Ken's incredible combination of breathtaking highs and bitter lows

Ken learning to play the Khoisan Bow during the Transcending History Tour at the Slave Lodge

The past two weeks in Cape Town have been an incredible combination of breathtaking highs and bitter lows. From seeing the South African Soccer team “Bafana!” (boys) as the locals call them play against Mali in the same stadium in which the World Cup was played in just a few years ago, to seeing the most intense poverty and misfortune I have ever witnessed in my life in the townships of Kayelitsha and Mitchell Plains. These past two weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions to say the least. It is interesting interacting with 25 other students all around my age who I otherwise would have never met. I have found friendship amongst complete strangers that I think will last a lifetime and for me that just goes to show how connected and amicable anyone, anywhere can be given the chance. I have said during our class discussions and conversations over the past 13 days that “If I were to go home right now I would be more than content with this trip.” And it still remains true. My expectations for these four months in Cape Town have already been met, exceeded, doubled, quadrupled, and just about blown sky high out of the water. In less than two weeks I have witnessed Cape Point the southern most tip of land before Antarctica and stood on it, seen smelt and tasted some of the best food I will ever experience, seen and heard the most powerfully sad life stories while simultaneously seeing and hearing the happiest people I have ever encountered speak, witnessed Nelson Mandela’s former prison cell on Robben Island, fed a wild Sea Lion on my own accord, photographed wild penguins amongst dozens of other plant and animal species, had my first and only genuine religious experience that I still do not quite understand and not because it was in another language, re-ignited my passion for photography, surfed two separate times in the Indian Ocean, watched a blind mentally challenged man play his guitar and sing better than I ever will, been asked to sign my name on the skin of three children simply because I am an American, and happily lived without wifi for two weeks which is something I think most people should try and a social phenomena that really should be studied in a formal setting. These amongst other things that I suppose will remain memories for now and great ones at that.

             

My bucket list has been halved and there’s still another 13 weeks so I’ll need to revisit that. I have big plans for my activist project, and I will include updates about it in blog posts that follow as they come. Overall I have learned an overwhelming amount about myself, my country, this country, and human nature as a whole, and not necessarily in that order. Today we visited half of the internship sites where many of the students will be working for the next three months and tomorrow we visit the other half and mine, the Cape Argus. I am stressed and nervous and at times uncomfortable and certainly not just because of the internship. This is unfamiliar but interestingly welcome. I am eager to begin working on Wednesday and to change up my schedule.

           

The people here are indescribably kind and care for strangers as they do for their own even when some of them have so little to provide for their own. Cape Town is an incredible city that I’ve only been able to draw comparison to by combining the grandeur of New York with the flavor of New Orleans and even this description hardly does it justice. It feels like there is opportunity to be had in every aspect of my life here.

             

I have been putting off this blog post because I simply did not know how to sum up the past two weeks into a passage of comfortable reading length, but I realized that I will never wholly convey the experience I have had and so this very brief and incomplete recounting of events will have to do. Now that it is done I look forward to writing future blog posts.