Pamela reflects on her excursion week

This week for our excursion we visited Johannesburg and Kruger National Park. We spent three days in Johannesburg where we visited many museums and did other fun activities. We went to the Apartheid museum where I had the chance to learn more in depth the beginnings and a better understanding of  Apartheid and how it happened. It was very difficult for me to go through this museum because learning about what these people went through made me very angry and sad it was very painful. All I kept asking myself was :

-How would have I dealt with all these events if I was a young South African growing up at this time?

-       What would have happened to me?

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I came out of the museum I still didn’t have any answers to my questions, I still could not wrap my brain around the fact that people could treat humans that bad and put them intentionally in these life conditions when these people had done nothing but being themselves. How could people be so cruel to others just because they had a different amount of melanin in their skin? I cannot say that I understand what these people have been through because I have never in a situation …. All I could ask was WHY?

Another museum that we visited was the Hector Peterson museum in Soweto. Hector Peterson was a thirteen year old boy, he was one of the first students killed during the 1976 uprising in Soweto. He has since become a symbol of youth resistance to apartheid. This uprising started on 16 June 1976 as a peaceful protest march organized by school students in Soweto. One of the main grievances was the introduction of Afrikaans, regarded as the language of the oppressor, as a medium of instruction in all African schools. What I liked about that museum was that they didn’t only concentrate on Hector Peterson but they also concentrated on everyone else that gave their lives for the South African Liberation. I was outraged by the fact that these students got shoot for protesting their rights to education in their mother language. Once again all I could ask was WHY? And once again get no answer. Why do people have to be so hateful towards each other? It quite intrigues me.

                                

Then we visited a township called Sharpeville where in 1960, a massacre happened when police opened fire on protesters, killing 69 people. There we had the chance to interact with people from Sharpeville who told us the story behind Sharpeville and  how anything hasn’t changed since 1960. People are still living in miserable conditions and no one has done anything to help them. People tend to forget that Sharpeville happened too and give them more help. It is saddening to see all that poverty around and not be able to help right away. These people are so strong and no matter what happened they kept on going and they are still here living day to day no matter in what conditions they have been put through. It reminded me that anything that will happen to me I should be strong and deal with it because there are people that have been through worse than I have.

Our excursion was not all depression and frustration for me, we spent two days in Kruger National Park where I had the chance to go on a Safari, I saw Hippos, Hyenas, Rhinos, Giraffes, Elephant, and Impalas. I was very happy to see them. I can say that I really liked our excursion, it was very educational and made me do a lot of thinking, but I also had fun!