Yes, I am!

We (myself and 22 other students from various universities across the U.S.) landed safely in Johannesburg, South Africa Sunday evening after nearly 17 hours on a plane.  It was a rather uncomfortable experience, but I’m pretty sure it will be completely worth it.  I keep wondering when it will really hit me that I am here, in a place so different from what I know, for four months.  However, I think it is more of a slowly sinking in process.

The past two days have been a bit of a whirlwind and our schedule for the rest of our time here in Johannesburg looks about the same, but that’s okay because we are learning and seeing so much!  Both today and yesterday we toured different parts of Soweto which is the historically black, impoverished part of Jo’burg.  It was eye-opening and overwhelming at times.  We stopped at Regina Mundi, the most influential catholic church in the city, as well as the Hector Pieterson Museum.  Both of these places are extremely important reminders of the black struggle for liberation.  Regina Mundi was the first church to be shot upon by police, which no one thought would ever happen.  Hector Pieterson turned into a national symbol when, at the age of 13, he was the first child to be killed by police fire.  The museum was all about the Soweto uprising which started in 1976.

Today, we started off at St. Martin’s School in Soweto.  It is a semi-private secondary school and is one of the best performing in the city.  The kids there were wonderful and welcoming and it was a pleasure to walk around to the classrooms talking to them.

My classmates and I with our St. Martin's student guides!

We were impressed to learn that the children are almost all fluent in at least 3 languages, if not more. (There are 11 official languages in South Africa)  They were all disappointed that most of us had not met any celebrities, especially Beyonce!  Everyone was having such a good time connecting with the kids that we were reluctant to leave.

Before lunch, we stopped by Kliptown which is one of the poorest areas in all of Johannesburg.  The people in this part of town still lack their own plumbing; they use communal toilets and water taps. We all agreed that it was difficult to realize that a town such as this existed 5 minutes down the road from a major mall.

We finished our day with a talk from Dale McKinley who discussed the political economy of South Africa.  He was very intriguing and helped us to understand more of the political problems the country has had since the ANC took over government in 1994.

I would love to talk in more detail about everything we’ve done, but if I started, this post would be 3 pages long!  So feel free to contact me with any questions or comments throughout the semester!

These past two days have been great and I cannot wait to keep learning.  Tomorrow, we head to downtown Jo’burg which we haven’t seen yet; we’ll also be going to the Apartheid Museum.  Can’t wait to see what the rest of our time here will bring…