"After the change..."

Every time Malefi talks about events in South Africa of the past 75 years, he uses the phrase “after the change” or “before the change.” Instead of using numbers, or saying since the end of apartheid, he talks about the change. Maybe I’m just rambling about semantics here, but that’s really interesting to me. The new elections in 1994 and the end of apartheid was not only a major milestone, but both the biggest event (THE change) and a complete transformation (the CHANGE). I’m sorry if I’m not making sense here, but they way he, among others, emphasize both words, make me realize that the events culminating in the 1994 election were both huge and transformational. It’s so interesting for me to see that there was such a singular issue that dominated (and continues to dominate) both politics and everyday life.

On to my day’s activities, which are probably of more interest. First we went to a semi-private (Catholic) secondary school. I was amazed by both the amount of knowledge and the amount of preconceptions that the students had about the United States. That mixture of truth and false perception probably mirrors my notions about the region. I was also really surprised to see how concrete and lofty the career goals of the students were. Many of the girls told me they wanted to be chemical engineers or doctors, and Banana, my personal tour guide and a student in 11th grade, told me that he wanted to be a gynecologist. They also had interesting insights into the South African educational system; most often cited as an issue was the lack of resources. It was really fun to learn from the kids and also to talk to them and I took some great pictures and laughed a lot.

Afterwards, we went to the Hector Pieterson museum. Hector Pieterson was a 13 year old boy killed during the student protests of June 16th, 1976. As such, he has become a symbol of the liberation struggle. We heard his sister, Antoinette Sithole, speak and then toured the museum, which was really well presented and informative. I am looking forward to my trip to the Apartheid Museum tomorrow and the Voortrekker Museum next week to compare.

Now I’ve got to go, time for a group session on “Group Dynamics.” I’m anticipating trust falls….hopefully I won’t break my nose this time!