And this is the view from my bedroom:
Jealous? That's Table Mountain. It's a pretty amazing view. I really can't get over the fact that I'm in South Africa and whenever I look at my window I have this blatant reminder that I am not in Michigan anymore.
This morning I went to my internship at Abalimi. As I said before, Abalimi is an NGO that is located in the Cape Flats and their goal is to empower the disadvantaged through urban agriculture and environmental programs and projects. This organization works to combat poverty by growing organic food sustainably within the disadvantaged communities in order to help members recognize the link between their survival, health and the active improvement of their environment.
As I drove (on the left side of the street- AHH!) to my destination, I passed through Nyanga, which is one of Abalimi's target areas in the Cape Flats. This township was established as a result of the migrant labor system. In the early 50s black migrants were forced to settle in Nyanga. It is now one of the poorest and most dangerous parts of Cape Town. In 2001 its unemployment was estimated around 56% and HIV/AIDS is a HUGE community issue. This is a picture I got from online to try and show you what it looked like:
The township is a lot larger than this picture shows, and there were a lot of stray dogs and children running around. I was told that there was some controversy over whether or not the 2010 Fifa World Cup should have been held in South Africa because certain groups believed that the effort and funds that were being put into building stadiums/other infrastructure that was built for the Cup should have been put into improving areas such as these. But I did notice that as I got a little closer to the building I was headed to, the homes became a little nicer. This is a result of organizations such as Habitat for Humanity who have done a tremendous amount of work in an effort to improve the standard of living in the Cape Flats.
Once I arrived at Abalimi, I met one of the ladies in charge of overseeing the nearby gardens. She gave me some tea and then told me to wait in the office building until the meeting that I was going to sit in on started. While I waited, I read some of the pamphlets and magazines, which had titles like Spore and the Western Cape Environmental Newsletter. I read one interesting article that explained pest issues that farmers in Uganda near the Murchison Falls National Park face. Elephants have a tendency to wander out of the park and destroy the farmers’ plantations. The animals began moving past the boundaries of the park at the height of the civil war when people were forced to move to refugee camps. With the return of peace, the government urged villagers to return and continue farming. However the elephants posed a major problem. Recently, the farmers discovered that elephants do not like bird’s eye chili. The farmers plant them as a fence around their crops and when the elephants bite into a pepper it ”itches them so badly that they run back to the park.” Random agricultural fact, I thought it was interesting.
Anyway, when I went to the meeting, the women spoke mostly in Xhosa and some in English. It was pretty crazy and I could only grasp the general ideas of the discussions. Next, I met the other volunteers. One is from Australia and the other is from Germany. Get this CCP class: we actually talked about globalization. What!? Yeah, the girl from Australia brought up the fact that even the word globalization is a result of globalization because when she was in school, Australians spelled it like “globalisation” but by the time she was nearly done with school everyone used “zed” (the letter z).
I still haven't taken a tour of the gardens, and it's going to take a while to settle in, but I'm already super pumped about working with this organization.
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