Back Row: Carrie Graham, Alyssa Hughes, Daniella Abelard, Cindy Bravo, Cynthia Tetteh, Maeve Maloney, Zuleika Candelaria;
Front Row: Chivelle Blissett, Leslie Rivera, Deborah Delianne, Eddie Woollacot

Welcome . . .

On May 10, 2013 ten eager students and their director Carrie Graham arrived in Cape Town to begin what is sure to be an amazing four weeks. The University of Connecticut’s Service Learning Study Abroad in Cape Town is designed to facilitate greater understanding of South Africa’s troubled past while providing opportunities to witness its vibrant hope for the future. While living, learning, and working in one of most beautiful settings in the world, students are placed at various service learning sites while participating in classes intended to help contextualize their experiences, expand their horizons and develop a deeper appreciation of what it means to be a global citizen.

As anyone who has been to Cape Town can attest, there are no words or pictures that can begin to adequately capture the beauty of the scenery or hospitality of the people here. Therefore, this blog is merely intended to provide an overview of the program and a glimpse at some experiences of students participating in this first ever 4 week "summer" program. Once again it is a privilege and honor to accompany a wonderful group of UConn students to a place I have come to know and love.

In peace, with hope, Marita McComiskey

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Maeve opening eyes and asking questions

I was watching the movie In Time (Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried) last week and I couldn’t help but pause the movie to think about a few quotes that I found to play perfectly into thoughts I’ve had since my time in South Africa. In the movie, time is the currency and based on which district you live in, you receive more or less time. JT’s character comes from a poor district where he often doesn’t have more than a day to live. Amanda Seyfried’s character comes from the central district where her father is a millionaire, he has millions of years to live and no real way that he loses them.

JT: How can you live with yourself watching people die right next to you?
AS: We don’t watch. We close our eyes.

I posed this question in class discussion, in essays and maybe a past blog post: how can people live in the Cape Town suburbs and the rich northern townships and never venture to the other side of the mountain? They are so close to such immense poverty and yet they continue to turn a blind eye, not even willing to drive through just to see what life is like in Khayelitsha or Mitchell’s Plain. And here is the global answer as to how society can be ignorant of the misfortunes of others: We close our eyes. We close our eyes to the suffering. We close our eyes to the homelessness. We close our eyes to the despair. And in doing so, we close the door towards their salvation and a chance for a better life. Because we have what we need, we have more than we need, but with closed eyes we’ll never see how our excess could change the lives of others. And this ties right into the second quote which made me think:

JT: No one should be immortal if even one person has to die.


Why do we allow some people to have such extravagance and luxury while others are dying on the street? Awareness is key here. Maybe in addition to the luxury tax, these people should have to do community service or awareness trips to show how there are ways which they can help, and not just by throwing money. Maybe if they were forced to see how people are struggling out there they would find a passion for something that could change lives in this country or around the world. There are plenty of celebrities and other wealthy people who have turned philanthropist but are they getting involved or are they throwing money. One example of a celebrity who has gotten involved with charity and has made it her work is Sophia Bush with Charity Water (slight One Tree Hill bias). Charity Water keeps it simple: raise money to install freshwater wells, rainwater catchments and sand filters. Once the money is raised to install these, the people from Charity Water travel the world to meet the people they are helping, in addition to improving their lives. Sophia Bush recently spent a week in Ethiopia meeting village people on a philanthropy trip with Charity Water. She threw a ball to raise money and also held a workshop to teach people about what she’s doing and what we can do to help. But it’s not only the fabulously wealthy who can make a difference (although I will say that anyone on The Real Housewives series should really consider doing something other than shopping and gossiping with their lives), it’s anyone with a heart and a willingness to see what’s out there and go do something about it. We are living in excess in ways we don’t even think about and often one of the biggest excesses in our lives is time. I know I’m guilty of this. I could be using my time to change a life and do something productive and instead I find myself watching tv. It’s something I need to work on and it’s something I hope we can all make a commitment to work on throughout our lives.

No comments:

Post a Comment