7/19/2016

Today was day two of learning about the South African history. This time, it was told from the victor's side; the Afrikaners side. We went to Voortrekker to learn about how the Dutch invaded South Africa. They had two major battles with two groups. First they battled with the Zulu group. Once they defeated the Zulu group, then they had a battle against the British. Eventually they won the battle against the British and wanted to conquer South Africa. The tour guide was interesting. She used certain terms to describe certain groups of people that people could find offensive. She used the term "Red Indians" to talk about the Native Americans in the United States. In addition, she downplayed the negotiation process between the Zulus and the Dutch. Lastly she described the Zulus as hostile. If I was a Zulu, I would be hostile too if people invaded my country. I think I felt like this because yesterday, we went to the Apartheid Museum and learned about how Apartheid negatively impacted Black South Africans. Nonetheless, the architecture was beautiful.


After the museum we visited a cohort from NYU and met with them in Pretoria. They an activist as guest speaker. She advocates for women and children who are affected by violence and for the LGBT communities by combining empowerment through the arts. She discussed her background about her experiences during Apartheid. During apartheid, blacks were not allowed to be together. As a cover up, Blacks would meet up in secret locations such as: churches, theaters and soccer fields. She informed us that Apartheid created poverty and lack of education within the Black communities. The education system was used to oppress black South Africans. In addition, she had personal trials with her mother being mental challenged. She had to overcome obstacles with family and sexually abused & raped at the age of 14.






Later on that event, a few of the group mates met up with one of the NYU members. We visited two bars. Thank goodness for UBER being available in South Africa cause I felt more secure and safer. Visiting South Africa is not safe and there has been incidents of tourists getting stabbed and robbed especially when using "Taxis". Uber is a car services that has a flat rate.