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Tag: South Africa

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By rbhargava

I’ve been in South Africa for over two weeks now, and now am settled into life at Stellenbosch. There’s much I could review and discuss about my past week, so I’ll try my best to highlight the most important and interesting aspects of the past several days.

Last Sunday, I was able to move into my dorm from the Sustainability Institute. My dorm, Metanoia, is the largest residence on campus with about 500 students. There are very few international students here, I’ve met 9 so far, so living here is a fantastic opportunity to meet South African students and fully integrate into the university life here. I’ve already made many friends here, unlike most of the 400 or so international students here for the semester who are living either in private residences or in a university complex that is for international students only. The upcoming week is Metanoia Week, a celebration of the residence, and should be full of many more fun times with local students. I’m very lucky to be living here as I understand many people have study abroad experiences that leave them with few friends from the area they are studying in.

Last week was also the first week of classes. This semester I’m taking three classes – Learning, Sustainability, and Community Engagement (LSCE); Cities, Sustainability and Community, and Transitional Justice in Africa. The LSCE is an innovative 9 credit course that meets Mondays and Fridays at an elementary school outside Stellenbosch. On Mondays, we teach students…I’ve been lucky enough to be placed with 7th graders. Having taught 7th graders previously in India, it will be exciting to compare the two groups. On Fridays, the class returns to the school for an entire day of theory on sustainable community engagement. I’ll most likely be posting entire posts just on this program as it will certainly consume much of my time here. The Cities, Sustainability, and Community course is the one I am taking as part of my CIEE program and began last week with the praxis week at the Sustainability Institute. Lastly, the Transitional Justice in Africa course is one offered at Stellenbosch specifically for international students. I have yet to take an Africa-specific course at GW, and the first lecture of the class seemed very promising and insightful on post-conflict justice in various countries across the continent.

The highlight of the week though was, of course, was getting more exposure to Stellenbosch and South African culture. Students here are extremely friendly and I’ve been able to converse with a few South Africans about what it means to be a South African, specifically post-apartheid. I’ve noticed that while the issues of apartheid are still very apparent and racism still can be found almost everywhere, the students I’ve met at Stellenbosch have little interest in the policies of the past and give hope to a much brighter future. However, that being said, the lack of opportunities in South Africa cause many of the brightest students here to leave the country for better opportunities elsewhere.

I want to end with one specific story that I hope will give a better understanding of what South Africa is like today. Last weekend, I planned a trip to visit Cape Town with a few friends. Over the course of the week, I asked as many people as possible how they got to Cape Town, what means of transportation they recommended, etc. I asked specifically about taking a train there, which was the cheapest and easiest option. To give some background on the train system here, trains are traditionally only used by blacks and coloreds, and therefore have a certain reputation. Some students told me to avoid the train at all costs, while others told me to only take first-class during rush hour, and others had told me to go in a large group. On the other hand, one white South African girl told me she had traveled alone on the train once and was fine. My friends and I ended up taking the train to Cape Town and back and had no problems, although we definitely didn’t feel completely safe on it. The lesson here though is the remnants of apartheid are evident in everyday life. Trains are still “for the blacks”, and white South Africans will rarely use them. From what I’ve been told, no one has been murdered on the train system we used, but the decades old reputation of the train system persists. “Blacks use the trains…and therefore its dangerous.” Too many people here are isolated from other racial groups and relatively content with what is going on, and that only perpetuates the problems of apartheid.

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quad
The Quad at the University of Stellenbosch

It’s hard to explain how it feels to have just finished the first week of my second semester here at Stellenbosch University. After a long semester break, of which I stayed in town to save money and explore, I was happy to see the town slowly fill back up again with excited students greeting each other and catching up. For us here in South Africa, our academic year runs from January-December, with this semester being the second of the two.

South Africa has the top three universities on the continent- University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria, and the University of Stellenbosch (where I attend) as well as seven of the top 11 universities in Africa. The closest top tier universities are in places like Nigeria and Egypt. As such, students from Southern Africa flock here for their studies, making for a diverse population of students from places like Namibia, Botswana, and Lesotho, as well as South Africa. This being said, both the University of Stellenbosch and University of Cape Town are predominantly white- with 68.5% of Stellenbosch and 38.6% at UCT. Many of the universities have historical racial relationships, as universities such as the University of Witwatersrand, or Wits as they call it, was created for black students to study at, University of Western Cape was for only coloured students (mixed-race), while universities like Stellenbosch only admitted white students.

Seeing as policies regarding which racial groups could apply to which colleges only changed in the last several decades, the university’s demographics remain largely the same nowadays. However, more and more non-white students are attending college here every year.

Students doing the same major at university take a set sequence of classes each semester and each year. This makes it a little difficult for someone coming from the looser American system, in which I can take a second year course, fourth year course, general education requirement, and an elective all within one semester. Additionally, different degrees take different amounts of years, so college is not considered a 4-year process, but rather dependent upon degree (no surprise here- science degrees take longer than humanity degrees). Seeing as the South African university system was set up by their lovely colonizer, England, schools concentrate on lateral learning as opposed to rote memorization- something I appreciate coming from a system which many times focuses on regurgitation rather than engrained knowledge.

Unfortunately, South Africa- like many developing countries, has a problem with “brain drain”. With only 12 of every 100 high schoolers in ZA qualifying for university, and university drop-outs outnumbering graduates, there is a lack of highly skilled labor in South Africa. Even still, those who are educated rarely remain in the country, opting instead to work in places like the UK or various places in the developed world. In an interesting read by Business Future’s in 2010, it is stated “The African human resource pool is continuously depleted as the educated choose to emigrate and apply their skills abroad. It is estimated that since 1990, some 20,000 skilled professionals have been leaving Africa on an annual basis, depriving the continent of the doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers it needs to break the cycle of poverty and under-development” (Roux 2010). It sort of connects ZA having such good universities and yet poor leadership, eh?

The bibliotek at the University of Stellenbosch
The bibliotek at the University of Stellenbosch

This being said, universities are universities, and college kids are the same everywhere. Between hazing first-year students, to professors who seem to have it out for you, to the library having an exponential population spike just before exams- it’s really not so different than back home. For me, it’s mind-blowing that one semester here has already come and gone, but I am so happy with how it turned out. My first semester was full of exploring cities, making friends, and attending events ranging from competing in a cooking competition to a masquerade ball at the student theatre. Based on this week, I am confident that my second semester will be no different!

 

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By rbhargava

Hello friends and welcome to the first edition of many blog posts to come on my adventures and experiences at Stellenbosch University. Although I'm no expert on the region, I want to start off this post with a little background on the region and the university. Stellenbosch is in the heart of South Africa's Cape Winelands, and is 30 miles away from Cape Town. Today, its wine may make it famous, but the university keeps this city alive. With about 30,000 students, the university is ranked second in South Africa after the University of Cape Town, and is a major academic center in the country. As such, the city attracts some of the smartest minds in the country and is an important part of the Western Cape's economy. What I really want to highlight is the university's history. As the top Afrikaan university, Stellenbosch is unfortunately also known as the birthplace of apartheid. With that said, the university and city today ironically face many of the repercussions of the policies it helped create. The city is one of the most unequal places on Earth, with deeply segregated communities ranging from the wealthy whites on one side of town, coloreds on the other, and blacks in a far off corner. A foreigner would never see these differences, as Stellenbosch does well to hide these systemic problems behind the facades of beautiful Cape Dutch architecture and the majestic mountains that make Stellenbosch the beautiful valley town that it is. It is important to keep all of this in mind, as 20 years after apartheid - Stellenbosch is both the perfect example of the rainbow nation, and the perfect example of everything that has held South Africa back.

With the scene set and on a lighter note, let me talk more about my first week here in South Africa! As part of the CIEE study abroad program I am on (called Sustainability and Community), I spent my first week at the Sustainability Institute in a small town outside Stellenbosch called Lynedoch. Set in the midst of some of the country's best wineries, I had the chance to get my first exposure of South Africa from a sustainable development perspective - learning about issues of food security from a local farmer, hearing about one winery's efforts to become greener from a former VP, and talking to researchers about efforts being taken to improve the living standards and environment of the informal settlement in Stellenbosch called Enkanini. Hearing from these individuals and many more gave me a great overview of what Stellenbosch is all about.

Skipping ahead, after a fantastic praxis week at the Sustainability Institute, I went on a tour of the peninsula with my program (there's only two of us on the program) on Saturday. Having only been at and near Stellenbosch since arriving, I had yet to see the Cape Town. Driving there, we passed an endless line of informal settlements that was a strong reminder of the stark divisions that have come to define the country today. Cape Town of course was as beautiful as any city I've seen, and we had the chance to drive up Signal Hill, a beautiful vantage point from which most of Cape Town can be seen. Driving down the peninsula, we were able to stop at Boulders Beach in Simonstown, where hundreds of penguins were waddling around on the beach...a sight like no other! We also stopped at the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point at the very end of the peninsula - the southwestern most part of Africa. Reflecting back on this day trip around the peninsula, the Cape Town area is full of absolutely beautiful places and is blessed with some of the most diverse wildlife on the planet, but the abundant inequalities among whites, coloreds, and blacks make it difficult to call Cape Town a great city.

 

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By iobrien1093

While it seems like most study abroad students are heading back to the U.S., I still have about a month and a half left to wrap up my research and volunteer work in Cape Town. This Tuesday, I’ll be teaching my fourth pre-primary workshop at the Phumlani Village DayCare. I’ve spent the last week painstakingly perfecting this weeks lesson plan after what I would call last Tuesday’s disappointing failure. Although I had gone to the Daycare center confident in the literacy activities I had planned for the children, the day quickly turned from productive to chaotic in a matter of seconds. Hyperactivity and lack of discipline have been major problems in implementing my project in Phumlani, even more so than the language barrier. The children who are focused and excited to participate in the activities are often overshadowed by students who are unable to sit still, who yell, and who fight one another on a constant basis. The group of children I’m working with has now grown in number to about thirteen five year olds, when initially my goal was to work with 6-8. The Mamas who work at the creche are able to calm the rowdy students down for a few minutes, but soon after their backs are turned the chaos ensues. The lack of discipline is not unexpected, though, since most of the children have never been in a classroom environment or any kind of formal and structured setting before. Moreover many of the children lack parental supervision and structure at home.
I’m working with my capstone supervisor Val, who has worked in primary education for the last thirty years, to develop some classroom management tools for my program. She recommended using incentives, most likely in the form of candy, to positively reinforce good behavior and motivate the less focused children. Initially she had suggested talking firmly with them and explaining that their behavior was unacceptable, but I explained that there is a complete lack of respect for authority among a few of the children that I am working with. To many of the children that I work with I’m just “Umlungu,” meaning white person. They don't see me as a teacher, I just seem like something foreign to them. Val, was extremely upset when she heard this because she immediately identified the children's actions as one of the many consequences of Apartheid and how the past is still negatively impacting the education system in South Africa.
Val suggested that rather than try to formally teach the kids literacy, I should take more of a Learn Through Play Approach to pre-primary education. She helped me pick ten workshop topics, ranging from Colors to the Environment, that I could center my lesson plans around and encouraged me to focus more on games and crafts. This week I’m creating a lesson plan on Colors which will include activities like making patterned, colored macaroni necklaces, making rainbows with coffee filters and food dye, and making puppets relating to the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Val also gave me a Grade R Curriculum guide, which has really helped me understand not only what pre-primary students should be learning at this stage, but how they should be learning.
I know that when I return to GW I’ll continue to work with DC Reads as I have for the past two years, but I think when I return I’ll have a greater respect and appreciation for the teachers that I work with. Especially, the kindergarten teachers who work with ESL students. I hadn’t realized how much time and energy goes into creating lesson plans. It’s not just fun and games even when the lesson plan literally includes games. I’m never going to forget the time that I’ve spent in the Phumlnai community. Even though there were times when I felt like I could cry in frustration at myself for not being able to communicate with the kids the way I wanted to and at the kids for not listening to me the way I wanted them to, there were so many more times when I felt inspired and motivated by being around them. I can’t predict how the rest of my time in South Africa will go, but now that I’m working with Val my spirits have lifted and I feel determined to make the best pre-primary program possible for the children of Phumlani.

-Isabel

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By iobrien1093

After returning from an amazing week on Spring Break, traveling along South Africa’s Garden Route it was time to get serious about my capstone research project; to stop planning and start doing. I met with my capstone supervisor earlier this week to discuss how I wanted my final two months of service to look. I decided that going to New Chapter’s office once a week was not an efficient use of time, as there is no internet or phone connection, and that I would rather spend my service time at the Phumlani Village Day-care, working hands-on with the four and five year old children. There has been some tension and frustration recently in CIEE's partnership with New Chapter Foundation, and as a result the service learners and CIEE coordinators have decided to separate from New Chapter, while still keeping the relationship with Phumlani Village. So rather than implement a literacy program into New Chapter’s after school club I am now working with Phumlani Day-care to create a curriculum meant to prepare pre-primary school children for primary school. I was initially discouraged from working with this age group by New Chapter, with the reasoning that children in Phumlani do not typically begin learning English in school until third grade. It was suggested that I work with the fourth graders to catch them up to the appropriate reading level. I, on the other hand, felt that it would be beneficial to create the foundation for English learning at a younger age rather than to play catch up later. I could only see the benefit in helping the younger children, especially disadvantaged younger children who lack educational support, get a step ahead in learning English when they will all have to learn it eventually anyway.

I began working at the day care on Tuesday morning and it seemed that Mama Verda, the day care director, was happy to have a pair of extra hands. There are around 80 children at the day care, from ages 1-5. The five year old children were on a field trip so I began working with six four year olds on some alphabet activities. It was very hectic on that first day, because there wasn’t a separate room for me to take my group into. When any of the other children saw that I had brought crayons and paper they all wanted to be part of the activity, especially the three year olds, who do not have the maturity to sit still for a lesson. Of the six kids I was working with, only two of them were engaged in the activity, but the two did an amazing job and you could see how proud of themselves they were when they finished their worksheets. I wasn’t surprised that so few of them remained interested, as they are so young and haven’t had a structured schooling environment before. I was just excited that I could see some interest, even if it was only from a few of them. If I could get even two of the six ready for primary school, I would still consider that a success. Every child counts. The language barrier was not as much of a problem as I was told it would be, as many of the children are exposed to English out in public or on television. What I really struggled with was getting the children to stop climbing on the tables. I had to keep shouting Hlala! Hlala! which means Sit! in Xhosa. But, that was okay because now the children think I speak Xhosa fluently and they’re scared to say anything rude. It’s scary how many insults and gestures these kids, even the three year olds, use with one another.

This week was definitely trial and error.I wasn’t able to test individual knowledge of the alphabet or phonemes since the five year olds were away and they are my target group. I’ve realized that the four year old age group may even be too young, although like I said there were a few that were really trying. It’s going to be a struggle to keep the ones who want to learn engaged while there are others the same age bouncing off the tables and being disruptive. But, ultimately the point of these workshops is to find activities that can keep all personality types engaged. Now that we have separated from New Chapter, I am worried about the sustainability of my project. There are volunteers coming this summer from a program called The World Race who could pick up my project and continue with it, but it’s not certain whether this will happen. The coordinators at CIEE will also pair the service-learning students coming this summer with Phumlani and suggest they continue with my project, but again that’s not certain. Since Phumlani is such an impoverished township, programs like mine are difficult to maintain. It’s more important to spend time finding food for the children than it is to spend time giving English lessons. At least my curriculum will serve as a template for a pre-primary program if volunteers choose to go in that direction.

It's been extremely frustrating these past few weeks, but hopefully now that we've changed our relationship with New Chapter and I'm getting to work hands on with the children instead of sitting in an office, I'll make some progress.

-Isabel

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By iobrien1093

This past week, I finally submitted an  Independent Research Proposal to my Capstone Project supervisor. For my capstone I am creating a basic literacy curriculum for New Chapter’s After School Program in Phumlani Village, which does not have an educational component at this time. Since nearly 70% of Phumlani’s residents are unemployed and do not have the means to pay school fees, many children do not attend primary school. This reality exists in townships all over South Africa, and as a result, nearly 80 percent of South African learners do not develop basic reading skills by the time they reach Grade 5. Those learners will not likely succeed in secondary-school education, which will in turn compromise their options for post-school learning, career opportunities, and general wellbeing in life.

Phumlani’s literacy program will take place either at the community center or in the local library and will target primary school learners from Kindergarten to Grade 3, as well as children who have never been enrolled in school. I am creating a handbook with a curriculum that includes lesson plans for weekly literacy workshops as well as workbook activities and short stories that coincide with each workshop. I am also creating an Indigogo webpage that will provide the means for printing and for each child to receive his or her own workbook to bring home. Ideally, I would like this handbook to be the initial step in the development of a larger mentorship program in which New Chapter would partner with a local high school to form a one-on-one mentorship program using the handbook as the curriculum. The greatest challenge to this program is that most of the children speak three languages: Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English. Their levels of English vary drastically, so this program will not just be a literacy program, but a literacy program for ESL learners. As I speak neither Afrikaans nor Xhosa it would be nearly impossible for me to formally tutor the children myself, which is why I’m hoping that New Chapter will be able to partner with locals who speak the children’s home language. Thankfully, Malcolm Josephs, the founder of New Chapter, speaks Afrikaans fluently, knows nearly all of the children in Phumlani as well as their families, and will be able to help me establish the children’s English skills for the purposes of forming the curriculum.

Although I am creating the handbook for future purposes, I am also working with the children informally on a weekly basis, in order to better understand their learning styles and what activities are able to successfully motivate them to learn. I would like to get the name and grade level of each child who attends the afterschool program. Then I will create a log of their general literacy levels. This would be helpful to the future volunteers who will work with specific children. Once I’ve established the baseline literacy levels I will split the children into two groups based on reading skill, one group focusing on basic phonetic skills and the alphabet and the other more advanced group focusing on improving reading comprehension. I would work with each group for an hour each week. At the end of the semester I would interview the children to understand if their attitudes about reading have changed.

This week I am distributing consent forms to the parents of the children who will participate in the program. Later, this week once the signed forms are returned, I will distribute a short survey to assess the children’s attitudes about reading. I foresee that my research plan will change as I begin more hands-on work with the children. I’m expecting my greatest challenge to be the language barrier, but also that some of the kids are very shy about answering questions. These next few weeks will be hectic, and I’ll have to adapt my research along the way, but I’m relieved to finally have a foundation for my project and to be able to start working.

 

Isabel

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By iobrien1093

I’ve been working at New Chapter Foundation for the last three weeks, splitting my time between the organization’s new office building and the community center in Phumlani Village. Initially, I thought I would spend my time in the village’s community center tutoring children or assisting with the after-school homework club, but I quickly realized on my first day of volunteering that international students are essential in the development of most of New Chapter’s programs, as it is such a young organization lacking the means to hire many employees.

At the moment, I’m working with two other volunteers from CIEE on about three different programs that are all in their initial stages of development. The first is a Youth Advice Center, which aims to provide the youth of Phumlani, as well as drop-outs and students from local high schools, with the resources, computer skills training, and scholarship information to enable them to achieve their educational and career aspirations. The problem is that New Chapter is presently without Internet connection or a phone line, so we can’t even begin recruiting youth to the office without first fundraising at least $1,000 dollars for Telekom Service. Once we have the money, trained volunteers will deliver workshops to the participants. We’ve spent the last week creating and sharing an Indiegogo fundraising webpage for New Chapter that will hopefully draw in the funds to kickoff the advice center by the end of March.

Our second project is an art program that will target the mothers of Phumlani Village, many of whom are unemployed and spend their days at home with the children. The project is meant to provide these mothers with their own income by asking them to create art and jewelry from buttons that will be donated from local retail stores. We have already received about 8 boxes of buttons and elastic from a single retailer. Last week, we spoke to one of the head “Mamas” of the village, asking her to spread the word to other Mamas who might be interested in participating. Although she was interested in working with New Chapter, Mama was extremely skeptical as to whether the designs would actually sell and whether New Chapter would be as invested in marketing the project as the Mamas would be in creating the pieces. From our conversation it was clear that these women have been promised things before that they have never actually received. It’s difficult to reassure these women without having experience with this type of project. At this point there’s no concrete way to convince them that it will be successful.

The third project will be the After School Club at the Phumlani Community Center. I had thought when I started working at New Chapter that the After School Club was an organized, year round, five days a week program, but I discovered last week that it actually occurs once a week and only when international volunteers are available to run it. I was frustrated by this fact, since the After School Club was a major part of the reason why I chose to work at New Chapter in the first place. I had planned for the program to be the foundation of my capstone/independent research project.  It felt like there were too many projects depending on volunteers and that I was being assigned my capstone project even if I had no experience or understanding of how to go about developing it. It was a very overwhelming week, but when we opened the after school club for the afternoon last Friday it was actually very successful. We haven’t yet set up a homework club, as of now it’s just drawing and soccer games, but the kids are so excited to have somewhere to go and something to do after school other than walk the streets.

After leaving Phumlani that day, I met with my Service Learning advisor to sort out my mess of thoughts into a set of organized goals. She helped me realize that I’m not alone in this service project and that I’m not expected to know how to set up these programs by myself. She directed me find a project in New Chapter that I would really enjoy working on for the next three months even if wasn't something that the director of New Chapter had initially planned for me. It was a relief to have someone know my worries and to have her provide me with resources and connections.  I decided that I would like to create a Reading Partners program for my cap stone project where I will match high school students from one of the high schools affiliated with CIEE with a Xhosa or Afrikaans speaking child from Phumlani.

It’s been a busy few weeks, with some bumps in the road, but I finally feel like I’m able to visualize what the next three months will look like.

Isabel

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By dpmitchel

I completed my weeks of observation at St. Mary’s Hospital and I definitely learned so much! As my aim was to gain a holistic understanding of the implementation of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV policy into practice, I spent time in many wards and departments of the hospital. I shadowed doctors, nurses, and counselors in the antenatal clinic, a visiting OB/GYN from one of St. Mary’s referral hospitals, doctors and nurse midwives in the maternity ward, nurse midwives in the Midwifery and Obstetric Unit (MOU), a doctor from the pediatrics and nursery wards, and an HIV counselor in the MOU. I really got a unique chance to learn about the health system in South Africa, health professionals’ views on their system and PMTCT, and a plethora of information about obstetrics.

There certainly were challenges throughout my time at the hospital; for one, most of the communication between healthcare professional and patient was in Zulu. I was glad for my 7-week intensive Zulu class from SIT, as even a preliminary understanding was helpful to build connections with professionals and patients alike. I was grateful for the people I shadowed who clued me in on patient issues and provided me with in-depth explanations of medical conditions for my learning purposes.

As far as PMTCT goes, it was very interesting to see the most recent South African PMTCT guidelines (from the beginning of 2013) actually implemented in practice. I won’t bore with a long explanation of the program, but it involves testing all mothers for HIV status, providing them with counseling and antiretroviral therapy (ART), supplying HIV-exposed newborns with ART prophylaxis, and following up on those newborns to ensure that the virus is not transmitted to them. Getting a chance to observe all of those policies firsthand was invaluable.

The last step in the ISP process is now to compose a paper about my Learnership at St. Mary’s that will be somewhere between 30-70 pages. By the end of my write-up I can definitely say that I have a good grasp on PMTCT policy in South Africa. Hopefully I can take the information I’ve learned here and take it back to the DC to do some sort of comparative research to our PMTCT programs in the States; that way I’ll be able to give back some of the knowledge that I’ve gained by shadowing at St. Mary’s.

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By dpmitchel

Sanibona from Sarasota, Florida! I’ve been home from South Africa for almost a week now, and I can definitely say that I miss that country and my program.  As we finished up our Independent Study Projects (ISPs), all of the students on my trip were proud of our productions and we presented our papers to one another as a final part of the program.  My paper ended up being around 40 pages, yet all of us felt we could have written much more on our topics!

Reflecting on my time in South Africa as a whole is difficult as there were so many eye-opening experiences throughout the semester. The completion of the ISP was definitely an accomplishment that everyone on my program was proud of; we’d spent the entire semester building up skills to accomplish a small bit of research, and then had the ability to execute our plans.  As my project was centered on PMTCT of HIV, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of all there is to know about the topic, and hope to craft a senior thesis (when the time comes!) about HIV.

There was a question that came up when we conducted our projects: “will we actually be making an impact on these communities we are studying?” The short answer, to the shock of my fellow students and I, was no.  The three-week research period left much to be desired in the reality of helping the communities we studied as a whole. However, through our projects, we were able to affirm the individuals we worked with and were able to tell their stories in our papers. We can use our ISP experiences as a kick-start to investigating topics in the future that can really make an impact on communities. For me, my ISP really opened up the world of research on HIV and PMTCT, and has given me a paradigm through which to view HIV problems not only in the South Africa, but worldwide.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read about my studies in South Africa. Sala kahle (stay well)!

Twitter: A #GWU student wraps-up her studies in South Africa #GWAbroad

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By tinavisc

The last week of my study abroad program has at last arrived, and I feel exceptionally unprepared to part from the close friends I've made. Somewhere in the mix of university studying, working, and exploring Cape Town, I forgot to spend every waking second with my new friends! I feel so blessed to have met and learned from the wonderful people on my program, however I'm not quite ready to let them go.

I felt very similar the last week before I left D.C. for South Africa. It had been the first time in my life that I didn't want to run away; I had essentially planted my roots and my love in one place. I was comforted by the fact that D.C. would still be there when I got back. Sure, life goes on and things change, but the friends I consider family would still be there. The friends I've made in Cape Town are a different story. Who knows if we will, in fact, ever be in the same geographical location at the same time? Who knows if we'll be able to maintain global contact in this ever distracting world? In any case, thank goodness for Skype.

I have a feeling that as life goes on, you experience more and more friendships with this naturally expiring time limit set. This fact, however dismal it may be, can't let you avoid making friends in the first place. We can always learn and grow from each other, no matter how long we'll be in each other's presence. Although I'm so sad to part from my new friends, I'm so thankful to have met each and every one of them.

I will forever hold a special place in my heart for those I've shared this incredible journey with.

When the friends you’ve made, the ones who’ve forever changed your life, return to their lives around the planet. #GWU #GWAbroad

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