Mount Madonna School students explore Kruger National Park in South Africa as part of the Ubuntu Project.

Today we are beginning the last leg of our wonderful journey. We are on the beautiful coast road back to Cape Town. In some ways it reminds me of the Big Sur coast but with a gentler slope to the mountains as they come down to meet the sea. There are a few other differences like a bright turquoise hue to the water, African penguin colonies and the famous great white sharks that feed off the seals that live here. Everywhere we travel we see a huge variety of landscapes and many social contrasts of a country still trying to overcome the inequities of Apartheid.

In Cape Town the main event will be our interview with Archbishop Tutu – just a day away now. Tomorrow we will visit the Philani Child Nutrition Project where we will deliver the 22 bags of clothing and a check for $2700 the students collected prior to their trip. We will spend a good part of the day doing some work projects for Philani and distributing the clothes to their five different centers in the township. During the next four days we will also visit the MY Life Project, and Dance for Life, a project that teaches children from the townships in traditional African dance. We also hope to have an interview with some of the veterans from Robben Island who were incarcerated with Nelson Mandela. After our recent visit to the island I think this will be a very meaningful engagement.

The students have done really well so far on this journey. The past couple of days out at See-Eike farm we had a chance to work on our upcoming interview and engage with the Learning Journey framework that helps the students reflect on their experience become aware of how they are engaging on the road with the concepts and skills of the Values in World Thought class. This trip seems to be an exquisite fusion of adventure, challenge, learning moments, and fun. It appears to me that many of the students are trying hard and it seems they are changing right before our eyes. I am gratified at how well they are all getting along together and how they support one another. They have also been very flexible to the inevitable changes of plans and minor inconveniences here and there. I think it will be interesting to witness how they integrate what they have seen so far and all that still remains to be experienced. I think we are seeing their best. Everyday I am happy that Lisa, Shannon, Shmuel and Devin are also on this trip, each one contributing their different skills. We will do an upload to the blog tonight, including a video clip from Kruger that Devin has prepared. Shmuel will be sending out a new story for the Santa Cruz Sentinel tonight. It should run in a day or two. Thanks everyone for visiting the site and for your comments. The students are encouraged by the fact that you are following their journey.
-Sadanand Ward Mailliard

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Penguins

In the fall of 2000, when I was in third grade, I traveled to Africa. I didn’t realize the rare opportunity I had been given at such a young age. Never the less, I made the most of the trip, waking up at an ungodly hour to see the game in their natural habitat. These experiences have always been in the back of my mind. Now I have been given the amazing chance to re-live some of those adventures.

For example, today we stopped at Stony Point to watch the African penguins. As a wild eight year old I jumped the fence separating me from the penguins to play with them close up. Now, as a seventeen year old, I am more composed, but still just as excited to see, hear and smell one of my favorite animals.
-Erin Mitchell

Fun at the Beach

The beaches in South Africa are even better than the ones near home. The sand is like silk. Dawie took us out to a tasty lunch at Cubana, than gave us a tour of Hermanus. We saw some of the most expensive homes in Hermanus, as well as the shacks that many people here call home. It was amazing to see the contrast between the two ways of life. It is unbelievable that they are just minutes apart.

It was unsettling to see such poverty. Yet, all of the people in the squatter’s camp smiled, stopped what they were doing and waved to us as we drove by. They all looked genuinely happy, it was odd. When I get home I want to go through my room and give away everything that I don’t need. I have way too many material things. I don’t want to be surrounded by artificial happiness.
-Leah Nascimento

Today we went over the Learning Journey Rubric. After we worked on the rubric, we began formulating questions for the Desmond Tutu interview. We came up with many interesting questions but most of them still need to be reworded. We want to get the language just right. I can’t believe that we only have four more days until the interview. I am becoming more nervous as the day gets closer. My biggest fear is that we will sound stupid in front of the Archbishop.
-Mari Fox

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Dawie’s Farm

I never expected South Africa to be such a beautiful country. We have spent the past few days on Dawie’s farm, two hours outside of Cape Town. The farm is on a hill that slopes down to a seasonal estuary. Standing on top of the hill you get a panoramic view of the Indian Ocean and the nearby towns of Stanford and Hermanus.

One of the amazing things about this place is that it is completely off the grid. They only use solar energy and supply their own water from an underground river. I am surprised at how easy it seems to live this way. They eliminated all non-native species of vegetation and build only in the spaces where those species had been. Because of this, the huts at Gecko Bush Camp are all closely surrounded by trees and connected by small wooden paths.

The owners of See-Eike Farm have set aside certain weekends to invite less privileged children from the nearby townships to spend time in nature. Having seen how many people live in townships, I can only imagine what the opportunity means to them. Pat, another man who shares ownership of the farm, told us stories about having to pull the kids out of the showers because they had never had access to a shower before. He said that many children horde food during their first few meals because they are not used to having enough to go around. These stories make me realize how much I take for granted.
-Camille Schwartz

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Kayaking

I went kayaking for the first time today. It was refreshing and fun. Dawie and Pat, one of the camp leaders and caretakers of See-Eike farm, led us along a jungle-like trail to the estuary. They taught us about the flora and fauna along the way. The trail was a narrow path surrounded by jungle, vines, bamboo shoots, caves, and milkwood trees. The end of the path opened up to a secluded grassy bank on the edge of the lagoon. In the distance there were beautiful mountains, green and glowing.

Pat proceeded to take us to the Gecko Bush Camp, an amazing group of buildings made entirely of bamboo and other various non-native woods. It resembled a giant tree house with small wooden pathways linking everything together. The Gecko Bush Camp is a nature camp mostly catering to children from townships and squatter camps. It is a place where these children can get away from the realities of their everyday lives and experience the natural beauty of their surroundings. They are taught team building, survival activities, and life-values.

Kayaks and a View

After our time at Gecko Bush Camp, Pat handed us lifejackets and paddles and directed us to the water where he got us settled into our kayaks. The water was warm and extremely salty.
-Leah Nascimento

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Haley and I got in our kayaks and paddled through the marsh weeds to get into the open lagoon. Pat directed us to race our kayaks around the buoys and back to him. Haley and I came in last so Pat rearranged the teams to make them more even. After a few more races we put away the equipment and headed back to the houses.
-Mari Fox

If I were back in the U.S. today, Easter would have consisted of church in the morning, an Easter egg hunt and a party in the evening. In Africa our Easter celebration was a small egg hunt that Lisa organized. This Easter was not the traditional Easter that I am used to, but it was still a meaningful day for me.

We stepped onto the ferry at one o’clock and headed for Robben Island. I had an image of what I thought it would look like from a movie we watched in school called, “The Color of Freedom.” When we arrived it looked exactly like I had imagined it. We all piled on a bus and went on a tour around the island. There are some places where the history is so vibrant you can feel it.

The tour guide had been imprisoned there and shared his story with us. Even though he had probably told this story more times than he could count, it was as fresh as if he were telling it for the first time. He told his story with so much sadness that it made people cry.

Robben Island

We were shown the quarry where the political leaders were forced to mine lime, with no eye protection, and many of them got snow blindness from the glare. There was a small cave in the quarry which served as their only bathroom, as well as their meeting place. The reason they could use it without being disturbed was that under Apartheid law, the white guards were not allowed into the cave, which was considered a non-white bathroom. The prisoners used this to their advantage. They educated one another in that cave. Those that had entered prison illiterate emerged able to read and write. They had a phrase that said “Each one Teach one.” The guide said that the mistake that the Apartheid government made was putting all of their political prisoners in one place, and giving them a place to meet.

For the tour of the actual prison, our guide was another ex-prisoner named Sparks. He spoke slowly, in a way that seemed almost completely detached as he told us about the place where he and his fellow prisoners were kept. Hs manner of speech took some of the horror of the place out of it for me. Thinking about it now though, I wonder if this detached manner is the only way for him to deal with the horror that the place holds for him. As I walked down the rows of small solitary cells of the Robben Island prison, past the cell where Mandela spent part of his 27 years in prison, the sadness and terror seemed to still be alive. Reflecting on the experience, does this detachment hold more horror in it than any emotion he could have shown?

Today was important to me because the people we encountered had suffered so much but did not seem to be angry. This is a contrast from many people I know in the U.S. who have so much, yet are filled with anger and discontent. Sedick did not seem resentful toward those who had imprisoned him. He has chosen to focus his energy on educating people. It seems that most of the people I have met in South Africa are passionate about education.
-Sara Birns, Brittany Lovato, Cliff Randolf, & Anneka Lettunich

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We got up at 4:00 A.M. this morning so that we could catch our plane from Nelspruit to Cape Town. After a 7 hour drive and a stop at Wimpy’s for breakfast, we got to the small airport. The airport is a few hours outside of Johannesburg. Our flight to Cape Town was very comfortable. We were picked up from the airport in Cape Town by a bus that is being used for Clint Eastwood’s movie about Nelson Mandela’s Rugby Team. Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon are starring in the movie.

Cape Town is nothing like I ever could have imagined. It reminds me of several cities combined into one large metropolis. Cape Town has traces of San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Miami, and Malibu but it seems much cleaner, and more elaborate! Even the fields and countryside of South Africa remind me of home. It is amazing to see how much South Africa is like California.

The bus took us to a lookout point atop Signal Hill, near Table Mountain. The view was spectacular. It was absolutely breathtaking. Our chaperones worked hard to convince us that we would be staying in a very modest hotel, but the hotel we arrived at was glamorous and ritzy! Upon our arrival, we were given fresh fruit juice and a warm welcome from the hotel staff. There was a huge grand piano in the lobby. Leah sat down and played beautifully. Her playing touched me. After freshening up, we went to a lovely dinner on the waterfront.

The first week seemed to fly by. There were flashes of lions, elephants, giraffes, poverty stricken townships, a city where the wealthy live on one side of the street, and across the street, live people who barely make enough money to feed and clothe their children. Our second week here has just begun, and it is already proving to be just as exciting. We are taking some time now to recuperate, gearing up for Philani, and our interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I can’t wait to see what this week has to offer!
-Mariel Fox & Trevor Forry

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