Anna's extravaganza of new experiences

This past weekend was a much-needed extravaganza of new experiences.  As much as I love Cape Town, we've hit that part of the trip where I'm starting to fall into a routine.  Internship - class - activist project - weekend - repeat.  Honestly, I was starting to feel a bit restless.  Getting a glimpse into the subcultures existing right under my nose in this amazing city was just what I needed to spark things up a bit.

On Saturday we went to Sea Point to watch/participate in the Gay Pride Parade.  I've never been to a gay pride parade before, and after this experience I can't wait to find another.  There is such a spirit of love, and acceptance, and celebration in the air.  Celebration of identity, of standing up against discrimination and demanding to be heard.  The attitude was contagious - I don't think I stopped smiling the entire time I was there.

Saturday night we came back into town to go to a hip-hop dance show that Vernon's son was a part of.  The dancers were all relatively young, some more so than others, and so incredibly talented.  I was awed by their routines, but as I was listening to adolescent boys rapping about their lives in Mitchell's Plain, a large township in the area. I also felt the reality of what some of their lives might be like.  My internship has kept me fairly removed from some of the realities of South Africa in that I don't go into the townships every day, and see the extreme lack of basic services, and social problems that so much of the population lives with as a result of apartheid. 

 Sunday had me thinking even more about the realities of townships, as we met up with some of the people we met at the human rights weekend at a place called Mzoli's.  Mzoli's is an outdoor braai (barbeque) in Gugulethu, another township, where you choose and buy the meat you want and they cook it for you.  It essentially becomes a giant outdoor daylong party.  Like so many of the things we experience here, going Mzoli's has some complex implications as well.  It is largely known as a tourist spot now, and the conspicuousness of my white skin and accent were not lost on me.  I know some people in the area are probably resentful of the crowd at Mzoli's, and in some ways I was uncomfortable as well.  Isn't it nice for us to come in and experience township life for a few hours, before returning home to our gated houses.  I don't ever want to be perceived as making a novelty out of a cruel reality.  These moments of discomfort are a part of our awareness of the social situation in South Africa, and I'm sure there is some wisdom out there about how I am really growing from all of these situations, but they are also sad and challenging and hard, and that's something about being here I think I will never get used to.