses and her walls were covered with pictures of dresses she had designed and then constructed. Feeling like she wanted to help build up the community, she began teaching other women in the community how to sew. Overall, she has taught over 100 women how to sew and now those women are joining the market and beginning to work for their own support. People like Beauty are hard to come by. She could have easily said that life was too hard for her. She is HIV positive and she lives in one of the poorest places in the world. Instead of rolling over and dying, she has taken the step to make a difference in her community. We need more people like Beauty who humbly take up the cause of those around them and work to make a difference in this world. I hope that I will not be discouraged by difficulties in my life that would prevent me from really making a difference.
We started the day traveling around District 6 which is very near the Cape Town city center. This was a rather diverse neighborhood, but had a large coloured population. During the set up of Apartheid all non-whites were relocated from Cape Town itself. District 6 was a location of resistance to relocation and was the site where Colleen, our guide, lived. She told us stories of how the police were required to hand out 3 notices to homeowners before their house could be demolished. When the police were coming, she would run to a local store to phone her parents and tell them not to come home. She said that as a result of the attempts to relocate, she lived in 29 houses during this period before she was finally relocated. When at the District 6 museum, she showed us pictures of the neighborhood before and after the relocation. If you Google pictures of Richmond Street in District 6 before and after relocation you can see how powerful the Apartheid regime was. As soon as the police had distributed a third notice, they would come and demolish the home regardless of whether the owner’s goods were still inside. It was really interesting to see Colleen interact with the museum and neighborhood that she once called home. She knew everyone in the museum and even some of the guests who were wandering back in. This was her home that was forcibly destroyed by the Apartheid regime. I think we often picture the Struggle as between blacks and whites, but seeing Colleen’s coloured neighborhood facing the same damaging regime. Her whole childhood was wiped out and her only memories can be found in this museum. Colleen knows everything on display and everyone who walks through the doors. She told this story about one of the men who is the shopkeeper at the museum. During those times men would apparently bet on carrier pigeons in races. They would teach them to race home and then release them. One day after he had been relocated, he released his pigeons. The birds flew away and he couldn’t find them. Finally, he went back to District 6 and there on the foundation of his house were the pigeons. They had gone home to a place he could no longer call home.
After leaving District 6 we went to the townships and traveled through Longa and Nyanga to Guguletu. The story we heard there was not a recent one, but one from near the end of Apartheid. We stopped on the side of the road near a gas station to hear this story. Amy Biehl was a 26 year old Stanford graduate on a Fulbright Scholarship in the early 1990s. She was working on voter empowerment leading up to the election in 1994 in and around Cape Town. On August 25, 1993, she was driving a friend home to the Guguletu township. When she got there, a mob of Africans was just leaving a political rally. Seeing her white face, they began to throw stones at her car and smashed the windows. She got out of the car and ran, and was chased to the gas station where we had stopped where she was stabbed to death by four African men. These men were convicted initially, but in 1998, Amy Biehl’s parents argued for their release and pardoned them. They founded the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust to attempt to keep Africans off of the streets in the townships where their daughter was killed. In fact, they went so far as to meet the killers and actually began to build friendships with them. They have actually taken in one of the men who killed their daughter he never leaves Linda Biehl’s side. I don’t know how they found it within themselves to forgive when so much was taken away from them. I can only hope that I would respond in the same way. This is what it means to love your enemies, to serve the ones who have done you the most harm. I can only hope to learn from this example and do the same in my own experiences.
After leaving Guguletu, we headed to Khayelitsha, the largest township surrounding Cape Town. There are 1 million people living in mostly tin houses here and it stretches in every direction as far as the eye can see. It was the most concentrated form of poverty I have ever seen. Most people were living in very tight living conditions made entirely of temporary materials and trash littered the streets. There were very limited water sources and bathrooms were basically non-existent. We were told that in some areas of Khayelitsha unemployment reaches 60%.
In amidst this huge city of poverty lies Philani Child Health and Nutrition. This is the nonprofit I will be working with this quarter and I am very excited about my time with them. We had a chance to actually stop at their site and it is an oasis in the midst of the chaotic sand dominated shanty town. They started in 1970 and have been working ever since. Though initially they dealt mostly with child malnutrition and in providing enough food, they now work with both kids and mothers. The mothers work on craft projects which allow them to learn a skill and make money to support themselves. They do a variety of weaving and dying of fabrics as well as construction of small items from used cans and other things. Kids are able to attend kindergarten here which is not normal in this country as well as receive dental care and food. I am going back tomorrow to meet my supervisor and to start work there. I will let you know when I find out what I’m doing!
We stopped for dinner at a restaurant in the Longa township. It was quite a fun time as our group of around 30 was the only group there. We were greeted by a live marimba band and a very energetic woman who had lived there since 1960. They prepared 26 different African dishes for us to try in a buffet style. I was very full by the end of it as they allowed us to go back to the buffet as much as possible. After finishing our meals, several of us went and got to play the drums with the band and though we didn’t play anything complicated it was still a fun event.
The last story I want to tell is not a story of tragedy, but a story of hope, though it may not seem like that initially. In the township of Khayelitsha, we met a woman named Beauty. The first thing she told us when we walked into her home is that she is HIV positive. Not many people here will divulge that information and she is one of the few who will do it openly. In fact, she keeps her Antiretrovirals (ARVs) on her mantle so that anyone who enters her house can see that she is positive. She wants people to know that HIV is not a death sentence. For a living, Beauty runs a bed and breakfast, but also sews garments. She is particularly good at making formal dresses and her walls were covered with pictures of dresses she had designed and then constructed. Feeling like she wanted to help build up the community, she began teaching other women in the community how to sew. Overall, she has taught over 100 women how to sew and now those women are joining the market and beginning to work for their own support. People like Beauty are hard to come by. She could have easily said that life was too hard for her. She is HIV positive and she lives in one of the poorest places in the world. Instead of rolling over and dying, she has taken the step to make a difference in her community. We need more people like Beauty who humbly take up the cause of those around them and work to make a difference in this world. I hope that I will not be discouraged by difficulties in my life that would prevent me from really making a difference.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Classes start
The past two days have gone by quickly as we finally started classes here. All of the classes are offered at the Stanford Centre which is approximately a 10 minute walk from our house. I went to more classes than I am actually going to take because we have a shopping period to explore classes. I went to three different class meetings over the past few days and I have another class tomorrow morning.
I started off classes by attending a course on race and labor in South Africa. It was taught by Xolani (with a click in it that I can say!) who is a native who has earned her PhD and teaches at the UCT business school in sociology. She was a very interesting person and very clearly knew a lot about her field. Most of the students in the program came out to the class, I assume because it was the first course offered. I don’t think I will take this course even though it has some really interesting commentary on race relations here.
After that, I went to a course on the archeology of South African hunters and gatherers. The professor, John Parkington, is a UCT professor and is basically the stereotypical archeologist. He wears the outfit and talks in the exact way you would picture. The course focuses on the stone age hunters and gatherers specifically in the Western Cape region. It is really interesting to be studying this here in this context because it is theorized that the first humans were from or near this region. There are tons of interesting sites to visit and our Bing sponsored trip is to the Cedarburg where there are cave paintings from early modern humans. I’m really excited about this class and I think I’m going to take it.
On Tuesday night, our professor for “The effect of HIV/AIDS on the fate of vulnerable populations” invited us over to his house for dinner as the first meeting of the course. We had a presentation from the NGO we will be working with in the field to help evaluate the HIV affected populations in Dunoon. It sounds cool as well and I think I will take this course. It was also really fun to just be at a professor’s house and interact in a more social way with him. I have a really unique experience here to get to know professors and ask questions in a way that isn’t possible elsewhere. I definitely feel lucky.
Wednesday has brought only one class (archeology) this afternoon, but it has been fun in other ways. During the late afternoon, I went up to UCT with a couple other students in the program and played ultimate Frisbee with the UCT club team. One of the students in our program has been playing with them since last quarter and so we just went up to join in. I had a really fun time and it was awesome to actually meet some UCT students. We got up there a little bit late because the Jammie Shuttle to Campus was running late, but we got there in time to jump in some drills and a scrimmage. The “B” team is pretty relaxed and it was fun to just get outside and meet some new people in the area.
Tonight has been relaxing. I’ve been doing some reading for the class I have tomorrow morning. For the rest of the day we will be doing a tour of the townships and I will get to meet the staff at my service learning placement. I’ll write more about them after I actually meet them, but for those who are curious, I will be working with Philani Child Health and Nutrition. You can look up more information at philani.org.za.
I started off classes by attending a course on race and labor in South Africa. It was taught by Xolani (with a click in it that I can say!) who is a native who has earned her PhD and teaches at the UCT business school in sociology. She was a very interesting person and very clearly knew a lot about her field. Most of the students in the program came out to the class, I assume because it was the first course offered. I don’t think I will take this course even though it has some really interesting commentary on race relations here.
After that, I went to a course on the archeology of South African hunters and gatherers. The professor, John Parkington, is a UCT professor and is basically the stereotypical archeologist. He wears the outfit and talks in the exact way you would picture. The course focuses on the stone age hunters and gatherers specifically in the Western Cape region. It is really interesting to be studying this here in this context because it is theorized that the first humans were from or near this region. There are tons of interesting sites to visit and our Bing sponsored trip is to the Cedarburg where there are cave paintings from early modern humans. I’m really excited about this class and I think I’m going to take it.
On Tuesday night, our professor for “The effect of HIV/AIDS on the fate of vulnerable populations” invited us over to his house for dinner as the first meeting of the course. We had a presentation from the NGO we will be working with in the field to help evaluate the HIV affected populations in Dunoon. It sounds cool as well and I think I will take this course. It was also really fun to just be at a professor’s house and interact in a more social way with him. I have a really unique experience here to get to know professors and ask questions in a way that isn’t possible elsewhere. I definitely feel lucky.
Wednesday has brought only one class (archeology) this afternoon, but it has been fun in other ways. During the late afternoon, I went up to UCT with a couple other students in the program and played ultimate Frisbee with the UCT club team. One of the students in our program has been playing with them since last quarter and so we just went up to join in. I had a really fun time and it was awesome to actually meet some UCT students. We got up there a little bit late because the Jammie Shuttle to Campus was running late, but we got there in time to jump in some drills and a scrimmage. The “B” team is pretty relaxed and it was fun to just get outside and meet some new people in the area.
Tonight has been relaxing. I’ve been doing some reading for the class I have tomorrow morning. For the rest of the day we will be doing a tour of the townships and I will get to meet the staff at my service learning placement. I’ll write more about them after I actually meet them, but for those who are curious, I will be working with Philani Child Health and Nutrition. You can look up more information at philani.org.za.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Musings on a Cape Town Tour and Pictures!
Today we woke up early and got on a bus to go tour the city. Our trip took us all over Cape Town and some of the surrounding area and we got some incredible views of the scenery and city. Throughout our time, we had a tour guide, Colleen, who was explaining the history behind everywhere we traveled. She was a very interesting woman who was labeled as “coloured” by the Apartheid regime and was part of the freedom fighting movement. I think having her with us really made the trip.
The beginning of our trip was through the middle of the town. We traveled by the original slave lodge as well as the sites of parliament and city hall. We stopped in front of city hall and Colleen began to tell us about her experiences there in 1990. She was there among a crowd of 40,000 people when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. The way she described it was very powerful. Though the rest of the world knew his face, the South Africans had never seen him because all media showing him was banned. The moment he was released was the first time that South Africans had seen him and could unite behind him. She described it as a very moving experience and I found it very interesting that this was the first time that South Africa had seen their future leader.
As we kept going, we listened to more stories that Colleen told. She also was at the first flag-raising of the new South African flag. It was apparently a pretty clandestine event and she was racing to try to find the spot. She ended up standing next to Albie Sachs, one of the leaders of the freedom fight. Colleen’s stories really made me feel like I was in the moments before the end of Apartheid. I really felt the energy and excitement that Mandela and the new flag brought. We’ll be traveling with her to the townships and the District 6 museum with her on Thursday. I think it will be interesting to hear more about her life story then.
After our time in the city center, we drove up through a predominantly Muslim area that was very colorful on our way to an overlook near the city. We drove up to a place where we could see the 4 mountains that surround Cape Town: Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, Lion’s Head, and Signal Hill. The views were spectacular and we had a view of both the city and the ocean. On the way back down the hill we stopped at the burial site of an Islamic sheikh on Signal Hill and at another spot where we could look out over the World Cup Stadium.
We then drove down through Camps Bay and Clifton Beach which were two very different areas from those we had been in this whole time. I think a good comparison would be to Malibu, California. The view is absolutely breathtaking and the beaches are great. There are tons of tide pools and rocks to climb on as well as flat sandy beaches to lie on. It was also a very rich neighborhood and is made up of exclusively white South Africans. During Apartheid, these beaches were closed to anyone who was not white and the economic disparity has kept these areas as predominantly white.
From there we traveled to the waterfront in the city and walked around a few shops. It was pretty modern looking and was very near the World Cup Stadium. I think it’s a shame that many of the people coming to Cape Town for the World Cup will not really get to see South Africa as it really is. They will be looking at the waterfront and places like Camps Bay which is basically a resort town. I hope that people really get a chance to see more of what Africa is actually like.
On our return bus ride, Colleen shared a few of her thoughts about the World Cup and it really made me think about whether it is actually good for South Africa. She said that when the tournament was being sold to them, it was supposed to be a chance for economic growth and stimulation by the multitudes of tourists coming into the country. Even the poorer economies such as craft markets were to benefit from the event. Unfortunately, this was not to be. FIFA has forced everyone involved in the World Cup to register with them. That includes hotels, stores, taxis, and even airlines. Through this FIFA banned all items that portray a soccer ball and 2010 on them from non-registered markets. I learned that even some non-profits which were making these items were told they could not sell them within 50 km of the stadium. Hotels were forced to give 30% of their profits from the World Cup to FIFA and as a result these hotels raised their prices. The increased prices decreased the ability of tourists to travel and as a result FIFA cut 65,000 registered beds. Many of these had already been upgrading their facilities in hopes of new tourists and are now stuck without the benefits of FIFA customers. In addition, FIFA blacked out many seats on airlines to South Africa causing an increase in airfare costs. This further limited who bought tickets and though these seats have recently been released, it is too late for many people to plan a trip to South Africa or get tickets to the games. On top of all these other problems, South Africans were required to purchase tickets online with a credit card. Most natives do not have a credit card and very few have regular internet access. As a result, most didn’t get tickets. Banks were granted the ability to hand out tickets in March of this year, but by then, most tickets had been sold.
All of this information about how the World Cup is being carried out makes me question whether this is actually good for South Africans. One thing is for sure – it is nothing like it was promised to be. I hope that tourism actually does stimulate the economy and help pull this country out of the development stage. I am continually amazed by the huge discrepancy between living at Stanford and living in Cape Town. It is like a night and day difference in basic living situation. When we visit the townships on Thursday I know I will see this discrepancy even more acutely. I hope that maybe some of those coming to the World Cup this June will also see this and be spurred to action. I haven’t even seen the worst of it and I already know this place needs much more help than one person can give.
I’ve tried to attach a couple pictures of my trip on Picasa. Hopefully this will make it less of a downer of a post. http://picasaweb.google.com/twolfe1/CapeTown#
Tim
The beginning of our trip was through the middle of the town. We traveled by the original slave lodge as well as the sites of parliament and city hall. We stopped in front of city hall and Colleen began to tell us about her experiences there in 1990. She was there among a crowd of 40,000 people when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. The way she described it was very powerful. Though the rest of the world knew his face, the South Africans had never seen him because all media showing him was banned. The moment he was released was the first time that South Africans had seen him and could unite behind him. She described it as a very moving experience and I found it very interesting that this was the first time that South Africa had seen their future leader.
As we kept going, we listened to more stories that Colleen told. She also was at the first flag-raising of the new South African flag. It was apparently a pretty clandestine event and she was racing to try to find the spot. She ended up standing next to Albie Sachs, one of the leaders of the freedom fight. Colleen’s stories really made me feel like I was in the moments before the end of Apartheid. I really felt the energy and excitement that Mandela and the new flag brought. We’ll be traveling with her to the townships and the District 6 museum with her on Thursday. I think it will be interesting to hear more about her life story then.
After our time in the city center, we drove up through a predominantly Muslim area that was very colorful on our way to an overlook near the city. We drove up to a place where we could see the 4 mountains that surround Cape Town: Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, Lion’s Head, and Signal Hill. The views were spectacular and we had a view of both the city and the ocean. On the way back down the hill we stopped at the burial site of an Islamic sheikh on Signal Hill and at another spot where we could look out over the World Cup Stadium.
We then drove down through Camps Bay and Clifton Beach which were two very different areas from those we had been in this whole time. I think a good comparison would be to Malibu, California. The view is absolutely breathtaking and the beaches are great. There are tons of tide pools and rocks to climb on as well as flat sandy beaches to lie on. It was also a very rich neighborhood and is made up of exclusively white South Africans. During Apartheid, these beaches were closed to anyone who was not white and the economic disparity has kept these areas as predominantly white.
From there we traveled to the waterfront in the city and walked around a few shops. It was pretty modern looking and was very near the World Cup Stadium. I think it’s a shame that many of the people coming to Cape Town for the World Cup will not really get to see South Africa as it really is. They will be looking at the waterfront and places like Camps Bay which is basically a resort town. I hope that people really get a chance to see more of what Africa is actually like.
On our return bus ride, Colleen shared a few of her thoughts about the World Cup and it really made me think about whether it is actually good for South Africa. She said that when the tournament was being sold to them, it was supposed to be a chance for economic growth and stimulation by the multitudes of tourists coming into the country. Even the poorer economies such as craft markets were to benefit from the event. Unfortunately, this was not to be. FIFA has forced everyone involved in the World Cup to register with them. That includes hotels, stores, taxis, and even airlines. Through this FIFA banned all items that portray a soccer ball and 2010 on them from non-registered markets. I learned that even some non-profits which were making these items were told they could not sell them within 50 km of the stadium. Hotels were forced to give 30% of their profits from the World Cup to FIFA and as a result these hotels raised their prices. The increased prices decreased the ability of tourists to travel and as a result FIFA cut 65,000 registered beds. Many of these had already been upgrading their facilities in hopes of new tourists and are now stuck without the benefits of FIFA customers. In addition, FIFA blacked out many seats on airlines to South Africa causing an increase in airfare costs. This further limited who bought tickets and though these seats have recently been released, it is too late for many people to plan a trip to South Africa or get tickets to the games. On top of all these other problems, South Africans were required to purchase tickets online with a credit card. Most natives do not have a credit card and very few have regular internet access. As a result, most didn’t get tickets. Banks were granted the ability to hand out tickets in March of this year, but by then, most tickets had been sold.
All of this information about how the World Cup is being carried out makes me question whether this is actually good for South Africans. One thing is for sure – it is nothing like it was promised to be. I hope that tourism actually does stimulate the economy and help pull this country out of the development stage. I am continually amazed by the huge discrepancy between living at Stanford and living in Cape Town. It is like a night and day difference in basic living situation. When we visit the townships on Thursday I know I will see this discrepancy even more acutely. I hope that maybe some of those coming to the World Cup this June will also see this and be spurred to action. I haven’t even seen the worst of it and I already know this place needs much more help than one person can give.
I’ve tried to attach a couple pictures of my trip on Picasa. Hopefully this will make it less of a downer of a post. http://picasaweb.google.com/twolfe1/CapeTown#
Tim
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday
Happy Easter everyone! I hope you had a great day celebrating with friends and family. I woke up this morning and headed to church in Obs today. We went to Jubilee Church, which was a fun experience. I really liked the music, but the teaching was not the best. To complicate matters, there was a really uncomfortable alter call at the end. I’ve been a Christian for most of my life and the way it was carried out would have made me uncomfortable if I were becoming a Christian for the first time. I think I may try out a new church next time. Something really great about the church was how multi-cultural it was. There were people of all colors and descents there and it was lively with dancing and clapping and shouting. Though the message and alter call weren’t great, they did spur some great conversations within the people who went to church. Because it was Easter, a bunch of people from our group who either don’t have a strong faith or are actually practice a different religion came along. Five of us ended up going out to brunch at a local cafe and ended up talking for over an hour about issues of faith. It was really interesting and I think we’re going to try to do this every week. Explore different churches and then debrief and discuss.
This afternoon we went for a different type of adventure. We decided to hike up Table Mountain and then down to a concert at the Kierstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It was a rather impromptu trip, so we started hiking at around 3 pm. By this time we couldn’t make it to top of the mountain where the cable car is, so we decided on a route up Skeleton Gorge and down Nursery Ravine. This took us about 90% of the way to the top of the mountain, but about a 2 hour hike from the location on the top of the mountain where the cable car arrives. Our hike up took around an hour and 15 minutes and we were moving at a rather fast pace. It was quite a strenuous trail including mostly switchbacks and scrambling. It even had a few ladders to get up steep sections. At the top we had such incredible views of the suburbs of Cape Town and the townships. You could see for miles. It was definitely worth the hike.
As we started to head down, one of my roommates knee began to give him problems. He has a torn meniscus and wasn’t having any trouble on the way up, but as we started going down his knee started to flare up. We hadn’t anticipated slowing down our pace and so we didn’t budget much extra time before sundown. We looked through our stuff and in our group of 8 we had 2 flashlights. We decided to send half of our group down quickly so that we could share the 2 flashlights among only four people. I stayed behind to help my roommate down the mountain. We fought through the wind and the steep stairs down the mountain and we ended up making it down in plenty of time for the sunlight. Even though the sun set on the other side of the mountain we still had plenty of time. We made it for the second half of the concert at the gardens and just relaxed after our ordeal on the mountain. I guess we should have been a little more prepared, but it was amazing how quickly we could make a plan and execute it. This experience made me feel a little more confident in my ability to keep my cool in tough circumstances and problem solve. I guess the moral of the story is not to try to climb a mountain with a torn meniscus.
After the concert we headed back to the house where our RA had cooked a great Easter dinner for all of us. She cooked all day and made quite an impressive meal. We all filled up and now I’m just relaxing before I go to bed. Tomorrow we’ll tour the city with a guide who can tell us the history and then hopefully we’ll take the Cable Car up to Table Mountain. (If the wind is too strong like it was today the cable car doesn’t run). We start classes on Tuesday so I should get into more of a routine then. I’ll update you tomorrow on what we end up doing!
Tim
This afternoon we went for a different type of adventure. We decided to hike up Table Mountain and then down to a concert at the Kierstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It was a rather impromptu trip, so we started hiking at around 3 pm. By this time we couldn’t make it to top of the mountain where the cable car is, so we decided on a route up Skeleton Gorge and down Nursery Ravine. This took us about 90% of the way to the top of the mountain, but about a 2 hour hike from the location on the top of the mountain where the cable car arrives. Our hike up took around an hour and 15 minutes and we were moving at a rather fast pace. It was quite a strenuous trail including mostly switchbacks and scrambling. It even had a few ladders to get up steep sections. At the top we had such incredible views of the suburbs of Cape Town and the townships. You could see for miles. It was definitely worth the hike.
As we started to head down, one of my roommates knee began to give him problems. He has a torn meniscus and wasn’t having any trouble on the way up, but as we started going down his knee started to flare up. We hadn’t anticipated slowing down our pace and so we didn’t budget much extra time before sundown. We looked through our stuff and in our group of 8 we had 2 flashlights. We decided to send half of our group down quickly so that we could share the 2 flashlights among only four people. I stayed behind to help my roommate down the mountain. We fought through the wind and the steep stairs down the mountain and we ended up making it down in plenty of time for the sunlight. Even though the sun set on the other side of the mountain we still had plenty of time. We made it for the second half of the concert at the gardens and just relaxed after our ordeal on the mountain. I guess we should have been a little more prepared, but it was amazing how quickly we could make a plan and execute it. This experience made me feel a little more confident in my ability to keep my cool in tough circumstances and problem solve. I guess the moral of the story is not to try to climb a mountain with a torn meniscus.
After the concert we headed back to the house where our RA had cooked a great Easter dinner for all of us. She cooked all day and made quite an impressive meal. We all filled up and now I’m just relaxing before I go to bed. Tomorrow we’ll tour the city with a guide who can tell us the history and then hopefully we’ll take the Cable Car up to Table Mountain. (If the wind is too strong like it was today the cable car doesn’t run). We start classes on Tuesday so I should get into more of a routine then. I’ll update you tomorrow on what we end up doing!
Tim
Saturday, April 3, 2010
River Rafting Adventure
So I’m back! River rafting was a lot of fun. We were each in two person rafts that were about the size of a canoe and we went down the Breede River. It was pretty calm overall, though there were a few rapids. Much of the time we were floating and jumping in to swim. The whole trip was very restful and relaxing.
Our guides were quite interesting people. They were both white South Africans who were both sunburned and looked as if they hadn’t left the beach in years. On our first day, they brought an elaborate lunch setup including a flower-printed umbrella and they even rolled up every slice of meat for us to eat. Apparently that is company policy. That night though, something else that was apparently company policy is that dinner always takes longer to cook than you think. They had been cooking dinner for about 3 hours when someone asked when it would be ready. They said we would eat “now now.” Apparently this is an African phrase we didn’t understand because it took them 3 extra hours to finish cooking and serve the meal. “Now now” apparently means in awhile and “just now” means in a little bit, but shorter than “now now.” What we really wanted to hear was “now,” but we didn’t know that at the time.
The next day was also interesting. Neither of our guides had actually gone down the section of river we were going down. They had also forgotten to book four of the boats for an extra day. So that meant we had to find substitute boats. To make things better, when we were partway down the river, one of our guides decided to get out and swim. He then decided not to get back in a boat. When we got to the take out point, he was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he had decided to swim down the rest of the river. That was the end of the adventure, but it was great fun.
I think tomorrow I’m going to head to church for Easter so I’ll be sure to let you know how it is!
Our guides were quite interesting people. They were both white South Africans who were both sunburned and looked as if they hadn’t left the beach in years. On our first day, they brought an elaborate lunch setup including a flower-printed umbrella and they even rolled up every slice of meat for us to eat. Apparently that is company policy. That night though, something else that was apparently company policy is that dinner always takes longer to cook than you think. They had been cooking dinner for about 3 hours when someone asked when it would be ready. They said we would eat “now now.” Apparently this is an African phrase we didn’t understand because it took them 3 extra hours to finish cooking and serve the meal. “Now now” apparently means in awhile and “just now” means in a little bit, but shorter than “now now.” What we really wanted to hear was “now,” but we didn’t know that at the time.
The next day was also interesting. Neither of our guides had actually gone down the section of river we were going down. They had also forgotten to book four of the boats for an extra day. So that meant we had to find substitute boats. To make things better, when we were partway down the river, one of our guides decided to get out and swim. He then decided not to get back in a boat. When we got to the take out point, he was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he had decided to swim down the rest of the river. That was the end of the adventure, but it was great fun.
I think tomorrow I’m going to head to church for Easter so I’ll be sure to let you know how it is!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Two Dinners and an Adventurous Night
As promised, this entry will cover the Braai we had with Stanford’s Talisman a cappella group last night. We hosted the group of about 20 at our house and our cook prepared traditional South African cooking. We ate and mingled and then Talisman gave us a little concert similar to what they have been doing in the Townships and around schools throughout this country on their Spring Break trip. They sung a bunch of songs written in Xhosa or songs that were important to the Apartheid struggle. It was really cool to be able to hear these songs in the context of Cape Town. I think it made them strike home a little harder than when I’ve heard the group at Stanford. It was almost as if you could feel the history flowing out of the music. At the end of their performance, they offered to teach us a song. They broke us up into groups based on pitch and then we each learned our part of the song. We sang it with them once and then just our Stanford group sang the song. It was really a great bonding experience for us. Music has an incredible ability to bring people together. Even if we didn’t have the best voices, they came together and we grew together a little bit more.
After the Braai, we decided to head out to a local bar to play some pool. Right outside the entrance to the bar we came across quite the scene. An American college student had fallen down 2 flights of stairs that led up to this bar and had hit his head on the way down. He was bleeding from the head and had apparently been lying on the ground for 30 minutes without the arrival of the ambulance. One of the members of our group is an EMT and she quickly moved in to hold C-spine control in case he had a neck injury. It took another 15 to 20 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. This fall is something that could happen to anyone. The hospital was only about 4 blocks away and it took this man probably an hour or more to get there. It is possible that he was bleeding into his brain and every second matters. I don’t know what happened to this man, but ultimately it was a harsh reminder that even if something very common happens, the lack of infrastructure in South Africa can really make things much worse very quickly. I resolved to be very careful during my time here. (Don’t worry Mom!)
Today I had a much more relaxed day and just went into town to walk around and then went to our program’s welcome dinner in town. Our dinner was excellent. We went to this restaurant which served us 16 different dishes from all over the African continent. After we had tried each of them with our hands (no utensils allowed), we were allowed to request as much of any of the dishes as we wanted. I left quite full and ready to go to sleep to prepare for my fun weekend.
So I will be out of internet access for the next couple of days as I go rafting down the Breede River. I’ll update you on Saturday night about the trip and any more exciting things!
Tim
After the Braai, we decided to head out to a local bar to play some pool. Right outside the entrance to the bar we came across quite the scene. An American college student had fallen down 2 flights of stairs that led up to this bar and had hit his head on the way down. He was bleeding from the head and had apparently been lying on the ground for 30 minutes without the arrival of the ambulance. One of the members of our group is an EMT and she quickly moved in to hold C-spine control in case he had a neck injury. It took another 15 to 20 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. This fall is something that could happen to anyone. The hospital was only about 4 blocks away and it took this man probably an hour or more to get there. It is possible that he was bleeding into his brain and every second matters. I don’t know what happened to this man, but ultimately it was a harsh reminder that even if something very common happens, the lack of infrastructure in South Africa can really make things much worse very quickly. I resolved to be very careful during my time here. (Don’t worry Mom!)
Today I had a much more relaxed day and just went into town to walk around and then went to our program’s welcome dinner in town. Our dinner was excellent. We went to this restaurant which served us 16 different dishes from all over the African continent. After we had tried each of them with our hands (no utensils allowed), we were allowed to request as much of any of the dishes as we wanted. I left quite full and ready to go to sleep to prepare for my fun weekend.
So I will be out of internet access for the next couple of days as I go rafting down the Breede River. I’ll update you on Saturday night about the trip and any more exciting things!
Tim
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