“Analyzing Apartheid over Coffee” by Marie

During my lovely and sunny Cape Town breakfasts I often find myself thinking about apartheid. Why? Because I have been indulging in segregated breakfast foods. The South African brand, “Pot O’Gold,” has a yummy spread that features equal amounts of chocolate and hazelnut cream separated in a jar. However, to create the sumptuously delicious combination which is the chocolate-hazelnut spread, the two parts must be integrated on a piece of finely-toasted bread to create the full effect. All of the items are good by themselves, but together they make my breakfast much richer and exponentially more indulgent. Perhaps this might be the corniest analogy ever, but my breakfast is akin to South African history.

The chocolate (Africans) the hazelnut (whites) and the toast (coloreds) which were separated at first, all come together in the end to make a breakfast (country) that is rich and diverse. Over the past week, I have been carefully considering all of the contributions that each race makes to South Africa and realized that, should the influence of any one group be missing, the country would lack the enormous cultural affluence that it possesses. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about “The Struggle” and my morning meal is only a small reminder that post-apartheid South Africa is truly a “delicious mixed spread.”