One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about being
here in Cape Town is the conversations I get to have with ordinary people every
day. I’ve become good friends with the bus driver who brings me to work, and he
loves to talk about whatever’s going on in Cape Town and even in the world.
Today he asked what I was studying, and when I mentioned politics he was ready
to talk all about US politics with me. He started asking me if I liked the
Democrats or Republicans, who did I think was going to run for president next,
and whatever happened to Al Gore! I realized I had no idea about South Africa’s
politics before I decided to come on this program, and even now my knowledge is
nowhere near as extensive as his knowledge of the US. It’s amazing to me how
the rest of the world is so attuned to what goes on in the States, but
Americans are so ignorant of anything that happens abroad. In fact, a few days
ago I was reading The Economist and I noticed that the US had its own section,
while the Middle East and Africa shared a section. Just for fun I decided to
count the number of pages allotted to each: the US (one country) received 6
pages, while the Middle East and Africa (about 71 countries) received 4 pages.
I didn’t really know what to make of this, to be honest. It made me think about
the curriculum for history and world events that I went through at school-
there were no classes on Africa, Asia, or South America at all, and our “World
Civilizations” class was really European history. I’m embarrassed at how little
I know, but I was never really aware of how much I didn’t know! Even general
education requirements for college can be fulfilled without really being
exposed to other cultures. It’s kind of scary that someone can graduate in this
globalized world and not really know anything about most of it.
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| Table Mountain & Devil's Peak (view from bus during Caitlin's ride to her internship) |
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