Waving goodbye to Africa!

Hello!!
Well I just waved good-bye to South Africa...I’m sad to leave! It was definitely my favorite port so far. It was also the one I was most looking forward to. But now we’re on our way to India, and that’s pretty exciting! We’ll be at sea for 11 days before we get there...I’m not looking forward to that.

So I had a pretty exciting day yesterday (Wednesday). I went to the Amy Biehl Foundation’s headquarters, then visited a township school where students who are part of the foundation’s programs for kids performed music and dance. Then we had the VERY exciting opportunity to have archbishop Desmond Tutu come onto the ship and speak! Afterward, two of the men granted amnesty during the Truth and Reconciliation hearings for the murder of Amy Biehl came onto the ship to speak about their experiences.

So Amy Biehl was a student who was killed in 1993 in a township in Cape Town. She was a white American studying in South Africa and she was driving a black friend home to the Guguletu township and as soon as she entered the township her car was attacked by a group of  local youth. She was stabbed to death. Four young men from the township were sent to jail for her murder. Then two of them, Ntombeko Peni and Easy Nofemela, applied for amnesty through South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission. Amy Biehl’s parents came to Africa, met the two men, and in the end chose to grant them both amnesty. They both currently work for the Amy Biehl Foundation. A great example of forgiveness and reconciliation. So yesterday I got to see the headquarters of the foundation, then we visited a township where the foundation does a lot of its work with children, giving them after-school activities and opportunities. The kids performed music and dance, and it was very fun to see!! We also went through the Guguletu township where Amy Biehl was killed. Then later yesterday Ntombeko and Easy came to the ship to speak about their experiences. They talked about each of their experiences growing up in a township, their involvement with Amy’s death, and appllying for amnesty from the commission. Easy also talked a lot about forgiveness. The fact that Amy Biehl’s parents not only forgave them and granted them amnesty, but also hired them to work for their daughter’s memorial foudation shows a lot about the goodness in people and importance of forgiveness. If they had not granted them amnesty and hired them, Ntombeko and Easy would have spent years in prison and then faced a very difficult life of starting over once released. It was really cool to hear them talk about all of this, especially because I had studied the Amy Biehl case in a couple different classes at CU last year. We had looked at it in my criminal justice class as well as my peace and conflict studies class.

Then, as I mentioned before, as a last minute kind of surprise Desmond Tutu came to the ship to speak as well! I was SO excited to hear he was coming! He actually sailed on a recent SAS voyage and I was so jealous that SAS students got to see him daily on their voyage and get to know him personally. But I wasn’t expecting to get to meet him on my voyage, so it was a very cool surprise! Desmond Tutu is a South African icon of anti-apartheid and received the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism. He was a great speaker, very funny, and inspiring!

I posted a lot of new pictures from my adventures in Cape Town, so go check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennieturcios/

We are sailing along now...and the water is pretty rough already. Grrr I’m feeling a bit seasick. I hope it gets better soon, I don’t want to feel this way for 11 days straight!

Anyways, I hope everyone is well. Stay in touch!

*peace*