Day 2- Langa Township

Second day here, this place is completely amazing. We have had orientation stuff where they talk to us about different cultural stuff, logistics and HIV/AIDS but the best part of today by far was the visit to Langa, the biggest township in South Africa that is about 10 or 20 minutes from where we are living, in Mowbray (a southern suburb right by UCT). We walked all around the township and saw so many amazing things. It is definitely very poverty stricken but it has such a rich culture. The townships were created for the black population as migrant laborers and were a major part of the segregation that was present in the apartheid regime. Thus the people did not choose to live in such states of poverty, but it was put upon them by the apartheid government which only ended 15 years ago. There is development going on but poverty is obviously still present, although about 85% of people now have sanitation and electricity.
There are the cutest little children running around everywhere and they will often come up to you and hold your hand (although they may also steal from you and/or ask you for money, although none of us were mugged because we were in a large group with local tour guides). There is a large Catholic presence in Langa and they run a lot of the schools. We went to one of the preschools and the kids were the cutest things I have ever seen, we were all melting from how adorable they were. They were all getting so excited by all of us taking pictures of them and so on. They seemed really happy and laughed a lot and were smiling and waving and extremely friendly. Most of theme speak Xhosa and may not speak English yet but that didn't stop us from interacting with them.
As we were coming out of the preschool, Meli, our tour guide, who is awesome and is actually a famous South African poet/hip hop artist who is Xhosa and grew up in Langa, was talking about the male rite of passage into manhood in Xhosa culture where, at the age of 18 or 21 boys isolate themselves for 4 weeks in a hut in this field across from the township and afterwards and initiated into manhood. Just as he was talking about it there was a man being led out of the field across the way because he had just finished his 4 weeks. A large group of men were leading him out and singing (I guess you are often very weak after the 4 weeks, im pretty sure it involves forms of fasting and a circumcision), and you could see the smoke in the distance because they burn the hut that the man was staying in during his time there. It was really cool to be able to see that up close and personal.
We also got to go and see a witch doctor briefly, as well as this bar that is evidently pretty famous and it was really fun to go there for a few minutes. Gotta love having a drink with the tour guides and my program advisor (her name is Naomi and she is the shit).
It has been so ridiculously exhausting, from all the activities, the jetlag, the sun, etc. but it is so amazing here I am so excited to continue the rest of my trip. Most of the people in my program are totally amazing and I'm really excited to get to know all of them better. I have already had the chance to meet a good amount of South Africans too. We went to a barbeque last night with other UCT students who are South African and they are all so friendly, so outgoing, funny, and love to hang out and party. I got a few of their numbers and they going to take us out soon. We also have RAs who are South African that live in each house. There are 10 people in my house, 8 people next door, and then people in 2 other houses a few blocks away. There are 28 or so people in my program.
Overall I am having an amazing time and it hasn't even been 2 full days. I can't wait to get more comfortable and to be able to experience so much more. Tomorrow we are going downtown in the morning and on Sunday we are going to the Cape Point for our UCT orientation.
I am definitely more aware of my race than I ever have been before, although I did expect that given that whites are a minority in South Africa, even though they are generally the richer minority (although that is changing) due to the repressive segregation of the apartheid regime in which the government made policies to essentially make the rich whites richer and the poor blacks poorer. But people are extremely friendly and its easy to maintain conversations with
them. You definitely have to be aware of your surroundings and I have already noticed that it is not uncommon for people to try to get you to buy things and/or give them money because you are white and it seems like they assume you are rich. At the bar we went to earlier today this one woman started talking to a few of us about how she wrote a book about her life and wanted to publish it and was asking us to help her. I'm like, I'm sorry but I have no more connections than you do! Haha.