Bernie knows she's changed ---but waiting to fully appreciate just how

I’ve been home for a week and I am ready to go back to South Africa! Its weird though, it feels like I never left home after this past week back but I feel as if a part of me is missing and I think that part is South Africa and how South Africa made me feel, think, and act. My experience in South Africa is one that I can never explain to anyone and that’s hard because I want everyone to know the greatness that South Africa offers; not just how pretty South Africa is but how it forces you to change your point of view and way of living for the better. I’ve only been home for a week and I’m already nervous about falling into my old roles before I left. However I am working really hard not to do that, I speak up more to express my opinions and notice situations differently. South Africa has changed me but I feel as if I won't notice or appreciate the change completely until after I graduate college and really become apart of the real world and I can't wait for that time.

           

Being in South Africa it made me want to jump into the real world as fast as I can. I went to graduation for UCONN this past weekend and I was jealous that I wasn’t one of the names being called to get my diploma. South Africa was a glimpse into me living my life and I enjoyed every second of it and I didn’t want it to end. I want to be able to start to change the world and the way I want to do that is be an international public health advocate. I want to be able to give countries preventative ways in order to live a healthier life.

           

I miss my internship at Sarah Fox. I miss the babies and their personalities. I just want them to have a good life and grow up just like any other kid should, but with their circumstances they come from I don’t know if that is possible. What is also hard is these babies that I’ve come to know and love, they wont remember me but I will never forget them.

           

I have a long summer ahead of me but I am looking forward to next semester and then graduating so that I can start my life and start to help people. I just hope that what I learned in South Africa stays with me.

Bernie will bring home lessons learned

This past weekend I went to the beach everyday. Being at the beach is one of my favorite things so I am making sure that before I leave I go as many times as I can. Also I hiked Table Mountain this past Friday and that was an experience. I am not sure what hiking trail we did but all I know is that it was hard but I am so happy I did it. I feel like when you come to Cape Town you have to hike Table Mountain, so after 3 months I can cross that off my list. It’s crazy that there is less than 2 weeks left here in Cape Town. I still feel like I have so much to do with so little time. I’m excited to go home and see my family but I am sad to leave this beautiful place but I am going to make these last 2 weeks the best before I leave!

On another note in Marita’s class we watched a video, America Needs Human Rights, on how America violates them on a daily basis. I never thought much about human rights in America and that is mostly because of the circumstances that I was raised in. However after seeing this video I realized that human rights do get violated everyday, there’s a violation when we see a homeless man in New York but we don’t see it like that. After watching that video I changed my perspective so instead of saying there’s a homeless man, I will see him as a man who is having his rights violated by not being given shelter and food. I wish everyone in America realized that there are people whose rights are being violated right next to them, but they don’t realize it because since their rights aren’t being violated they aren’t worried about someone else’s; that’s how I used to think. However it’s important to think about others whose rights are being violated because we're all connected and should care for each other and want the most for one another. People in America need to realize that America isn’t the best country, that we have even more problems than other countries and its time to do something about it and fix those problems. I am going to take the information learned from this video and use it when I get home and get people to see the truth and how to fix it.

Bernie finding connections between the past and present

Well today was the first day back to real life after going on our excursion to Johannesburg and Kruger National Park. The excursion was such an awesome experience in so many ways. What I loved about being in Johannesburg was going to the museums and memorials. I enjoyed going to those things because it made me think of some of the information we all learned in Vincent’s class and with having that knowledge and seeing the museum and memorials with pictures and videos really just allowed me to see how things were for people back then during apartheid and it allowed me to learn more and really understand the impact of apartheid. My favorite memorial was the Hector Pieterson Memorial. I enjoyed this museum because most of it contained first hand accounts as to what happened during the Soweto Uprising. While reading those first hand accounts I became very emotional because of the fact that these children were not armed and were not causing any harm, they just freaked out a couple of police officers who decided that it was okay to shoot them because of it. 

 

It just upsets me to see that that happened to people, and how people still until this day are affected by these events and all the events during apartheid. What also upsets me is that these kind of events happened in the past, happen in the present, and will probably happen in the future in the United States. I always find myself thinking about the article that we read once for Marita’s class about what American history tells us and what they don’t tell us. I think about that article because when I hear stories about what happened during apartheid in South Africa I become shocked that these horrible events and tragedies happened to the people. Then I think about why I am so shocked because these events happened in the US as well but I am shocked because I don’t know about those events, history never taught us about it.

On another note, there is only 18 days left here in South Africa and I’m freaking out because I feel like there is still so much that I want to do here! I’m not ready to leave this beautiful place yet so I have to make the most out of these next 18 days before flying home!

Bernie's running and discovering

Today has already been a crazy day because I just ran the Two Oceans Half Marathon. This was something that I have been trying to accomplish for 3 years, so I am very excited to have completed it in one of prettiest places on earth! First half marathon and it was in Cape Town! That’s so awesome!!

Anyways this past week I have been reflecting a lot with everything that we have learned. In class we watched a video called “I Am’ and that is the reason I have been reflecting. This movie was a very eye-opening movie for me to watch. It was eye opening because it talks about everyone is connected when in our world we are all used to talking about how we’re different. This video asks what’s wrong with the world and it made me realize that I am what’s wrong with the world, people are what’s wrong with the world because we all find ways to separate ourselves when in reality our body tells us that were connected, nature tells us that were connected, but we don’t listen to that. What I loved about this video was that it was very scientific. Me as a lover of science I love hearing about experiments done and what the results are and what was found was that we are all connected by electromagnetic waves, through the heart, and through the air. It also said that science is finally catching up with spirituality. To me that is crazy because those two worlds have different views of how the world was made and topics of that matter but with the video saying that science finally caught up with spirituality, shows me that science isn’t always right, and that’s a hard thing for me to admit because I always see science as the main answer to questions. Spirituality always said that were all connected and now science is saying that too. I wish that more people knew this information in order to embrace it more. I very much enjoyed the “I Am’ video that we watched and it really made me rethink the world.

We go to Johannesburg tomorrow and I am so excited to see a new area and learn some new information! It should be a really fun week and we get to it end it with Kruger National Park and get to see the Big 5 hopefully!

Bernie's week was emotionally rough

This week has been a rough one emotionally on me due to my internship. It has been rough emotionally because having worked with these kids for 3 days out of the week for the past 2 months I have become so connected to them and connected to who they are as individuals. They are all such wonderful children who have their whole lives ahead of them but yet they are in this convalescent home for more than 6 months, which is not normal, because their families of which they come from don’t want them. That saddens me so much because to hear that a parent doesn’t want their child is unreal to me. I sit in the weekly MDT meetings and hear about how the social worker tries to contacts the parents to come in to visit their child, but they say no and they don’t come and visit their kid. They abandon their kid and it frustrates me so much because if I had a kid I would NEVER abandon them, if I were able to I would take these abandoned kids home with me in May. I also understand that situations may be different than one I would be in when I have kids but I just don’t understand how a mother and father could abandon their kid with no worry about what happens to them. I think because I have been with these kids so long I know who they are and how great and how much potential they have and how they need a family to continue to thrive and how they don’t have one upsets me so much and frustrates me because it’s the parents choice. That’s how I’m feeling at the moment.

Also another thing that this happened this week was a child was used as a human shield in Manenberg during a gang fight and he was shot and now he is paralyzed for life. Hearing that story really shocked me because I never actually heard a story like that where people I know work near. That made me think though because this kind of violence happens all the time in the US but we don’t hear about it as much, we hear about the violence more here in South Africa. Why? I think that we don’t hear about it as much in the US because it goes along with how history neglects to tell us the bad parts of history and how we ended up where we are. I think the news somewhat does that as well in the US where it neglects to tell us about the bad that can happen, especially to kids. I am continuing to notice these differences between the US and South Africa and am beginning to get frustrated with how much information gets hid in the US

Bernie's mixed emotions

Bernie feeling at home

 

The past couple of days have been like any other week here in South Africa. I went to internship and did my daily routine. I think that it is crazy to me that I have a daily routine here. It’s as if I have actually lived here my whole life when in reality, I have only been here for about 2 months but it doesn’t feel like it. South Africa feels like home now, and I love it. With Cape Town feeling like I home I am starting to get a little homesick. I have a lot of feelings at the moment as you can tell! I don’t feel homesick as in I miss Connecticut, I miss my family and I wish everyday that they were here to experience this wonderful place. With that in mind though my sister just told me she might be visiting and I am so excited if she does. Then she will understand the love I have for this place and be able to love and experience it for herself! So hopefully she comes to visit! So at the moment it feels like home in Cape Town and I love it and the other half of me feels homesick for my family

Bernie's adventurous March

This past weekend was the beginning of what I would like to call adventure time here in South Africa. On Friday I went to the beach at Camps Bay and got very badly burnt (that’s no surprise, it happens a lot). It was a perfect beach day and the start to a good weekend. On Saturday I went into town to Green Market Square and let me tell you, the things that are sold there are beautiful! Its crazy that people make these things because they’re so perfectly made it looks like it could’ve been manufactured.  I will definitely be heading back there to get gifts for my family and friends that I know they will love. On Sunday, a group of us went sand boarding! Just a preface, I have never been snowboarding, wake boarding, skate boarding, pretty much I have never done any kind of boarding so sand boarding was a new thing for me that I was going to struggle with. However when we got there and started it was so much fun! I was not as bad as I thought I would be! Granted I’m nowhere near pro level but hey it was still fun! What was not fun about sand boarding had to walk back up the very steep sand dune, that was a workout. My favorite part of sand boarding was going down on my butt on the board, which was right up my alley.

This upcoming week is going to be one for the books. On Wednesday a group of us are going shark diving and I couldn’t be more excited and also a little nervous. Then on Friday another group of us are going skydiving and I always wanted to do that so I am stoked for that! My adrenaline is already pumping for this week to begin and I am so excited! Also in two weeks I'll be doing the Garden Route with an elephant walk, bungee jumping, canoeing, and so much more. So lets just say March is already looking like my favorite month here in South Africa and it’s only the 10^th!