Bernie meeting new people, hearing their stories, and learning

The highlights of this past week were working on my activist project and attending the human rights weekend. So when it comes to the activist project, Maria and I are working with a soccer team called the FireFighters who are based in Khayelitsha, which is a township in Cape Town. Maria and I went to practice with Bongi on Thursday afternoon. We took the mini bus into Khayelitsha and walked to Mandela Park to watch them practice. When we got there Bongi threw us right in and had us run some drills for the U11 kids. They were so excited to start practice and were so good at the drills they were doing. Being there and seeing these kids with such energy and so many smiles on their faces made my heart swell because this is the best part of their day and I am so happy to have been apart of it. The best part is when practice was over and they had to go home, none of the kids wanted too. They continued playing and having a fun time when no one was even coaching them. That is what’s so great about the FireFighters; these kids are occupied by a sport that involves teamwork and leadership and they can learn valuable qualities that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives and these practices and games they participate in are ways for them to avoid getting into trouble.

The second highlight was the human rights weekend. When it comes to this past weekend I had no expectations as to what would happen. I did have hope to learn about human rights because I honestly don’t know as much as I should about human rights and I was happy that at the end of this weekend, I did learn more about human rights. This past weekend we were with other African students and hopeful peer educators. Working with them and getting to meet them was the best part of the weekend because its great to learn more about peoples views and opinions and how they might be different or the same as yours. The best part of the weekend was also when we had to do a presentation on an African country of our choice. The country that I was in was Somalia and my group performed a skit to show the history, political and socioeconomic status, human rights, and culture of that country. We did this presentation in order to try to win money from the World Bank and after all of the presentations, we found out that our presentation was the best so we won! I was very happily surprised because it was a lot of fun doing the skit and working with everyone in my group! The human rights weekend was fun and was a way to meet new people and hear their values and I’m glad to have been apart of it.