March 15th -17th: Cape Town Nights

We have Fridays off, so on this particular day I jumped on the train and traveled to St. James, a nice little beach on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula. The beach is just a minute’s walk from the train station, and there’s a spacious tidal pool and some nice sand to lay out on. I remember having recently talked about safety with my parents, yet the most dangerous thing I did this entire weekend was nearly choke on a turkey sandwich while sitting on the beach. It was a delicious sandwich though.

March 14th: Amandla!

Today was the morning of the big TAC march to Parliament. Lauren and Emily and I got up early to travel into the city, and Sarah and Manuela tagged along to witness the event. Once in Cape Town, we headed for Kaisergracht, the staging area where the march would begin.

March 10th – 13th: Within the Informal Settlements

Firstly, I realize it’s been a long time since the last update. Apologies- I’ve been on the road! Many exciting developments have come to pass in the last few weeks. Let’s catch up with where I left things off.

In my time in Cape Town so far, I have had the opportunity to enter the informal settlements on two distinct occasions. Usually seen from the road or highway as I drive by, on both these occasions I was able to navigate the settlements on foot and enter people’s homes. The first time was when Isaac from Africa Unite brought a group of us to his home in Europe before we had lunch at Mzoli’s. The minibus trundled down the narrow dirt road, barely passing shacks and fences and children by inches on either side, and Isaac showed us his home and his immediate community. I have detailed this experience in a prior blog post.

March 8th & 9th: Happy Birthday

Sat March 8^th

I decided that today was my honorary birthday celebration day, since March 9^th itself fell on a Sunday and I thought that it would be best to make the best of at Saturday. We headed out early for Old Biscuit Mill, a trendy food market with shopping in Salt River. I went HAM on the food vendors. Ever since surviving my hell ride up and down Devil’s Peak, I had decided to enter “treat yo self” mode, feeling that life was too short and fragile to not indulge. (I literally promised myself any kind of food or drink I desired as incentive for my ragged body to complete that brutal hike.)

March 6th & 7th: Weekending

We had classes at the house this Thursday, so there was no reason to go to UCT. I believe in the afternoon I got out of the house and went shopping in Claremont, a nearby suburb. I traveled there via train, one of my favorite pastimes, though I realized minibus would have been a lot faster.

March 3rd – 5th: Uyafuna i-Condom?

We were back at the TAC offices this week, which (while lacking any film crews from Vogue), did give us the opportunity to build our relationships with the community workers at TAC and gain insight into the preparation for the coming patent law march. On Monday afternoon, we sat in on a meeting with the Khayelitsha branches where information about the march was disseminated and plans for transport were confirmed. This march, a week from Thursday, was intended to mobilize over 1,500 activists to march on Parliament to call for a change in South Africa’s patent laws and processes.  There was a lot of planning and mobilizing going on.

Feb 28th – March 2nd: Human Rights Weekend

Last weekend, we participated in a human rights training retreat through Africa Unite, and were able to spend the entire weekend working and learning with students from across South Africa and the continent. Far away from the city at a picturesque rural olive farm, we made connections, learned collectively about the principles of human rights, and put ourselves to the test in a variety of challenges and group activities. I had a fantastic time this weekend, and enjoyed making connections and finding commonalities with students that come from very different backgrounds from mine.