Freedom Day

April 26 - Freedom Day

Today is Freedom Day in South Africa, a national holiday celebrating the end of apartheid and the first democratic elections in South Africa fifteen years ago. However, we noticed and were essentially told that Freedom Day is not widely celebrated in the Western Cape where much of the population is white. Very interesting. This topic provoked some very interesting conversation among our team members about our impressions and perceptions of racial attitudes in South Africa. What is clear is that we really have only experienced a narrow view of what South Africa is from our generally older, wealthier and white Rotarian hosts in the Western Cape (which demographically and politically is quite different from the rest of the country). We have had very few opportunities to interact with young professionals, black, white or colored (as people of mixed race are called here) and don’t really have a sense of what your average, middle class, mixed race attitudes are. And just visiting the Western Cape would be like just visiting the deep South, or New England in the USA and drawing conclusions about what the rest of our country and its people are like. So while we have seen and done a great deal here, I don’t think we can really say that we know about and fully understand South Africa and South Africans. I suppose that is what travel is all about. The more you see, the more you realize how little you know about the world around you and it just makes you want to travel more.

Freedom Day has a double meaning for us. Our team has moved into a private home for a day and a half and we have NO scheduled activities! We are so excited! This little break was planned to give us an opportunity as a team to have a little down time and to be together to process our experiences so far in our trip. We are really looking forward to this little break and to be able to explore Hermanus on our own. It is the simple things that we have been missing: doing our laundry, being able to prepare our own meals, being able to spend as much time talking to each other or typing on our computers without appearing rude or disinterested in our hosts. For us, this really has been a freedom day!

Tonight our team went out for dinner to an Italian restaurant and ordered a whole variety of pizzas with really unusual toppings including pumpkin, blue cheese, salmon, goat cheese, chili sauce, pine nuts and cilantro (not all on one pizza, mind you!) They were all really delicious! We had a great, fun evening laughing, telling stories and remembering some of the funny things that have happened on our trip. It was really a relaxing evening and confirmed again how much I really like these people with whom I’m sharing this GSE experience.