July 18th

This passage is from a recently read chapter from Long Walk to Freedom:

"But now the white man had felt the power of my punches and I could walk upright like a man, and look everyone in the eye with the dignity that comes from not having succumbed to oppression and fear. I had come of age as a freedom fighter."

My experience here has been transformative and inspirational. I feel political active again (something which died or was hindered in Washington -one would think the opposite would happen), which feels nice to be so passionate again and mentally provoked. Traveling alone has causes a lot of great self-reflection and becoming comfortable with who you are as a person. And it has concreted within me, what I know about already about myself and shown me things about myself that I had wondered about (if I was capable of doing certain things and how I would fair in new situations), which have all been positive (to me, at least). I wonder what else I will feel when I return back home to the States... but, I will let you know when that happens. 

But back to the point, today is Mandela day. I spent my 67 minutes of this day, which honors Mandela's 67 years of fighting injustice at the Siyaphila crèche in Nyanga, where we celebrated Madiba birthday. It was (also Siyaphila's 2nd birthday the day before) really great afternoon of service. The little ones had so much fun - we played with balloons, painted faces (I thought I could be, but found I was not a good face painter) and made masks for them to wear as they decorated biscuits and ate cake - and we did too. Also today, I finally visited the District 6 Museum, which was an area  in Cape Town where Colored, Indian, and African people were forcibly displaced and removed because of apartheid. It was a reminders of the sad injustices that Madiba fought against. I am so thankful for him and that he made South Africa a better place. I saw it quoted that we should be thankful for just breathing his air and I agree. I feel so lucky to be in South Africa. I hope that every day could be Mandela day.