Day 3 in Cape Town, South Africa

Hello everyone. It’s Lauren, Chelsea, Tiffany, and Matt, members of community service group three. We have been charged with writing today’s blog. Today Shireen accompanied us on a bus tour of the Cape Peninsula. We got the opportunity to visit the scenic areas of the Cape, including Camps Bay and Hout Bay. We discovered that residents who reside in these areas are almost entirely all white affluent South Africans or Afrikaners. As we continued our journey to the Cape of Good Hope, certain parts of the more rural areas appeared to be less affluent than the areas we previously saw that sit on ocean fronts. We wondered if this was done on purpose. Why were the unaesthetic areas so far from the core of the city and away from the waterfront? After pondering these thoughts we made our way to Cape Point and found this to be the highlight of the day. Here we started at the bottom of the mountain and hiked our way up to the light house at the top. It wasn’t very far but it was steep and when we finally reached the top it was an accomplishment. A lot of us could have stayed up there all day. It was peaceful and pleasant.

While driving threw the Peninsula we came across many different animals. Just today we saw springboks, zebras, baboons, and ostriches. The sight of seeing animals run free and out in the wild was when we finally felt like we were in South Africa. One interesting fact that we learned today about animals was that penguins reside in South Africa. We went to Boulders Point, which is a national park where a variety of penguins occupy. The Point is a beach where over 100 penguins were laying out on the sand. We saw mates hanging together, mothers with their children, and penguins digging holes. The wild life was everything we expected it to be. It was hilarious and exciting watching the animals of South Africa. We were all excited to get a small taste of the culture of South Africa; however, we thirst for more. Starting off the first few days with what would be considered tourist attractions, we thought was vitally important for our transitioning from our beautiful campus in Poughkeepsie, New York to the continent of Africa but we can’t wait until tomorrow’s visit of one of the Townships. This visit will start the week of visiting and volunteering in the townships and it will allow us to learn how typical black South Africans live on a daily basis. This experience will also allow us the opportunity to witness first hand the effects of the apartheid regime and we will attempt to understand the issues that residents of the townships face. We cannot wait to begin tomorrow’s journey. Stay tuned and see our pictures below.