Cape Town

Cape town is my new favorite city! The waterfront is amazing! We pulled right into the harbor, so we can walk everywhere around the waterfront. There are tons of shops, restaurants, sailing, and great performances! This is a kind of like a prettier and more condensed version of the baltimore harbor actually! Its awesome pulling right into the harbor too because unlike our other ports you have to walk a bit or take a taxi to get anywhere, so its great to walk off the ship and be right there! Cape town is so beautiful with the ocean and Table mountain squeezing the city into a fairly small area. The most meaningful things we have done here are the township visits. I can't even describe the condition these 'flats' are in. roughly 10 million people still live in these shanty towns where they have nothing more than tin roofs and dirt floors. Over the past three days I went to three different townships, and it never got easier. The most amazing thing, however, was people of all ages were so happy to see us. Kids crowded around the busses and followed us as we visited various things, and loved any attention we gave them. But, what shocked me the most was how happy many adults were to see us. Here we are white americans rolling in on huge, ostentatious buses to observe their lives, and they couldn't be more open about it. In one of the towns, Kayelitsha (the biggest township in the cape town area), a woman has started a bed and breakfast through which she has now raised enough money to do many community projects. She was speaking to us and she couldn't thank us enough for coming. To her, our presence alone was helping the community and something she said realyl stuck with me. She said "come here not to stare at our poverty, but to learn." While we were driving in I felt so awkward because I was trying to imagine how I would react if people were coming to me neighborhood just to stare. but, she immediatley made me feel at home, and as we talked to more people I began to feel like our presence made a difference. We helped make the day for so many kids who we played with, and even the adults, one of which said he took white people coming into this area as a good luck sign, couldn't have been friendlier. I was so touched by everything i saw that day. I can't imagine how these people live with literally nothing, but beyond that these are the ones who were most affected by apartheid. They were marginalized for so many years, and it is heartbreaking to see how many are still in similar situations nearly 15 years after apartheid ended. I know it takes years and years to help these people improve their lives, but no one should have to live like that. I kept thinking how lucky i was because at the end of the day, i get to leave. I get on an an airconditioned bus, and I know I will be able to eat and relax in a clean, safe environment. Following this we had the most amazing lunch in another township, where this woman has turned her home into a resteraunt. Then we headed to Robben Island, where Mandela and so many others spent years as political prisoners. What is so amazing is that many of the political prisoners live and work on the island now. How strong these people have to be to return to the facilities where they were locked up, and were treated horribly. They had to live in cells with no glass in the windows, no warm clothing or anything except a few blankets. The whole tour was amazing and so surreal, you know to walk the same halls as nelson mandela and all the other leaders of the resistance movement here. Ah its just so humbling to think what they gave up for their country.