NaMiBia

We had Easter Break and we took the opportunity to travel to Namibia. We (Fiona and I) decided to take the 22 hour bus from CPT to Windhoek, crazy. It was so hot but not as bad as we thought (we even made some friends in the bus). We then took a safari tour - basically, a bus with which we went all the way up north to Etosha National Park and down again through the Brandenberg Mountains, through Swakopmund and back to Windhoek. Namibia is a crazy place, I really felt like I was in Germany very often (very, very weird feeling). The fact that is hot (it got to 46 C one day...record for me!) also contributes to a weird feeling. We had an amazing time and loved to travel around the country. It's really a beautiful country.

Again, it has been so long since the last time I wrote...this month has been full of amazing activities and I haven't had that much time to sit down and write on my blog. South Africa has been amazingly crazy so far and I'm experiencing a lot. Here are some of the activities that have kept me busy in the last couple of weeks. I joined UCT's branch of TAC - Treatment Action Campaign (www.tac.org.za) - which is an organization that lobbies for equal access to treatment for HIV positive people. It started in 1998 and now it has expanded to the whole country. One of the founders, who is my idol, Zackie Achmat, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I think I wrote a bit about them previously but you can always find out more about TAC and Achmat online. Anyways, the point is that I'm so excited about being part of this because the group of people that I'm working is really good and after all, HIV/AIDS is something that I have always been interested and that I have always been passionate about. Last week we had our first event of the year: a stigma campaign. We based our campaing on a report that was done a couple of years ago at UCT that showed that many students, in spite of their good education and their knowledge about HIV/AIDS, continued to practice unprotected sex. So the campaign was aimed at making students realize that they are vulnerable to the virus as well and that it is not only a virus that affects, for example, "poor, black, rural women".In other words, we wanted to show that HIV/AIDS does not discriminate. Here is a cool picture of the campaign on campus: Last week I decided to go to the Rhodes Memorial which is in the eastern slopes of Table Mountain - i can see it from my house. It is deducated to Cecil Rhodes who was one of the most powerful men that Southern Africa has known. He was prime minister of the Cape at some point and he also founded the Rhodesias (now Zimbabwe and Zambia). It has an amazing view of the so called Cape Flats... This last weekend we spent our time in Langa which is the first established black township in Cape Town. It was established in 1927 and it was crucial to the resistance to apartheid. We stayed there the whole weekend in a homestay and it was an amazing experience. I stayed with Noroyi, a fifty-year-old Xhosa speaking woman that was born in Langa and has lived there her whole life. We had many good conversations and I learned from her. She also fed me like there was no tomorrow. Yoj, I couldn't say no to her delicious food. On Saturday, the 21st, it was Human Rights Day and it coincides with the commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 when 69 protesters were killed by the South African police (most of them shot in the back). They were marching, as part of a broader campaing organized by the Pan Africanist Congrees PAC, agains the unfair pass books when they were attacked by the police. Now, every year the PAC commemorates this event in Langa so we went to that celebration. Since national elections are coming soon (April 22) this was also an oportunity for the PAC to campaign. However, it was also an opportunity for the ANC to campaign. So, guess what, Jacob Zuma, who is most likely to be South Africa's next president, showed up in Langa. We were fortunate (..) to be there and we got to see him from pretty close (some of the girls from the group were so close to him...they even made it to the newspapers!). So it was an amazing experience to see all these political activity first hand! I didn't bring my camara but I'll get some pics soon. Here are instead, some pictures of Langa (just chilling) and "partying" Langa style!:

Yesterday was TB World Day and there was a march to parliament that was organized by the TB/HIV Care Organization and TAC. Instead of going to class (oops) I decided to go to the march and support their efforts. South Africa has one of the highest TB rates in the world and the disease is the leading cause of death in the country. HIV and TB work together. When HIV weakens your immune system, your body can’t fight the TB bacteria so you become very vulnerable to it. Now there are also strains of TB going around that are resistant to the medicines which complicates the issue even further. There is a need to treat everyone with TB (and to make sure they finish their treatment), to protect everyone through infection control, and to make sure that TB does not spread more. It is, after all, a curable infection. The march culminated with the handing over of a memorandum to a representative of the Health Ministry petitioning for better equal pay for health care workers and for better access to treatment, among other things. Here are some of the pictures – very inspiring.

This is cRaZy!

I think it is a good sign that I haven't been writing so often: I am just too busy. But a very good kind of busy. I'm enjoying this life so much. Where do I begin?
Last weekend was amazing and very rich culturally. On Saturday we went to the Gay Parade Festival in the city. As odd as this seems, South Africa was the first country in the world to enshrine lesbian and gay rights in its 1996 constitution which is believed to be one the most progressive ones in the world. It was very interesting to see the diverse people, it was definitely a great people-watching experience. Here is a picture of the event:

That same night we went to the Artscape Theater - a very nice place in downtown CT - to see a concert by Marimba Extravaganza an African music band. If you know me a little bit, you would know how much I love African music. It was spectacular. I really don't even know how to describe it...it was a group of about 20 amazing musicians and singers so they put up an amazing show. We had a lot of fun and are definitely looking forward to seeing more live African music. Here is a picture of the band ( I took this picture from the internet because I didn't bring my camara...but the woman in the picture is my new idol)


On Sunday we went to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden that is only 15 minutes away from UCT. Wow. Crazy crazy beautiful: The place is huge (apparently it covers 528 hectares) and has a diverse fynbos flora and natural forest. The cultivated garden (36 hectares) displays collections of South African plants which are soo weird and cool. The weather was amazing - very hot!- so it was the nicest day to go out and chill there, walk around, and do rolling down the hill competitions (!). They also had a concert which was nice as well. Definitely going back there someday with more time.



During the week I was incredibly busy. I have now officially started at Equal Education and it's going really well. I'm getting along with the staff and I'm motivated by the task that I am being given. Last week we were particularly focused on the potential academic support classes that we want to begin. Many of the schools in Khayelitsha don't have a science teacher or math teacher and this is a huge problem because by the end of the semester students have to pass their exams to get into college. So, although we know that the most effective long-term goal is to make sure that qualified teacher are available, we can't wait until that happens. Therefore, in the meantime, we are trying to set a Saturday tutoring program with qualified teacher and students who are willing to assist the high school students with their classes. Let's see how this goes but I'm really excited. The people in the office are all really nice and many of them are Xhosa which means that I also get to practice some of my Xhosa while I'm in there (usually, all I say is "kushushu" which means "it is hot" - last week we reached 38 Celsius...).

This weekend was also out of control. We climbed up to Table Mountain! We were a bit scared because we heard that it would be 43 Celsius but in the end I don't think it was more than 30. We left in the morning and walked up to the top in about 3 hours or so. It was sooo hot though, we were sweating so much because it was a very steep path. Once we got to the top, we notice that the effort was not in vain: an amazing, ashtonishing view of the city and it's surroundings (with the Indian Ocean on one side and the Atlantic one on the other). Here are a couple of pictures which although nice, don't make merit to the spectacular view...(sorry hehe)

Tuesday, Feb. 24.

It's been a long time since the last time I wrote. Sorry dear followers (if any..). I just can't seem to find time to sit down and write...
We have already started classes at UCT (finally!). I'm taking Xhosa and Social Research Methods. I absolutely love Xhosa, but it is so hard. It has several different clicks and it's very hard to say them. I'm learning a lot and I'm trying my best which makes me feel motivated to learn. I have also started at Equal Education but it has been rather slow since only a few days have gone by since I started. I have been assigned the task to develop an "academic program" which would, on the one hand, help students learn about their possibilities to go to college or technical institutes after high school. On the other hand, it would ideally set up students in high schools with extra lessons to improve their Math and English skills which are crucial for their academic curriculum.

This past weekend, as a part of the "Understanding Cape Town" class we take, we visited a couple of historical places in the city. We went to the District 6 Museum which was amazing (http://www.districtsix.co.za/). During Apartheid around 60,000 or more people were removed from the district under the Group Areas Act. Originally established as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants, District Six was a vibrant centre with close links to the city and the port. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the history of removals and marginalisation had begun. The first to be 'resettled' were black South Africans, forcibly displaced from the District in 1901. As the more prosperous moved away to the suburbs, the area became the neglected ward of Cape Town. In 1966, it was declared a white area under the Group areas Act of 1950, and by 1982, the life of the community was over. 60 000 people were forcibly removed to barren outlying areas aptly known as the Cape Flats, and their houses in District Six were flattened by bulldozers.

The museum presents the history of District 6 and it's population very creatively and artisticly which makes it very enjoyable. They had some amazing pictures that really showed the diversity of the people in the region. Had it not been destroyed by the apartheid regime it would today be one of the most beautiful and colorful places of the whole world. Very impacting. Although the rebuilding of District Six has been a priority for the new government, the process has been slow. Moreover, in spite of the efforts to build new houses in the area there will always be a limit because of the Cape Technikon that has been built there.

Here is a picture of the museum (the main floor is covered by a big map of the district in which people that were forced to move wrote down their house numbers, last names, street names, etc..):



Then we went to the Castle of Good Hope (http://www.castleofgoodhope.co.za/) which has a pentagonal structure and was built in the 17th century. It was built s a replenishment station for ships passing the treacherous coast around the Cape on long voyages between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies. The most impressive aspects were the prisons where they tortured and kept criminals and/or slaves (I'm not sure). Here are two pictures: one shows the main entrance and the other one shows the view of one of the allies in the back section of the castle:


After this we went to the Slave Lodge (http://www.iziko.org.za/slavelodge/index.html) - out of all the activities so far I think this museum has impressed me the most. It is so well done that you get absolutely immersed in the horrible story that is told. The building itself is interesting as it is one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town. The many names of the building over three centuries – Slave Lodge, Government Offices Building, Old Supreme Court, and SA Cultural History Museum – reflect this.

A little bit of history: The Slave Lodge was built in 1679 as the slave lodge of the Dutch East India Company. It is believed that up to 9000 slaves, convicts and the mentally ill lived in the building between 1679 and 1811. In 1810 the building was modified to serve as government offices. Various governmental offices were housed in the building during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, the Governor’s Advisory Council, the upper house of the first parliament, The Cape Supreme Court, the first library, the first post office, Deeds Office, and the Women’s Auxiliary Services of the South African Defence Force. The building was restored in 1960 for use as a cultural history museum.

It is an amazingly well done museum. It also has a huge section on the history of black movements and particularly of Steven Biko and it was very interesting to learn more about him and his life. Stephen Bantu Biko was a anti-apartheid activist during the 60s and 70s. He founded the Black Consciousness Movement which empowered and mobilized much of the urban black population. His death in police detention in 1977 led to his being hailed as a martyr of the anti-Apartheid struggle. The museum had several of his quotes such as:

The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

We didn't spend all that much time there so I'm definitely going back there. Well, I think this is it. I apologize if I am not writing more about my personal impressions/feelings/thoughts and so on, but I don't think a blog is the best way to express some rather complex thoughts. I'm more than willing to share some of them with you, so just tell me and we can skype!

On Friday we went for picnic to the Company’s Garden in the heart of the city (which back in the day was a vegetable patch for the Dutch East India Company) and also visited the National Gallery Museum. After that we were supposed to go on a tour of the Houses of Parliament but for some reason instead of that we ended up actually seating in parliament to hear a very heated political debate. It was crazy: people were calling each other monkeys, yelling at each other, joking around, having to leave the House because of their behavior. Definitely an amazing experience but I guess also a eye opening experience in the sense that it shows (to some extent) how politics work – or better said, how politicians work…
These are pictures of the session in parliament (Health Minister Barbara Hogan at the front was the only one I recognized) and of the whole group in front of the Parliament.

This weekend we went to a camp in Worcester, which is about three hours up to the North East of Cape Town. The landscapes were absolutely amazing: mountains, valley, winelands, etc. In spite of being warned about the many mosquitos and snakes we didn't experience much of that (although on our way back we saw some baboons near the highway). We did some interesting team building activities as well as some more intense things such as high ropes and wall climbing. We went over the expectations for the semester, the challenges and the opportunities that we will have as we begin to take classes and especially as we begin to work in the communities. Here is a picture I took from the car on our way to Worcester:

Out of control: February 10th

Today has been an absolutely crazy day. In the morning I went to have a meeting with Equal Education, which is the NGO that I will be working with over the next few months. They work to try to improve the education situation in the country which is characterized by great inequalities. For example, in government-funded public schools, the average ratio of scholars (known as "learners" in terms of the country's outcomes-based education system) to teachers ("educators") is 32.6 to one, while private schools generally have one teacher for every 17.5 scholars. They are mainly activist and researches who demand more funding and more resources for the the public schools of South Africa. They are based in Khayelitsha which is the biggest township in Cape Town. Although no one really knows how many people live there it is estimated that between 600,000 and over 1 million live there. As time goes by, I'll be writing more about what I will be doing and my work, etc.

But let me get to the real juicy staff. When we were being interviewed by the people at Equal education, they mentioned that there was a public meeting on HIV/AIDS was happening in one of the clinics in Khayelitsha and they asked us if we wanted to go. So we went. And it was amazing. Many important people were there. First of all, the South African's Health Minister, Barbara Hogan, who has been an anti-apartheid activist. Before her, the Minister was Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who believed that HIV/AIDS could be treated with garlic, lemon, and olive oil. So, Barbara Hogan seems to be doing a much better job and seems to be very clear, sincere, and open about HIV/AIDS. She spoke with clarity: if South Africa is to combat HIV/AIDS then many things have to change. For example, she mentioned that people need to stop having multiple partners, men have to stop raping women, people have to stop having unprotected sex. It was great, and very inspiring to see her.

Although we did not get to hear him speak, the main person in the event was the newly appointed Executive Director of UNAIDS, Mr Michel Sidibé. Basically, one of the most important people in the HIV/AIDS arena. Here is the link to UNAIDS website. It’s still crazy to think I was there.

http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2009/20090210_SA.asp

Finally, the most exciting part was to see Zackie Achmat who is a South African activist who is the founder and chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). It was great to see him because I have written papers on him and read about TAC. I always follow their work and I’m very inspired by them. Actually, last night, I was reading about him…so it was craaazy to see him. Although I did not talk to him, I was told that he is in the board of directors of Equal Education which means that I will have the chance to meet him.

It was important to understand why they chose this particular Khayelitsha clinic. This is what the UNAIDS wrote about it:

The public meeting took place at the Ubuntu Clinic which treats tuberculosis (TB) and HIV. With a TB/HIV co-infection rate of around 70 % in Khayelitsha, this clinic allows patients to register for both TB and antiretroviral treatments. Given that TB accounts for an estimated 13% of AIDS deaths worldwide, it’s vital to ensure that people living with HIV have access to TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The Ubuntu Clinic’s model of "service integration" has since spread to other clinics across the township. The Ubuntu Clinic ran the first programme on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission in South Africa and has provided antiretroviral treatment to approximately 20,000 people.

It was absolutely fascinating to see so many people cheering and sharing their positive energy. Every time it was someone’s turn to speak, people would stand up and start singing and dancing, it was beautiful. I didn’t bring my camera but my friend did so I will put a picture up as soon as she sends it to me.

Although I will mainly be working with the education aspect, I hope to get involved with HIV/AIDS activism and activities in general. I already signed up for the TAC group here on campus and I’m really excited (the girl who heads it seems really cool and she spent one year in Argentina so she was practicing her Spanish with me, hehe.).

Uf, what a day.

Monday, February 9th

These last couple of days have been crazy. We have had interesting activities pretty much every day. For example, on Saturday, we had a lecture on Multicultural diversity which was followed by a visit to Bookaap which is one of the most famous neighborhoods in Cape Town. It is a predominantly Coloured, Afrikaans speaking, and Muslim neighborhood which is known for its great food, colorful houses, rich culture and tradition and for its people.

The residents of Bo-Kaap are mostly descended from slaves who were imported to the Cape by the Dutch during the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Slave were brought from other countries in Africa, Indonesia, Java Malaysia, and other parts in Asia. They were known as "Cape Malays", which is acutally an incorrect term as most of BoKaap's residents are not entirely of Malaysian descent.

We first visited a Mosque which is Cape Town's first and oldest mosque. Islam was brought to the Cape in the 1700s by Said Alochie who was probably the first imam to live in Cape Town. But later on, in 1767, PriAbdullah Kadi Abu Salaam of Tidore was exiled to the Cape. He wrote a copy of the Quran from memory, and the volume is still preserved in Cape Town; Abdullah assumed leadership of the community in Cape Town and became known as "Tuan Guru" which means something like great master.

After walking around a bit we had lunch at a typical place. The food was amazing - a mix of Indian, Malaysian and other kinds of foods. It was very nice, right when we were coming out a group/band went down the street performing some sort of local dance. I didn't get what it was but it was pretty cool.
On Sunday morning we started with a lecture on poverty – what it means, who experiences it and how, how do we measure poverty, etc – and then we went to do a township tour. Although I was skeptical about the concept and did not fully understand the intentions behind it (‘foreign tourist going to ‘visit’ and ‘experience’ how people live in townships), I guess after having visited it I kind of understand that local can benefit from this kind of tourism. That is not to say that I don’t feel uncomfortable with the dynamics of it, but I have appreciated how tourist can bring in income for some members of the community as they pay for food, drinks, crafts, transport, etc.

Anyways, we first visited Langa and a center that they had there. In these center locals are able to learn some marketable skills and children are involved in some activities as well. A group of kids performed a dance that was initiated by the miners in Johannesburg as a way to find entertainment within the compounds that they were forced to live. The kids were amazing and a lot of fun. After that, we went to a local pub which was more like a shack where we had a taste of the local beer. This beer is locally brewed by women and is widely consumed in local festivities. It is made out of sorghum and maize and has 2% alcohol, very sweet tasting. We also visited a local witchcraft/medicinal healer place. That was very interesting..in the room they had all kinds of dead animals and plants hanging. From huge snake skins to birds, from mammals to bugs, uf, it was very interesting.

We also visited the Gugulethu township. There we learned about the Gugulethu seven memorial which was built in 2005 in recognition of the seven men that were shot dead in their back on March 3rd, 1986 when they were protesting against the apartheid government. When the police officers involved got amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - many residents of Gugulethu were not pleased with this decision. Following that we went to a very popular tavern called Mzoli’s which is located in the township of Gugulethu. This place is known around Cape Town for its great braai (barbeque, parrillada) and it welcomes people from all races. According to some locals, it is great to see how there you can see people from all classes and races…however, amongst Gugulethu's residents, Mzoli's Place has a reputation for public drunkenness and disrespect for the local community.