"Long Walk to Freedom"

We took the "Jammie" to class today. This is basically the campus connector at the U, and instead of a 25 minute walk, it took us literally 10 minutes to get to class today. When we got to the stop, the driver of the bus was sleeping. How comforting.

Today we had another guest speaker, Steven. This man, I feel I could have sat down with coffee, and asked him questions for hours on end. I want to read his autobiography, if he has one. He was, unbeliveable.

This man was born in exile. His father had gone into exile where he had met his mother and he is one of five children. He has had numerous names, to hide up his identity, his house has been bombed a couple of times. Can you imagine that? How would you even know what your real name was once you returned or if you ever returned? Or try having explained to you why you move so many times when you are a young child. He could not attend UCT right after the end of apartheid because they had not changed the rules for admission because he did not know the two languages Afrikaan and English. He now knows eight different languages, he has an undergrad degree, two masters, one diploma, and his now going to be in Geneva soon to work on his Ph.D. Not to mention he did do one of his masters at UC-Berkeley as well. He now works with conflict management. He came back to South Africa because he believes in his country, and he thinks that they need black academicians that are in tune with their country's politics.

Our discussion was primarily on current events that are now happening in South Africa. You may have heard of Steven before because he was just in my previous lecture that I had on Wednesday. We discussed the root causes of xenophobia and how he did not think they were social or psychological but more dehumanizing. I wish I could have asked him more on his reasoning why they were not social or psychological. Also, he stated that this is not just a national issue, but it is a global phenomenon due to economic disparity and situations of contradiction.

We did ask him a question regarding to HIV, and asked him what was being done about it. When apartheid ended, Mandela's first thing was reconstructing the government, his worry was not yet HIV and it wasn't as big of an issue. He just did not have the time yet to do it, and it was at the end of his term.

Then the concept of xenophobia came up, and we had asked why was it not such a big deal in Cape Town as it was in Johannesburg. He said that the city has had much more time to prepare for it so the violence hasn't been happening. But, then I thought, it still should be occuring then, shouldn't it?

Then we had the trip to Robben Island. I did notice that I did not have my camera with me, or I thought I didn't (I found it in my purse when we got back, BOO). We stopped at a place at the waterfront for lunch and I had Kheema, which did not settle very well in my stomach later on. And many of us bought jackets and fleeces from Cape Storm for warmer comfort. A lot of us did not pack as much warm clothing as we would have liked to.

Then off to Robben Island. This island is 12 km away from Cape Town, so a 45 min boat ride. I was actually kind of excited to go to this place because I had read Mandela's book, "Long Walk to Freedom", hence the title. We had a former prisoner give us a tour of the prison him and Mandela were once in. We had asked him the question why would he want to give tours, wouldn't this be emotionally hard for him to do? He said it gave him the chance to focus, and tear away his anger. I guess I could see that, because it would take me a long time to get over something like that. He even now has drinks with some of the jail guards that he was once ruled by.

There is a lot of history towards Robben Island. It was first touched by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and it was not only a prison, but a medical institution for those who were mentally and chronically ill or who had leprosy. It was used for a training camp during WWII. And there is a village there, with churches, a lighthouse that doesn't really work because before it was built there was 8 shipwrecks, and after it was built it had 18 more. There is 15,000 penguins on the island, and I have noticed that they fall down a lot. They do not really walk very well, and they are just so darn cute! I wish I just had a timeline to look at what happened where.

After getting back, we tried a fast food place and I have noticed that I have been eating a lot of "chips", meaning french fries. So, I am going to need to cut down on those. And then I tried some fabulous frozen yogurt. I am going to call it an early night, because I have to get up at 4:30 AM for a safari. Tomorrow's blog will probably be lots of pictures.

Miss you all, and hope all is well.