Hey everyone!

So I'm doing this blog for all of those in the states who want to know how I'm doing, but are unable to talk with me/my communication is too bad that I forget to talk to people. To ge there, it was an 18 hour plane ride, by far the longest I had ever been on. And it was absolutely brutal. On the second leg, after we stopped in Dakar, Senegal, I was sick for the next ten hours, non stop throwing up and unable to get to sleep. I had never stared at a clock praying for the time to go away as much as I had that plane ride. After we landed everything was fine, leading me to believe it was mostly motion sickness thankfully.

So far, we have been in South Africa for about five days, and have been jam packed with different activities every day. We have seen many museums detailing the apartheid era, focusing on the different perspectives of the different classes of people who were involved in the struggle. Some of such perspectives include the students who led the Soweto uprisings in 1976 (when black students protested the forced teaching of the language of Afrikaans, which was seen as the language of the oppressor), workers who were constrained by apartheid struggle, the ANC (the liberation movement), Nelson Mandela (at his house that he lived in with his family in his adult life prior to being imprisoned), the Afrikaners (white citizens who enforced apartheid), as well as a general overview of all of the different viewpoints. It's safe to say that I am fairly well educated about the apartheid struggle.

Additionally, we toured one of the townships, called Kliptown. Unfortunately, it is the stereotypical picture that one has when they think about poor Africa. The houses are more like shacks and have 2-3 small rooms. They can't afford electricity or water within their own houses, so so there is a communal pump for water and electricity is rigged up from the nearby railroad tracks. The government has (obviously) made many promises to the citizens residing there about upkeeping the area and providing water and electricity, but little improvement, if any, have been made since the end of apartheid. The unemployment rate remains incredibly high at around 40% among the entire populations, with the numbers being even higher within the townships.

We also got to meet with representatives of the two main political parties in South Africa: the DA (Democratic Alliance) and ANC (African National Congress). In speaking in some American context, the DA is more conservative, while the ANC is more left-leaning. However, this is only in terms of economic issues. For social issues, especially regarding equality of all citizens regarding their demographics (age, race, orientation, etc) both parties are socially liberal, unlike the tumultuous relationships that the two parties have in the states over social issues. Philosophically, the ANC believes in the public sector providing the most basic needs to all people, such as water, electricity, housing, food, and education, among other needs. The DA agrees for housing and education, but believes that the private sector should be relied upon for providing water, food, and electricity. (With regard to these three needs, the ANC doesn't believe in providing unlimited amounts of each, but a subsistence level for poor citizens who couldn't afford such things within the private sector.) While these, among many other positions, are their philosophical platforms, the execution of such platforms does not reflect these positions, especially with the ANC. The ANC gains around 65%-70% of the vote each election, maintaining a good control of government. However, even with the influence that they exert due to their vast majority (the DA received their best percentage since apartheid ended last elections, with 17%), there is still great influence exerted by foreign corporations who essentially hold the country hostage, providing some of the exact problems that we are now witnessing in the states and that the ANC sought to prevent. Great subsidies have been given to these corporations, especially those from China, yet little is provided for their own citizens, as Chinese corporations bring their own workers to South Africa, thereby reducing the impact that this has for the country, which is the intended purpose of awarding the subsidies in the first place. Due to such relationships, along with other questionable appointments made within the party, many have made calls of nepotism among the party that ultimately have been a detriment both to the party as well as the country as a whole.

In addition to the policy implementation of the ANC, the political decisions made by the party are also questionable. First of all, because white voters tend to vote for the DA, the ANC has accused the DA opf being the party that seeks to bring back apartheid, which is completely untrue. Also, the ANC has much diversity of thought within the party, and has consolidated four different parties under the label of the ANC in order to maintain the strong majority. With such a diversity of thought within the party, there is much compromising and infighting, which gets away from one central philosophy. And once some compromise has been made within the party, there needs to be even more compromise once dealing with the other parties, thereby getting even further away from the intended positions and platform. They also require that anybody working for the party take and pass tests about the history of the liberation struggle. This has caused criticisms of living in the past and not being able to face the country's current problems because there is still too much pride of the past and not enough vision of the present and future.

Also of interest, particularly to me, is the role of the judiciary and constitutional law. Both parties don't hold much regard for constitutional precedence or enumerated rights, claiming that the judiciary has become too powerful and ought to be reigned in. Neither party evens considers the constitutional ramifications of their platforms. For instance, housing, water, electricity, and food are all rights and services that are constitutionally guaranteed to all, yet the political discussion is dominated around whether these services should be privatized, without a concern that this is a constitutional violation. Then, once some of such policies are ruled unconstitutional by the court, they are angry that the court is too activist. How can the ANC, which drafted the constitution, then be angry when the judiciary isn't holding them to what is essentially their own personal manifesto? Even if it is not the ANC who drafted the constitution, it is still the higher body of law that prevents the government from being able to maintain too much power and stray from the core values of the country.

On a less serious note, the food has been really good. I'm pretty sure I found my replacement for Moe's as my go-to restaurant. It is not a burrito place, but rather a chicken place called Nando's that is a South African chain and thankfully is in Namibia. I've ordered the same thing every time: chicken strips and rice with the lemon tango sauce, flame grilled mielie (corn), a portuguese roll, and a bottle of water. Everything, especially food, is much cheaper in South Africa, as that entire meal costs less than eight american dollars.

Another really cool thing that happened was on our trip to Nelson Mandela's house, one of his daughters was there with her family completely by chance, so we got to talk to her for a little bit. Mandela's grandson was there also, and he is our age and goes to school in the states. This week is actually his birthday, and he invited us to his birthday party at a club in Johannesburg. All on our first day. Unfortunately we can't go because we are going to our homestays tonight for the weekend (oh yeah, we are doing homestays for the weekend in Soweto, which used to be the largest townships in the apartheid era but is going through a transformation a la the Harlem renaissance).

That's pretty much it for now. With regard to pictures, I haven't figured out how to put them up here yet, (I'm going to need somebody to teach me), but they will be here soon. Another thing that everyone on my program will be doing is created a group flickr account where we will put all of our pictures on there together, as many of them would be the same. I'll post that link on here once we create it and start getting pictures up there. Also, if anyone who actually reads this far can think of a more creative name, that would be great because I can;t think of anything clever.

Talk to everyone soon (I'm assuming there is an everyone because it feels a bit odd writing to unaddressed people),

Evan