The Thrill is Gone

Arrived back safely tonight. The cold that had been circulating among our group finally hit me as we landed in Frankfort (1/2 through the return trip). It compounds the jet leg, but I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with in SA. I left kicking and screaming though b/c if money were no object I would have stayed there another couple of months easily (well I also missed my dog). Upon recommendation a couple of days ago I started reading the book Power of One which is really good and allows me to feel like I haven’t left altogether.

I attempted to find a church to worship with on Sun. morning, but that didn’t work out (although there seems to be seven in the greater CT area). Instead I walked around the aquarium which was nice and semi relaxing when kids weren’t screaming or pushing me. So during 36 hours plus/minus of travel I had plenty of time to think about how I would wrap up my thoughts on the trip. As you may have noticed the natural beauty that CT and the surrounding Western Cape province offers impressed me the most. I was really disappointed not to have more interaction with local people, which was a major advantage to the trip last summer (even if it was under very formalized circumstances). I think another thing I enjoyed about CT is that I wasn’t stressed at all about food and health issues that preoccupy me in West Africa. The modern conveniences (roads, hot showers, clean tap water, etc.) also were a blessing. However, in some respect I felt like CT was very cosmopolitan and less African in feel. I had to remind myself that CT is as much a part of Africa as Kumasi, Abuja, Nairobi, etc. It represents a very affluent infrastructure relative to its neighbors. However, like the US it has a lot of issues in terms of equitably sharing the resources. The overall conclusion that we kept coming to in group discussions is that while the US has some people who live in poverty the extreme cases are not generally as obvious or widespread as you find in CT. This is one reason the Amy Biehl Foundation was so grateful for the garden and school supplies that we were able to bring them. Before we left the US a number of our students worked concession stands at sporting events and earned money for our museum entrance fees, etc. and more impressively in one tournament weekend they earned enough money to pay for a greenhouse to be built and a water pump bought and installed! It just took one long weekend of hard work to provide that for one school. It was nice to feel like we could make a small positive impact even for a few people (kinda like the story about the man tossing starfish back in the ocean). Thanks to all the people too at Central (and their workplaces) who helped us collect supplies to send. The greenhouse and gardening projects help these "inner city" kids learn how to grow food (which may be more cost effective than buying from the market) and they learn about nutrition and the food helps to feed the school.

The other thing that SA reminds me of is that the race relations there are an excellent example of how race is culturally constructed and not a naturally occurring distinction. I’ll be using examples of this more in my classes when I talk about this.

The one thing I didn’t get to verify myself is the direction that water drains on that side of the equator. It was my first trip to the southern hemisphere—although one of my students said she saw it drain in the opposite direction.
I’ve got a few things to do around Augusta this week then I’ll be driving to KY on Sat. to work there over the next 6 wks (and hopefully play some too). I'll try to get some pictures up soon.