Port Elizabeth is located in the Eastern Cape along the coast of the Indian Ocean. I hope that the map below will be helpful in locating where I will be. We will be spending 10 days in Port Elizabeth and then we will travel to Cape Town for 3 days, before returning home.
This morning, I finished reading Kaffir Boy (Mathabane, 1986), which was one of the required texts we read before departure and it is a book that I would highly recommend for anyone to read. The author describes his life growing up during apartheid, which was the legalized segregation of people based on their race. He told horrifying stories of life in the ghetto with no electricity, running water, or plumbing. Despite being illiterate, his mother was determined for her seven children to receive an education which would be their ticket out of poverty. For Johannes, now Mark Mathabane, education, tennis, and American friends allowed for him to leave South Africa to attend college in the United States on a tennis scholarship.
Throughout the book, I was intrigued by life in apartheid which ended only 20 years ago, and the book left me with some significant "take aways." Johannes befriends a German man who tells him about Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the Holocaust during WWII. He compared the apartheid in South Africa to the Holocaust, because of the extreme racism, and the propaganda used to ensure that the ideologies were being carried out. Education was used throughout South Africa to educate the races appropriately. Through Bantu Education, black South Africans received a 4th class education in which they were constantly taught that they were inferior to whites. They were taught how to serve whites and how to work under them. White children in South African received an outstanding education and were taught that they were superior to all blacks and they knew what was best for them. Thus the doctrines of apartheid were passed along from generation to generation from 1948-1994.
The other significant take away from Kaffir Boy was the significance of education. Mathabane (1986) referred to his education as his "passport to knowledge" and ultimately his "passport to freedom." Throughout the book, his mother fought hard from him to get into school and though he initially resisted, he ended up loving school and had a thirst to learn like no other. Truly, education changed Mathabane's life and provided him with several opportunities that would not have been available if he did not have it. As a teacher, I know the importance of education but I often find it difficult to convey this importance to some of my apathetic students. I hope that my experience in South Africa will make me a better educator for all of my students.
As I prepare to embark on the journey of a lifetime, I have several questions about what it will be like in South Africa. Apartheid was abolished only 20 years ago in 1994 and I imagine that there are still significant signs of its existence. I know that shantytowns still exist outside of Port Elizabeth but I wonder if they are still as horrible as the description in Kaffir Boy. I have never been exposed to such poverty and I know that it will be especially emotional if I see it. Also, we will be working in a township school starting on Tuesday and I am very curious about what it will be like. The school will be starting their first week and we have been told that we will not know what we will be teaching or what level until we get there. I am excited and anxious about this experience as well.
So, my adventure awaits and I am ready for it to officially begin. I will be keeping my blog updated at least twice a week, so continue to read to follow my experience.
References
Mathabane, M. (1986). Kaffir boy: The true story of a black youth's coming of age in apartheid South Africa. New York: Free Press.
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