Liz reflects on the last month

As we draw to the end of February I’ve been looking back on some of the things we have experience this month that have allowed me to become more attuned with the South African culture.

The first experience that stick out in my head is the Homestay weekend we did a few weekends ago in Ocean View. The UCONN group was split into pairs and welcomed into a home for the weekend. Some seemed to be welcomed a little bit more than others, such as myself, but this allowed my roommate and I to learn about the sense of community in South Africa. Our friends down the block were staying with an extremely welcoming family so when my roommate and I were sitting alone in the kitchen staring at the huge hot dogs that had been placed on our plates and I was contemplating how I was going to eat both mine and my roommates, because she’s a vegetarian, and survive the rest of the rainy day in our host house the two most beautiful faces appeared. Our two friends from down the block, also from UCONN, walked into the kitchen and asked us if we wanted to go the local mall with them to get out of the house, despite the fact that it was raining (apparently life stops when it rains in South Africa…). We jumped up so fast we nearly knocked over the table and off we went with the local Pastor, his son, and his two adopted UCONN sons to the mall.

This rainy day was instantly brighter as soon as we started talking with the family from down the street. I instantly liked the older son who was cracking jokes from introductions. The pastor was extremely nice as well and off to the mall we went. When we got home we stayed over at the Pastor’s house for a Baai and while he was cooking we had a jam session with his son, Nathan. It was awesome to watch (because I have no musical talent whatsoever) everyone jam together and just play instruments and make beautiful music. The Braai was delicious, so much meat! But what happened after dinner was my favourite part. We went out and walked around all of Ocean View with Nathan. He took us to the other houses that UCONN students were staying in which allowed us to see how other peers were fairing and also see the sense of community that was prominent throughout the entire community. Two of our other friends that had also been adopted by another family as well. It was so nice to see the way the students were being taken in and taken care of and how more people, who just showed up at the door, were welcomed into the homes the same. The entire community was warm. Whether the families were living in the bigger houses up at the top of the Ocean View or down towards the bottom in some of the smaller houses where the majority of families were extremely welcoming, and everyone knew Nathan. It was an excellent experience, and we were so thankful to be adopted by such a loving and welcoming family.

Liz with some new friends in Ocean View

The second weekend that had a huge impact was this weekend. We spent this weekend in Malmesbury, about an hour outside of Cape Town, at the Goedgedacht Olive Farm learning about human rights. For this human rights training workshop there were 30 American students and about 25 African students, some from South Africa and others from throughout the continent that all came together to learn about human rights.

Liz "performs" in group skit

Through a series of different exercises, where we spilt the group into different peers and dubbed a country, we were able to learn a little bit more about human rights. As a country we partook in a series of exercises one of which required us to determine if another country could join us on our new planet, another exercise required us to research the country we had been dubbed and present on why our country deserved $1Billions to help better the country. What was better than any of the exercises were the meals, where we were able to meet, mingle, and talk to the other peers attending this workshop. The location and style of the workshops were so conducive to learning and I was able to take away so much more than just the facts of human rights that we went over. 

In addition to these two fabulous weekend adventures my days of February have been filled with small, yet mighty, adventures. I hope they only continue throughout March and April.

‘Til next time, peace out broskis.