Reflection on Africa

It was really the best week of my life. The contrast of Cape Town is hard to fathom because it is so beautiful, yet so dirty. It’s a major tourist attraction at the waterfront, but it’s filled with poverty in the townships. Cape Town is where the mountains meet the ocean. Everything about this place was beautiful and I loved it. I would live there for ten years and still love it. (Although I wouldn’t want to live in one of the 5’ x 7’ shacks covered by a piece of tin, with no running water, and no electricity).
I wish I would have been able to experience an African safari and see the animals in their natural environment, but the safaris were over $1000 and because you had to fly to get to them, they were three and four days long. Although I wish I would have been able to do that, I wouldn’t trade the week of experiences I had for anything. I also wish I would have done the bunjee jumping in George. There is a bridge there that is the world’s highest bunjee jump. I would have loved to do that, or sky-diving (it’s just a popular thing to do there and fairly cheap compared to U.S. prices). I still wouldn’t trade the week I had for any of those things.
I want to explain why I hated the tour busses so badly. We were taken on a coach bus through the townships around Cape Town all week. The busses sit up high because of their size, some have tinted windows although you can still see through them from the outside if you look hard enough, and they are labeled down the sides something along the lines of “BIG BUS COACH TOURS.” Imagine sitting in this air conditioned monster with 50 other people and their digital cameras as we drive through townships that know nothing outside of the poverty they live in each day. From the inside of the bus, we hesitate to take pictures of these people and the sorry excuses for homes they live in because it just feels wrong. You can’t do it and not feel like you’re being rude, exploiting the people and their children, and showing off your royalty American status when compared to theirs. Some of the residents reacted hastily, some reacted with joy to see so many Americans, and some acted like they just didn’t see our big ass tour busses barreling down their streets about to blow over their shacks. Likewise, it caused mixed emotions in me.
When the site manage from Habitat took us through the township on foot and even in the back of his pick up truck, I felt allowed off of the high pedestal I had put myself on by being on those busses. I explained to the man how I hated being on the busses and told him how we had been stuck on them all week as drove through their townships. I explained it made me feel like I was taking pictures of animals at the zoo, or rather that I felt like I made them feel like animals in the zoo by taking their pictures from our bus. I thanked him profusely for giving us the opportunity to see the townships, the people, and they way of life from the ground level. It really is a different view. It even looks different on camera.
He hung his head low, accepted my gratitude and explained things in a different light. Although some people get irritated with the tour busses, most of the township people get excited when they come barreling through because they feel like people who can make a difference are seeing something that needs to be made different. They think that when we come through, taking pictures, waving at them and smiling, that we are Americans with money and that we can help them. I really understood what he was saying and I am probably doing a lousy job of reiterating his point, but regardless, it doesn’t really make you feel any better about being on the damn bus.