Hello! This is my third blog post about my summer internship in Cape Town and it’s coming at the end of another great week! My internship has been going very well. I got a lot done on Tuesday and Wednesday. I finished reading the book I will be using to lead a book club and I am working on developing some workshops that I will be running for the student leaders of the organization. Right now I have two planned. One will focus on the differences between climate change, global warming and ozone depletion because I have noticed some confusion from the leaders and participants around these concepts. The other will focus activism and the importance of translating awareness and concern for the environment into activism. I have also been working on some surveys that I will be conducting to create a training booklet about running BEEP workshops for future student leaders. These surveys will be independent from my personal research. In addition to working, I also got a lot of good food. At work, we went back to the same restaurant (Kwa-Chicco) for local food and Wednesday night Kendall and I went to a great Thai restaurant (food pictured below) and went to bed early to get ready for what would be an even bigger day than we could have imagined.

Thursday was Youth Day in South Africa which is a day to commemorate the deaths of dozens of young protestors killed in 1976. This event was a turning point in the movement against apartheid and holds a lot of significance for South Africa. For Youth Day, Paige, Kendall and I went to an event organized by some of the student leaders in BEEP. It was a very interesting day. Kendall and Paige were made judges for the main event, a modeling competition, and I was a co-MC announcing the event with Mama K. In addition to the modeling, there was singing, dancing, rapping, poetry and multiple speeches about the significance of Youth Day and the importance of hope in the face of poverty. There were over 100 kids and parents in attendance and as the co-MC, Mama K had me dancing and mispronouncing Xhosa words to the amusement of all of them. I was definitely out of my comfort zone, but it was a very good experience. We didn’t get home until 8pm, an 11 hour day. Even though we were all exhausted, everyone had a great time.

On Friday, we went to print my surveys for my personal research at Western Cape University. It was a very nice campus and afterwards, Lindela brought us to Mzoli’s, a famous meat restaurant. As a vegetarian, it was an interesting (somewhat frightening) experience, but they had food I could eat and it was still very fun. On Saturday, I went on a hike with about 20 of the BEEP kids to Table Mountain. It was very misty and we eventually had to turn around, but it was a good experience and I was able to have many great conversations with the kids and Lindela. Some of the pictures from that hike are included below. At the end of the hike, I was able to distribute the first 20 surveys to the student leaders for my personal research. Hopefully I will be able to hand out the rest in this next week.

Saturday night, Kendall and I went to a place called East Asian Bazaar. We ate very good, extremely cheap Indian food. Some of those pictures are included below. We spent about $11 for food, drinks and ice cream for two (with left overs). We will definitely be going back. Sunday was a relaxed day, I did debate research, homework, and began my essay.

On Monday, we toured a Dutch colonial castle and went to the District 6 museum. It was a very interesting look at multiple periods in South Africa history. From the period of colonial rule where the Dutch and English exploited the indigenous populations for their benefits to one of the most famous moments in apartheid history where thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes to make way for white development.

From the Roof of the Castle

The rest of the week was spent mostly working at my internship. On Tuesday, we brought the kids bowling to celebrate the start of their winter break which was very fun! Wednesday was spent going to schools to distribute letters for our winter programming and developing interviews for parents of the BEEP participants to gouge the support systems of the kids. On Thursday, we got down and dirty, literally. We worked in one of BEEP’s many community gardens: tilling the soil, planting spinach seedlings and watering. Lots of the kids got involved and it was so much fun! Today, Friday, I was lucky enough to get the day off because we worked last Saturday, which allowed me time to write this blog post. Today will be a good opportunity to relax and get some work done after an extremely hectic first three weeks. Overall, I’m beginning to really settle in here and I can’t wait to see what else Cape Town has in store.

Hello again from Cape Town! I’ve had an unbelievable first week in this great city. I left off my last post in anticipation of my internship experience. Before I get to that, however, I also have another important part of my experience I’d like to mention. Each Monday I will be taking a class in contemporary South African issues. This past Monday was my first class and it was very interesting. So far we have talked a lot about the many tools of apartheid and racialized oppression in South Africa. We discussed the imposition of language as a method of suppressing subordinate culture and especially how geography and infrastructure can create material inequalities that lock people into poverty and social disenfranchisement (one of the unequal scenes we looked at is pictured below). Our readings this week were about these topics and more, including colonialism and the complexities of international aid and development, which has been very interesting.

An Unequal Scene by Imizamo Yethu (Hout Bay, South Africa)

Tuesday was the first day of my internship. It was not exactly what I had expected. Beyond Expectation Environmental Project (BEEP) is in Philippi, a township outside of Cape Town. You can Google Philippi to get a better understanding of what I mean. Basically it is a slum, as are the other townships of the Western Cape. Most of the homes, restaurants, businesses, etc. are composed of pieces of tin stitched together to form small shacks of one or two rooms. There are rabid dogs everywhere and trash litters the streets. From my privileged position, this is abject poverty of the likes I have never seen. As I am increasingly learning however, these communities are actually comparatively better off than many others throughout Africa, and even in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa, just kilometers away. The townships of the Western Cape mostly have running water, electricity and usually enough food to survive. Some of the homes even have television, even though most don’t have their own bathrooms. Either way, this township is unlike any place I have spent a significant amount of time, and it is where I will be spending the majority of my weekdays over the next two months.

The people that I will be working with are very amazing. Mama K is the number 2 at BEEP and she is very fun and talkative and such an inspiring person who cares so much about all of the kids. Two other people we will be working with are Ohlwethu and Nomvuyo, both previous participants in the BEEP program who have gone through the ranks to now become employees. They are both so passionate about helping the kids and are very committed to the organization. Finally, Lindela. Lindela is the director of BEEP. He started it more than 10 years ago with the dream of empowering township kids to become community leaders, advocates and model citizens through bringing them to Table Mountain and teaching them about the environment. He is a quiet person, but he cares so much about these kids and wants to do whatever he can to help them. Lindela is also interesting in that he has many unconventional methods of building leadership and presentation skills which usually include throwing anyone and everyone into situations that they are certainly not prepared for in order to teach adaptability, flexibility and confidence. All of these people are so inspiring in their care for and commitment to the communities from which they have come. Another random, interesting note about the BEEP staff, and the township in general, is that they all speak Xhosa as their first language. Xhosa is one of the clicking languages and I have begun to learn some of it as they speak it throughout the day.

Lindela Mjenxane, Director of BEEP

Within minutes of arriving at BEEP, my worries from the previous post had vanished. We will be working with the kids, going on hikes and much more. I will also have an opportunity to do the research I want to do, which is very exciting. While I will save much of the specifics of what I will be doing for future posts, I will talk about some of the things I have already done with BEEP. The first day we went around to many of the schools to meet the principals and see the flower and food gardens that BEEP manages. The first afternoon we met Lindela, who told us in our first conversation that on our second day we would be responsible for running a meeting between BEEP and a local member of the Signal Hill Rotary Club. Like I said before, Lindela likes to throw people into situations and see what happens. We finished our first day by going to a workshop that some of the student leaders were running with the kids. They were reviewing what they had learned about pollution and climate change and gave presentations on what they had learned in front of the entire class.

On our second day we spent much of the morning reading books about social issues in the township. We will be using these to run book clubs in the next couple weeks. After that we went to the mall and then had lunch. At around 2, we finally went to the meeting with the Rotarian. Paige (the other girl working with BEEP from Kentucky) and I did well! We each contributed a lot to the conversation and helped support BEEPs goals moving forward with the Rotary Club. Lindela was very impressed. He even told us so, which the other BEEP employees said is extremely rare. On our last two days this week we spent a lot of time going to schools and figuring out logistics for the next few weeks. We also went to Driftsands, a nature preserve, to meet with our partner there. BEEP regularly takes their kids to Driftsands to watch videos about some of the harder-to-explain topics. We also went twice to a restaurant in the township for lunch to get local food (pictured below). The cooks were kind enough to prepare a vegetarian platter for me (I don’t eat meat) even though it wasn’t on the menu. I am extremely glad to say that not only did this food not make me sick, it was also extremely delicious.

Next I wanted to touch briefly on my research. As I said, I will be able to do it. I spent a lot of time this week crafting questions and thinking about how I want to do conduct my research. One of my assignments this summer will be to create a booklet for BEEP to train future student leaders on how to best present content and lead workshops. To do this I will have to interview the student leaders to understand which practices are best for this environment. Fortunately, these interviews provide a perfect opportunity to include some of my own research questions, which the people at BEEP are totally OK with. I hope to interview both the student leaders and some South African climate activists and write an analysis of climate activism in South Africa and how public education and environmental education NGOs work to either help or harm the climate movement in South Africa. I am so excited to do these interviews and see what I learn from them.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the other activities I did this week. On Thursday night we went to a local night market where there was tons of good food and drinks and desserts. I had Bunny Chow for the first time (pictured above) which is an amazing Indian curry inside a hollow half of a loaf of bread. I also had some really good empanadas, brownies and ice cream. Saturday we went to Kirstenbosch, which is also something worth Googling. Kirstenbosch is one of the largest, if not the largest, collection of botanical gardens in all of Africa. There were so many amazing flowers and unbelievable views here. We even took a detour to go on part of one of the many hikes that stem from Kirstenbosch. Some of the pictures from this trip are below, including a few from the meal we had at the restaurant within Kirstenbosch, which I highly recommend.  I mostly stayed behind the camera for this one, but Kendall is featured in many of the pictures. All in all, this has truly been one of the greatest (if not the greatest) weeks of my life. I am so happy to be in Cape Town, and right now, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Scroll Below to see pictures of Kirstenbosch

Hi from South Africa! This is my first blog post for my summer internship in Cape Town. My internship starts tomorrow and I wanted to begin by talking about the amazing and hectic last couple weeks I have had. Before I left for my trip, it was a rush to get everything together. I got my typhoid pills, bought adapters, etc. Thankfully I was fully packed on time with virtually everything I needed. I said goodbye to my family and shipped off to Paris.

Rather than spend an hour in the Paris airport, I decided to spend a few days in Paris (and interestingly, a night in Antwerp, Belgium as well) before I went all the way to Cape Town. These few days were an amazing experience, and I am so glad I was able to share them with my former au pair, Jorge. While the specifics of this trip are beyond the scope of this blog, when I return to the US I hope to share these memories with family, friends, etc.

The flight to South Africa was long, 10 hours to Johannesburg and another 2 to Cape Town. On the first plane, I had a wonderful chat with a South African women who is living in London and we discussed racism, the Syrian refugee crisis, South African politics and of course, climate change (for anyone reading this who doesn’t know, I talk a lot about climate change). Once I got to South Africa, I was surprised that virtually everyone spoke English. Cape Town has been amazing so far. The accommodations are cozy (read: cramped) but the water is safe to drink, the food is amazing and the people here are very cool. Our house holds just over 20 people, but only 9 are from the University of Kentucky. Many of the other house guests are from cool places like Holland, Brazil, Belgium and Uganda. I have settled in very well, and the short walk to an upscale mall with groceries, a pharmacy and lots of stores and restaurants has been very convenient.

My first couple days have been very busy and extremely fun. The first day I went to the mall and then a local brewery. The next day, my girlfriend Kendall arrived and we went out to lunch with our advisor, Jim, and I had the best Portobello burger I’ve ever had. After that I went shopping with Kendall, bought a South African phone to text and call domestically and then went out to a great little restaurant down the street called Nurona. The next morning was the most fun I have had thus far, we woke up really early (5 am for me) to catch an Uber to Lions Head. This is the shortest of the three peaks of Cape Town and it is very beautiful! You have to literally climb the last section and when you are at the top you can see the ocean, the entire city, and the other two mountains of Cape Town, Table Mountain and Devil’s Peak. We also found a beautiful cave on the side of the mountain that was very good for pictures. All of the photos included here were taken at various points on this hike.

While I have had a busy few days, there is so much more I can’t wait to do. I hope to visit the water front, see penguins at Boulder’s Beach, go on a safari, swim with sharks and so much more. Cape Town is an amazing city with so many cool things to do. I also want to visit important historical sites in Cape Town. There are many museums and other places documenting the history of apartheid and relating to the lives and work of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, among others.

In terms of my internship, I don’t know exactly what to expect. For those who don’t know, I will be working with Beyond Expectation Environmental Project (BEEP) which is an environmental education non-governmental organization (NGO) which uses experiential education to show disadvantaged South African youth the importance of environmental protection. The organization mostly does after care programs, day hikes, and weekend camping trips to Table Mountain.

I am very excited to be working with BEEP. I can’t wait to work with the kids, learn more about environmental issues in South Africa and learn what it’s like to work with an international NGO. I also love hiking and camping and I am so glad to be able to work in such an outdoors-y environment while I’m in Cape Town. It is winter here now, but it is warm enough to be comfortable in shorts some days. I’m unsure of whether I will be able to go on the weekend camping trips because I only work from Tuesdays to Fridays, but I hope to at least go on one trip.

For my NRE class during this trip (for which I am writing this blog), I also have to write a 4000 word essay. I hope to write this about the intersection of South African youth and climate change. My desire is to write an analysis on the effects of climate change on youth in South Africa and the current involvement of South African youth in climate activism. I hope to tie this into my internship by arguing that a lack of formal environmental education has prevented a large level of youth engagement on environmental issues in general, and on climate change in particular. I believe I could tie this into BEEP by talking to students and/or teachers to understand how BEEP creates awareness, concern and action around environmental issues, specifically climate change. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if I will be able to do this primary research with BEEP.

There are a couple things I am worried about. My job description was very vague, so I’m not certain I will be working with the kids or going on hikes. It’s possible I could be doing administrative work, but that is unlikely. I’m also unsure of whether I will be able to do the research I want to do. It may be difficult to do research on children and I don’t know what permits or permission I need to obtain. I will need to talk with the BEEP director and look more into research laws in South Africa. Despite these fears, there is a lot to be excited about for my internship. Overall, I think it will be an amazing experience and I believe I will learn a lot. Check back in the next couple weeks for further updates on my Cape Town experience!