It's Been One Week Since You Looked At Me

Dear Followers,

I think for every post, I'm going to use a song to describe it. This makes it more interesting for me and provides you with some interesting music choices later on.

The song title above is from the group called Barenaked Ladies. "One Week" was a huge song in the late 90's/ early 2000's. It really doesn't bare any significance to my trip other than that one line. Because it't really been almost one week in Africa!

Now...where to begin? When I last left you, it was Wednesday and I was going to the Apartheid Museam. I guess I'll start there.

The Apartheid Museam is South Africa's Holocaust Museam equivalent. When we filed in, we were seperated "whites" from "blacks" (via a label on our admission ticket). The museam was filled with pictures and portraits of Apartheids foundations (colonialism) all the way to Post-Nelson Mandela. We watched videos on everything from protests (toi tois) to walking into a room full of 131 nooses (1 noose for every political prisoner executed). That was a very emotional part of the museam, especially because of it's significance in the American South. Something for all of y'all to look up: Ernest Cole's pictures. He's an African who exposed a lot of the inequality and poor conditions through which many Africans suffered during the Apartheid regime. His photos are very powerful. My favorite part of the museam was the last part: there was a walkway that separated 2 piles of stones. When you walked across the walkway, you would take a stone from the right pile and put it on the left pile. It signified your rediness to put the past behind you. As you lay the stone on the new pile, you say "Never again." This was done for people on both sides of Apartheid. I think it's simbolism is beautiful and I wish we could do this as well.

Thursday

This day, we went to an informal settlement called Orange Farm (and no, they don't grow oranges). It was named because it used to be a farm area, but it's also for the royal Dutch family Orange. THis community is what we typically think of when we think of "townships." Shacks are everywhere. There is no pipe system for water or sewage removal. But this community is still bonding together and creating thins such as a community recycling program and a daycare center, as well as an afterschool program. The speakers in the community were very interesting. THey were very critical of the privitization that had occured in South Africa, especially concerning water. South Africa's bill of rights actually guarentees the right to water, and they do not have it currently. Another speaker also said that the country is more in debt to the IMF and the World Bank because they had to borrow so much money to build the stadiums and not pay off foreign debts. Aside from the speakers, Charlee Coggins, Josh Russel, and I got to speak on the local radio station near Orange Farm. It was a lot of fun and garnered a lot of laughs.

Friday

This day was cool because we got to go on a bike tour of Soweto!! Soweto, for those of you who don't know, is the South West Township. Some of the hilights on the tour were tasting traditional African/Zulu/Sotho(?) beer (I don't have the name of it, but it involves a click), eating cow head and pap (more on that later), eating a Kota for lunch (fries, ketchup/bbq sauce, salami, and cheese in a huge piece of bread...basically every 5-year-olds dream), seeing Desmond Tutu's and Nelson Mandela's houses, driving through 8 of the 38 sections of Soweto, bartering for a wicked awesome green tapestry that has the Big 5 on it, and finally, getting a HUGE chaco sunburn. Trust me, it looks so hardcore.

In the afternoon, we went to the Hector Peterson Museam. On June 16th, 1976, the government passsed a law saying all schools must be taught in Afrikaans. In protest, 15,000 students in Soweto staged a peaceful protest where the museam is now located. A skermish broke out between the police and the students. Shots were fired and before the march ended, over 600 students were dead. None of the students were armed. Hector Peterson was 13 and was the youngest one killed (look up the picture on google. This is also very powerful). The museam is dedicated in his honor about the events leading up to June 16th.

Since Friday afternoon, I've been staying with a host family in the East Orlando section of Soweto. This place is not like you would think a township would be. My family lives very comfortably and modernly as well. My friend Melinda and I have been enjoying ourselves very much. In my family (the Tebogo family), there is papa moeketsi, mama Mathapo, sister Tshoanelo (17), Manneng (12), and Ramo (9). I'm having a huge blast with them! The food has been out of this world! Dad, you would be very impressed with the grilled meat I've been having! Oh, and they also have a cute chihuahua named Huggies!

Ok, I've got to go. More updates later! Love you all!