Theresa's insight into two cities that are Cape Town

Theresa arrives in the rain but sees clearly through the haze

Orientation wrapped up today, in the last two weeks our group of 21 has said our tearful and excited goodbyes to friends and family, flown eight thousand miles, spent copious amounts of time hazed by jetlag, listened to dynamic jazz, experienced poignant gospel music, and lived through some of the most profound and bewildering experiences of our young lives. All of this has been near impossible to believe.  Throughout all of this Table Mountain has been the omnipresent constant, ready to greet us through the fog as we arrived off the plane, ready to remind us about our insignificance as we wandered in the townships and ready to celebrate with us the strange and vibrant beauty of this unnerving place.  

The omnipresent constant of Table Mountain

It’s hard to put into words the experience of being in Cape Town without talking about the sickening feeling walking from the bowels of a township into the clean consumerism of a shopping mall, the powerful feeling of being on a mountain edge watching the waves collide into the shore below you and the leisure of long conversations late into the night. 

waves collide as Theresa stands on the edge

Cape Town; snuggly nestled between the ocean and the mountain, is a tale of two cities.  But then again, aren’t most places (minus the post card backdrops, of course.) Once you peel back the whitewashed, vineyard wine drunk privilege; you reveal the inconceivable poverty and disease and starvation and substance abuse. 

Maybe it is South Africa’s barely healing wounds of apartheid that allow me to see the disparities so clearly or maybe it is being a stranger in this new place, but the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty has never been so apparent in my entire life.  At the District Six Museum, we exposed our own involvement in this mess as the picturesque area we are staying in had its occupants vacated for white people to live in and occupy.  Being confronted with my own privilege, and trying to find an equilibrium between appreciation and guilt and responsibility has been one of the most challenging balancing acts of my life and will continue to be something I work on for my continued existence.

Theresa centered in thought

In the United States, I am lucky enough to work at Hallie House, an in-patient substance abuse treatment facility for pregnant and parenting women.  Our group had the honor of being able to go to a home much like my place of work.  Elonwabeni Home in Mitchells Plain, is a home for women and children living with HIV/AIDS and many of the women are struggling with their own substance addictions.  As I talked to the women at Elonwabeni, I struggled to maintain my presence in Cape Town and not time travel back to Hallie House.  The seemingly unique stories the women shared with me echoed the countless stories I have heard whispered within the walls of Hallie House. What I took away from this experience was the reminder that addiction, abuse, violence against women, poverty saturates many peoples lives regardless of the country we live within, the color of our skin and our financial circumstances in life.  I was centered when one of the women laughed when her daughter entered the room, and the woman told me that she would be graduating within the month, and it reminded me how hope, faith, and love saturate the world as well and this is what keeps us all going.