Campus Life: The Good & The Ugly

As I took one step, and then another step, walking to my very first class at UCT (University of Cape Town), many new aspects of the culture became apparent. Since the campus is located on the base of the mountains, the entire area is one giant hill. My flat is in Rondebosch, adjacent to lower campus, and then you ascend through middle campus, finally arriving to upper campus. While the walkways were crowded with students of great diversity, but primarily black, I crossed paths with a fellow student wearing a shirt that read, “Black Girls Only.” That set the tone for the rest of the day. As we approached Jameson Plaza, the center of Upper Campus, another protest was taking place. If you’ve seen in the news for the past several months, there have been myriad protests on campus, including “RhodesMustFall” and “FeesMustFall.” The university even closed down for a couple weeks last semester in response to it all. The protests occurring now revolve around the school’s lack of sufficient housing for the first year students. Since more students accepted their acceptance offer than expected, the University was forced to offer on-campus housing to only some, based on socioeconomic status aka race. On the very first day, not only of the semester but the first day of the year since they just had summer break, protestors had a small house erected in Jameson Plaza. Within the next day, it acquired the name “Shackville” and represented a house from a local township (a suburb/ghetto of Cape Town). The house blocked the main passageway in the center of campus, intending to interrupt every student’s day, as well as represent the homelessness of some current students. The center of campus was taken over by spray-painted posters, yelling, and a trashcan on fire. I took this all in while I hurried away, looking like a lost freshman searching for my first class.

            The campus is beautiful, with huge historical buildings covered with moss, surrounded by the mountains. Just like everywhere in Cape Town, anywhere you look you see the mountains. My classes all went well, although my Hebrew professor yelled at me because of my American accent; turns out Hebrew sounds a lot different in a South African accent. Every class provides a free “Course Reader” which is essentially a textbook, alleviating many extraneous costs for students. One of the most minimal but still evident differences is walking in stairways: they walk on the left side! This makes sense, of course, since I’m already used to everyone driving on the left side of the street but this little difference was humorously noticeable. I am happy to finally be in a routine though: cooking meals for myself, going to the gym everyday after class, spending time in the library, it’s all falling together now.

            I attended a lecture that was an overview of South African racial history that included a few interesting points. First of all, the speaker opened up the presentation by telling a story about being on a city bus alone. She explained if you ride it when it’s packed, you get pickpocketed but if you ride it when it’s empty, your outcome is even worse. After that, she emphasized that people look back and think that Nelson Mandela was freed and then immediately took office, making change, but there was an interim of four long, problematic years. As we then surpassed 1994 into the “post-Apartheid era,” which some people disagree with that name because the problems are not over, the powerpoint presentation quickly led to “February 2016.” Seeing that written across the screen was the most shocking part; she was discussing a historical event that happened literally last week. Seeing that made it real that there is still so much more progress to go and I am actually so likely to witness revolutionizing events while here. If you get a chance, I strongly encourage you to research South African history or even the history of any developing country that you might be interested in. You not only learn so much about the world around us, but so much about our future.

            The next night, we received urgent texts and emails to remain as far from campus as possible. As more and more details came rushing into our naïve American hallways, we discovered that the protestors lit a “Jammie” (campus shuttle bus) on fire and that the police officers were setting off stun grenades to break up the protests. From my flat (apartment) balcony, we could see the gargantuan huddle of smoke rising from Upper Campus. We heard rumors that classes may be cancelled the next day but they were not. Walking to class, where Shackville had been set up, remained a huge burnt area in the ground. A statue monument nearby was spray painted “Fuck Black Exclusion. Fuck White People!!” By the time I was walking home from class, only three hours later, the fire remnants had been cleaned up and the spray paint was washed off.

            My study abroad program, CIEE, handled everything very smoothly, keeping us updated throughout it all and making us feel safe. They have warned us though that scenarios like this will most likely continue and to always be aware. My favorite part about it all is that when UCT sends out campus-wide emails addressing the protests, they clarify that as an educational university, they support peaceful protests. They want students to voice their opinions and stand up for what they believe in, just not in an obtrusive manner. We’ll see what else is to come.

Happiness

Since my other posts have been focused on what I am learning and experiencing, I want to take a moment to share how unbelievably happy I am here!

            First, Cape Town has everything I could ever want. Mountains. Beaches. Enriched culture. Thought-provoking history. A thriving Jewish community. Fresh healthy food at every restaurant. Slow-paced people, not in a rush to get anywhere. Going out clubs and bars. Handmade artwork everywhere. The ocean. Live music on every street. Wild animals. Captivating classes at UCT. Shopping. Endless sunshine. People who want to talk to strangers. Cheap prices. Baobab trees. Palm trees. And right outside Cape Town, there are safaris, desert, and even more animal life.

            In addition to all of that, something I have been pleasantly surprised by are the people. I went into study abroad thinking that of course I want to make friends to travel and adventure with, but I did not feel the need to make “lifelong friends.” I am so happy to share that I have met some of the most inspiring and warm people here, from locals to fellow Americans on my program. I am so happy with the group of friends I have made and have so much fun with them, from hiking to eating, meaningful discussions to silly chit chat, exploring the city and late night giggling. You can see them all in a lot of my pictures and as I begin to share more and more stories about our moments together. 

            I cannot imagine how any life could ever feel more fulfilled than this one.

Garden Route

The past four days..  wow. To sum it all up (in case you want to pretend that you read the rest of this blog post but you’re not actually going to), we canoed, did the highest bungee jump in the world, hiked across a suspension bridge, went ziplining, played with elephants and cheetahs, saw ostriches and lions, and went spelunking through caves.

The Garden Route is a path along the southern and southeastern coasts of South Africa, collecting several beach towns, mountain ranges, beautiful sites, and adventurous activities. People drive along it, anywhere from for a few days to a few weeks, meeting people from around the world and pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. For the four days, twelve of my friends and I stayed at three different hostels: Afrovibe, Island Vibe, and Paradise. Our hired driver, Eon, was so creative and selfless, enhancing our experience so much. In addition to all of the thrilling physical activities we engaged in, there were several meaningful moments as well that I would like to share with you:

Just like my family saw in Puerto Rico three years ago, the water along the southeastern coast of South Africa, which is the Indian Ocean, has bioluminescent plankton. Our first night along the Garden Route, with clear skies, an infinity amount of stars, and a bright moon, we wiggled our fingers through the wet sand. At the point where the waves hit the sand, the bioluminescent sparkles and glows, triggered by the movement of our fingers. While it was kind of disappointing when we went in Puerto Rico because it wasn’t a clear night, this was spectacular. I felt as if the stars above me were also twinkling below me, completely surrounding me. It’s a sight everyone must see.

A beautiful part about stargazing here is that since I am in the southern hemisphere, we view all of the same stars of course, but from a different angle. Where you’re used to looking up and seeing the same constellations, it’s all moved around. It reflects how a lot of us are feeling here, we’re living our same lives, but experiencing ourselves from all new perspectives.

I can’t even put into words what it feels like to bungee jump. Exhilarating. Extraordinary. Breath-taking (literally). But while some people feel accomplished afterwards, I did not particularly. I think because for the people who were scared, they were proud of themselves for conquering their fear but to be honest, I was not scared at all. Even standing over the ledge of Bloukrans, the highest bungee bridge in the world, I thought I would feel more fear than ever but for some reason I did not. So, while I absolutely loved it and had the time of my life soaring through the sky, I did not really feel like I accomplished anything. Now I just have more of a reason to go skydiving to see if I’ll feel differently!

The eye of an elephant. Not eyes, because you can only look into one eye at a time since their heads are so big. I don’t want to explain the emotion that you see through an elephant’s eye. I want every single one of you to someday see and feel it yourself. Beautiful.

One night, a group of local African girls, with their faces painted, danced and sang at the hostel. While most people did not stay until the end of their performance, we did and they were so thankful. They came up and hugged each one of my friends and me and then proceeded to paint all of our faces as well. We took a picture with them and then watched as they walked away and began to count the little amount of money that they made that night. They were so happy with the spare change, counting it like American children count Halloween candy, as one of my friends pointed out. They were so happy to be there and we were so happy to have met them.

 The day we played with elephants, we then went to an ostrich farm. Last week when I went to the Jewish Museum in Cape Town, I learned all about the ostrich feather industry. It was primarily ran by Jews in the 1900’s and wearing a hat made out of ostrich feathers represented wealth. Thus, since they were so expensive, the Jewish community was very wealthy and prominent. Then, when the invention of cars came about, people could no longer wear the ostrich hats because they would get blown off in the car. This caused the crash of the ostrich feather industry, bankrupting many Jews. (This correlation is not just a hypothesis, it’s actually all historically accurate). The reason I’m telling you all of this is because the morning after the ostrich farm, we were at our hostel eating breakfast. At breakfast, you had to pay for coffee but I knew one of the other rooms had free coffee. I ran over there quickly to get it, not wanting my food to get cold in the meantime, and a woman started talking to me. I was trying to rush back to my food, but it turned into a surprisingly interesting and long discussion. Every person here always immediately asks what you’re studying, so my conversations with strangers often revolve around Judaism. It turns out that she is a Catholic from Dublin, Ireland but married a Jew from France. His history inspired her to begin researching the migration of Jews, specifically from Lithuania to South Africa. She ended up traveling here solely to collect information, and became highly interested in the ostrich feather industry. She shared with me that the day before, she toured an old ostrich feather factory and it was the factory that produced all of the feathers for Moulin Rouge. She knew so many random tidbits of information like that and I was so glad that I’m too cheap to pay for coffee and had ran over there for some free Joe. (Segment 2 of my “Humans of Africa”).

The lion is officially the most beautiful animal I have ever seen. It literally took my breath away. The colors of his hair, his vibes of both aggression and peace, his strength. If you’re only to look at one picture that I’ve posted on facebook, look at my picture of the lion I saw. Incredible.

After we saw the lions and a bunch of other animals, we got to choose one animal to play with. I chose cheetahs. While they weren’t cheetah cubs (which was another option), they were still not fully grown and laid around while I pet them. It was very cool because while it was safe enough to do, it was still very risky and the rangers who worked there were very cautious the entire time. Knowing that the animal I was touching is also very dangerous made it a lot more fun.

I don’t have much to say about it but I also want to touch on ziplining through waterfalls and spelunking through caves. They were both so much fun and I learned a lot while crawling through the tiny tiny spaces in the Cango Caves. Also, both activities reminded me for the millionth time why I am so thankful that I chose to study abroad in South Africa, rather than anywhere else. I have had so many adventurous and educational opportunities that I could not have received anywhere else in the world. Like I talked about in my last posts, the race discussion remained prominent throughout all of these adventures and the varying cultures in all of these places played a huge role in my experience. Every time I’m having fun, I’m also learning, and that’s what it’s all about.

Side note: Thank you daddy for letting me bring your GoPro, I got some awesome videos and pictures during this trip! Some will be on facebook soon to view.

Lastly, thanks for reading :)  I know this was long but I hope it was worth it.

with love