Julia's eventful and informative week

This past week has been quite eventful and informative to say the least.  On Saturday I ran myfirst international race, the Two Oceans Half Marathon. Although it was by far the hilliest and the toughest half I’ve done, I successfully finished and am so proud to have been apart of it.

Emily L, Ashlyn, Caitlin, Chritina, Bernie and Julia follow their run in the Two Oceans Half Marathon

The next day we left for Johannesburg. It’s funny, but I could tell immediately that Johannesburg would not give me the same feeling of home and belonging that I feel in Cape Town. Despite being full of history, Johannesburg is a big city that is missing something Cape Town has, at least in my opinion. Perhaps it’s the diversity of scenery in Cape Town, or maybe just the fact that we will not actually get to know Johannesburg and its people on that same level. Either way, I think my heart is with Cape Town.

We visited all of the major places in Johannesburg like the Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill, Freedom Square, Vilakazi Street, the Hector PietersonMuseum, and Sharpeville, but we also got the chance to spend a day at the Boysand Girls Club in Soweto and have dinner at Dani’s aunt’s house. These last three, Sharpeville, the Boys and Girls Club, and Dani’s aunt’s house were my favorite parts of Johannesburg.

At Sharpeville we were lucky enough to have Alice as one of our guides. Alice was still young in 1960 when the Sharpeville Massacre took place, but she was very knowledgeable and passionate in her telling of the tragedy and the apartheid years. She was a housekeeper and caretaker for a family during the apartheid years. Her personal experiences helped me see just how cruel the system could be and make people be. She discovered one day after the dog kept barking at her as she was eating, that the plate she was eating on was meant for the dog. The prejudice of the woman she worked for was so strong that Alice wasn’t even worthy, as a black person, to eat off a plate that wasn’t meant for the dog. Alice couldn’t even kiss or hug the kids she raised in the presence of any white adult. It seems like a pattern that the prejudice existed in a way that white people didn’t want others touching any of their stuff or themselves- as if being black was somehow contagious? How is it that skin is the cause of such hatred, fear, and prejudice? I remember when I was little I was very self-conscious of my vitiligo on my knees, a skin disease that causes loss of pigmentation in skin. Other kids questioned me with a sense of disgust about what was on my knees. I would answer saying that it was just a birthmark. I knew that the second I said a skin disease they would see in a different light, as if I was contagious. Eventually, I stopped wearing shorts for a while to avoid conflict. But my issue with skin can be covered up, and that’s the real and important difference between me, as a white person with just a blemish really, and a black person. I can cover up that little piece of me that people may find prejudice against, but a black person can’t cover every inch of their body with clothing to hide from prejudice. Again, a white privilege to be able to hide a part of the body I don’t like. I just can’t imagine being fearful for my life and dignity because of my skin color that I can’t hide. To be afraid of looking the way you do is unfathomable to me. Lastly, we went to see the graves of the 69 people that were found dead after the massacre. There, Alice told us that she lost two children in the struggle and only has one child that survived. It’s probably been years since her two other children died, but even today Alice couldn’t talk about it and started crying. I, too, too have lost someone important, and did struggle with talking about him without crying, but I can’t say that I will be doing that after twenty years of his death. His death was tragic, without a doubt, and I know it may be wrong to compare, but I think the death of her sons was more tragic with the circumstances they died under. How can she not cry after so many years? Her children were killed under a system of cruelty and discrimination, under a system that hated her children for no justifiable reason. Neither deaths were fair, but it seems to me the reasoning behind the death of Alice’s children is harder to get over.

Our day in Soweto at the Boys and Girls Club was such a fun day. We started out volunteering, with each of us doing different things. I helped pick up trash in the park next to the club and pulled weeds in the garden while others did administrative work or organized the library. Before lunch was ready, which was maybe a four-hour process of braai-ing sausages, a few of us played basketball with the kids and ran a few races. One of the little kids we played basketball with was so tiny and only six years old. On the court the only thing he said was “team” to get our attention. So I refer to him as Team as I cannot even try to spell his real name without totally butchering it. He is an extremely happy kid; all of them seemed to be. I kept thinking throughout the day that it would be so nice to be young again and have no worries. Thinking about a day full of basketball, races, handclap games, and Easter egg hunts seems like a pretty good day to me. 

But then I found out Team’s story, and I realized not every kid, especially those in South Africa, grow up without worries. Team’s mother is in prison and he lives with his cousins. His mother used to beat him and drank quite a bit. The woman who told me this frankly said, “His mother deserves to die” right in front of Team, who just minutes before was singing a song with lyrics stating, “My mom is the best.” I personally didn’t agree with this woman’s choice to say such a statement in front of Team, but he didn’t seem to notice or have any reaction to it and went on with the easy distractions that kids occupy their time with. I just couldn’t believe that such a happy little boy could have such a tragic past and still go on in such a manner. Maybe he was too young to really remember or just blocked those memories out, but I’m realizing our experiences of childhood are completely different. I’ve already realized this, but it’s a hard idea to grasp still. I was never put in a dangerous situation when I was a child, especially not intentionally. I could play outside wherever I wanted. I had a camp to go to each summer when my parents were at work. I knew at the end of each day my parents would be there for me and feed me and care for me. Not every child grows up without worry; in fact, I think most do not.

Group at the Pinville Boys and Girls Club in Soweto

On a more positive note, I also got the chance to go to dinner at Dani’s aunt’s house. Dani’s aunt and uncle were deeply involved in the struggle and were married illegally during the struggle by violating the Mixed Marriages Act. This was my first assumption challenged when stepping into Cheryl’s house. I fully expected, considering that Dani is white, that Cheryl too would be white. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Cheryl was indeed black, and the rest of the guests were also black. I liked that this was the case because I knew I would get stories and participate in conversations that were more meaningful than what I would expect from a conversation with a white South African. White South Africans were of course in the struggle, like Cheryl’s husband Graeme, but I think more often than not white people were on the sidelines.

Anyways, Cheryl was the Deputy General of the ANC at one point and the High Commissioner of South Africa in London. She casually had pictures around the house of her and Mandela, Robert DeNiro, Desmond Tutu, and Oprah. They are pretty important people and I found my self in awe taking picture of their pictures. Going back to conversations, I did get those meaningful conversations and stories that I wanted, but I also had completely normal conversations about running and travel. One woman described for us her experience of the Soweto uprising in 1976. She was only eight years old but she remembers that public transportation stopped and she had to walk all the way home with her mother through the masses of people. She, like every other child, was taught in Afrikaans. She said it took maybe seven years after the uprising for the Bantu Education Act to drop Afrikaans as the medium on instruction in schools. That’s a really long time to solve a problem that obviously caused a lot of uproar.

I was thoroughly impressed by the people at the dinner party. I think, especially with South Africa, there is an assumption that black people are still struggling. While this is true that black people are significantly behind white people in terms of socio-economic standards, some have made it. The people at the party were bankers, financial advisors, entrepreneurs, or IT people. Many of them have travelled around Africa and Europe. One married couple does marathons in different countries. They were just in Spain for one, but have also done ones in Paris and Prague, and are now planning to go to Peru to see Machu Picchu. I hate to admit it, but I was shocked and impressed. I loved to see that the struggling black isn’t the story for all. But it is impossible to forget that it is the story for most. Overall, this was my absolute favorite part of Johannesburg because I got the chance to talk to South Africans on a level that was so casual, but also so deep and inspirational. We were there from 6pm to midnight and I could’ve stayed longer just to talk to everyone and eat more of Cheryl’s delicious food.