Reflections on a life-changing summer

As Michelle and I just said goodbye to some of the great friends we have met while living here in Joburg, I'm getting awfully nostalgic about my time here.  It's been incredible to have the opportunity to live in Africa and I've learned so much about it's people and the many cultures of South Africa.

I apologize for never blogging about Cape Town, but the summary is this:  it's one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and it was overwhelming to have the opportunity to spend time with another one of my best friends - Anneke - in South Africa.  Here are some photos from the trip.

I met wild African Penguins at Boulder's Beach!

One of the baboons we saw at Cape of Good Hope.  One of them stole my friends water bottle and scaled up a mountain with it - hilarious!

We took a taxi to Cape of Good Hope (the Southwestern most point of Africa) and literally had to push our taxi on the way back so that it would start again.

The V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. 

This week, we had to finish up things at work and went on our last tourist adventure:  to Constitution Hill in downtown Johannesburg.  Constitution Hill is where the supreme court justices of South Africa sit for hearings regarding the South African constitution.  The new constitutional court building is one of the most thoughtful, poignantly planned out buildings I have ever witnessed.  Constitution Hill itself is built up on a site of an old prison that was used in the early 1900s and during the Apartheid times.  The prison was functioning all the way until 1983.  Famous resistors of the Apartheid like Nelson Mandela and even Gandhi were imprisoned there.  Gandhi was leading a passive resistance against South African laws against people of Indian and South Asian descent in the early 1900s.  This prison separated whites and non-whites, and would hold around 15 whites in a cell where they would put more than 3 times as many non-whites.  Additionally, they fed non-whites less nutritious and less food than they fed whites.  On Christmas, whites would have the option of choosing either a pound of pudding or a slice of cake, and non-whites would have the option of only a cup of tea or coffee with sugar if they were lucky.  It was eerie to be in prison cells that you knew were a place where so many people were tortured likely to the point of death.

Past prisoners have created art out of the symbols of their oppression.  This is made out of the blankets prisoners slept with.  Non-white prisoners usually had 3 blankets - 1 to lay on and 2 to cover up with.  

The isolation cells where they officially count keep prisoners for up to 30 days, but unofficially kept them for months at a time.  No sunlight hits this part of the prison, so it was usually days and nights spent in darkness.

The new constitutional court is built out of old bricks from the waiting trial block of this very prison.  The bricks were intentionally left as they were, without any plastering to fill in the spaces, as a reminder to all of the justices of the injustices committed against South Africans in the past.  The extra leftover bricks were used to construct 'The Great African Steps' which have a sculpture at the bottom that symbolizes the ugliness of the Apartheid.  The idea is that you will leave the past behind you, without forgetting it, and move forward to a new future. At the end of the steps is the entrance to the new court.  The constitutional court also has 'Constitutional Court' written in all of South Africa's 11 national languages in different colors.  And as if all of this wasn't enough, the building itself was constructed over 2 of the stairwells from the Awaiting Trial Block of the prison, so that everyone in the court never forgets.  It was such an incredible place of hope and signified one of the ways South Africa is coping with it's terrible past in order to move forward.

All of the basic rights written in the South African Bill of Rights.  They are written in all 11 national languages and sign language and braille.  This is also the door into Constitutional Court

Constitutional Court written in all 11 national languages

Walking down the Great African Steps

Today was our last day at the clinic.  We decided to thank all of our wonderful co-workers by taking them out to one of the best braai (BBQ) places in Tembisa (the township where our clinic is located).  It was so delicious!  We had pap (pronounced 'pop') which is a cornmeal, grit kind of consistency side dish that you eat with your hands, Wores meat which has a sausage consistency, chicken, beef brisket, and chakalacka which is a spicy sauce made from beans and chilies.  You generally dip the pap into some chakalacka and grab some meat along with it.  We had a whole 17 people come out for lunch, so it was a really great crowd!  I'm so thankful for all of the wonderful, kind people we have gotten to know at the clinic this summer, and they are going to make leaving South Africa that much harder!

Tembisa, the township where the clinic is located

Tembisa

The clinic

Refilwe, one of my favorite women at the clinic.  She passionately runs the Youth Psyhosocial Programme, which was a large project I worked on this summer.

Inside the clinic - this is the area where men wait for their 2 and 7 day follow up visit

You chose your meat first, then they braai it and bring it to your table.

Lunch - meat and pap

Most of the table

All of our wonderful lunch mates at Imbizo!

This summer, I've had the opportunity to see the second tallest waterfall in the world, hike some beautiful mountains, experience the culture of Swaziland, drive by the Swazi King, meet an incredible man in public health who helped Swaziland control the HIV/AIDS epidemic, visit Cape Town and see African Penguins wild and in the flesh, learn so much about the city I've lived in for the past 3 months, and make some really wonderful friends that better visit the United States soon!

Some wonderful friends we spent our last night with, along with Greg who is not pictured here!

When I went to Belize in 2011 for a medical mission trip for 2 weeks, I received a bracelet from a small boy I had been playing with in one of the villages.  This bracelet, although now broken, has always been a reminder to me of how important small acts of kindness can be.  Last week, some of our friends visited from Cape Town and we took them to Soweto.  Unfortunately, they had been robbed a couple of nights before while outside of one of South Africa's most famous national parks, they had everything stolen, including computers, all of the data they had collected this summer, cameras, and phones.  We met a kind man in Soweto who takes pictures for tourists and prints them instantly.  As they told him about their story and what happened, he was extremely upset that they experienced that, and mentioned how much he loves his country and sharing the joys of his country with tourists.  Before we left, he ran after our car and had bought the four of us 'Soweto' bracelets.  Now, I have yet another reminder of the kindness of people.  This man was so upset that my friends had experienced that part of South Africa, that he went out of his way to give us all a reminder of true South African hospitality.  They always seem to come in bracelet form, hey?

I remember leaving Belize in 2012 after staying there just 2 weeks and being so touched by the experiences I had there.  The acts of kindness from the Belizean people have never left my heart.  Now, I have another small piece of my heart where South Africa and all of it's wonderful people live.  I will truly miss this place.

Goodbye Africa