Sarah reflects on her first month in Cape Town

I can’t believe it’s been a month.  Even though the time has flown by, I somehow feel like I’ve been here all my life.  It’s a strange dynamic, and one I haven’t gotten used to yet.

While I am certain I have undergone many changes since arriving in South Africa, one characteristic that has apparently stuck with me is my scattered and spontaneous way of looking at life.  This past Monday I came to the impulsive conclusion that newspaper writing wasn’t for me, throwing yet another life goal down the drain.  With Vernon’s help (and unrelenting patience for my impetuous decisions), I now will be interning at Thandakulu High School.  I never in a million years thought I would find myself working in any sort of school setting, yet here I am.  I’m not nervous at all, simply because it feels so right and I am so excited to be working closely with the community. 

At my last day at The Argus, however, I was faced with an experience that will always be in my thoughts when thinking about this country.  I followed a reporter to what I was told was a press conference for something to do with the 50^th anniversary of The Sharpeville Massacre.  Other than this general description, I really had no idea what it entailed.  We drove to the Waterfront, which I have had mixed feelings about since our trip to Robben Island (and by mixed feelings I mean I’m not really a huge fan).  We pulled into a beautiful, affluent hotel that looked like something one would see in the movies.  We walked down a few long marble corridors until we came to a beautiful room where the press conference was to take place.  The room was filled with long tables, each with pitchers of water, notebooks, pens, and little bowls of mints neatly set up for the assumed large group that would be attending.  Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed and I was still one of four people in attendance.  Five panel members in the front of the room decided to start up their press conference, their voices echoing into microphones that mocked their subpar turnout.

The more I watched, the more I got sucked into their desperate, albeit hopeful, cause.  All were members of the Sharpeville Township, the first to be victimized by the ruthless Apartheid regime.  One of the men was a survivor of The Sharpeville 6, a group of 6 people who was sentenced to death in the 1980s.  This man received his sentence on his 21^st birthday.  Its stories like this that always gets to me.  I am 20 years old, and in so many ways my life is just beginning.  It gives me chills to imagine someone my age experiencing something like that.  This particular man was released in 1990 and has not been able to find a job since.  Through tears of frustration and unresolved pain, the man explained to the few people in attendance that unemployment was perhaps the biggest issue in their often overlooked township.  The Soweto Massacre tends to receive more recognition, I’m assuming on account of the number of people involved combined with its happening in the midst of extreme anti-apartheid resistance. 

While most of their ideas were vague and often inconceivable given their meager funds, their presence alone really moved me.  Again, I found the hope of South African citizens inspirational beyond my greatest expectations.  Even if it’s just raising awareness about their condition, I really feel as if it’s something I want to become involved with in some way or another.  One of the representatives described one of their goals as follows: “When the world is looking at South Africa, let them also remember Sharpeville exists.”  While there are many activist projects I have my mind on, this experience opened up even more possibilities.