Footnotes.

Well, until now, I’ve all but abandoned this blog. I stepped off the plane in Minneapolis and was thrust back into my perpetual academic routine. By 8AM the next morning, I was sitting in an Organic Chemistry lecture. I had no choice but to swiftly flip my functioning mode from South Africa to America. And so, for eight weeks, that’s what I did. I submerged myself in the mystical world of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and friends, and filled my free time with work and Netflix binging. South Africa came up in conversation occasionally when I happened to run into someone I knew on campus or when members of my family who hadn’t seen me in a while inquired, “So, how was South Africa?” Though delighted to have the opportunity to share my experience, I always struggled to identify a starting point. How do I begin to tell the tale of three weeks in a first, but also third world country? Did people really want the whole story, the whole up and down of ethics and emotions, or were they simply looking to hear about the magnificent landscape and wonderful food? Following rapid analyses of these questions, my response was Minnesotanly typified: “Oh, it was so great. I learned so much and am so grateful I was able to go.” There was nothing distinct about it, nothing rousing or revolutionary. For any passerby unaware of my transatlantic adventure, my response might allude to a trip to anywhere from France to Fargo. And as much as I felt I was doing an injustice to my trip, my experience, my answer maintained its vacuity. That is, until I began reading for my final project.

Deciding how to respond to this inquisition too, how to represent and utilize my experience was excessively difficult. Beyond my needless indecisiveness, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the information I had gained. I felt motivated to some sort of action, but despite my efforts, could not pinpoint a cause to support. I could volunteer somewhere, but that seemed to me, something more for myself than for others. My frustration grew as nothing seemed to fit. I felt selfish and exasperated. Three weeks in Africa and I couldn’t come up with anything to do with it!

Throughout the trip, an urge to learn and compare American and South Africa social history nagged me. Each time we encountered a similarity, my spaghetti brain would catapult into comparison, weaving a web of historical echo. The frequency of such unfortunate reverberation has always fascinated me. Even after reading, researching and relating with the histories, I am continually baffled by the recurrence of injustice and like crimes against humanity. Of all the portions of the past, why choose to double back on these? Even though I was perpetually vexed by this feeling, it never occurred to me that learning more about the answer to this question could be shaped into my final project.

And so I sought and selected two books. The first, The Highest Stage of White Supremacy, by John Whiston Cell, elects a strictly academic perspective on the subjects. His work offered me a pure juxtaposition of South Africa’s apartheid and the post-Civil War segregation in America, particularly in the South. This was my comfortable selection, free of real, first-hand emotions and straight to the facts. It was easy, expected, and relatively uninspiring. It didn’t move me. It didn’t really make me feel anything. It was just hard and dry, the economic and social explanation of segregation. While this was interesting, I don’t think it was what I needed for my debriefing. Flipping from the South Africa switch so quickly allowed me to put aside real reflection. I needed something to challenge me, to challenge my emotions and my experience. I needed something to make me analyze and even defend my experience, and that is exactly what Ilana Mercer’s Into the Cannibal’s Pot did.

I came out of the first pages swinging. My identity was under siege. For nearly three hundred pages, I was on the defensive, defending my trip abroad, protecting my understanding of American ideals, and shielding my global citizenship. While her arguments stood alone from those of Cell, I found myself ready to unload even at the times when her words did overlap. I’ve been trying to figure out why her words are seemingly so much more inflammatory than his. Into the Cannibal’s Pot was such a roller coaster. I was angry, then sad, then guilty, then confused. Her incendiary opinions in combination with her lack of citation and overwhelmingly belligerent delivery immediately destroyed any trust between the reader and author. I didn’t feel like I could trust her or anything she said. I’d experienced different things, met different people. What she was saying and what I’d lived were two distinct things. Everything I read, I reanalyzed and compared with my three weeks. Did I miss something? Was there a whole side of Cape Town of which I was completely unaware? I had interacted with Afrikaners during my stay, but could there really be another angle? I couldn’t imagine another side to this South African dodecahedron.

She generalized. She made accusations. It wasn’t fair. I knew these people she was belittling; I lived with them. They’d opened up their homes and hearts to me. To say that all Black South Africans are like this would be committing the same sin as she who claims that none such exist. Such absolutism is toxic and unfortunately contagious. I think that’s what upset me most: the fact that this sort of bigotry is available in an unchecked, unchallenged format. People, bedazzled by its five star reviews, will order this book off Amazon and accept it as a relative truth. Despite the ease of access, too many people accept things at face value. Because Mercer is a native Afrikaner who’s lived in America, she must have some power of omniscience. Granted, Mercer has first-hand experience that most of her readers lack. However, she abuses statistics and manipulates the oft confused correlation and causation. It is so frustrating continually encountering these misuses of facts and figures.

But this is perhaps what made the book what it needed to be. I encountered the heart of darkness about two thirds of the way through the book. All of a sudden, I was overwhelmed by this cloud of hate and unnecessary mistrust. This engrained disdain all at once painted the image of apartheid. The perpetuation of the situation was at last demystified. After over a hundred pages of being angry and defensive, I was suddenly sullen. “There is so much hate,” I jotted down in my book, “So much distrust. It’s so dark. I can feel it. This dark cloud of hate balled up in my chest. This is why things aren’t working…misinformation.”

At this point in the book, Mercer had gone on to attack not only members of the Colored and Black communities of South Africa, but also Afrikaner leaders such as F.W. de Klerk who had failed their people in compromising with Mandela, whom, as you might guess, she doesn’t much respect. She demonized Easterners, Westerners, Muslims (because the rise of their antediluvian religion in Africa is the reason for its corruption and decline), Christians, anyone not explicitly pro-Israel, and generally disgruntled readers. Those who were not with her were obviously against her (and by the above list of the accused, this is quite literal. There is no illusion of synecdoche here), members of a different species of sorts.

She was the company of the Jews of the Holocaust, a victim of diaspora. However in the same breath, she was the Atlas of Africa, bearing the weight of her brethren. While Cell’s work helped me to understand the ways in which these claims are true, the drastic nature of Mercer’s statements is insultingly hyperbolic. And I am but a third party in this situation, one without direct connections to the misfortunes she abuses. Her book lacks context, evidentiary statistics, and most importantly empathy. And in realizing this, the mechanism perpetuating hatred and distrust which transitively puppeteer social ideas of apartheid and the like were suddenly elucidated. Even though this feeling of clarity was and is so brilliant in my mind, I struggle to assign transcript, at least succinctly. In recognizing that her description lacked empathy, I became aware that mine did too. I was guilty of profiling people, of dismissing accounts, of becoming polarized by an incredibly strong and frigid headwind to the point of surrendering to groupthink. In this way, I was just as bigoted as I claimed Mercer to be. As terrible as it felt to have that heavy jaded mass in my gut, I’m thankful for it. If nothing else, it woke me up. Hello broadened global citizenship horizons.

Perspective is an incredibly powerful thing. And after my journey to Africa and trek through the minefield of Ilana Mercer’s mind, I don’t think walking in someone’s shoes is enough. You’re still yourself, just in someone else’s kicks. You still have your own ideas, beliefs, and prejudices, they just have a different footnote, literally. Empathy comes only after understanding which follows relation that comes with like experiences. You have to be challenged to understand what it means to overcome. You have to be uncomfortable to know contentment. You have to be oppressed to comprehend what it feels like to really be free.

After a couple months on hiatus, reading these books and reevaluating my time abroad was definitely what I needed in order to transition into the school year. As I reunite with friends I haven’t seen all summer, I’m sure I’ll be put in the South Africa hot seat on a regular basis. Now when asked how my trip was, I can break out of the Minnesotan mold and respond with a substantive answer. So now I invite you, as I did in my first blog, to be uncomfortable, seek a challenge, stretch yourself, boldly go where you would never ever go before. Discover, experience, juxtapose, understand, globalize. Go.

Boldly go where you would never ever go before.

If you still need more convincing to go, or if you’d just like to see more of my trip pictures, click here. 

Oh hey Africa.

Oh hey Africa,

It’s me, Cat. I’ve been hangin’ out here for three weeks now and in about five hours I’m getting on a big bird to fly back to the homeland. You’ve taught me a lot here: don’t confuse a napkin and a serviette; honking doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something wrong; the weatherman is never right; and most recently, never hang your swimsuit outside unsecured. But seriously, learning about your history while in country has made it come alive. It’s even made my own country’s past more clear and relevant.

You’re pretty complex, you know. They call you the Rainbow Nation. With all your different colors of people and politics, it seems reasonable, at least when you’re looking at it from across the mountain valley. When you get a little closer, you can see that your colors are more delineated sections than a blended spectrum. You should work on that; it’s nicer when things amalgamate a little.
Even though part of me is ready to be home, or at least see the people at home, I’m gonna miss you. We’ve had a lot of good times over the last three weeks. You’ve really been generous with your weather. I mean, it is winter here after all. Granted, I knew it wasn’t going to snow, but you definitely could have made it colder and rainier, and windier. You unusually successive sunshine was much appreciate, especially considering the fact that most of us on this trip didn’t pack appropriate clothing. We Minnesotans pride ourselves on our tolerance for drastic conditions, but I think that if you’d wanted to, you definitely could have given us a run for our money. So thanks.

You have wonderful welcoming people, scrumptious cuisine, and a skyline that takes your breath away each and every time you look at upside-down, sideways or backwards. Your exchange rate is pretty nice too. I’m leaving here with a lot of photos, souvenirs, newfound friends, and most importantly understanding and gratitude for the world in which we both live. And I was able to squeeze all of this into a piece of luggage weighing no more than fifty pounds. Impressive, I know.

Obviously, I had to leave some things behind in order to make room for the new stuff I’m taking home. One thing I unpacked first was my expectation and preconceptions about you. I know it’s not good to have stereotypes and whatever, but especially for something so far away and seemingly remote, it’s about all I had to go off of. No worries though, I realized quickly that this place is much more than what “Lion King” makes it out to be. Even though you have jungle animals and large Pride Rock-esque mountains, you have quite a bit of stuff that I’m used to too. I don’t think I’ve seen this many KFCs, ever. There are soap operas and college kids, huge shopping malls and fancy cars. Despite a lot of predominant ignorance, you’re a modern country, and really, not that different from America.

Heck, if you do what most tourists do while their visiting, you might not notice much of a difference at all. Sure there are nine different national languages. Sure there are cultural divides, but those exist in America too. We’re just have a different way of hiding…or maybe ignoring it. Look beyond the winelands and you find the shanty-filled townships. Look beyond the star studded Hollywood hills and you find the same struggles. Even look around the block in Minneapolis and you’ll see that every city has two stories. We didn’t have to travel a world away to find problems like yours, but I’m glad we did.
I’m glad we visited and got to know you. I’m glad I got to see and experience both sides to your story. I’m glad that I can go home, sleep in my warm house with both my parents and my sister, with enough food to eat, with technology and plumbing. I’m glad I can share your story.

So yeah, thanks for everything. Hopefully I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll bring friends. We’ll make a good time of it.

Until then,
Cat

The Real Adventures of South Africa.

Well originally, today’s blog post was supposed to be entitled “Shark Bait Ho-Ha-Ha” and disclose the details of my shark diving adventure. I was going to talk about how we departed at 6AM for Gansbaai, how we had to squeeze into skin tight wet suits before plunging into the chilly Atlantic, how we could only hold onto the yellow bar in the cage as the sharks swam literally inches in front of our faces. This was the plan until about 9:30 this evening.

Then my swimsuit flew out of the window.

We’d returned from our shark diving escapades about 3 o’clock. Having had my fill of the salt water and chum scent, I hopped into the shower, rinsed my suit, and hung it on the metal peg of the propped out window of my room. For about 5 hours, my swim top and bottoms remained safely hooked, swaying the mountain breeze just beyond the panes.

About 9 o’clock, as I was embarking on my eighteenth postcard (no, friends, this is not an exaggeration…I’ve barely done half of them), I looked up from my scribe to the window. Where my suit had been hanging, only my roommate’s costume remained. You can imagine my enthusiasm.I rushed to the window. Somehow my trunks had managed to skirt off the hook, over the sill, and onto the ledge inside the room. How gymnastic of them.

My top on the other hand had quite frankly flopped. Naturally, I had just purchased this swim top before my trip. Naturally, this had been the first time I had worn it. Naturally, it lay on the middle of the roof, just within the viewing frame of the window. Really? REALLY?

I walked out to the hallway to look for someone, anyone. Every door was closed. I went down to the desk to see if a manager or custodian was available. Both (which are allegedly staffed 24 hours a day) were vacant.

I ran back upstairs to try to sort the situation out myself. I gave the window a once over. It’s about three feet from the floor, seven feet high with three proppable panes. The second pane was already ajar, but that was too high for me to squeeze out of. I looked at the lowest one. There are bars crisscrossing the pane. There was no way I nor anyone else was quite literally fit for retrieval.

Maybe I could climb to the roof from the ground up? I dashed downstairs and out the doors to the patio directly below my room. Too much liability. Next idea.

Back upstairs, I stood in the center of my room. I needed something long. My arms were long. I tried to reach one out the window. Not happening. Something to give it some length…a hanger! I fetched one from the closet and tried again. Nada.

Maybe I could fish it off the room with something weighted. But what? I circled the room. What’s long and has some mass on the end? I rushed to my suitcase and threw open the top:

My hair straightener!

I quickly unraveled the cord. Perfect. But I didn’t want the finish to be ruined by the tin room. What to protect it? A shirt? No, then I’d have two cast away articles. A bag! Where’s a bag? The trash! I scurried to the bag behind the door and unearthed a shopping bag from yesterday’s trip to the mall. Almost instinctively I wrapped the straightener in the bag and tied a makeshift knot with its handles.

Back to the window. Grasping the cord, I lowered the contraption out of the window. With a 1, 2, 3, swing, I cast the device toward the suit. Miss. I tried again. Strap. Once more. On! I pulled in the line, but to no avail; there wasn’t enough mass. (Physics insert: Too much static friction.)

So how was I going to weigh this down? What was worth risking in order to get my suit back? I could put my straightening spray in there, package deal. But wait. What if I could hook the suit’s strap? The hanger! Untying the bag’s knot, I looped the hanger through and secured it. Here we go now. I repeated my swing-toss. So many times I landed the device on the suit. But it wouldn’t hook! I pulled the rig in and adjusted the angle, the direction, the side of the hook. Nothing. I continued fishing for a good thirty minutes. If anyone in Riverside or on the street was not so desensitized to noise and unusual sights, they would have wondered 1) what was the strange and repetitive thump and drag coming from back roof and 2) why a white girl was hanging halfway out of her second floor room. However, no questions were asked.

I decided to try the managers once more. This time someone was at the desk, though obviously exasperated (our new neighbors have proven to be quite a handful). I had been working out in my head how to explain losing a swim suit on the roof, and seeing her face I apologetically recounted my story and asked if there was any way to get it back. Not tonight she said. She’d tell a manager about it tomorrow. I thanked her and somewhat unsatisfied returned upstairs. This wind was going to continue overnight. What if my suit blew further away? What if it went off the roof and someone took it? I picked up my contraption and resumed my place at the window. Dogged determinedness is a curse sometimes.

I gave a few unsuccessful tosses. Maybe I would just wait until morning. They’d probably just climb up on a ladder and fetch it for me. I pitched once more. Miss. The hook didn’t even come close to the halter strap. Disappointed, I began towing in the cord. Something black wrinkled. I pulled a little bit more. The body of the suit had somehow caught on the strap hook of the hanger. Really?

I carefully drew in the line, knowing that the next tug I gave, the suit would fall and I’d be back to square one. A few more pulls and the suit was at the sill. I couldn’t believe it. I laugh writing this now, but I welled up with pride. I grabbed the suit and ran to the hallway, looking this time for someone to share my dramatic story of rescue. Every door was closed. These cinematic experiences always happen when no one’s around.

So yes, that was the really adventure of the day, not an up-close-and-personal encounter with Great White Sharks, but averting South African swim suit suicide.

Just call me MacGyver.

Wrap it up.

As we pulled up to the upper campus of UCT this morning, a sea of gowns and be-tasseled hats filled the top of the Jammie Steps. It was graduation day. For them and for us. Today was the last day of class, and to be greeted by this scene was fitting, to say the least. It’s been a whirlwind three weeks and it’s strange to think it’s all coming to an end. We’ve tied the loose ends of leadership and our experience together, seen the sights, and met the people. Now it’s time to go home. Part of me is ready to return home (though not ready to begin my two summer classes downtown at 8AM on Tuesday. Yes, I am that kid), but part of me wonders if I’ve exhausted all that South Africa has to offer me. Have I asked enough questions? Taken enough pictures? Recorded and reflected in enough detail?

Maybe. Probably not.

I don’t want to worry about what I might have missed now. I’ve got twenty-some hours to do that one the plane. Right now I’m focused on soaking up the last forty-eight hours in South Africa. We’ve got shark diving bright and early tomorrow. We’re leaving for a two or three hour ride at 6AM. That means if I go to bed now, I’ll get eight hours of sleep before I get to be fish food.

I’ll be lucky if I get 6 or 7. I’ll update you tomorrow on how it feels to see your life flash before your eyes as a shark lunges at your face.

Wish me luck.

 

There’s no place like home.

Since we’ve checked out of Gugulethu, the sixteen of us have been suffering from some degree of Post township stress disorder (PTSD). We’ve been quiet, moody, defensive, sick. I know I’ve been trying to work out in my head. What do I do with all this information? There’s an urgency about the whole thing. Part of it is pressure to develop an idea for my final project and part of it is driven by an internal yearning to be proactive. I’ve done a lot of reflection and comparison here ( to the point which I feel a little burnt out, like I’m trying too hard and sort of forcing it), but I can’t pinpoint a medium. I was thinking about making a quilt with some fabric I bought at a shop here in Obz. It’s a stress-relieving hobby and it goes along with an analogy that is included in a book by Peter Block we read in the 3000 level leadership class. I thought it might be interesting to do a historical comparison of the Civil Rights Movement and South Africa’s Apartheid, but the project can’t be entirely written. I could do some sort of talk or go to a classroom or meeting or something. I suppose I could join forces with a student group at the U too, and do some advocacy or outreach event. I can come up with a lot of different ideas, but understanding and communicating what any of these means to me, or how it helps me do something with what I’ve learned here is what I’m struggling with. I think I want to make or write something, but talking is pretty much in my genetics. Oh the curse of multi-faceted ambiguity. Please, if you have suggestions, feel free to let me know.

Tangent…

But anyway, this PTSD. Of our three weeks, this one has proven to be more difficult than the others. We have a less active schedule. Lecture is in the morning, followed by free time in the afternoon. We’re not being bussed from mountain to museum or having to recoup from back to back encounters with hardship and resilience. We have down time. And for me, down time equals thinking time. One thing that’s become apparent to me already is that there were a lot of times last week where I wasn’t completely present. My body was there and I was listening, but part of my mind, the one that processes the emotional stuff (in nerdy scientific colloquium, the amygdala), wasn’t clued in. I interpret it as a defense mechanism. Gugs brought out a lot of messy emotions for a lot of people. It was public and it was raw and it was something that I just don’t do. I’m a thorough thoughtful person when it comes to emotions.

I’m beginning to realize that I have a system for processing really emotionally striking events. EmotiPro OS, available from your local Best Buy today. After some brief analysis, it seems like a simple, linear process. I like to experience what’s going on, take in the surroundings, and gather the straight information sans outward passionate reaction. I store the facts and figures and let them age a little until I have the time to return to the files and open them up for proper examination. This way, I can cope and react to emotional rapid fire in a time of crisis, when others aren’t as fit. This enables me to be the rock that people look for in times like these. Quick, cue the Simon and Garfunkel.

Now before everyone starts getting worried, I like it this way. I think it’s actually better for me. It’s not that I don’t or can’t process. It’s that…well maybe it’s that I’m not ready at that time. I keep the cool head.  It’s interesting to see how others respond to a situation and juxtapose your own reaction, both the initial “first responder” attitude and the one that comes after I’ve analyzed and digested the incident. Observation is a wonderful educator.  The only problem with my stow and go method is that, in this case, I’m unpacking it while experiencing other things.

This week we’ve been in the classroom every day, drawing connections between our week in Gugulethu and leadership. It’s the “so what?” stage of our trip. While much of our discussion focuses on leadership concepts like presence, identity, and the difference adaptive and technical problems, the conversation frequently morphs into a catharsis about last week. With a simple trigger, I’m launched back into my head, and with a click of my mental mouse, reopen the downloading files. I’m suddenly checking out of one place to be present in another, one that’s passed no less. I’m not gone for long, often less than a minute. I pull myself back down to earth once I realize part of my brain’s gone a-wall. No carried away helium-head here.

I will admit that my trips to outer space are worthwhile however. Returning to the townships both yesterday and today have demonstrated that for me. Wednesday afternoon we visited the Cape Town depot of FoodBank,
South Africa’s national food bank organization. After our tour of the warehouse, we went to visit a preschool in one of the worst townships near the city. As we drove through the streets crowded with people by foot and car getting from here to there over the busy lunch hour, I couldn’t help but flash back to the day we arrived in Gugulethu. I remember turning off the highway onto the township’s main road and asking myself what I’d signed up for. What was I getting myself into? A torrent of butterflies filled my stomach. I was going to get eaten alive out here. Five minutes in and I was psyching myself out.

A week later, driving through the townships is a completely different experience. I’m not scared. I don’t look out of my window, pitiful. I feel comfortable. I feel excited. I feel at home.

Walking over the sand and glass, ducking under the clothes lines on the way back to the van after the preschool visit yesterday, we were all smiling, spirits renewed. Crossing the street in front of Mzoli’s in Gugs today was the same way. In our minds, we acknowledge the stray dogs, the trash lined roads, the tin shacks. But we don’t let them overcast the smiles on the children chasing after each other as they run down the street, the laughter coming
from the restaurant as neighbors greet each other, the sunshine reflecting off the sides of the cars and houses. It’s a beautiful day in Gugulethu.

Last week we got a taste of home. Even though it’s thousands of miles away from Minnesota, we stayed in a house, not a hostel. We had home cooked meals with a family, not a tour group. Familiar things in a foreign place that made it easy to think today, it’s good to be home.

Spin.

Hypothetical situation: You have a large group of political leaders who’ve been detained for committing alleged wrongs against their nation. They come from different ideologies and possess a sizeable amount of social clout. Imprisoned, this influence is perhaps even greater. Despite the dissent of their constituents and supporters, you decide to lock them up in a maximum security prison on an island off the coast of one of your country’s portside cities. This prison contains a number of sections, enabling potential distribution of the leaders. Do you:

a) Evenly distribute the leaders throughout the wards for fairness’s sake?
b) Place the prisoners in wards according to political affiliation, reducing the chance of disagreements and prison yard hostility?
c) Put all the political leaders in a single block, so as to most easily keep an eye on them?

As a 1960’s South African Nationalist, your answer is obviously c. However, little do you realize that the situation you’ve just created for the sake of containment has enabled your very demise. True deviants align with complete strangers in these kinds of situations. What do you expect of accused strugglers who’ve training and experience in strategy, persuasion, and debate?

Perhaps their overseers underestimated the abilities of the political prisoners to set aside their differences in order to cooperate for freedom. Or maybe they just expected of the leaders an eventual resignation to a life incarcerated. Whatever the case, they could’ve used a lesson or two from Prometheus.

For three centuries, Robben Island served, among other things, most notably the home to malcontent detainees of the South African Nationalist government. Ironically, its first prisoner was also its first escapee, and its politically flagrant inmates negotiated their own releases. Maximum security indeed. In all due respect though, life inside the barbed wired walls was not easy; we saw that first hand today. While it was as moving or striking as I think many of us were anticipating, the visit was nonetheless interesting and informative. It also gave us a chance to experience the past of Nelson Mandela which contributes to his extoled place in South African as well as world history. Prisoners, for many years, slept with a few blankets on two thin mats on the cement floors. Meals were different for Coloured and Black prisoners. Cells were small and minimal, without a toilet or sink. Inmates were also transported from the Cape shackled in the dark belly of a cargo boat. They had no idea where they were being taken.

Our tour brought us to Mandela’s cell, his garden where he stowed his autobiographical manuscript and the famed limestone quarry where he and the other prisoners chipped away the rock sans mechanical technology. Even though the principle was unfair and conditions were unfavorable, our guide noted that one thing these men did not lose was hope. They didn’t wait for freedom, but rather worked on creating it for themselves. They used their disadvantage to their advantage, put their heads together, and, after a long fight, realized their freedom.

If ever there was an example of adaptation, and better, adaptive leadership, adaptive resilience, this is it. I think I’m learning something here.

Gimme wrinkles.

“White people come through here all the time,” he said casually, “you’re all the same.” I’ve been playing this scene over and over in my mind since the day last week I had my super hero hot air balloon deflated by a ninth grade boy in Guglethu. As much as what he said made sense and as much as he was probably being truthful, I didn’t want relinquish my hope that I was different from the rest. The more time we spent in the township and observing the obstacles the community faces, the more apparent it became that there was no panacea I could conjure. Despite acknowledging this, I wasn’t ready to retire my red cape yet. Even now, with a week of living in an informal settlement under my belt, I’m determined not to be like the rest. I will not censor my experience. I will not walk away unscathed. I will be different. I will do something. I will incite awareness, instigate change. But how?

For now, I’m resolving to interaction with people I encounter back in Cape Town and Obz. I’m inviting conversation and sharing my encounters with the city’s great beyond. I’ve boldly gone where few tourists have gone before, and despite the supposed stigma, I’ve once more landed safely on the right side of the tracks alive and ship intact. Heck, I even want to talk about it. Actually, I’m yearning for discussion. Ever since my chat with the shopkeepers at the Spier vineyard, I’ve been craving that furrow of surprised revelation.

Thankfully I got my fix twice today: once as I was paying for a sweater at the mall in Rondebosch and again at a dinner discussion with a young Black South African. The cashier at CapeStorm was simply making small talk as we waited for my card to be approved. Like the man at Spier, he asked where I was from, why I was in Cape Town, what I was doing. When I told him I’d just returned from a week in Gugs, his eyebrows shot to the top of his light brown head, “And how was that?” I can’t imagine he expected that a tourist shopping in a mall on this side of town would have done more than driven by the townships on the way out of the airport. The fact that I depicted a positive and even necessary experience must have surprised him even more. Through his somewhat skeptical response, a conversation was born. I left the store after a handshake and sincere wishes for safe travels.

The young man at dinner was equally startled when we recounted our trip. Unbeknownst to us, he was from Gugulethu, and, in fact, had lived in a house not far from our home base, JL Zwane. He was excited and interested in what we thought of the township and what we’d eaten. He laughed a little when we told him one of our dinners had featured a smiley, which for those of you who don’t know, is a sheep’s head roasted on an open flame until the sheep’s mouth opens, or smiles. I don’t know which part of the head I got, but it didn’t taste very unusual. It was like a tough, less tasty roast beef. Traditional cuisine aside, an affinity with Leonard was immediately established with the extension of our experience.

It’s a wonderful feeling to see the mind of a person open before your eyes. Possessing the power to nudge obstinate mindsets and shirk shallow stereotype is admittedly addictive.  What makes the urge more compelling is that this is information and experience of which people need to be aware. It’s not a third world solicitation. It’s advocacy for global awareness and citizenship. The American bubble needs to be permeated. While we are patriots of a diverse nation, we are also members of an even more colorful world. Despite the bright glossy photos textbooks are monochromatic. Regardless of their cinematography, movies and films lack dimension. The only way to learn about other people, other lifestyles, is to engage. You want to know what France is like? Go. You wonder how true Steve Irwin’s accent really is? Investigate. Is Africa really full of talking baboons and bushmen-bopping bottles of Coca Cola? Travel and discover yourself. Even if you can’t afford the fare, there are living encyclopedias everywhere. Even in little ol’ Scandinavian Minnesota, your neighbor is Black, your coworker is Indian, and your child’s classmates are Somali and Hmong. In today’s increasingly entwined world, understanding one another is ever more vital. It’s time to start seeing rainbows folks.

When you do, you’ll know it’s worth it. Show a little interest, a little experience, and keep an eye on your companion’s brow and forehead. Eyes gone wide, it will wrinkle. The ends of her mouth will turn up, or perhaps she’ll pause for a breath, flattered, surprised. Don’t panic; a question will follow. Soon you’ll be knee deep in conversation, expanding your horizons and whatnot, becoming globalized. Hooked.

After taste.

If anyone was overly disparate from our week in Gugulethu, Saturday was the perfect opportunity to drown their troubles. We wasted no time in reacquainting ourselves with the good life in Cape Town. Not even 24 hours out of the informal settings and we were en route to the vineyards of Stellenbosch. As we wound through the peaks of Table Mountain, I couldn’t help but gaze. Even though I was maybe twenty minutes outside of Cape Town, I hadn’t noticed this mountain in a week. It hadn’t been the notable landmark of my township horizon. Somehow short shanties had overshadowed the mountain’s reign over the skyline. Honestly, I think that’s ok, perhaps appropriate. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and privation most definitely makes you appreciate privilege. This is the very reason why our winelands visit immediately follows our stay in Gugulethu. The reverent ride as we hopped from vineyard to vineyard to vineyard spoke for itself. How ironic.

As we sipped wine after wine, deciding which to take home to our parents, there was something more on our minds. How is this possible? How does meridian such as this, in the same city, exist in that on one side there is day and the other night, dark and light? How are we able to so quickly flick the switch from poverty to pretension without blowing a fuse? Personally, I think we’re all going to go down to the basement and have to reset the electrical box sooner than later. I know the complexities of the transition were on my mind throughout the day.

Despite the college student stereotypes, alcohol is far from on my radar. I’m underage and a dedicated student (a gross understatement as many of you know). Plus, drinking has never been something in which my family or friends have participated. Needless to say, it’s been an easy issue to ignore. As a result, I sort of shrugged at the wine tasting excursion.

At the first vineyard, we had three wines: two red and a white. I sipped a little of the first glass and followed it with the corresponding dessert treat. Blegh! Bitter. Ouch! Burn. Maybe the next would be better? Blegh! Sour. Ouch! Irritation. The third wine was no different. I wouldn’t be buying any wine here. I left the vineyard empty-handed with a bad taste in my mouth and an episode of acid reflux. Oh the sting of pretension.

The second vineyard was obviously more focused on attracting wealthy international tourists than rugged vino connoisseurs. In addition to a winery, the grounds housed a wildlife outreach area where, for a nominal fee, you could touch cheetahs and serve as an owl perch; a horseback riding area, two restaurants, a tribal African themed gift shop, and a row of African market shopping. Naturally, embracing the design, I headed for the market row. Strolling along the sidewalk, I trolled the small booths for souvenirs. There were jewelry, bowls, bags, beaded animals, and other crafts those two weeks ago, I might have settled for, deeming them appropriately “South African.” However, after a week becoming acquainted with a different face of the nation, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. My preconceived Lion King ideas had been trampled by a herd of stampeding wildebeest. What, beyond experience and stories, would or could convey the meaning of this city and country?

I was drawn to a stand with a pop can menagerie. Constructed of wire and colorful tin cans, the animals had a certain charm. I meandered over to the area where a herd of miniature giraffes rested on the shelf. I inquired about their price and checked out a blue hippo on the below. Having opened the door for conversation, the shop owner, a younger black man, decided to come over and chat with me. He asked me what had brought me to South Africa and what I had seen around Cape Town. I explained to him how we had just returned from a week in Gugulethu. A wrinkle of enthusiastic surprise rippled across his forehead. Obviously, this was not a normal itinerary item. Soon a second shop owner joined us and we were amid the tale of the two cities and how critical it is for a visitor to experience both. In a matter of minutes, I’d made a cross racial, cross cultural connection. I’d extended a hand of true understanding and first-hand encounters with the side of Cape Town eclipsed by the shanty shadows and conventional rumors that isn’t featured in AAA advertisement. Of all my tastes of South African wine country, this was by far the most refreshing. (But don’t worry Mom and Dad; I bought you some good stuff at the third vineyard.)

"Brothers" in Africa.

Welcome to the Zoo.

As much as I could turn this into one of those excessively long commercials soliciting aid for orphans in Third World countries, I won’t. As many melodramatic images I could describe and break your heart, I won’t. As much as I could make you feel guilty for reading this on your laptop in your three bedroom house in suburbia, a world away, I won’t. The last six days in the Gugulethu township outside of Cape Town have been more than eye-opening. I’ve spent the hours since we returned to the lodge in Obz writing in my journal, trying to document and resolve the events of today as well as those of the week. As I sat on my bed writing, people trickled in and out. All of us are struggling to find a way to communicate what we saw, smelled, felt, experienced, to an audience who honestly, has no idea. We find it difficult enough to wrap our heads around the happenings of “Gugs” when we talk amongst ourselves, and now that we’re asked to organize and present that confusion to a quite literally foreign audience, it’s a whole different ball game.

Our time in Gugs was evolutionary in and of itself. The attitude with which I entered the community is not the same as that which I left, nor similar to that which intermediately overwhelmed me. The whole ordeal is sort of a surreal episode in my head. I know I was there, lived there. I know that I visited this person and that site. I know that my brain is still trying to wade through all the sensory overload of this week. But what do I do with all of this now?

I’ve written over a hundred pages in my little spiral bound notebook, and yet, as I page through it, looking for something to share, I find myself censoring what I experienced. Oh, they wouldn’t like to read that. No, no, no, that was much too personal an experience. I don’t want to dump that on them. The images are uncomfortable. The smells are uncomfortable. Parts of the experience are uncomfortable. And all this by design.

The Leadership Minor prides itself on the coined phrase, “There’s no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone.” Ladies and gentlemen, we’re approaching our destination. Please prepare for landing in the growth zone.

Touchdown Gugulethu, South Africa.

I’ve never felt so up and down and flat in so short of a time. We were welcomed to Gugulethu with the flawless harmonies of the JL Zwane choir rolling off the ceilings of a glass-enclosed worship space. People were swaying and dancing.  Bedecked women, in Xhosa, sang along as they slapped their hand pillows, keeping time for the choir. What a community. The room was filled with smiles, even those of us who didn’t understand the meaning of the vibrations surrounding us. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I knew this is what beautiful felt like.

I was saturated with this warmth each time we heard a group sing. Be it SiYaya singing for awareness, the children at Thembalethu School for Children with Special Needs, or our host parents on our last night in Gugulethu, there is joy in every sung note. There is hope and faith and love and resilience in every clap or sway that effortlessly accompanies the music. The people embrace you in song. The life they sing about is the life they know. It’s life in scrap metal shacks. It’s life with the same meal for three days. It’s life where white people get out a van, camera in tow, and photograph the room of a hostel your family has (for 40 years), and will continue to live in until they can calculate and pay the back rent. But it’s a life in which they nonetheless find things to celebrate everyday.

The course of the week also brought feelings of anger, inadequacy, and disappointment. We visited a number of community members’ homes including apartheid survivors, orphans, and hospice patients. The biggest obstacle for me was the overcoming sense of intrusion and discomfort. I hated seeing the flash wash the face of the people we talked to or the children we visited. Each photo stole a little bit of their dignity. I couldn’t photograph someone staying in a reeking ten by ten room. I couldn’t take a picture of someone who had seen a hundred people who looked just like me stand at the foot of her bed and make an unfulfilled promise for change. Each stop we made and impoverished person we met, I felt like I was exploiting them, like this was some exhibit at the zoo. I was there to see the images in my textbook live in living color. Hands on learning. And one of the worst things was that we weren’t the first (nor the last) visitors to this sideshow. Our second hospice visit was to an HIV-positive man who lived in a denser area of Gugulethu. We parked on the road, crossed the street, walked up to a tin shack maybe ten feet long and six feet wide. One door and a single window. After a bit of a struggle, the man opened the door. He lay on a cot-like bed with is head about 20 inches from the door. He couldn’t move. I smiled, “Molo,” as I waved. The stench was overwhelming. I’ve never smelled anything like it. So stagnant that even standing outside, the Minnesotan in me fought the impolite urge to plug my nose, stop breathing. I wound up inside the doorway watching as the nurses, compromising his privacy, unveiled his body and changed the dressings on his bed sores. Ok, I’m interested in this medical stuff, I can handle this. A few moments later, the nurse at the foot of the bed stood up, inquisitive. “Don’t you want to take a photo?” I don’t really remember how, but in a few moments, I was across the
street sitting in the van. That was too much.

Initially, I was really upset about the whole event. I felt violated, like I’d been judged by what I looked like…Ah, but then came the lesson. I exercised so much power by walking away from that shack. I got to leave Gugulethu the next day, and I get to fly back to First World America in a week. I can purge this memory if I really want and focus on the sunshine radiating off the ocean or the clouds parading around Table Mountain outside my window at the lodge. I don’t have to come back next week and change his bandages.

Leaving Gugs today, I have a somewhat flat affect. I’m in processing mode, trying to work it all out in my head. I’ve learned a lot living here for a week. That’s the difference—living here. I’ve come to know the people, the culture, and the  struggles. I’ve immersed myself here, leapt out of my comfort zone, and as a result, there has been growth. I never ever would have done this on y own. I probably wouldn’t have even inquired about the dense silver reflection off the highway. Now, in retrospect, I know my South African experience would not be complete or accurate without it. (Yes, they do offer tours down here.) As I’ve said before, Cape Town, and perhaps South Africa, is a tale of two cities (nations). It’s not fair, nor possible to tell the story of one without even mentioning the other. And as much as I loathed the song and dance we made of some of the places we visited in Gugs, anyone and everyone who visits this healing country must visit a township, speak with its residents, and reach out a hand of understanding; otherwise the whole trip is tainted. After the museum visits, limbs up the mountain, lazy days on the beach, and conversations with the people of all the shades of South Africa, one can finally begin to understand the turmoil this country has experienced, the wounds it’s trying to heal, and the pride each feels to be a citizen of this Rainbow Nation.

Tomorrow we’re off to a day at the Winelands to again experience the tale of the other city. What a juxtaposition this will be.

Saturday is my favorite day.

Today definitely required Julie Andrews. We went on a safari at Inverdoorn Wildlife Reserve, two hours outside of Cape Town. Yes, before you read on you need to play this. Among the lions, cheetahs, stromboks, and zeh-brahs (that’s the correct South African pronunciation), WE SAW A GIRAFFE. It was beautiful, dark in color and taller than the trees. It was so majestic and so pacified. I could have watched it all day. I was amazed at how large all the animals were. As stupid as it sounds, Lion King really gives a skewed perspective on the sizes of Africa’s wildlife. While we were waiting for our jeep, a woman walked by with a cheetah on a leash…only in Africa…and it was huge! The wildebeests and antelopes were surprisingly tall too. We encountered elands, an antelope relative that can spear and kill a lion. They are also notorious for killing a large number of Namibians annually. Mind you this is a grass eating animal. It makes herbivores a bit more intimidating. It even looks a bit villainous don’t you think?

Today, I also had plenty of time for another of my favorite things: thinking.  Instead of running around from place to place for the whole day, all of our travel was lopped into two two-hour drives. I had plenty of time to catch up on my journaling and stare out the window at the mountains flanking the freeway. The mountains here look like they were shaped by a hand. The contours are so smooth and the rock looks like fingers have grazed the sides. We’d left before sunrise, so those of us that were awake got to see the sun trickle over the peaks. Just like on Table Mountain, I spent the ride ogling at the landscape.

The third favorite thing came at dinner. We had spaghetti! It wasn’t my dad’s spaghetti, but it was pretty good, a taste of home if nothing else. It was a good way to wrap up a great day. It should come as no surprise that Saturday is my Favorite Day. What a way to wrap up a fantastic first week in South Africa.

Tonight, the South African travellers spend their first Saturday night in hip Obz at Riverview Lodge furiously typing blogs and reflections or packing for next week’s homestay. We’re trying to wrap our heads around all that we’ve experienced and learned in the last six days. None of us can believe that it’s gone by this quickly. Our brief stay in Amsterdam seems like ages ago. We’ve had a week of vacation filled with mountaintops, ocean views, and safaris (oh my!). But tonight, we lay out the pieces to assemble the puzzle. What have we learned? Why are we here? How do we prepare for our immersion in the township tomorrow?

As important as it is to answer these questions, the more I wrestle with the South African history and culture I’ve acquired in the last week, the more I realize that I don’t necessarily have all the information I need. Looking back on this week, I feel like I’ve been living on a postcard. Sure, we drive by the townships on a daily basis, but anyone looking back at my trip photos thus far, you wouldn’t know it. I didn’t photograph anything that wasn’t oceanic, mountainous, or built by an imperialist. Though we’ve learned about the hardships and the strife, our schedule has been very much devoted to staying on the sunny side of South African life. While I recognize that life in the township is not one condemned to sadness, I also appreciate the fact that I’ve had a very privileged acquaintance with Cape Town until now.

Initially, I didn’t grasp the whole tale of two cities idea. When I was climbing a mountain and learning the history and language, experiencing a new place, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that everything, especially history, is accompanied by a lens. Despite the effort of everyone with whom we’ve interacted to give us the most impartial account of the country’s past, individual spin is inevitable. While this can be both a curse and a blessing, it’s one of the reasons that I am excited and not overwhelmingly nervous. When we travel to Gugulethu, we remove the perhaps rose tinted glasses and replace them with some clear specs. As a bunch of suburban Minnesotans in a predominantly black community such as this, I think there’s potential for ours to be bifocal. In this way, maybe it’s better that we’ve had this initial perspective before travelling to the township, just for contrast’s sake. New place, new color, new people, new perspectives.

Even so, as departure for Gugulethu draws nearer, I ask myself if I’m prepared to come in right. Am I checked into this experience? Do I understand the aftershocks of apartheid that have and continue to affect this community, this country? Do I realize that I won’t be able to solve all the problems that I may encounter in the upcoming six days? And while I know I’ve been exposed to the information and I know it’s permeated my emotions, I can’t help but wonder how this episode of Real Life: Gugulethu is going to unfold.