Fun Times in S.A.

Having spent nearly a month in South Africa, the great experiences that I encountered are honestly innumerable. We visited great land marks Like Table Mountain which was personally one of my favorite adventures. Along with the planned trips by the school, some of my other adventurous counterparts encouraged us to try the nightlife which was always a good time. I was surprised to learn that in South Africa they listen to much the same music as we might here. Although most of the music is hip hop, it was always an all around good time. I met a great deal of wonderful people with whom I still keep in touch. During the safari I met two guys: Lockland and Matt. Although I only knew them for a day, we've become pretty great pen pals via facebook. Facebook is essentially the main source of communication for S.A. Whenever someone met you and was mildly intrigued, they asked if you had facebook. Along with becoming great friends with the people I met in South Africa, I met friends I never thought I would with the everyone that was on the trip. I have an even greater respect for my professors and a whole new bundle of friends. Even beyond South Africa we have remained close and that means a great deal to me. For me, South Africa definitely helped with my confidence and the way I deal with meeting new people. I have becoming a more willing and open person. If ever you have the chance, you should most definitely visit South Africa - and you MUST go to Blauwklippen!! If you don't know Blauwklippen, look it up! :-D

Post by Erica C.

I had a secret mission when I came to Africa. My mission, if I chose to accept it, was to bury my family.
It’s not quite as dramatic as I made that sound, actually. I received all kinds of responses in the coming months before our departure when people learned that I was going to South Africa: I was returning to the motherland, the cradle of civilization…so I better keep my eyes and ears open and learn all that I could, and of course, take as many pictures as possible. I was asked if I had been abroad before and forced to listen through the story every international journey, no matter how brief. My grandmother did none of these things, however; instead, she gave me my mission. Together with my father, they wrote down the names of as many deceased relatives they could on a bit of paper. That paper was tucked away into my wallet with the order to bury the names in Africa— exactly where was up to me. It was my grandmother’s intention to restore my family to their ancestral homeland; to the soil, dust to dust.
It was a tradition of some sort— that much I could understand— but I did not know what kind. There just seemed something right about the idea of returning my family to the earth, even if it would not change where they physically buried. When we visited the home of Nelson and Winnie Mandela in Johannesburg, I felt an immediate connection with their tradition of burying the umbilical cords of their children in the garden. It was earthy, spiritual. It was superstitious, but it did not feel foolish, as superstition often looks. Most of all, it was familiar for some inexplicable reason.
I took my newfound responsibility very seriously, but there were not very many opportunities to remove the burden from my shoulders. Every place we went to was industrial, and though my grandmother’s only requirement for the task was that the paper be buried in the soil, there seemed something inherently disrespectful about leaving the Reese clan buried in the dirt next to a busy highway. All the same, every road trip, guided tour and outing was an opportunity to search for their final resting place— and I was disappointed again and again. Sector 6? The beach? Cape Hope? Everything seemed so inappropriate.
Just when I was beginning to despair that I would never find a proper place to do my duty, we went to the safari. Finally— a sanctuary free of the industrialization that seemed to permeate every other place we had been to. The safari was one place which I could be reasonably sure that the paper would never be found or turned over.
My family was home

Friendliness of Africa

Before going to South Africa, I knew very little about what to expect in terms of people's reaction to me. I knew about the poverty and the economic gap and some South African history, however, I wasn't so up to date on the culture and behavior of South Africans towards tourist or foreigners. I was very shocked to find absolute (at least from my perception) friendliness towards myself and my classmates, especially in Capetown. In Cape town, I could walk down the road and get a friendly gesture, or in a lot of cases even extreme compliments (like hey hot blondie and such phrases). I won't lie though, this creeped me out A LOT at first. This was creepy at first, mainly because in America people are not usually that forward unless they are creepy, and also because I am not the epitome of a 'hot, sexy' girl, like the South Africans made me out to be. After a while though, once I figured out that's acceptable behavior in South Africa, I began to like it. The way that men, especially (I didn't much notice the reactions of women), treated women in Capetown was astonishing. I even noticed that when out with the clubs and restaurants, they would back off and be very respectful if I were with some of the boys on our trip. I think Americans can learn a lot from the behaviors of the South Africans. In America, if a guy goes up to a girl and tells her she's beautiful or pretty and he doesn't actually know her, that's weird. I think there should be nothing wrong with complimenting people even if you do not know them! What's so wrong about that??
Now this is not true in all of South Africa. In Johannesburg however, things were not as friendly. This however, is to be expected because Johannesburg is a place that suffered much more hardship from white people during the Apartheid, thus they are a little more resistant to white outsiders than Capetown, which is a beach town and accumulates more tourists anyways.