Hello everyone! I know I haven’t written in quite a while and I apologize. Academics started kicking in, amongst other things, and I was thrown off a bit. So any who…here is a brief update on what my life has been like the past few weeks:

Johannesburg

Two weekends ago (August 19-21), I went to Johannesburg with the people in my seminar. When we got there, the first thing we did was go to the Apartheid Museum. Now, as most of you know, I LOVE to talk and can usually find words for any situation. I was literally speechless for a good hour or so after the museum. I’ve never heard of a Jim Crow museum in the states, but I can imagine it would have a similar effect on me. The injustices done to people of color during the apartheid were absolutely ridiculous. I could never understand how people could be so inhumane. I saw pictures of forced removals, watched stories of students who were taught in “Afrikaans” when they didn’t know the first thing about the language, and read some ridiculously disturbing stories about how people changed their racial identification simply to avoid injustice. It was one of the most mentally and emotionally draining things I’ve ever experienced. I definitely recommend that if you ever get a chance to go to Johannesburg that you visit it…it opened my eyes to so much.

The Mandela Trilogy

After the museum, we had about three hours of downtime (which was great, because I don’t think I would have been able to bounce back right away) and then we headed to a nearby casino to see The Mandela Trilogy.  The play was about the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela (whose first name is NOT Nelson, by the way). It showed him as a boy, in his early activist years, and late in his imprisonment. To be quite honest, the play did little more than show him as a womanizer. It was extremely romanticized and didn’t shed much light on his accomplishments or integrity at all. I’m beginning to wonder, actually, if that was the intent of the play.

Soweto Tour

The next morning we went on a tour of the largest township in South Africa, Soweto. While I understand that the township has historical significance, I was extremely uncomfortable with touring a township. To put it into perspective, it was like touring the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn…you just don’t do that. It felt so awkward to go in, as a privileged individual and look at the people and the houses in the township with no intention of doing anything to better the situation while we were there. When I expressed this to our tour guide, she said that to them, it was educating people. I tried to understand, but it still didn’t sit right with me. After the tour, we went to lunch at our tour guide’s house (which she had turned into a restaurant). The food was some of the best I’ve had since I’ve been here. All in all, the tour of Soweto was very eye opening.

Soccer Game

That night, we went to a soccer game at one of the World Cup stadiums in Johannesburg. The energy at the soccer game was amazing. Apparently, soccer is the “black” sport here in South Africa. The crowd in the stadium was predominantly black with the exception of the students in my seminar. I’m not too into soccer, but the game was fun. It ended up being a tie.

School Week

The following week, I was pretty sick (which is why I never got a chance to write about my weekend in Johannesburg). I stayed in bed for about three days straight. During that time, I actually got homesick for the first time. School was starting back home and I began to miss my Penn State family AND my immediate family. It wasn’t such a good week.

Hot Springs

Luckily, a friend of mine invited me to go on vacation with them the following weekend. We went with her host family to a place called Montagu, which is about an hour and a half from here. One of the girls I went with kept describing it as 1960s New Mexico…something like what you’d expect to see in a James Bond movie. It was absolutely breathtaking. There were mountains all around and the pool we went to was hot. It literally had hot water flowing from it. It was so nice just to get away for a weekend and relax. We plan on going back for my friend’s birthday next month, but with all there is to see and do here, I wouldn’t doubt that we would end up somewhere else.

This week alone, I’ve had an exam and a paper that is due tomorrow. Luckily next week is spring break (which I’m sure will leave me with some wonderful stories for you all), but the week I return, I have two papers and an exam. So far, though, everything is still going good. As always, there are a few internal things that I want to update you all on, but I have to get to work on this paper that is due tomorrow. So for now…that’s all folks!

Location: Rosebank, South Africa