After 12 days at sea and a brief layover in Mauritius, we were all but itching to get off the ship in Cape Town, South Africa. The morning we arrived, we all rushed out to catch sunrise at what is arguably one of the most beautiful ports in the world. Luckily, there were no clouds that morning.
Table Mountain… iconic AND gorgeous.
Not a shabby view from the ship, if you ask me.
On my first day in port, I had a mandatory field lab for my favorite class: Sustainable Global Entrepreneurship. I know that sounds like a mouthful, but the class is incredible. George Kembel, the founder of the Stanford d.school, is the professor, and he runs the class through design thinking models that have allowed us to work with real companies to solve real problems in real time. It’s, well, pretty real stuff. And it’s awesome.
We found out en route to our lab, that we were actually headed into a South African township, or slum. Not just any township, but the largest township in the entire country. And not only would we be visiting, but we would be interacting with 150 students and young adults who were residents of that particular township.
Talk about a shock.
On our drive there, through what looked like paradise, the townships began to unfold.
Before he left the ship, Archbiship Desmund Tutu called South Africa one of the most beautiful nations in the world but also one of the most unequal. I was amazing to see this fact manifested in physical space. The township, one of the poorest living conditions that exists in the world, was directly across a two-lane highway from Stellenbosch, one of the most beautiful and scenic wine regions in the world.
So clearly, it’s not an issue of space.
It’s an issue of opportunity.
So we spent the afternoon working and playing with local youth to learn more about then while tackling a shared problem through design thinking: how do we create more authentic relationships that cross these huge barriers?
Apparently, you do it by dancing:
Among other things. ;)
The afternoon was really something special. I went into the experience particularly nervous, because I felt like situations such as ours usually end up feeling forced and inauthentic. But because we were working on solving a problem together, we quickly broke down any nerves or anxiety and got to know each other in a real, human way.
I still struggle with what to do with these experiences once we leave. It would be easy, and obviously short-sighted, to say that it was a ‘life-changing’ day or that we made some sort of impact. I think, though, what we often forget is that when we leave, lives continue much as they had been going—that what we experience for a few hours is what they experience for an entire lifetime.
I do believe that it is better to have gone, to see, to experience, mostly because we can’t help change what we don’t know. But the struggle remains as to what our role really should be, and how much support we can realistically give. And we all know that debate continues today.
Either way, it was definitely a day I won’t soon forget.
When we finally returned to the ship, we were humbled but reinvigorated. I realized that the same sort of problem solving initiative was what really united all of us on the ship. We had to figure out, very quickly, how we were going to navigate 4 months at sea with total strangers. And we did that by opening up our hearts in a real, genuine way. So clearly, we decided that a celebration of life was in order.
The only place to do that on a Monday night was Cape Town’s own expat scene: Long Street.
We danced around from bar to bar celebrating that we were, in fact, in Africa.
We are incredibly fortunate… I just can’t say that enough.
And we know it!
We had an awesome first day in Cape Town with new and old friends alike.
The next day, we were off on SAFARI, so that will require its own special post.
Question of the Day: Responsible tourism… how do we do it?
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