Two sides

Sunday June 28

For the most part, roaming around Capetown, you could think you’re in Seattle, New York, London, any large international city. However, on occasion you see things that illustrate the great disparity between this partly first world, partly third world country. Yesterday, while waiting for my companions to finish their tour of the National Gallery, I sat on the bench in the sun of a park square. I saw two wedding parties, both coloured, no that’s not a racist term here, the first was a lovely bride in an embellished gown, tuxedos, and a charming flower girl with the rest of the family, very western in appearance. The second was a bride in a head scarf, colorfully clothed, but not the traditional white, with a handsome groom, fully bearded and stern looking, except when he smiled for the camera.

Meanwhile, as I sat, between the two weddings, a homeless man came up to the fountain inhabited by geese and other waterfowl, stagnating and green, and dipped out water to drink before finding his way to the trash bin to look for a discarded sandwich.
Cape Town is a city of juxtapositions, the slave lodge next to Parliament, the townships next to million dollar coastal condos. It’s obvious the disparity, but the thing that impresses me the most is the willingness of the people to forgive, move on, and rebuild. 15 years after the end of apartheid, there is NOT equality. There very well may never be, since economic disparity will always exist world wide – why should we expect SA and Cape Town to achieve what we have not?

Today we had a great lecture from a young white professor, all the others have been well…pretty ancient, actually. I admired his hopeful disposition as he spoke about the healthy state of SA’s democracy. So often countries who throw off colonial oppression, or any oppressive government go through decades of replacing one with another, just as bad. However, SA has at least been able to hold free and fair elections with 77% voter turn out and transferred power with minimal, if not no, violence. I know that’s the US claim to democratic fame, but watch out…in 200 hundred years, we will have company. One thing I struggle to keep in mind here is that this REALLY is a baby democracy…only 15 years as a true democracy, one with the participation of all eligible voters.

No picture for this entry, I haven’t gotten to download them, but let me say that this is the first entry in which I feel not as a tourist, telling you what I saw, but rather a student, telling you what I have learned, or at least I’m beginning to learn.