Teddy on finding the balance

So, today is Monday the seventh of March and I’m going to unfortunately get this blog in late. However, the past two weeks have been extremely busy and I’m only now sitting down to write it. All of us here in the UConn group have been pretty much running around (almost crazily) trying to do a million things and while that’s the main reason I never found the time to write this blog, the other reason is that the activities we have been doing have all been vying for my attention. In the past two weeks I have seen an incredible concert at the Kirstenbosch Gardens, visited an extremely underdeveloped neighborhood in one of the townships, gone on some incredible rides with the cycling team, completed a human rights training weekend with the NGO Africa Unite, read history and historical-fiction books detailing some of the worst injustices in South African history, and gone on a relaxing hike up the Lion’s Head. Further, I’ve met dozens of extremely interesting people who all have shared stories with me that leave me stunned. So... how could I choose one topic to write about?

Ultimately, though, there has been one topic in particular which has kept popping up among the UConn students: how do we make sense of the fact that on one day we can be working with people living in extreme poverty who are denied a majority of their fundamental human rights, but then the next day we can be lounging on the lawn at Kirstenbosch Gardens with dramatic cliffs overhead while we listen to funky, jazzy, techno? Or, how are you supposed to feel about visiting a restaurant like Mzoli’s in Gugulethu where you are literally surrounded by small house-shacks and poverty yet dining with representatives of every social group in the city?

I really don’t know, but from talking to lots of people the general consensus seems to be that you’ve got to keep up your own spirits by doing fun things you enjoy even if they’re privileged experiences. Brenna Regan put it really well to me when we were at the Gardens just yesterday, saying that if you don’t keep yourself happy you won’t have any energy when you get back to your internship during the work week. And so far that has seemed very true.