University of Cape Town

Today, we had a late start and gathered at our hotel lobby at 11:30am to go to University of Cape Town (UCT), one of the most well-known universities in South Africa, if not in the entire African continent. Prof. Gail Thomas was invited to give a lecture at the university. Our contact person was Prof. Gobodo-Madikezela, who teaches at UCT and have an experience of working with Truth and Reconciliation Committee of South Africa. Honestly, I did't know a whole lot about the committee, but I knew it was very important political organization that contributed in dismantling Apartheid cuz its name popped up mutiple times in a book that I was reading on Peacebuilding in Post-conflict societies.

Gail's lecture was very successful, and though we had limited time to get feedbacks from the audience, we were able to hear precious inputs from a South African gentleman on his perspectives on the racial integration within educational institutions. He was saying that the "integration" that South Africa is experiencing is actually a process of Black "assimilation" to the White schooling system. His viewpoint was very intresting for me because he seemed to be looking at the reality of his country from very realistic point, not just an idealistic perspective that we all hope to have happened.

Since this internet cafe makes you pay so much, I'll quickly turn over to my personal impressions on the Africa Tour in general now. Also this is my first post on this blog, so it might be good to write some of my personal feelings that I had so far.

One thing that I want to mention is an emotion that I had from interacting with primary and secondary school students in local schools. To be very honest, I experienced a bit of culture shock when I entered the first classroom filled with Black African students. Being brought up in Japan, I was too used to a classroom filled with students that looked like me. It was just a very new experience for me. But after visiting the second classroom and had more exchange with the students, I felt that these kids share a lot of commonalities with kids in Japan. They both aspire for their future, they both have hope toward making and living better society, and of course, they all had dreams. This was really eye-opening experience for me who always looked at Africa as a place very far away, physically, emotionally, and culturlly. They share many things in common, and especially for youths, we all aspire for a bright future.

I have some more to say, but I'll stop here for today...thanks for reading our blog!

-Haru Irie