south africa

Wow, what a beautiful city! Cape Town has been the highlight of our trip so far, in so many ways. First, the location where the ship docked, right on the waterfront, adjoining luxury hotels and loads of shopping and restaurants, has made staying here a pleasure. Unlike the first two ports, where going out to dinner required walks of at least 15 minutes past warehouses and stacked containers and (in Salvador) some risk of having your backpack or purse snatched, in this port we've been able to enjoy meals and coffee and so forth with ease and comfort. You can get a sense of the attractiveness of the place in this photo, showing the view from the ship. Susan and Mike Timko had us over one evening for wine on their balcony with this view as a back-drop. One other item of interest in this photo is the giant yacht owned by Paul Allen (one of the Microsoft founder), who was pulling into the port area as I took this photo. Also spotted in the waterfront area: Dave Chappell.

Next, there is the beauty of the city and surrounding area. This photo was taken from the top of Table Mountain, which Mike and I climbed on Tuesday. If you click to enlarge it, you can see the Explorer in the port below.

Here is one more photo from the top of the mountain. It shows Lion's Head and Signal Peak and surrounding neighborhoods. One of those neighborhoods is home to many of the area's Cape Coloured people, a group that trace their lineage back to forced laborers who were brought to the area from the Indonesian islands, Malaysia, India, and East Africa. Many of these folks are Muslim, so there are many mosques in the area. One of the days in port, I visited this neighborhood on a Semester at Sea trip titled "Cape Malay Cooking" where we were taught how to make a type of chicken curry popular in this community. Along with cooking tips, we learned about Islam since the cook was a devout practitioner of this faith. She could not join in eating the food she cooked for us because it was Ramadan, a period in which Islam expects you to fast from sun-up to sun-down. Yesterday, Ramadan came to an end and the Waterfront mall was flooded with young Muslim men and women out to celebrate the occasion in dresses and nice outfits designed to be shown off on special dates like this. Although I knew the Cape area was home to immigrants from India and the East Indies, I had no idea it had such a rich Islamic culture.

Also visible in the photo above is Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned f0r 18 of the 27 years he spent in jail while opposed to the Apartheid regime. Although we were not able to get to the island because the boats to the island were booked up immediately after we arrived, we did get to other places that gave us a sense of the Apartheid history of the area. This sign is from the District 6 Museum, which was set up to help visitors remember the forced relocations that took place with the white-minority government required blacks and coloureds to move out of choice neighborhoods like this one and into crowded and inconveniently-located townships. Much of the neighborhood was leveled after forced relocations in 1966, and the area became a battleground in the anti-apartheid movement as former residents returned to burn down new construction by those who sought to build on their confiscated land. Much of this area, with great views of the harbor, is still vacant land, a stark reminder of the scars left behind by this history.

We also visited some of the townships (including Langa, shown in this photo) on an SAS tour. Although it was awkward to barge into an impoverished neighborhood on a luxury tour bus, I think it was useful for the students (and our family) to see how the majority of South Africans live. One of the residences we were shown, a dormitory that has been converted for family use, houses two families to a room, with each family sharing a single bed.

And this area in Langa was actually nicer than some of the townships that are home to the most recent arrivals, many of them housed in tin shacks thrown up on whatever land they can find. This photo shows one of these areas, but it cannot capture the sense of the challenge South Africa faces in trying to house its massive impoverished population that you get when you drive by mile after mile of housing of this type. The Cape Flats is home to well over a million people.

The kids still know how to have fun in neighborhoods like this. Here is one picture I took as our group interacted with children in the neighborhood. Melina made two additional trips back to this area to learn how some people are trying to improve things by building houses (Habit for Humanity) and feeding hungry kids (Operation Hunger). All together, something like 200 of our students went out on service visits of this type.

One of the big questions our program faces, I think, is the question of whether activities like these township visits and service projects are a meaningful way to introduce students to the poverty experienced by so many people in the countries we are visiting. One day service visits may give students a false sense that they've helped solve the problem when in fact the challenge is much more daunting and structural. I know that Richard Handler back home is a skeptic, and I'm still not sure. It will be interesting to see what kinds of conversations students are having as we set sail from Cape Town this evening.

I've already talked a little with Melina and think she came away from the multiple visits realizing that the smiles on the kid's faces that we all saw on the first township tour didn't reflect the sense of powerlessness and need felt by most residences. On the Habitat for Humanity visit, the residents who were living in a shack next door while waiting for Melina and other volunteers to help build their new home, cooked them a meal of potatoes and gruel. I think that meal, more than anything else Melina did while here, showed her what a huge gap there is between the townships and the Waterfront restaurants where we've been enjoying great food from all over the world. She's remarked on the disconnect and guilt and other confusing feelings like that she's experienced.

Just to drive home that disconnect, we spent much of our time here enjoying the natural beauty and nature that you can access if you have the money to live in these places (or travel there). One day, Melina and I went on a Cycling in the Winelands outing where we took mountain bikes up into the hills above the Stellenbosch (seen here).

And then stopped at two lovely wineries for wine tastings. Stellenbosch was one of the most conservative, white-dominated areas during apartheid (and perhaps still today). This winery was so nice that Melina has penciled it in as a location for her future wedding (no imminent plans!).

Then yesterday the Timkos and our family took a tour of the Cape peninsula with a hired driver. What a beautiful coastline! Here is a photo of our family at Cape Point, on the southern tip of this continent. If you could look beyond the horizon, you'd see Antarctica somewhere out there.

Along the way, we saw penguins, baboons, and whales. This photo shows Isabelle on the beach, with a whale waving from just off-shore. Here are a few more photos from our outing:

A final special moment in our stay in Cape Town came when I had a chance to introduce Archbishop Desmond Tutu to the students assembled in the Union in one of our last days in port. Tutu was incredibly inspiring with his words about the potential of humanity to do good: the ability of most people to put the divisiveness of apartheid behind in South Africa; the willingness of so many young people who volunteer, for example, to the Peace Corps, to sacrifice for the good of others.

Missing from this account of our stay are details of the safari outing that Gabrielle and Isabelle went on during our stay here. Please check Isabelle's blog (schoppa-family-at-sea.blogspot.com) for more information on that trip. They took MANY great pictures and enjoyed it a lot.