Monday, July 19, 2010

Exploring South Africa

Greetings BSA 2010 Family and Friends,

We are wrapping up our time at Shoestrings backpackers in Joburg and preparing to head to Soweto tomorrow morning. We have had an action packed few days and everyone is fully immersed in our program, healthy, and happy to be here!

On Saturday we drove to the Constitution Hill museum in downtown Johannesburg. Here we took a tour of the prison that housed many political prisoners including Winnie Mandela during the Apartheid era. This is also the location of the Constitution Court, which is the highest court in all of South Africa. We returned to our hostel that afternoon and then walked over to the Gautrain which is the new high speed train and took that down to Mandela Square. We walked around the square for a bit and then had some ice cream and returned back to the hostel.

Sunday found us checking out the Apartheid museum, which is a fantastic educational experience exposing all of our students to the harsh realities of the Apartheid era while also examining the relatively peaceful end that Mandela and the ANC worked to bring to an end to in the early 90s. I think we all learned a great deal and I feel that this museum lays a nice foundation for our service work throughout the duration of our program. We then headed as a group to the grocery store to restock our supplies and ate a delicious "American style" meal of burgers and fries!

Today we drove to the town of Klerksdorp and visited an orphanage for HIV/AIDs orphans. We also had a great talk with a local nurse about the HIV epidemic in South Africa. Our students were thrilled to visit with the children and play games in the yard of the orphanage. After this we went over to a hospice and visited some very sick patients. I think it was an eye opening experience for all of us, but it was rewarding to see the smiles on the children's and patient's faces as we spent time with them.

Tomorrow the final student of our group joins us in the early morning and then we head to Soweto to work with the Umbuyisa School of Art and visit the Hector Pietersen museum.

Group morale remains high and we have all stayed healthy for the first few days as we shook off our jetlag.

Good night from Joburg,
BSA 2010