A History Lesson

Not too much to say about today. A taxi picked us up at 8:30 and we went to campus for our first day of lectures. Mrs. Natalie Mansvelt, a South Africa native and social worker, taught our first lesson in the importance of Community Development vs. Community Service. She spoke about the effectiveness of programs that are created using the input of the community, and not entirely focus by outside observers. She also talked about sustainability and the long term benefits of developing programs using certain principles. She was very interesting to listen to and invited a lot of participation and feedback into the session.

We broke for lunch and had a quick session in the computer lab before going to our afternoon history lecture. Dr. Herbst spoke about the history of South Africa by comparing a variety of views of when history began. He discussed the importance of re-writing history, in a way, to include perspectives of all cultures. To many people of South Africa, the country's history began with the arrival of the Dutch in 1652—but of course there were many indigenous cultures that have been in the area for thousands of years before that time period. He gave us background to some Apartheid beliefs and invited us to look for certain qualities during our time in Port Elizabeth. His perspectives on re-evaluating and re-interpreting history were fascinating.

We bussed back to the apartments and decided to take a walk to the beach to enjoy the sunset. I heated up leftovers from last night's dinner and sat down to catch up on all of my blogging! A lesson in the Xhosa language, township tour and traditional Shabeen dinner are set for tomorrow!