Today we had a discussion about our experience so far. We talked about the history lesson that we had a couple days ago. We learned a lot about the Apartheid, as I have already mentioned. A lot of us were surprised that the initial intentions were justified. There was a moral reason why there was a seperation between classes. The whites thought that the lower class would want to go back to the way they lived. Ben, another student, mentioned that this was especially interesting because this way of living is unacceptable now, just fifty years later. Moreover, I find WWII to have an interesting spin on the situation. When many people went to fight for the war, the lower class filled the working positions of these people. When the war was over, it was apparent they wanted to push the lower class out of these positions. They basically used the lower class only when they needed them. I guess the communication between the classes, the leadership, and who is in control has a lot to do with this.

Presently, the South African government is trying to do a lot to fight its social problems. For instance, HIV/AIDs is a huge problem here. To encourage the citizens to stay healthy, they have free memberships to gyms. Moreover, everyone gets a discount on fruits and vegetables. We talked about how America has not even done this yet. It seems interesting that a third world contry can make better advances before the United States. I think this portrays that countries and people in general should share ideas and work with each other. Many people work towards are working towards common goals but do not collaborate. By no way am I saying that everything needs to be unified, but we need to remember to be open minded and that we can look everywhere for new ideas, even third world countries.

We also talked about the townships we will be going to next week. Christen mentioned that the community center just took a group of thirteen to fourteen year olds to the ocean. They have never been there before, yet it is a ten minute drive. This amazes me. There is all this beauty in this country that we have been experiencing, yet the townships don't see any of it. That is very unfortunate. There is such a divide between the townships and the cities. If I were to leave today, I would have thought that South Africa is much like Maryland or Miami. Yes, there are beggers and it is scary to walk outside at night. This is similar to any other big city. Much beyond that, there are no traces of a 3rd world country in the city. This is a true example of how sheltered tourists are. I never thought about this when I have gone anywhere else. As a tourist, I only see what the city wants me to see, the good side. I have always thought this to be accurate. Now, I might evaluate this a little more. I might not always be getting the fully story of the place.

After our discussion, we were supposed to go to Robbin Island. They canceled because of the rain. Tomorrow we are going on a Safari, I am excited to see the elephants!!!