West Wind Whispers, is it what you pictured?

By Thea (Psychology, '28)

The Truth is... we will miss you, quirky cafe.

This morning the group split up and went their own way for breakfast, many spending their last morning in Cape Town at the Truth Cafe. Several students also went looking for snacks before we leave the metro area. At 08:30, the van was loaded and we were off. Several students are feeling yesterday’s hike up Table Mountain, so a calmer day is just the vibe we needed. Along the trip we drove through the mountains while experiencing the proper, wet winter of South Africa.

We passed through Hout Bay, an area where we were passing houses with fences and private security, while you could also see a large area that was filled with shacks. Hout Bay, as our guide note, is one of the easiest places in the Cape to see the inequalities of South Africa. Our first stop was a highway pull off at which the tour guide pointed out where white people live compared to the people of color. He then explained more about the township he pointed out on the first part of the drive, noting that this is where black South Africans and many other refugee and immigrant Africans live.

On the way to our second location, many students got to see monkeys, a pig, an ostrich farm, and a couple of eland – the largest of the South African antelope. We saw many different plants and mountains. We went to the Table Mountain National Reserve and drove to the most southwestern point of South Africa. Thankfully, the rain stopped but the wind did not. Many students got wonderful pictures with the ocean and mountain scenery. Some students also got to see seals sunbathing on a rock out in the water, along with many birds. It was very windy, so students were cautious of their steps when trying to get to a spot of their choosing for photos. We didn’t lose any students permanently, only one temporarily. Everyone made it back to the vehicle safely.

Note: This is a slideshow - Click arrow > on photo to advance to next photo.

Another short trip later, the group stopped for the bathrooms and decided we wanted to go up to the light house. Most walked up but a few took the tram. Both ways, the sights were beautiful. More plants and pretty ocean scenes. There was also a small area with a few artifacts, and boards with little facts. One of the artifacts was a small collection of beautiful shells. After a short hike down, we got back into the vehicle and off to the next location.

Next was lunch in Simon's Town with Horst.

Horst Kleinschmidt is a white South African who shared with our group about his past, including his family’s history. His parents deeply believed in apartheid but he and his brother rebelled. Participation in the struggle against apartheid, put him on the opposing side of his parents. He went to school to be a teacher, however, he was later disqualified from teaching because the government believed his views were not safe for children. He also knew 18 people, who were killed because of their beliefs in racial equality.

At one point, he was in court to support Winnie Mandela (Nelson Mandela’s first wife), because she, as a banned person by the government, yelled across the road to another banned person to ask them to take her kids home in the car because it was raining. Winnie was sentenced to prison and asked Horst to take temporary custody of their kids while until she and Nelson were released. Nelson did not get to thank him until 14 years later.

Horst, himself, was charged three times and served time for two of those charges. Because he served time in a white prison, many cells were empty and nobody was around. He was envious of black prisons if only because there were people in other cells, so they had company and empathy for each other. Eventually he found out a friend was also in the same prison with him, and they sung to one another across the cell blocks until they were caught, and he was moved into a maximum-security prison. He was released from his second stay after 73 days in solitary confinement. Soon a black police officer tipped him off that they were going to rearrest him so he fled the country. He fought against apartheid and segregation, rather than staying quiet. Staying quiet is acceptance and compliance, even if you disagree. He didn’t believe in staying quiet because of that.

Bonus story from Horst:

In 2000, shortly after Horst had been appointment as the head of the government’s fisheries department, a ship had accidentally spilled its oil by Robben Island. It spilled near the penguin colony that lives there, so they would get covered in oil. They collected all the penguins, cleaned them and transported them hundreds of kilometers away over night. The penguins took 2 weeks to return, but they made it back home. By the time they had returned home, the oil had moved on/ broken up. They chipped the penguins to track them, and they returned to the exact holes they had come from.

For more on Horst's fascinating life story, see his biography here.

There were a few items that were at the street vendors near the restaurant, like a bottle cap hippo and an anchor. It was a quick walk by for the group who had to travel to the pharmacy, so there wasn’t time to see the history or meaning of the anchor. But they seemed cool.

After lunch, we took a very short ride over to the Boulders Visitor Center. It’s located on Boulders Beach, which is where a colony of African penguins live. Many people had a great time adoring their cuteness, and looking at all the babies (in images, babies are fluffy).

After about a two-hour ride (of which much it was used as a nap time for many), we arrived at Goedgedacht (literally, Good Thoughts in Afrikaans, a Dutch derived language), which is the name of our retreat center. The group got into their rooms and checked out the beautiful views. We had a large group dinner where the director talked to part of the group at a long farm table, while the others continued the conversation about Horst’s biography. After dinner, we had an introduction to the center. The center is not in fact only a retreat center; it helps children and young adults reach their full potential and thrive. We did in fact learn how to say Goedgedacht, so feel free to ask your student to teach you. We listened to a short history lesson of the center and then some personal history from the director, Deon Snyman. The director talked about how he went to school studying Theology with the intention of becoming a minister after graduation. As the changes of the country came, he made the decision that he did not want to be a minister for white South Africans. He decided he wanted to become a minister in a Black community church, because he wanted to be part of the change of the country, to be part of the bridge between races.

Stay tuned for more about our time at Goedgedacht - our rural home for the next three days!

Editor Note: Note on terminology used in South Africa for racial and ethnic groupings

The apartheid system formalized the division of populations in South Africa through classifying persons at that time as “White,” “Couloured,” and “Black” – there were other distinctions as well, but this tri-partite system is what is most relevant for this blog. “Coloured” referred to a group of persons whose ancestry included persons of mixed ethnic backgrounds. Over time, this group came to take on its own identity and culture. Today, though you will hear the term, it is more appropriate to use “people of color.” This is often quite confusing for people from the U.S. given the different usage of those terms in our own history and present.