It has officially been 6 days since I have left Cape Town, 5
days since I arrived in my own home, 4 days since I unwillingly unpacked my
suitcases and realized I wasn’t going back to Cape Town in the next couple of
weeks…. 3 days since I already had a fight with my friend whose opinion on the
world is so starkly different from my own that I am afraid of how or if we will
communicate now about issues that we both feel polar to. It has been 2 days
since I visited with my grandmother and tried to explain in pictures what I
couldn’t, until eventually I dissolved. 1 day since I went back up to UConn to
see how life had carried on with my peers during the semester I was
abroad and found that my friends had been active all semester with amazing
causes- everything from UConn Amnesty to UConn Empowered.
Today- I am sick in bed, and so I am taking
this brief moment of rest to close the final formal homework assignment for
Cape Town. My last Blog Post, it has been challenging to write blog posts all
semester because each one requires that we look at a situation and draw from it
some ideas and conclusions as to how it affected us rather than simply noting
that it happened. I’ve now got four months of summer break ahead of me- and in
my mind I keep remembering how much was accomplished in Cape Town during that
time. Its exciting- because potentially the same could be done here.
Perhaps it is
now necessary to end the mourning period for Cape Town and instead let this
ball of emotion in my stomach start to churn and turn into energy again. There
are plenty issues in my own community.
In the light of the Boston Attacks some of that old group-blaming
attitude has resurfaced, perhaps I may find a way to become involved with the
Muslim community and better understand how even as American citizens they are
still in many times of fear treated as scapegoats.
In my own University community we currently have a outrage
against a female student who intelligently and rightfully spoke out against the
worship of our basketball team. She asked that we, as a university, support the
students who have been victimized on campus rather than uphold the so-called
“values” of our sports teams. The response to her sensible plea has been
appalling and disgusting. Threats have been made to this student as she
attempts to go to class and the university continues to act as though there is
not a startling rape culture on our campus, and even more hostility toward
female students than is acceptable in a school where we make up 50% of the
undergraduate population and deserve equal protection from the school.
It seems that
there are a few issues near and dear to me that I need to give attention to. I
am excited to start work in my own country and within my own communities. The
struggle with working in your own community is perhaps falling into the mindset
that it can get done later- that if you don’t accomplish something today it
will be a sure to do tomorrow. Perhaps just as we did in Cape Town I should
take tours of my own communities- go into those school districts which I don’t
yet know much about- those city streets I’ve been warned not to wander in.
Maybe I need to listen to the stories told by people who are here and need the
hand that I am ready to give. There is a campus full of students bursting with
potential to make a difference in this world- I am in a prime position to
strike the match that ignites a passion for some of them so that as a team this
upcoming year we can effect some sort of change.
While in Cape Town I became quite fond of my project-
Africa Acts Out. I named it this because of the play on words it had on the
creativity that the program would include. The other reason was a quote that I
have always been quite fond of, “well behaved women seldom make history.” I agree wholeheartedly that groups of people
who take up a cause and develop it into a full movement are the ones who make
the change. I hope that in the near future I can keep up this momentum and
desire to make the world a better place. That united, we can continue to Act
Out.
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