The edge of the world [or Africa].

Day # 7 and 8.


We spent this weekend being total tourists. We asked Tyron the mini-bus driver (the same driver that scraped us all up out of 'springbok's club' last thursday) to take us on a half day tour around Boulder's beach and Cape Point. It was about a 30/40 minute drive down to Boulder's beach through Muizenburg, Fish Hoek and Simon's Town. We were even lucky enough to see a whale as we were driving along the route [the bus was close to tilting over sideways with our enthusiasm.]


The penguins hang out in a kind of 'National Trust'-esque area, where you have to pay to go down to the white sand beach [so naturally we went on a frolic of our own to find them in their more natural and free habitats]. I found out that penguins really do smell bad, but they are cute-especially the baby ones who are all fat and fluffy! It was pretty windy that day [thus the bobble hat] so we didn't hang around there too long before moving on to Cape Point [the edge of the world].




Ok, so it's not 'the edge of the world' but it is the furthest South Westerly point in Africa [which is still pretty cool in my book]. We walked along the high coastal path from Cape Point to 'The Cape of Good Hope' and found the most amazing white-sand beach that we had completely to ourselves. The water was cold but after our long trek up to the lighthouse and back it was pretty nice to feel the ocean spray on our faces. We even made a new friend-a wild ostrich [which I, obviously, kept my distance from since they can easily rip you apart "like jurassic park"-nice].


On sunday we decided it would be a fantastically fulfilling idea to leisurely walk up Table Mountain. It was fulfilling. It was not, however, 'leisurely' [in any way]. The five hour hike took us through waterfalls, up ladders and across rocks prone to landslide...but it was most definitely an accomplishment. Needless to say I well and truly stuffed my face at the top of that darned mountain and we happily paid the 90 Rand to get a cable car down on the other side. 


I'm not hurting yet but I know I will be...

Preliminary plan for research project into transitional justice and reconciliation.

Inspiration:

Sitting waiting for the train today made me realise something important about South Africa and life after apartheid. ‘Apartheid’ means ‘separateness’ or being apart. Between 1948 and 1994, apartheid meant, for South Africa, that there was a separation of the people depending on the colour of their skin: whether they were white, black, or coloured. Since 1994, when Nelson Mandela was released and apartheid abolished people have been, in theory, free to go where they choose and mix with others with no formal legal barrier. But in that moment at the train station, however, I had to seriously ask myself: is apartheid really something that we have seen the back of? Do we really have ‘integration’ and togetherness?

The metro rail system here is divided by two different classes-the first and third class. We have been advised, as white volunteers from all over the world, that we should ALWAYS use the first class carriages because being present in the last four carriages would subject us to all kinds of danger…and all at the small price of an extra few pence. There have even been stories around the office of foreign students being dragged from a carriage for being in the 3^rd class compartment by mistake-given the strict warning ‘never sit here-you have no idea of the danger!’

So what is the ethnic breakdown of these two classes of carriage? Need you ask? That’s right, the third class carriage tends to be coloured or black travellers-whilst the first class has several more white faces. So now it appears that there is division between citizens based on their economic circumstance-something our project leader Theodore Kimwimbi has also pointed out to me during the first few days of our induction into the program. I’m interested to know what others think about this theory and to get some different points of view on the correlation between economic segregation and race segregation. I hope that this is the start of some in-depth research whilst I’m over here-or at the very least to spark debate enough to fuel others’ enthusiasm for such a project.

Parliamentary visit #1: Committee meeting re: women, children and persons with diabilities.

·      It’s a shame you can’t take photos here-the galleries are amazing; huge sun beam windows tinted orange etc.

·      There are also many museum cases with historic pieces such as wigs, gowns etc.

·      It’s really informal here-one lady asked who we were [she seemed like an usher] and quickly took our attempt to explain we were volunteers.

·      Security is fairly lax-you cannot take photos but you may have a laptop/camera etc.

·      There is a security point at every building entrance-and the grounds themselves resemble somewhat of a University campus.

·      It is open-so anyone can attend

·      They gave us a pass to enter and asked to see our passports before entering.

·      We could choose from a long list of committee meetings that we could attend: housing, banking and commerce, environmental etc.

·      The physical committee room layout is vaguely similar to that of an English court-with a bench at the far side of the room and the rest of the room filled with two tiered horse-shoe shaped benches with both microphone and speaker facilities.

·      The committee members are mainly of either black or coloured [mixed race] ethnicity. As yet, there are no white committee members, only observers.

·      A camera-man has just set up in the corner of the room.

·      The session is due to start at 9:30am.

·      The shutters come down automatically over the windows, as a projector screen is also set up.

·      The meeting begins. A man is called to take over from the opening speaker-he is blind and is led by the lady to his right at the far end of the room.

·      He begins to talk about the subject ‘access to education and support for learners with special education needs’.

·      The directorate of special education is present and briefly discusses the agenda for today.

·      Each member is told that they can make a presentation.

·      Teenage pregnancy is said to be on the agenda as well as the declining population of students.

·      The man sat at the centre of the bench-an ‘honourable chair person’-begins the meeting with a statement that there are foreign students in the room and asks whether we would like to introduce themselves (one person speaking on our behalf) to say where we are from and what we hope to gain from observing today.

·      Our speaker begins with ‘thank you honourable chair person…’ and goes on t talk about PAHRO.

·      There is an opening speech about the main outline of today and the context in which the committee is discussing these issues.

·      The content of today’s meeting targets access to education and early child development by proposing regular assessment of the system to monitor progress.

·      Action plan designed until 2014.

·      So each presentation by the chair member will cover a particular aspect of this plan and so will cover their entire action plan.

·      Their visions seem very broad and difficult to obtain: an inclusive school system and leading towards an inclusive society.

·      Inclusivity seems to be the focal point during this first presentation.

·      Talks about the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and what they can do to comply better with this [article 24 ‘speaks to the realities on the ground’].

·      Dignity and the respect thereof is very often talked about.

·      There are two types of schools: mainstream/ordinary schools and special schools [learners with disabilities] so these are the two diff types of schools.

·      What they want to do is make special schools for those with severe and intense disabilities.

·      They want to make the ordinary schools better at catering for those who have smaller disabilities-requiring lower levels of support.

·      They count attention deficit disorder as a recognised disability as well as cerebral palsied.

·      The statistics cover all provinces and not a specific one.

·      Provinces are all acronymic: ec, fs, gt, kz, lp etc.

·      There has been 3 billion rand dedicated to special schools in 2010/2011.

·      Curriculum diversity should be improved so as it is representative of the population of schools and how diverse disability can be.

·      The presentation is, once again, interrupted because one woman believes this is too much and that it will make things difficult.

·      5 minutes is spent discussing whether they can compromise for now since ‘the whole world appears to be watching the committee meeting’!

·      The second presentation regards teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and violence in public schools.

·      Talks about the training of teachers to be able to recognise and deal with those children who show signs of abuse.

·      They have conducted their studies based on fertility [births of babies] because, as they so rightly point out, many do not register their pregnancy.

·      They have noted that it is not so much that they fall pregnant and then leave, but that they leave/drop-out and then fall pregnant. So what needs to be concentrated upon is keeping young girls in school.

·      Poor neighbourhoods and schools with age-mixing are worst affected and increase risks.

·      Many young girls get into relationships with older men in return for material goods.

·      Sexuality is not talked about in schools and this is the problem because it is difficult to talk about.

·      The woman that is conducting this presentation is the youngest in the room-I would say no older than early 30’s.

·      Making contraceptives readily available is one of the suggested actions, as well as increasing non-fee schools, access to health care social grants, school safety etc.

·      According to data, young girls do not fall pregnant in order to get these social grants [when births are looked at in relation to the up taking of grants].

·      The eastern cape is the greatest affected area in relation to teenage pregnancy.

·      They want to develop an early warning system; when risk is detected, they would get in touch with support that can help them.

·      Because young women have been known to hide their pregnancy up until the actual birth, it is proposed that a clinic nurse should visit the school on a regular basis in order to ascertain the status and health of young school girls.

·      There are concerns that teachers are having sexual relations with students-and so teachers must be educated themselves on what is legal and what is not tolerated. Schools should also be swift in dealing with such teachers.

·      ‘cool time’ is what students are given after their learning time at school-so it is like play time. The children themselves have actually commented that this is when dangerous things are engaged in and so it is proposed that ‘cool time’ is incorporated into education time so that they are kept safe but get to enjoy themselves through e.g. school clubs, sports and activities.

·      They also want to ensure that girls who leave to give birth are brought back into schools as soon as possible and that they are given a second chance-with some sort of ‘catch-up’ program given to them.

·      One mentality of the past has been to force the mother to stay with the child as a means of punishment for becoming pregnant whilst at a school age. They wish to change this mentality.

·      Increasing uniformity is important when dealing with teenage pregnancies.

·      There has not, as of yet, been any interruptions in this presentation.

·      The presentation comes to an end.

·      Between presentations, there is a joke between the blind man at the head of the bench and one of the other committee members. Her name is clearly difficult to pronounce [representative of the different nationality influences in SA] and, after the 4^th time she pronounces it, he repeats back different phonetics and the room laughs. There is clearly a good feeling amongst the members-and they are happy to joke with one another.

·      The third and final presentation discusses children and crime and violence in schools.

·      UNICEF conducted an audit of 585 schools to look at violence, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and gangsterism.

·      Corporal punishment has been, in more recent years, reported as not being used as often (recorded in 2006-when the program started).

·      It is discussed that security and metal detectors should be introduced so that those who are coming to the schools are only those who have business with those schools and that students cannot bring weapons.

·      A chair person speaks in conclusion-that disease and poverty are great hindrances to these proposals and that, in order to succeed, children need to realise their rights.

·      This is a very inspirational speech considering the work we are currently doing for children through PAHRO.

·      Questions are taken five at a time.

·      One lady, representative of the department of education, says that, in conclusion, she hopes that the educational department are not the only ones blamed for all these ills and agrees that all departments must work together to achieve this.

·      During the questions, the blind man at the head of the bench hears another committee member speak of ‘autism’ and asks what this means. The committee member replies with a vague description of a person who, if the room was set in a particular way, would expect that room to be so each and every time-and if it was not, then they would be very easily irritable.

·      One of the questions catches my attention: a chair women asks whether it is true that teachers have been found to have engaged in sexual relations with students and goes on to ask how many have been found guilty?

Diving in [off] at the deep end [of the bridge].

Day # 3

After six hours on the train, 15 hours of flying and a six hour lay-over, I finally got into Cape Town Saturday lunchtime. I’m staying with a lady called Eleanor in the ‘Heathfield’ area, which is predominantly coloured (as is Eleanor and her granddaughter Carryn), about 40 minutes away from central Cape Town. There are six of us girls living in the house in total: Italian, British, Swiss-German and Australian-all participating in different projects around the city. The girls took me out to late lunch that day in ‘Camps Bay’ on the western coast of the city and we discussed their upcoming trip up the garden route to Blookrans Bridge to bungee jump off of the worlds biggest bridge bungee. They asked me to come along and by 10pm we were all piling into Michelle’s boutique hotel room-sleeping bag in hand-to get our heads down before the Garden Route drive at 4am.

I watched the sun rise against the black of the Cape mountains and gawped at every ostrich-inhabited field pretty much from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay (some 324 miles). Spent the whole journey battling with myself as to whether I would actually throw myself 216 metres from a bridge, but with such a fantastic atmosphere out on the ledge created by the guys at ‘Face Adrenaline’ and my new housemates, I managed to rise to the challenge and conquer my fear of heights. And wow, what a feeling! The guys said I screamed quite a lot, but in all honesty most of it was that kind of exhilarated yelp like you’ve just realised you can perform magic or something.

We drove back to the house in time to get enough sleep for my orientation the next day-which was an absolute hoot! There are some really nice people on the program and, even though some will only be around for a couple of weeks, people make friends and bond really quickly. We spent the day picking up home comforts and things that we had forgotten-as well as getting out trendy new 100 rand mobile phones (less than £10) [can you detect the sarcasm in my voice?] but it’s better than getting thumped around the head for the sake of an iPhone.

Dinner at Eleanor’s house is always good. She’s such a fantastic cook, especially considering she caters for eight of us almost every night. Her butternut soup is to die for and it’s always a really homely atmosphere-all of us muck in with the washing up and laying of the table and as a treat one of the girls may have bought dohnuts or a milk tart for us all to share for desert. So tomorrow I start my first day at the Projects Abroad Human Rights Office (PAHRO) and that’s when the hard work starts…