SAsquared: So Alive in South Africa: April 2016

Greetings from South Africa!

Another month has passed and I am excited to update you on my time here at the tip of Africa (quite literally this time!). As you may have guessed, since my last update in the middle of March, a lot has happened here at work and outside of work.

Our projects at the school have taken off nicely. Leading up to Easter, the teachers were very busy marking exams and completing the first term report cards. I assisted with marking and lessons during the busy post-exam period. The week before Easter we led the school’s first ever day camps for any and all grade fours interested in having a little bit of fun over the Easter holiday. We had a solid turnout and we ran all sorts of games and activities including a treasure hunt, gagaball, rubber chicken baseball, reading books during down time, mask making, and ate some delicious food for breakfast and lunch together. On the final day, after all the grade fours had come through the camp, the newly formed Leadership Council took there turn at camp. We set up a huge game of survival with predators, prey, natural disasters, and humans with water guns! Following all the fun, the young leaders set about planning term two’s projects. Using a democratic system where the kids were able to cast their vote for the project they would like to see completed first, an anti-littering campaign was the winner and believe it or not, the weeklong operation is finishing up on Friday! We are very excited and proud of the kids for all their hard work so far! The school is clean, the kids are energized, the teachers are amazed, and the principal is excited!

We will be holding another week of day camps at the end of June when the winter holidays commence. This time round we will select two grades that will participate, as we will have the next round of interns here already so we can accomplish twice as much! We are also in the final planning stages of our weekend camp for the Leadership Council. We will be heading to an outdoor centre for two nights at the beginning of June… details to follow about the zip lining, canoeing, and other fun activities that we will be leading.

Before and after Easter I was able to get on a few weekend and extended trips to explore this beautiful country. The other day I uploaded my first batch of photos to Facebook and will include some on here as well. I did a long weekend in Pretoria and Johannesburg with Luyanda (my good friend and Zulu teacher). I hiked the Central Drakensberg Mountains for a day and a half with some fellow Vancouverites that are interning in Durban. I flew to Cape Town to experience one of the most incredible cities that I have ever been to and see the Garden Route (as well as a little safari in Addo Elephant National Park). And I went to the Northern section of the Drakensberg Mountains and a few national parks in the region. It has been an amazing month of adventures, traveling with old friends and new, seeing places that render a person speechless and experiencing all that South Africa has to offer. It was an absolute blast spending time with two friends, Alex and Emily from home, in Cape Town, on the Garden Route, and in the ‘burg. A great mid-trip battery recharge for me!

We are now back in the groove with term two underway at school and projects and ideas flowing nicely. I will finish this post with some food for thought; a brief global newsletter article that I wrote for Uvic. Have a look at some thoughts on travel and South Africa ‘The Land of Contrasts’.

Cheers from down here,

Russell

'The Land of Contrasts'

There is so much to learn from traveling to another country. There are the obvious areas where a traveler can invest their time to experience something new: trying a new dish at a restaurant, picking up phrases from the local language, or other cultural examples all enrich ones time in a foreign place. When I have traveled in the past, I found myself hyperaware to this learning, excited about being in a new place, and eager to sample the life of people that may live differently than me. And then there are the unexpected moments that I find teach you even more. For me, learning often comes in the form of the strangers that I come across and build rapport with briefly while I learn about their story; sometimes kids with their witty questions, playful disposition, and unfiltered presence; and other times woven throughout an international adventure with the friends that I’ve made, unique places that I’ve visited, and situations where I have been taken outside my comfort zone.

I love informal and experiential learning. There is no textbook that can teach us about a place and culture like traveling can. Travel writer Pico Iyer said, “We travel to open our hearts and eyes and to learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate”. Currently as I sit outside my cottage in the sweltering heat, exactly half way through my six-month internship in South Africa, I couldn’t agree more with Iyer. South Africa has a turbulent and unjust history, stunningly beautiful countryside and coast, and present challenges such as a corrupt President, increasing food prices, and a crippling drought. These challenges and contrasts flare up in conversation almost everyday. It is the contrasts present in South Africa that have caught my attention over and over again.

Since arriving in South Africa, several people have commented about South Africa being ‘a land of contrasts’. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word contrast as ‘to be different especially in a way that is very obvious’. Now that I have taken the time to stop and think about this, it is hard not to notice contrasts around every corner! South Africa has contrasts geographically, financially, in the food and the people, and they confront me everyday as I go about my life here. Geographically, this country is strikingly beautiful and the beauty comes from a wide variety of landscapes. Thousands of kilometers of coastline; endless mountain ranges, a well-established national park network, green rolling hills, attractive cities, and countless ways in which to discover all of these places makes for such a diverse country inviting you to explore it.

However when you leave the national parks and tourist lodges for the townships and slums of the cities, it is no longer the mountains and the beaches that consume your thoughts but the litter, shanty houses, and impoverished lives of millions in this country. Driving through the townships can be overwhelming, with the slalom skills of a skier needed to maneuver by the farm animals and potholes. The lack of sanitation facilities leaves people to sort out their own ways of dealing with their waste and high levels of unemployment handcuff thousands of people to find work in any way that they can, often selling sweets or fruit at a stall in town or in an informal shop. But of course look beyond the surface and there is an incredible beauty in the townships, with each house being built uniquely out of mud, scraps of metal, and other makeshift material. And as the green hills of the Pietermaritzburg townships roll for as far as the eye can see, the fluffy clouds and bright blue sky make for a perfect backdrop. There is simplicity and beauty among the township hills. Beyond the homes, people go about their lives but stop to wave a friendly hello. Kids play in the sprinkler with their neighbours and friends. The contrasts are everywhere as we leave the gated suburbs and arrive in the sprawling townships.

Wealth inequality in South Africa is evident everywhere you go as luxury vehicles wiz by children begging for money or food. But when you stop to think about this long enough you come to realize that you see this at home and most societies around the world. Here in South Africa, access to resources – such as computers, quality health care, or a decent education – and opportunities – such as traveling, field trips at school, or eating healthy food daily – are only for those who can afford them. And unfortunately those who can afford these things are a minority in this land of contrasts.

Contrasts surround so many aspects of life here in South Africa. And there are also contrasts in my daily life such as extremely busy days at work in the township compared with quiet suburban evenings inside our gated complex where all were hear are cars zooming by outside and dogs barking. Frequently, I catch myself wondering about the contrasts present in this incredible country. Some are so petty such as how I spend my evenings, some are so beautiful such as the elephants lumbering by the tiny meerkats in a national park, and some are so daunting such as the income disparity between the rich and poor. Regardless of whether the contrasts are macro or micro, it is important to acknowledge and learn about them, witness and experience them, and if appropriate and when the timing is right, question them.