Teddy's revising goals for the semester

I arrived in Cape Town less than four days after returning to NYC from Chennai, India, where I had been for nearly two weeks. So, needless to say, the past three weeks have been culturally rich and diverse, leaving me very eager for just a single day to wake up late and calmly soak in my current surroundings.

I haven’t had this opportunity yet, which I’m really looking forward to whenever it does arrive, but in the meantime I’ve been able to dive into South African culture with the help of Marita and Vernon’s fast-paced orientation program. The past several days have been a whirlwind of meetings with passionate educators of South African society, eating unbelievable food, visiting unique museums, visiting my classmates’ internship sites, and training rides through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen on my bike.

I brought my bike in order to race with the University of Cape Town cycling team. And while my training rides are primarily for training, they have offered me some of the best opportunities to reflect on what I’m seeing and learning in South Africa. While riding I often find myself comparing the problems South Africa deals with (which my group has been learning about) with the experiences of the people living in the safe, wealthy neighborhoods I ride through (where the quietest roads are).

For example, while riding on a beautiful mountain road adjacent to vineyards and cute Dutch cottages (with leafy branches reaching out over me from private gardens), a vintage German sports car will pass by and I find myself thinking about how it had probably been brought into the country in a time when thousands of people were being forced from the lively city center to the distant Cape Flats, separated based on ethnic groups. Or, when passing by a vineyard it is impossible to not think about how its first vines were probably planted by foreign slaves (who now receive little to no recognition for the back breaking work they did).

At first I wondered if I was just one of a few others who were also repeatedly stressing over the diversity of lifestyles and how they relate to the country's history and problems. After speaking to many of my other classmates, though, it’s definitely a trend. In fact, many of us are also trying to reconcile the socioeconomic struggles of South Africa with the variety of lifestyles that we witness here. So, that said, I’ve revised my goals for myself here; I don’t want to just learn about the different subcultures here and their histories and important facts - I also hope to understand better over the next semester where and how the subcultures, from all social backgrounds, work together and how they're still trying to improve relations.