Courtney hoping to learn a lot from her internship

Of course extreme poverty was expected when coming to Cape Town. Within kilometers of each other, you can find some of the wealthiest people and then some of the poorest. While seeing the informal settlements (homes made out of sheet metal and anything else that can be found) and townships first hand certainly had an impact, it was hearing stories firsthand that really made me realize what this poverty can actually entail.

As part of my internship, on Monday, I participated in a community visit of Manenburg, the community where Edith Stevens Nature Preserve is located. I visited the housing office, various NGOs (Mannenburg’s People Project, Self-Help Manenburg, Silvertree, etc.), and a primary school. These are all organizations that I will be working with throughout the semester at my internship. While at the school, I had a conversation with the sports (gym) teacher. We were discussing the African Cup finals soccer match that I had attended the Saturday before. He was complaining about how he couldn’t get tickets to the game. Naturally, I assumed he meant it was sold out, confusing me, since there were many open seats at the game. However, he actually meant that he couldn’t afford the R150 ($15) ticket that I had purchased without even thinking twice about it. He said the most he would have been able to pay was R40 ($4), and he couldn’t find a ticket in that price range. This really affected me, because this man who does so much for children, and volunteers his time after school helping with the track team, couldn’t even attend something he is really passionate about.

 

Courtney at Green Point Stadium awaiting the start of the soccer match.

I’ve been in scenarios plenty of times where I try to explain something multiple times due to a language barrier. I’ve used my hands to spell things out, and talked extremely slowly and loudly. However, I have never been in an instance where someone had to use this broken-down communication with me. 20-30 at risk unemployed youth (ages 18-35) work at Edith Stevens under the City of Cape Town’s Working for Wetlands initiative. Yesterday, one of these individuals, around the age of 30, came up to me with a telephone number written on his hand. Naturally, I had no idea what he was saying, and what he wanted me to do with the number. He tried to explain to me multiple times, and I ended up concluding that he wanted me to copy the number down and give it to another staff member at the preserve. Of course, this was not what he was trying to get across. I finally realized that he was actually asking me to use the telephone to call someone to pick him up from work. He needed my help since he had never used a phone before and didn’t know how it worked. While it was great that I was finally able to assist him, I couldn’t believe someone, at the age of 30, had never used a telephone before.

So far one of my favorite experiences has been interacting with South Africans. They all have incredible stories to tell (which I attempt to understand), and I hope I end up learning a lot from this experience.