Ashlyn's reflections on Unity

So this is the last post before I return home, which is really strange and doesn’t seem possible. This past week my mom has been here visiting the beautiful city that I’ve come to love. We’ve done quite a lot the past week and even a few things I hadn’t done yet, including going to Cape Point (which provides a beautiful hilltop view of the ocean), and going to a delicious restaurant called Mama Africa’s. On Friday, the two of us went to the Cape Town soccer game in the 2010 World Cup Stadium and we caught up with a bunch of other girls living in the house. I was sitting behind Caitlin, and we were commenting on the vuvuzelas (plastic horns that are used at sporting matches). At the game, various vuvuzela players who didn’t know each other would come together and get a tune going without any prior planning. Caitlin was telling me about a conversation she had with someone else about how such an occurrence would never happen in the United States. During our time here we’ve been discussing the differences in South African and American culture. I find the vuvuzelas a good metaphor for both South African and U.S. society. South Africans know that by banding together they can create something bigger and better than they could do alone, whereas Americans often get too caught up trying to get their own voice bigger and better than everyone else’s.

Ajax vs University of Pretoria (2-0) at Cape Town Stadium

As my time here in Cape Town comes to a close, it comes with a great deal of reflection on what I’ve done and learned here. Overall, I think the most important thing I’ve learned is to think more critically and to keep everyone’s best interests at heart. On the application to come here (which strangely feels like it was a thousand years ago or yesterday depending on the day) we were allowed to write an optional scholarship essay on what it means to be a global citizen. At the time I really had no idea what to write (or what the committee would want to read) and I remember being puzzled because I had never heard the term used before. I like to think I now know what the term means to me (and that it doesn’t matter as much what other people want to read, but what you believe). To me it means that many people throughout the world are only thinking about themselves, and it’s important to question the norm and think what’s best for everyone. To put it in South African terms; Ubuntu.