Wow it has been so long since I have written! I have traveled to 2 and a half countries since my last post. I apologize to all of you who have been reading my blog. The past couple weeks have been full of tests and papers and stress. But I am now half way done with classes, I am on my last long week of classes until after Japan, and I am finding that I will soon have more time to write. So let’s see the last time I wrote……I left incredible Ghana (still my favorite so far), and now I shall talk about South Africa. Oh and I am including a couple pictures!!! :)
So what was I thinking of when I thought South Africa? This last summer my family and I watched the movie called “Invictus” which was a movie about rugby and took place in South Africa. In that movie I saw a lot of buildings and culture that looked similar to that in Europe or even in the U.S. So I saw South Africa as a regular developed country, nice houses, malls, good government system, hopefully some free internet. Haha. In some aspects I was right on, but others were totally wrong….
I can’t just talk about South Africa because the whole week of classes before South Africa was pretty incredible. We of course had Neptune Day, which was a lot of fun, but it seemed like everyone during that whole week was just so excited. It was such a big deal that our next port was South Africa, especially because Desmund Tutu was with us. The whole week was full of us learning about the apartheid. The Apartheid was a government system put in place by the white Afrikana leaders (the descendents of the dutch colonists) which basically separated whites and blacks. It looked a lot like the issues that we had with segregation and civil rights in the U.S. except that the apartheid South Africa lasted longer and ended with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1991. The fact that it had ended in my lifetime made me feel that it was not very long ago. This was and still is a very big struggle for the people of South Africa.
I was very fortunate to have Desmund Tutu be a guest speaker in three of my five classes. I guess our teachers thought that it would be good to use him as a resource…. J He came to my World Music class to help us learn about the importance of Music during the apartheid. We watched a video that gave us some background and then the Arch filled us in on some other facts, and told us some stories about how powerful the music was. It was really awesome to hear him talk about and song some of the songs. Speaking of singing, my choir director had found the national anthem for South Africa and the whole thought it would be really cool to learn it and perform it. The crazy thing about the SA national anthem is that it is sung in four different languages: Xosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and English….crazy. So we had our SA inner-port students teach us how to sing it. Our director also surprised us by inviting Desmond Tutu and his wife, Leah, to come and talk to us about the anthem. When Nelson Mandela was elected as president it was already decided that there needed to be a new anthem. They decided to not totally get rid of the past anthem which was in Afrikaans, but to keep it and add the anthem, Nkosese Kaleli, which was what the black people had sung during the apartheid. As the rainbow nation, which includes 11 different languages, I think it is totally fit that they include all 4 main languages in the anthem. Being able to hear about it from Father Tutu and Leah was really awesome, it was such an intimate experience. The night of our Cultural Pre-Port we sand the Anthem twice for everyone, the second time we were joined by Arhbishop Tutu!
The third time I got to listen to Desmond Tutu talk that week was at our last global studies class before we got to SA. It was an amazing lecture which lasted close to 2 hours. Father talked to us about SA’s history and the major points of the Apartheid. He explained to us why the apartheid happened, which included the story about the man and the camel. The man was sleeping in a tent and a camel was outside. The camel poked his head in and asked very kindly if he could just sleep with his head there, it was so much warmer than outside. The man was very nice and so he let the camel sleep there. Gradually the camel moved farther and farther in to the tent, the man was too nice to turn him away, until finally the camel took up to whole tent, and the man was sleeping outside.
here is a terrible photo of Father sitting and talking with all 600+ students at Global Studies
He said a lot, in his lecture, that I hope people were moved by. I know I was very moved. He told us that God needs our help. That God has no one but us. He told us “Don’t be affected by the cynicism of old people, continue to be idealistic. He also told us that it is wonderful that we are concerned with the world and want to do so much to help, but we also need to look inside our own country, “think about we have done to the indigenous people of our country.” I really hope people listened to him.
OK…..enough of that….Now on to South Africa. The beginning of my experience in South Africa was a little scary. Sometimes when we get to a port we have a Diplomatic pre-port. That is where someone from the U.S. embassy comes and talks to us about the country we are in. Our diplomat in SA did his best to scare the crap out of us all. He told a lot of stories of things that supposedly happened to people while they were in Cape Town, and they were all pretty much horror stories of people being attacked and such for their purse or phone or watch. One thing I have learned about myself on this trip is that I tend to believe anything that any person with any authority says. So I was scared to death when I thought of getting off my ship, and my first adventure was to supposedly go to church by myself…..hmmmm……
Thankfully I found two people who were going out for a walk anyways and had offered to walk me to church. And so my adventure began. Getting to church included a quiet walk and little bit of sightseeing, but not much more than that. When I got the church I was still a little freaked out….but I did it any ways.
St. Mary’s Cathedral was a small pink church on the hill. It didn’t look like any cathedral I had ever been to, but once I got inside it felt a little more like a cathedral, with stone walls and beautiful stain glass windows. The altar was pretty simple with a giant crown of thorns hanging just above it. There was a group of people dividing themselves in to seats at the front of the church. I was a little confused by this and not sure where I should sit so I just chose a place behind all of the people that were already seated. It turned out that they were dividing themselves into voice parts. And then the rehearsal began. I was completely in awe of how beautiful the singing was especially with the echoing of the church acoustics. This small community was all Zimbabwean immigrants who enjoy mass in their own language on the first Sunday of every mass. I sat near a Zimbabwean friend, named Brian, who kindly told me what some of the songs were, they sung almost every mass part, even the creed. So, the amazing rehearsal (which was basically like a concert) continued for quite a long time. According to my information the mass was supposed to start at 11:30….11:30 and 12:30 came and went. Finally around 1 pm everyone kneeled and began saying the rosary. Now when I went to mass in Nicaragua, in Mexico, and in Spain I understood the basic idea of what was going on. I didn’t expect to understand anything in this mass…..but it’s crazy how easy it was for me to catch, and quickly, to the fact that they were saying the rosary, even though close to none of the people there had a rosary. After the rosary things began to happen that looked like a mass, except there was no priest. I soon found out that the priest who usually shares mass with them was unable to attend. Instead they had someone leading readings and such, and also a deacon who brought out some already consecrated hosts. I have to admit that this was one of my favorite experiences of the trip. It was so beautiful.
The Beautiful Altar and the dance party at the end of mass.
My new friend Brian was very kind and helped me find a taxi to take me back to port. Although I was still pretty freaked from earlier that morning I made it back to the water front without any problem. The good, and bad, thing about the waterfront is that it was a complete a total tourist area. There were tons of Europeans, rich afrikanas, the people who worked there (mostly black people) and a security guard every 10 feet. I was glad that the waterfront was such a safe place. I could walk around the mall, go to the craft stores, sit and read all by myself, and I didn’t have to worry about anything.
Desmond Tutu with Nelson Mandela and another Apartheid figure on the water front.
cool giant guy made out of coke crates on the water front
Amazing giant clouds pouring over table mountain (seen at the waterfront)
Soon the waterfront area turned in to a big fat lie. But more about that later….
That night I went on my first field trip: The Jazz Safari. A group of us were put in to 3 buses; I was pulled in the bus with the kids who were too cool to hang out with old people, which turned out to be a good thing. We were taken to the house of a trumpet player and greeted by his family and his guitar player friend and brought in to his home. Only two of the buses were brought to his house. The other bus, which had most of the adults, including our professor, was taken to another spot. We were all taken to the simple living room of this man, and were given an amazing private concert. The trumpet player played songs we knew, like what a wonderful world, and songs that he had written himself. One girl that had come with us had brought her own trumpet and asked to play with them. You could see the delight on her face while she was playing. Soon after, she was joined by another girl, who is a Jazz singer, and a guy with his guitar. They played songs like Girl from Ipanima. It was a really fun time including a terrific meal prepared by the man’s wife.
After we had eaten our full and enjoyed as much fantastic music as we could, we were then put back on the buses and taken to one more place. I was a little shocked at where they took us next, I thought it would be similar to the last home visited. Instead we were taken to a large shed type room which didn’t have much of a ceiling. Inside the room we found our professor and the rest o the adults listening to some gentleman playing music. There was a man on keyboards, a man on trumpet, a man on guitar, and a man playing a djembe. The group was run by the percussionist who is also the president of a non-profit organization which offers after school activities, like music lessons, to children who live in the town ship. The organization was a brand new thing and all o the members of the band were volunteers. They all really great musicians, the trumpet player was especially amazing. They played rock, blues, jazz, a couple traditional songs, and then they had the three students which had performed at the last house join in as well. It was a fun night. At the end the only thing that got us to willingly get back in the van was the chilly weather. I really enjoyed the music and people I experienced that night.
The next day was the day I looked forward to the most, my township home stay.
but unfortunately that will have to wait. don't worry it won't be that long!
Jya Ne!
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