Our final class was outside on the patio of our guesthouse in Johannesburg. How to finish, close off, complete, make sense of, this intense learning we experienced together? How to prepare to answer the inevitable “How was South Africa?” when our minds, hearts and spirits are so full? Images, feelings, questions, smells, inside jokes, […]

Sitting in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam we are saddened that our time in South Africa has come to an end, yet reflective of the powerful month we spent learning about the pain and complexities of such a beautiful country. As we concluded our final few days in South Africa, we continued to learn about […]

Our week in Johannesburg was wrapped in unexpected outcomes. From our meeting with the Culture Religion and Language Commission, Ponte City, to Hector Pieterson’s memorial, we were constantly on our toes, unprepared for the thought provoking information we learned. Our first stop in the morning was a meeting with the CRL Commission about the commercialization […]

  This past week, we spent several days in Grahamstown and the surrounding area. We had the opportunity to stay in student residences at Rhodes University, engage with intellectual leaders, and visit historical sites. Our experiences in Grahamstown demonstrated that this city—and the Eastern Cape holistically—has a rich past of activism and resistance. An essential […]

by Abby Slack, Katie Page, Lilia Escobar We spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Nelson Mandela Bay/Port Elizabeth. The city is important in South African history as many leaders of the apartheid came from the area. Through speakers and walking the Donkin Trail, we learned about how the city is working to commemorate these important leaders. […]

After days of hearing about poverty and racial inequality, our group was welcomed to the Waterfront Rotary meeting at a gorgeous green golf course in the shadow of the 2010 World Cup Stadium. Our expectations were of wealthy, white business people discussing small ”charitable” projects that please their own sense of duty to do good […]

Close your eyes. Imagine your home. Whatever that means to you. Your pets, your favorite book on its shelf, your neighbors, your school, Sunday dinners with your family. And now imagine all of that being taken from you. This is the reality for the 4 million+ people between 1960-1983 who were forced to move out […]

  It was past midnight when we finally arrived in South Africa.  Despite our jet lag and discomfort, we were excited to listen and to learn about the social realities of this country.  Driving from the airport to our guesthouse, we observed dimly lit houses made of scrap metals and cinder blocks on one side […]