Whatever you think of South Africa, Think Again

Prior to this journey, we learned all about South Africa's history, culture, and apartheid in our seminars. Now that we are in Cape Town, we have come to find many surprises that we did not expect to find during our stay here. Firstly, we expected there to be extreme violent tension between white and black South Africans, but much to our surprise, we haven't seen that occur. We did however, notice that there are social and economic disparities that are implicitly embedded in their society. For example, all the fast food places or service businesses are made up by black South Africans, while the white South Africans are either the mangers or hold higher positions in employment.We also noticed how there is not much racial integration in communities. At a local church in Newlands (a higher income area) there were mostly white South Africans in attendance and very few black South Africans.  We knew South Africa was a developed country, but we did not expect for it to be this modern and western. We expected to see many townships all over the city but that was not the case. Their culture was also a shock to us because much of their music, clothes, styles, and foods are similar to the U.S.. For example, the shopping malls contain many of the same brands as ours and the people do not dress too differently from us. We also did not expect to see fast-food places in abundance. There is a wide variety of food choices just within walking distance of our hostel. Prior to this trip, we knew there were 11 different languages in South Africa, with English being one, but we did not expect for the terminology to be extremely different (i.e. chips, tomato sauce, pavements, toilets, and bill.) Overall, we are excited to learn more about this amazing city and country and experience more of the South African culture, We know that this opportunity will change some of our perceptions and we are excited to take home the gained knowledge and lessons. 

-Denise, Marisela, Lorena