[reality check].

PS! i will be in gugulethu for the next three days.. so i will be away until friday. see ya'll then!

another jam packed day. again.. it was an early start. today, we made our way to the township of gugulethu. there we spent the day at jl zwane community center. by the way.. it's a gorgeous place!

let me break this down. disclaimer... this might be the worst word vomit ever. yea.
we started off the day with three speakers.. ! the first one was edwin louw, who is one of the leaders at the center. he told us a little about himself. his mother was a white woman and his father was a black man. he had experienced a lot of hardships and racism due to that fact. a lot of that racism came from his mother's side of the family. due to this fact, he came to hate white people. he continued to tell us how that world that he lived in with hate was so constricting and it came from him viewing the world through his father's eyes. he decided he did not want his children to grow up with hate. so.. amazing. he made that choice.. he had the willingness. that was our first speaker.

second.. was dr. rev spiwo xapile (the director for the center). he touched on a lot of the leadership aspects of being at that community center. he talked about how there needs to be trust between the leader and the community until a reason not to trust occurs. also.. i don't know if i heard this right?.. but he talked about how there needs to be some sort of opposition within the community.. like not everyone needs to believe/trust that the change is going to happen. there needs to be some skeptics that keep people accountable to their goals. i think that i agree.. not necessarily that there need to be skeptics?.. but that there do need to be people in place to keep the community and leaders accountable.

he also said something that sparked a discussion in our class after he left. he said, "black people have no place in the world". he said that black people are constantly trying to prove themselves in this world. he prefaced this statement by saying that this was something he realized. and the concern that was brought up was what he meant by that statement. to me, it is exactly that.. a realization. it is not a statement of surrender, but it was an identification of the issue at and. although racism is a huge issue, i think that he means (and this is just my own opinion and interpretation of his statement) that there are larger issues. this seems like a bold statement saying that there are other issues other than racism that might be not more important..but more pressing?... i don't know. for example.. HIV/AIDS.. poverty.. blah.. i don't know how to organize that thought at all. and now that i am reflecting on it, i am not sure i thought it through the first time. but i guess that is what reflecting is for. maybe, i feel like as we work on those issues, it could lead to unity.. like a bigger answer to that statement. whatever.. that made no sense. i'm done with that thought.

moving on.. third speaker was kenneth from the institute for justice and reconciliation. he was one of the first black students at his school when he was young. whenever their class would go on field trips and board trains, he would have to ride a separate train due to apartheid. he also educated us a little bit about the recent xenophobia attacks.

can i just say.. i still cannot get over the fact that apartheid was such a recent piece of history. these three speakers, all three of them lived during apartheid. it is really just an experience getting this history first hand from them.

so then we had lunch! most amazing food since i have been here. all like made from scratch food. this is the type of food that we will be eating the next few days.. and i thought i was going to lose a few pounds.. ha! the next part of the day was just.. a reality check? maybe not the best phrase.. we toured gugulethu. and i have witnessed poverty before in mexico.. but not like this. literally.. shacks built from four different pieces of metal or wood. smaller than my room? or about the same size for families. i actually am speechless about that situation.. and maybe not ready to reflect or reflect on this blog.

sorry to my group if i seem very quiet or it seems like i have no thoughts.. it just feels like i have so much to process.. and don't know how to put my thoughts into words on the spot.

a question to ponder: how much of how you view and live in the world is seen through your parents' eyes?

peace out kids!