Emily K challenged assumptions while meeting incredible people

Last weekend we headed to Goedgedacht Olive Farm in a rural part of the Western Cape to take part in Human Rights Training Weekend with our fellow UConn students as well as 26 counterparts from all around South Africa, Tanzania, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. We all piled into four small buses to journey from Africa Unite’s offices in the heart of Cape Town to the rural farmland a couple hours outside the city. Our journey took a bit longer than expected after some navigational difficulties but we were entranced by the scenic farm landscapes lining the road to our destination and were excited by the landscape of the farm we would be residing on when we arrived.

First we participated in an activity to meet everyone attending the human rights training by simple introductions and the diversity of the group was really incredible and interesting too that the students who were not from our university found us diverse through the different states we came from and we all eagerly exchanged information about our respective homes. We were then introduced to our roommates; my roommate was Bula from Swaziland who told me about her interest in coming to the human rights training as a result of her involvement in an organization that focuses on empowering young women and is part of the largest youth movement in her country.

After that we were treated to a delicious dinner, one that would be characteristic of the rest of our meals on the trip. At dinner we were able to further connect with our new friends followed by a more formal introductory activity at our first session where we laid out terms of work and were all able to express what we hoped to gain and what we offered to the group for the training weekend.

That night there were clouds but every so often the clouds would acquiesce to an incredible night sky filled with more stars than I have ever seen. I could see the entire Milky Way stretched out in ways I’ve only seen in pictures before. If you walked up the hill which the farm was situated on it felt as though you were seated in a giant planetarium and if you jumped off the hill you might be able to swim in the sea of stars.

The next day we engaged in many thought provoking activities my favorite of which was an exercise where we divided into different countries and talked about our hypothetical colonization of a new planet. Going to this new planet was out of necessity because earth was no longer inhabitable; but that was not the only caveat.  Five countries had already landed on the new inhabitable planet and two countries, one of which was the one I was a part of, were situated on fertile land and the others on infertile land. Our task was to determine if the two countries left on earth were allowed to come join us on the new planet and what rules we would all be subjected to on the new planet.

Our country decided that we would let the two countries come join us on the new planet under certain conditions which we specified.  Other countries came up with different plans for what the newcomers were to expect if they came to their respective countries on the new planet. At the end of the exercise we were all reminded that no one really had the “right” to lay claim this planet in the first place and the rules and defensive nature by which we were approaching the newcomers are based on what we know from our own institutions. We could have changed things on the new planet and ensured equality for everyone but we were too caught up in our own interests and fell back on what we knew.

This exercise was a powerful one because it showed us how pervasive social institutions are in our thinking. I know that when I was completing the exercise with my country I was thinking about diplomacy between countries in our world and the compromises that needed to be struck while protecting our own interests. In order to think beyond the mind frames given to us by society we need to realize that they exist and also that alternatives do exist that mediate equality instead of conflict.

The following day after another delicious meal we participated in another activity where we were pretending to be asylum seekers in a new country. We were all given forms with questions in languages with which we were unfamiliar and asked to fill them out. We could sort of make out certain words and some other students limited knowledge of the languages on the sheet helped us along a little, but even when we thought we had figured it out some students were denied asylum arbitrarily by Ntombi who acted as the asylum officer.

This exercise showed us some very important things. Firstly, how difficult it is for those seeking asylum in countries far away from home to fill out forms that will potentially save their lives and how confusing it must be when you are denied asylum despite your efforts. The other main thing that we learned was how highly we held an authority figure. No one asked for a form in English; we all just did what Ntombi said. We could have all decided that we wouldn’t fill out the forms and see where that form of protest would have led us but we continued to try unwaveringly until our facilitator Vincent called what we did into question.

Overall the weekend was an excellent experience it allowed me to call a lot of my assumptions into question and to meet some incredible people from all over Africa! 

Emily receiving her Human Rights Training Certifican from Ntombi.