Long Days in Cape Town
Every day is truly different in Cape Town, but they all have one thing in common: they’re long. The first two weeks were heavily focused on academics, but the last two weeks have been devoted to cultural exchange and immersion. We’ve learned Xhosa, spent more time in townships and informal settlements, and engaged in volunteer service. While the days may be long, they’re so varied and full of learnings that they never drone on.
Mandela Day is an annual holiday celebrated on June 18th; the message of the day is to dedicate yourself to 67 minutes of service in recognition of the 67 years that Mandela fought for social justice. Our group incorporated this message into our activities for that day. We began our day at 8:30, piling onto our coach bus for a visit to the informal settlement, Enkanini. We received a guided tour of food pods from Moose, the 23-year-old entrepreneur who was working on several projects to improve lives in his community. The food pods generated fresh vegetables that were given out to children for free and to families for an affordable price. He also worked on constructing more stable homes for people living in shacks. This was just one example of the entrepreneurial spirit we saw that day.
We then continued our tour with Yondela, the community leader, and visited the town hall building to discuss some of the most pressing issues present in Enkanini: access to shelter, clean drinking water, sanitation, and health services. After talking through these, we culminated our discussion with a braai, a shared meal that is similar to an American barbeque.
After this we began our volunteering section of the day. We drove off to a home for women and children who had experienced domestic violence or abuse. Our task was to paint the inside of one of the buildings. We chose a bright yellow for the walls and painted a mural that read, “when you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” I’m a firm believer that a person’s environment can greatly affect their outlook on life, and it felt really good to make a small improvement to the home of these strong and resilient women.
This was a longer day than most. Next stop was the Cape Town library where we listened to an hour long presentation from Kirsten Wilkins, an urban designer. She spoke to us about the current architecture and space planning that was happening in Cape Town, and how this applied to the densely populated townships. She also walked us through some of her current projects, including promoting bikes as transportation and making bike lanes more safe and accessible.
We ended our day with a dinner at Quaglino’s, a favorite among the students and conveniently right across the street from our apartments. There we heard from Nwabisa, a presenter who spoke of Nelson Mandela and his legacy. She also spoke of her personal accomplishments and her focus on growing entrepreneurship in Africa. It was important to discuss Mandela and what he had done, but how much more there was to do in his legacy. While the day may have been long, we used our time wisely, and all of the activities were valuable in celebrating Mandela Day appropriately.
