First Day in the Port Elizabeth Townships

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2017-06-26 16:46:16

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Shoshanna Sumka <sumkas@sidwell.edu>

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Friends

We survived the beautiful city of Cape Town. We sprinted from our boat ride out to Robben Island to take our flight back to Port Elizabeth after a wonderful week of sunshine and exploring the South African Coast.

Today was our first day in the townships with Ubuntu Education Fund. I am still trying to get our blog up ( WIFI is not reliable, so I will spend time working on it after dinner).

I will leave you with this passage from a the student’s blog:

Today, I used a stranger’s bathroom in their backyard, played tag with kids that did not speak English, and watched my friends eat a sheep’s eyeball. Everything in Port Elizabeth is an experience. I experienced culture shock like never before. The row of crumbling shacks made the poverty terrifyingly real. It’s one thing to read about poverty and another to see people live it firsthand. Although it is a miserable sight, it is a necessary experience at the same time. However, poverty is not all there is to the townships.

Port Elizabeth has a special type of vibrancy. The streets do not bustle like a city but the people, particularly the children, are so full of life….

With gratitude

Philip McAdoo, Ed.D
Director of Equity, Justice and Community
Sidwell Friends School
3825 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
Phone: 202-537-2406
Mobile: 202-430-0095

“When those who have the power to name and to socially construct reality choose not to see you or hear you, whether you are dark-skinned, old disabled, female or speak with a different accent or dialect than theirs…when someone describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.” - Adrienne Ric

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