Thursday, January 31st - Cape Town Tour (Pardon the Boring Title)

Today I went on a FREE(!!!) tour of Cape Town with a travel group that focuses on excursions for university students.  Myself and maybe 7 other American kids who came to South Africa with the same program I did, took the train from Stellenbosch to Cape Town.  This was my first experience with the train, which was very exciting.  We walked for about 25 or 30 minutes to get to the station and then ended up waiting for another 25 or 30 minutes because the trains are always late.  But, there were no problems.  We got a car to ourselves (in first class - which was about 50 times less fancy than it sounds) and saw beautiful landscapes and saw some zebras and wildebeests in a wildlife refuge near the tracks.  We got to Cape Town station after riding for about an hour and our tour guide, Mike, met us at the station.  On our way to the first stop, we passed by the walls of the oldest building in Cape Town.  When the Dutch first arrived to the area in 1652, Jan van Riebeeck built a fort that is still standing (or parts of it are - on my next visit to Cape Town, I want to go see the fort up close).  Then we headed to the District 6 Museum.  This was one of the most moving experiences that I have had thus far.  A brief history lesson - absolutely free of charge.  (Mine ended up costing me 30 rand or a little more than $3.)  Part of the Apartheid, (this means separate/apart in Afrikaans), regime of the 20^th century, was to prevent the mixing of races.  One of the ways the government thought they could achieve this was to literally separate people by race.  District 6, which was considered to be the heart of Cape Town, was a primarily black neighborhood up until 1966.  In that year, the government declared District 6 to be an all white neighborhood and they began the process of removing the families that lived in that area and resettling them elsewhere.  The government destroyed houses, shops and basically the entire neighborhood.  I believe the government justified their actions by saying District 6 was crime-ridden, impoverished and deteriorating and could only be remedied if it was torn down.  This museum, as well as several other organizations, are working to commemorate the culture, history and memories District 6 holds in the minds of those who once lived there.  They have created this museum/monument and hold “healing classes” that help victims throughout the phases of the healing process.  Although this was one of the smallest museums I have ever been in, (it was only a couple of rooms), it was one of the most moving.  Because this happened so recently, there were photos of houses being destroyed as the family looked on, family photos of people who lived in District 6 and poems written within the last 10 years about the pain and suffering these people went through.  Although there was so much sadness and heartbreak, I still got a sense of hope and joy, especially for the great memories District 6 held for so many people.

After this, Mike took us for coffee and gave us another history lesson - but this time it was a crash course in South African history.  As a white South Africa who was old enough to have lived though some of the Apartheid years, he said that his history schooling began in 1652 when the Dutch settled and ignored all of the history prior.  He said that it was not until he was much older that he began to learn more about Africa prior to European settlement.  

A Not so Brief History Lesson (but it’s still free)!!

**Disclaimer - this is a very rough summary so huge parts of the history are missing and many of the reasons why things started are missing too.

The Dutch came to the Cape region in 1652 and set up a trading post/fort/resupply station in order to supply ships traveling between Europe and the Indies with the goods needed to complete the rest of their journey.  After some time, several of the original men were given land to become farmers.  These farmers, known as Boers, began to move, associate themselves less with Europeans and desire freedom from European rule.  Back in Europe, the Dutch were at war with Napoleon and they asked England to “watch” their colony in South Africa.  Although England returned control to the Dutch, when the Dutch found themselves at war again a few years later, England took “watch” over their territory, but this time, did not return it.  More people were coming from England to South Africa and this strained the relationship between the colonists and the native populations as well as the relationship between the Afrikaans/Boers peoples, (descendants of the Dutch), and the British newcomers.  The Boers began to move even more inland in what became known as the Great Trek which marked the beginning of several conflicts between the Boers and the British, as well as between the Boers and the Zulu and other native tribes.  To make a long story short, diamonds and gold were discovered in South Africa which added to the messy relationships between societal factions.  Then came the Anglo-Boer War that took place at the turn of the 19^th century.  From the beginning of the 20^th century, Afrikaner political parties took power and began installing measures to ensure white political, (and eventually social, cultural…), supremacy.  Thus begins Apartheid.  Acts were passed to  ensure legal racial segregation.  The government reacted violently to those speaking out against Apartheid’s injustices - such as the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the violence against the youth of Soweto in 1976 and the murder of Steve Biko in 1977.  Chaos ensued and the country went into a state of emergency.  In 1989, secret negotiations took place between Mandela and PW Botha, (who was Prime Minister at the time).  FW de Klerk replaced Botha as head of the Nationalist Party and, (from my understanding - which may be incorrect), became the new Prime Minister.  In 1990, de Klerk began to remove Apartheid restrictions and released Mandela from prison.  In 1994, South Africa held its first democratic elections and Mandela became president.

I have come to realize that South Africa’s history is super complex but also fascinating.   Luckily I’m taking a course called “An Overview of South African History” so I will be able to amend the information above and explain things much better once that begins - so look forward to a way better explanation of South Africa’s history than the one above.

After our history lesson, we walked around Cape Town and saw the Parliament buildings, the gardens that are in the place of the gardens planted by Jan van Riebeeck, the cathedral Archbishop Desmond Tutu preached in and ended up at a street market with food and crafts.  We ate lunch on the ground in the midst of the market.  Despite Table Mountain looming in the distance, and the distinctly African crafts surrounding us - it felt very European.

We made our way back to the train station around 3 because our train was supposed to leave around 3:15.  3:15 rolled around - no train, 3:30 - no train.  By 3:45, the train finally arrived.  We got on thinking that the train would leave any minute, but it didn’t.  We sat in the train for at least another 20 minutes or so.  A woman in the carriage we were all sitting in asked us if we were going to Stellenbosch because if we were, apparently we were on the wrong train.  So we followed her out and found another platform that said the train was going to Stellenbosch.  We got on that train and waited for another 20+ minutes.  As we waited, more and more people got on the train until it was so full, no one could really move.  Finally, after nearly an hour of just waiting for trains to move - we were on our way.  One of my friends and I were hoping that as we made our way to Stellenbosch, more people would leave and eventually we would be able to sit down or at least me able to move a little.  But we were most definitely wrong.  A few people got off here and there, but even more people were squeezed into our carriage.  Throughout our journey, the noises our train was making were quite nerve-wracking.  It sounded like our train was going to break down any minute and it seemed to have a hard time getting started again once it had stopped at a station.  Despite these noises, the train seemed to be alright.  But, as we let people off and on at the final stop before Stellenbosch, the train never got started.  It just sat there.  We were just standing there - literally a five-or-so minute train ride away from where we needed to be, and had no clue what was happening.  Someone in the carriage said that we needed to get on buses now - apparently there was something wrong with the tracks between the two stations.  So, our group filed off of the train with a few hundred other people and stood in a huge mass waiting for buses to show up.  When the buses finally did show up, there was a stampede to get to the door.  A huge crowd ran in front of the door and moved with the bus as it was backing up to insure their spot.  Because we didn’t really have any idea of what was happening, we figured that we should just follow the crowd, (something I have become quite adept at).  But this was a pretty bad idea.  It felt like my feet weren’t even on the ground there were so many people rushing towards the same place.  Somehow, we got free of the crowd and waited for the next bus.  Let me remind you that we had already been traveling for almost 3 hours and the normal trip to Cape Town only takes 1 hour.  We waited for a while longer and finally got on a bus - standing room only - and we were driven to Stellenbosch Station.  Just like the train, the bus sounded like it was going to just fall apart any time the driver put his foot on the gas - but it got us to the station without any parts falling off.  From there we walked another 25 minutes to get home.

The first year students have been on campus for a little over a week and I live in an area that also houses a bunch of first years.  Every day, huge groups of these students, all wearing exactly the same outfit, marched around singing songs, shouting, dancing and doing a variety of other really strange things.  All of this was explained Thursday night.  In a festival-type-thing known as “Vensters” (which I think means window), each housing area put on a brief ten-or-so minute show.  They danced to different pop songs and told some short story about what it means to be part of the Stellenbosch community.  Each housing area had a stage set up around campus and everyone else just got to walk around and watch the first years basically make fools of themselves.  Some of these dances were really good.  There was one group that had a lot of fancy lifts in their routine, but others were rather painful to watch.  But, all in all, it was really fun and the first years seemed to be enjoying themselves and I guess that’s all the matters.  This was my first taste of life in a big school.  The streets running through campus were packed with people, (not as many as in the crowd waiting for the bus), but still quite a lot.  It was kind of strange to think about the number of people attending this event and the number of people attending St. A’s (≈2,400).  At least 3 times as many people were walking the streets than attend St. A’s every semester.  Although I have really been enjoying the atmosphere of a big university - it has made me love and appreciate the small community at St. A’s even more.

Now, enough writing - here are some pictures!!

  The balcony where Nelson Mandela made his first speech after being released from prison in 1990.

  

On the floor of one of the rooms in the District 6 Museum they had tiles that people had written on expressing their joy, grief, pain, sorrow and a variety of other emotions in regards to District 6 and their removal from the area.  It was interesting to not only see the variety of emotions, but also the different styles of approaching the situation and the healing.

District 6 was not the only area that saw people forcibly removed from their houses.  As part of the healing and commemorating, the museum set up sheets according to location.  Survivors could sign and write messages on the various sheets.  These were really cool to see.  Some people just signed their name and put the address of where they lived, but most of the signatures expressed their thanks for the memories and good times that they had in District 6 or other areas.  Some even expressed the desire to go back.  Seeing the signatures seemed to make the whole thing more real and it made me wonder how I would feel if someone came to my door and told me that I had to leave because I was different.

  This was a huge map of District 6 on the floor of the main room in the museum.  Anyone who had lived in District 6 could write their name where their house used to be.  

  Long Street - the "main" street in Cape Town leading to the ocean!

Parliament

 St. George's Cathedral where Desmond Tutu preached.  He was a black archbishop who resided over a primarily white congregation during the height of Apartheid.  He also spoke out against the injustices of the regime.

  Part of the crowd waiting for the buses.  Add at least 150 more people to this photo before all the buses came and imagine them all running around in one huge group!!

  Please excuse the poor quality - but it was hard to take a picture when everything was moving.  But it gives you the general gist of what each housing area was doing.

Cheers!!

Katie