The first trip to South Africa will commence Tuesday, December 28. For three weeks, Paul will be traveling with a group from the University of Illinois led by Jan Brooks, a community educator who has been traveling to Cape Town for the past six years. Though not associated with The Story of Happiness, the group’s focus is to volunteer and explore the Cape Town area, providing the opportunity to learn, build relationships, and film while meeting and talking with community members.
We will be staying in an area known as Observatory, one of the few communities where all races lived together throughout apartheid, a period of racial segregation in South Africa that officially began in 1948 and ended in 1994 (though segregation took place well before in colonial times and still has a lasting impact). Townships surrounding larger cities are where the legacy of apartheid is most evident, and we will be commuting to Khayelitsha and Nyanga of Cape Town and Soweto of Johannesburg, for instance, to experience the variety of cultures and conditions firsthand.
In preparation for the trip, the group has been meeting Tuesday nights this Fall to discuss the history of South Africa, as well as issues of discrimination, violence, and health in the time following apartheid. More updates will be posted as the trip arrives, but for a great historical yet personal account of South Africa during the 20th century, be sure to check out Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.
