Zwelethemba and more South Africa

Malo, or hello in Xhosa!

As usual it has been a while since I last posted and I have so much to tell! I moved into the Bo Kaap on April 6 which was wonderful. My host parents are great! My host mother is named Faiza and (regretfully) I still cannot decipher my host father's name! I am staying with my friend Lori from the program and we basically have our own apartment. Faiza rents out the middle floor of her house with boys on one side and girls on the other. Lori and I have our own bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. It is really nice to have our own space yet still spend time with a family. On the bottom floor of the house lives Faiza's daughter, her husband and their 3 children who have been very nice and welcoming as well.

From April 6 until April 13 I stayed in the Bo Kaap and had regular classes. During that time I learned a lot about Apartheid as well as the current HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa. We also visited a township called Khayelitsha for a day and spoke with a man who runs a faith based HIV support group for men. During the weekend I visited Cape Point which was very beautiful and nice to walk around especially because we had gorgeous weather. The only bad part was we had to watch out for all the baboons because they were really vicious and would just come up to you and steal your food! We were also going to try to see the penguins but unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there. On Sunday, I hiked up Table Mountain with a small group of girls. It was really great because we went early enough to avoid the heat. The hike to the top was only about an hour and a half but it was really steep so I felt like I finally got a good workout in! The view from the top was spectacular, overlooking the entire city and ocean.

On Monday, I moved to Zwelethemba. Zwelethemba is a black township that sits outside of a city called Worcester in the Western Cape. A township is a community that was set up during Apartheid where non-whites were forced to live and still live today. There are 20,000 people living in Zwelethemba today and many people speak Xhosa as their first language as well as English and Afrikaans. I stayed with a woman named Thembsy, her daughter, her granddaughter, her two grandsons and one great granddaughter (plus any extra family or non-family members who dropped in frequently). It was a busy household to say the least, especially with the addition of four IHP students! We were also in Zwelethemba for the week leading up to election day and election day itself (April 22) which was a very exciting time because there were many different rallies and campaign events daily. In Zwelethemba we had regular classes as well as meetings with community members and a service learning project. The best part about Zwelethemba was all the children. There were tons of children who were very curious about us and who loved to talk and play with us. The first day I was there I was sitting down talking on my cell phone when eight children age 3-10 came up and started touching my hair and my clothes. They loved playing with my hair and giving me back rubs which was very welcomed although at times a little overwhleming. Although everyone in Zwelethemba was extremely welcoming and friendly it was overall a very difficult experience for me to live there because I saw the reality of Apartheid and how the struggle still continues for many people today in terms of housing, employment and other factors.

On election day we presented our final projects for a class called Health and Globalization (where we made 3-D models of how we think about globalization and all the health effects) and then we went to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens. The gardens were beautiful and relaxing to walk around and think about our time in Zwelethemba. That evening we moved back into our homestays in the Bo Kaap.

Now, we have one week of case studies. For my South African case study I am working with an organization called People's Health Movement (PHM) on a campaign called The Right to Health. The idea is that the right to health is more than just the right to access health care but is much broader and includes the right to proper housing, water, employment and environment. Our goal is to develop and produce a pamphlet for a PHM conference happening on May 11-12 in South Africa explaining the right to health. It will be very challenging but hopefully will all work out in the end.

On May 3rd I leave for a retreat in Malmesbury where we have time to relax and also to evaluate the program with someone from IHP. After the retreat we spend one night in a hostel and then leave for the U.S. on May 7th! I am really looking forward to going home but also sad to leave South Africa. I can't believe the semester is almost over!

As always, please feel free to e-mail me and I will try to respond after I write my final paper this weekend!

Love,
Barbara