Sunday, June 1

Sunday, June 1

This morning we had the opportunity to attend Sunday service at the J.L.Zwane Community Center in the township of Gugulethu. The service was a Christian service but it was said completely in the native language Xosa. Normally services last about 3 hours but today’s only lasted an hour because it was the first Sunday of the month. We met with our host families with whom we’ll be staying from Tuesday to Friday. Everyone in the class split up into pairs and my host family roommate will be Kate Kessenich. Kate has been a friend of mine for a long time extending back to high school days at Xavier, so sharing an experience like this will be very meaningful. Our host mother’s name is Liziwe. She is single and doesn’t have any kids, but has hosted many students from all over doing similar programs as ours. One of the first questions she asked us is what we like to eat for breakfast, and then she followed our response by saying she hates cooking. So we’ll see how Kate and I fair haha… Most of the hosts have jobs and are gone for most of the day. Mama told us she leaves the township by 6:55 and doesn’t return until after 5:00. We’ll be having lectures at the community center for most of the day so this won’t be a problem.

The purpose of the home stay is to experience the culture of the townships by living alongside our hosts, listening and asking questions, and trying to grasp even a glimpse of understanding of what it’s like to live in a situation so completely opposite than what we’re used to.

Tomorrow we’ll be having 3 lectures from Edwin, Dr. Reverand Spiwo Xapile, and Kenneth – all highly educated black men who will talk about racial issues in South Africa and their experiences with Apartheid. Until then, I’ll be working on the first in-country writing assignment: Compare and contrast the cultures of South Africa and our own and why it’s important to understand the cultures in which we are immersed. Yes, this trip is still a class – it’s easy to forget that…