Final Thoughts on the Impossible Journey

First I want to thank everyone who read my blog, even just once.  Knowing that you were reading it made it important for me to keep up with it as well as I did.  And now that it's over, I am glad I have these entries to look back upon in years to come.  I hope you have enjoyed taking this impossible journey with me, as my feet guided me hesitantly through the airport, up and down mountains, through grey water channels, and supported me 216 m above death.  Speaking of support, thank you also to everyone who supported me throughout my adventures, financially and spiritually.  I could not have had the amazing experiences I've had without your well wishes, prayers and money.  You are the bungee that pulls me safely home.

I find it interesting that when people ask me about South Africa, the things we focus on are the fun trips I took on weekends.  The bungee jump, the safari, the shark cage diving, and of course the passing of Nelson Mandela.  ("Wait, were you around for that?"  Insert joke about sign language or Obama's selfie).  All of that was certainly memorable and enhanced the impossible trip, but that was not the reason we were there.  Those stories barely describe a fraction of our time in Cape Town.  Most of our time was spent visiting the settlement, as well as writing impossibly long proposals, assessments, and working on this website late into the night.  I had more "homework" in Cape Town than I have had in any given term at WPI.  There's a reason why this experience counts as 3 WPI classes.  What motivates us to work so hard is what makes this project centre different than most.  Grades were the last thing on our minds.  We had an impossible job to do.  And more than that, our job was to bring sanitation services to people living without that basic human right.  Our customers weren't the government or a corporate sponsor; they were community members who knew more about their problems and opportunities than we did.  Our advisor's kept crazier hours than us, willing to edit our work at any hour of the night to achieve the impossible.  Their clear passion for these projects was infectious. 

So was the passion of the people that we worked with in Cape Town.  For them, this work was more than a job or even a school project.  I am inspired by people like Sizwe and Olwethu, who sacrificed vacation time with their families to work with us.  People like David, Trevor, Alfred, and Nobathembu, who devote their lives to improving their community.  Working with them was a humbling experience.  What we experienced as a fun, educational project is their lives.  As I write this from my apartment with 2 bathrooms for 4 people, I think about them starting their days soon with the nearest toilet facility a short hike away, and shared with many.

Perhaps it is a testament to the culture that I grew up in, but I really do not understand racism, less so after this trip.  When we were in Langrug I did not notice that we were the only white people there until a group of squealing children pointed it out.  I look at the people we worked with, every one of whom has my sincere respect and admiration for their talents and contributions.  How could anyone look at them and consider them inferior?  How did the beautiful land of South Africa, (and America for that matter) ever get divided over race?  When it comes down to it we are all just human.  We are shaped the same, feel the same, and move the same (as evidenced by our sweet dance moves on our last day in Langrug).

It's impossible to describe the beauty of Langrug to those who have not seen it for themselves.  It’s at shocking sight at first for one has never been to an informal settlement. Yet I see hope in the settlement, and the resilience of the human spirit.  With very limited resources, the people in Langrug put roofs over their heads and created homes and communities from the impossible. 

It was very strange for me to come home.  It seemed like one minute I was on top of Signal Hill, watching the sunrise over Cape Town, and the next I was impossibly home at Christmas with my family as if nothing had changed.   As if I had not changed.  But I have.  I cannot look at a toilet the same way again. A fixture so common and mundane in my everyday life, but so important for healthy survival, so valuable where there are none. I sometimes feel like a part of me is still in Africa, in the work we left behind, in the bonds we made, and in the places we travelled.  It’s strange to think that I will probably never see my new friends again, or view with my own eyes the fruit of our work.  I’ve caught the “travel bug”, yet no travelling experience can rival the experience I received in Cape Town.  I am jealous of those who have just found out that they will be going to Cape Town next year, with no idea what will be facing them.  They are going to a beautiful city, perhaps the most beautiful in the world. The have only impossibilities ahead of them.  They are in for long nights, heartache, homesickness, self-reflection, frustration, and 8 weeks I would repeat again if I could.  Because they will also find friendships, hope, adventure, and love on their impossible journey.  For in the words of Nelson Mandela,  “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Dawn of New Adventures: There and Back Again 19/12 - 21/12

 Once we returned to the lodge, our team had a lot of work facing us.  We still had to finish our Executive Summary and our website, which most of the other groups already had completed.  We also took an hour in the afternoon to debrief as a project centre on our experiences.  I was fairly stressed.  Zach and I had booked our plane tickets for the first possible time we could leave, 3 pm on Friday, and were regretting the decision to be the first ones to leave.

 As I’ve mentioned before, Cape Town is very westernized, so much so that you have to go out of your way to find cultural food.  I had been hoping to spend my last dinner in Cape Town at an Ethiopian restaurant I had heard about.  However with all the writing left to do, I would have been lucky to get a break to run to Steers (fast food burgers, no ketchup).  My teammates knew of my dinner desires, and encouraged me to keep my dinner plans.  I resisted and continued writing in a quiet spot outside.  Before I knew it, the other ten guys in the project centre came out, shut my laptop, and forced me with them to the restaurant.  I was touched.  The food was delicious, a tasty final African experience.

We returned to the lodge two hours later, and I got back to work.  The generosity of our fellow students was not over.  Nearly everyone stopped by the table where we were working asking how they could help.  Three tech-savvy guys sat down with their laptops and insisted on formatting our website for us while we produced more content for them to upload.  I was overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity, and by their kind assistance. 

Finally we were able to convince them that there was nothing else they could do while we were still writing, and insisted they resume their evening celebratory plans.  Our advisor Scott stopped by several times to make edits to our work.  He left around midnight after another round of revisions, and told us to call him, regardless of the hour when we were finished.

My goal was 3 am.  One more item on my Cape Town bucket list was to climb Lion’s Head, the only mountain of the skyline I had not traversed.  I was told it was a relatively easy hike, one which several people had done in the dark to watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain.  By leaving at 3:30, we could have easily made it in time for the view.

However it was not to be.  We finished our draft at 4, called our advisor, who came over promptly.  By 4:30 he had finished looking it over with only minor fixes, and told us to call it a night.  As we were chatting, we mentioned the plan to climb Lion’s Head, which now seemed unlikely to occur.  Scott left, and a minute later returned with an idea – he offered to drive us to Signal Hill, a location with which we were quite familiar at this point, to watch the sunrise.  Morgan and I accepted his offer.  So we did.

Enviro Loo toilets

We reached the top, and saw the Enviro Loos, laughing at our obsession with toilets, imagining them in Langrug hopefully a few months from now.  We walked around, and found a good spot to watch the sunrise. It was very peaceful. I looked out across the city I had the privilege to call my home for two months.  Cape Town is without a doubt the most beautiful city I have every seen and probably will see.  We stood in silence, occasionally providing reflective comments on our experience.  It was quite a bonding experience, in case we hadn’t gotten close enough in the last few weeks.

My last sunrise on Cape Town

photo courtesy of nice strangers at top of Signal Hill

Eventually we got in the car, drove back to the lodge, and said goodbye to Scott.  It was around 6 am.  I didn’t have to be to the airport until 1 pm.  I still had time to climb Lion’s Head.  My friend Lucine was the only one interested in hiking with me, and was willing to leave whenever we were finished writing.  I woke her up, and we agreed to leave at 8.  I took an hour nap, and left to climb Lion’s Head.

scaling Lion's Head

Lion’s Head is definitely the most fun hike I have done.  There are points where you have to climb with your hands, with metal handholds built into the rock to make it easier.   I was happy for the company, and made it up the mountain in reasonable time.  The view was as breathtaking as ever, and provided a great vantage point to see both the ocean and the cit  I looked at Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, and Signal Hill where I had stood recently before.  I gazed at the horizon, where I soon would be. 

Signal Hill from Lion's Head

Photo courtesy of Lucine

We made our way down the mountain, back to the lodge where I showered, packed and said my goodbyes.  It seems like it happened so fast, because before I knew it Zach and I were at the airport and then on the plane flying home. Travelling west at night, we were in darkness most of the time.  I stepped off the plane, and walked on through the glass hallways of JFK International.  I saw the sun rising over New York, the same sun that I had last seen rising over Cape Town nearly 30 hours ago.  My mind was racing from all that had happened, in disbelief that I had gone to Africa and back and was finally home, where my family was praying for my safety and my girlfriend waiting with open arms at the terminal. 

Leaving Langrug 19/12

Our presentations on Tuesday were for anyone who could come to the community centre in Cape Town.  However, Langrug is an hour away, and many of the people we worked with don't speak English.  So on Thursday we went out to the settlement to present our work and our poster to our friends there.  Some of our new partners from TTEL (Touching the Earth Lightly) and our current partners (Sizwe and Olwethu) at CORC (Community Organisation Resource Centre) joined us as we informed the community of how the project would move forward.  This was a critical day, because just two weeks ago we had a meeting with the community leaders in which they expresses their frustration that we had not produced anything concrete for our work with them.  To be honest, it has been a little disheartening for us too.  We came to Cape Town because we wanted to do work they would have a direct benefit on fellow humans, and all we had to show was 75 pages of toil over laptops.  Two weeks ago, the best we were able to tell them was "Our work is attracting people who want to work with us.  We will be meeting with them to try to make this happen."

So on Thursday we arrived in Langrug with our poster and two thick documents few of them would be able to read.  Having Sizwe and Olwethu there to translate was such a blessing.  CORC had been closed since the 13th for the holiday, and both Sizwe and Olwethu had plans to go to Eastern Cape for Christmas.  Yet because of Olwethu's car trouble and Sizwe's generosity to postpone his plans for us, the were there on unpaid time.  Some of the community leaders speak good enough English to translate our words to Xhosa, but with the CORC guys there we were guaranteed that the meaning behind our words would be fully communicated.





We first introduced Stephen from TTEL, who showed them pictures of his past work while we waited for everyone to arrive.  Then we unveiled the poster, with plenty of pictures that everyone could understand.   Finally, we explained our documents and gave them a simplified list of the improvements that we had collectively agreed upon could be implemented at the current facility.  We reminded them that it was up to them to make the changes that they wanted to, and that WPI's grant would be helping them financially through CORC.

The people were smiling, and seemed pleased with what we were saying.  Sizwe, never afraid to ask difficult questions, asked them what had changed from when they wanted to see something physically built.  A sweet old man named Washington Boise with whom we've gotten particularly close, spoke up and said (in Xhosa) that they understand the complexity of the project, and are pleased with the people we have introduced to them to carry on our work.  He also said that 2 months ago, they didn't know that toilets in the neighborhood of Zwelitsha would be possible, and we have shown them that it is, and they are willing to wait for us to finish the plans.  

As the discussion drew to a close, I ended the meeting by saying, 
"We just want to thank you for welcoming us into your home here.  I think I speak for my team when I say that in the past two months we have learned more from you than we could from any book or class.  We hope the journey has been rewarding for you as well.  And so, from the bottom of our hearts, En kosi kakhulu"
This drew a round of applause and a few tears, after which Washington replied "You are a very good speaker and took the words out of my mouth".

During A Term, the students of the project centre had arranged to have Tshirts made for ourselves.  While in Africa, we had the design replicated at a local t shirt place to give Tshirts to those we worked with.  We gave the Tshirts out along with certificates stating their contribution to our efforts.  Though not much, these certificates may help some of them get jobs in the future.  

Our advisors then paid for lunch for everyone at Batho's Place, the restaurant down the road where we had met with David about public health training.  He served chicken cauliflower and mixed vegetables this time, and it was delicious.   As we finished eating David put on some music, and people started dancing.  Though they call it something different, we did a line dance that's basically the electric slide.  I remember learning that dance in middle school, and had no idea it would help me bond with people on a different continent.


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=659191250799407&set=a.201644663220737.63130.173797009338836&type=1&theater





And then it was time to go. We said tearful farewells, and drove away from the WaSH facility for the last time.  Once we got to the main road, I turned around and caught one last glimpse of Langrug.  The zinc roofs of Zwelitsha, the neighborhood on the hill with no toilets (yet) gleamed in the afternoon sun.  It's hard to describe the beauty of an informal settlement to those who have not seen one.  Shacks are turned into homes where a community forms.  Humans surviving on less than they need, yet still surviving as we return to our lives in America, our busy daily lives unaffected by their meager living conditions. 

We rounded a bend in the road and they were gone.  

WaSH Team Presents 14 Weeks in 5 minutes 19/12

In order to fulfill the degree requirement for our IQP (Interactive Qualifying Project), we have to write an executive summary, present our work to our advisors and sponsors, and post our work to the project centre website.  For most teams, these were the last tasks in the final writing week.  Unfortunately, our team had two major documents to finish writing as part of our project (as previously mentioned in my last blog post).  Our advisors told us to focus on these, since our new partners were relying on them to start their work in the New Year.  They said that the executive summary and website would fall into place, with much of the material able to be copied from our work.

On Tuesday we held presentations in a community hall nearby.  This consisted of a 5 minute presentation by each team to the other teams, our advisors, and everyones sponsors who was able to come.  This was followed by poster presentations, where each team got a table to talk about our work with anyone interested, using a poster and in our case, hard copies of our deliverables as visual aids.  The presentation went fairly well, though we could have been more practiced if we had not been focusing on finishing our deliverables for the poster portion.  

Finally on Tuesday night, we began working on our executive summary and website, which most teams had been doing since the weekend.  It would be a major push and several late nights to get everything finished. 

More Mandela, New Partnerships, Working Weekend and Table Mountain 9/12 - 16/12

I'll start with the fun things I did this week.  Tuesday night I went to the African Dance Theatre - it was a one hour show of how African dance has evolved.  It was pretty cool.

On Wednesday there was a concert at the nearby stadium to celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.  Though we normally have a  meeting with our advisors on Wednesday evenings, they kindly moved the meeting so we could go.  It was pretty cool. We got to experience a lot of good local music, in addition to a stadium full of Africans singing "Circle of Life".  It was pretty cool, and a good representation of the overall reaction toward Mandela's death. People are celebrating his life and legacy and calling on others to live peacefully in his spirit.  And making a profit on Mandela memorabilia.

So an update on work: our project has been twofold: assessing the WaSH (water sanitation and hygiene) facility built by last year's group, and make a detailed plan for a new facility without flush toilets, as that location has no access to a sewer line.  Since this dry sanitation component makes our new facility more complicated, we will not be able to build or even finish the design process.  Thus, our work in this last working week has been to recruit partners to finish our work for us.  We met with technical representatives from Enviro Loo, who make dry sanitation toilets we were hoping to use but had some concerns about.  They were very helpful and answered all of our questions, and agreed to help in the installation and education of the community on how to use and maintain them. 

We met with someone from an organization called Touching the Earth Lightly, which designs innovative environmentally friendly buildings.  They have matched WPI's financial contribution for this project (which comes from a grant from the General Electric Foundation) and will be taking over the the design process with the community.  They hope to add a second story function hall, and a "vertical garden," an innovative way of gardening on the walls of buildings to save space.

We talked to some students from the University of Cape Town who are interested in doing research in dry sanitation, but have not established what their role might be. 

We even met with someone from the Municipality of Stellenbosch, where the informal settlement of Langrug is located.  They worked closely with last year's WPI team to create the current WaSH facility.  However due to political tensions in the local government, we have mostly been working independently of them this year.  We still have friendly contacts in the department, with whom we met and who said that a partnership with the Municipality for the maintenance and operations of this new facility might be possible in the future.

With all of these pieces coming together, it was time to write. We still needed to finish editing our 40 page assessment of the current facility, which we had put on the back burner as our new plans evolved.  In addition, we now saw a need to write a proposal to our new partners on what we hope for this new facility, including documentation of the technical work we has already begun.  This proposal would end up being 35 pages longs.

"View" from Table Mountain

Our advisors had told us to save this weekend as a working weekend.  We could still do fun things in the local area, but could not make major plans to go bungee jumping for example.  We worked for the better part of Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday night a few of us saw the new Hobbit movie.  Sunday morning I got up early with a friend to climb Table Mountain.  It was a very foggy morning, and not an ideal day to do it.  In fact, we could barely see the mountain as we were climbing it, which was a little disconcerting. The view from the top was nonexistent in the fog.  But with less than a week in Cape Town, it was worth it.  Table Mountain is a huge tourist attraction, and there is a cable car that brings visitors to the top if they do not wish to hike it.  There is also a cafe and gift shop at the top, from which we viewed part of the state funeral for Nelson Mandela.  We climbed back down the mountain and were back by 10 to keep working.

Diving into African Culture: 7/12 - 8/12

Photo credit: Face Adrenaline

That picture pretty much sums it up.  Here's the story of what drove me to jump off a bridge.

I wasn't sure when the idea was first proposed.  It seemed like an unnecessary risk.  Whenever we leave Cape Town for weekend plans we need to fill out a travel form for WPI's records. Every year students go bungee jumping, and it's the one activity that WPI doesn't technically know about.  Our advisors were well aware of what we were doing, but turned a blind eye since they couldn't officially endorse this activity.  According the travel forms, we were sightseeing on Eastern Cape.

The company is called Face Adrenaline.  They facilitate bungee jumping off Bloukrans Bridge, which at 216 m is the tallest commercial bungee bridge in the world.  You fall 190 m, which calculates to 4 seconds of free fall and 3 additional seconds of falling as the bungee slows you down.  They have a 100% success rate.  Since the bridge was in Eastern Cape, it was a 7 hour van ride each way.  The bus ride was probably more dangerous than the jump, because Face Adrenaline has many levels of safety procedures.  The van on the other hand was fairly old and made a strange noise most of the way.

Bloukrans Bridge

 So we rode 14 hours for 7 seconds of falling.  It was totally worth it.

We left Friday night and arrived at the overnight lodge next to bridge very late.  Unfortunately that meant that we could not attend the Mandela memorial service that night.  Our jump was scheduled for 10:00 on Saturday morning.  It was a cool day, ideal for jumping. First you are fitted with a harness to bring you back up.  The bungee is then rigged securely around your ankles.  You are supposed to dive off the ledge head first, although the workers assured us that even if you jumped wrong, you would not get hurt, it just would not look as cool.  As the video proves, my jump was far less than graceful.

It's a weird sensation throwing yourself off a bridge.  You're never fully ready for it.  The workers will push you if you don't jump yourself.  The falling is thrilling - it feels just like a roller coaster for a few seconds.  Once the bungee stops your fall, you swing to the other side of the bridge and wait for someone to retrieve you.  This for me was the most terrifying part.  Hanging upside down by my ankles, feeling the ropes stretching and (did I just imagine it slipping slightly?) I craned my neck up and saw the worker being lowered to retrieve me. It only took about a minute for him to reach me, but it felt like ages.  Finally he arrived, told me to relax, and clipped my harness to the rigging.  The ride up gave me time to compose myself and give a brave smile for the final picture, as if I had not been terrified.

Photo Credit: Face Adrenaline

After everyone jumped we ate lunch and hit the road to go home.  We has talked about possibly stopping at Cape Aghules, the southern most point of Africa. I really wanted to go, but it would have been an additional 2 hours of driving, and most people seemed to want to get home.

On Sunday we experienced a different side of African culture.  One of our sponsors Sizwe, who is advising three of our six projects, has been insistent on getting to know us all outside of work.  We've gone for dinner and drinks with him several times.  This weekend he arranged for us to visit his home in a township.

Townships were created during apartheid.  Unlike informal settlements which were established by people building themselves shacks on any land they could find, townships were established by the government on the outskirts of cities for blacks.  You could almost call them "formal settlements".  Conditions are generally nicer and more hygienic than informal settlements.   However the structures in which people live are still referred to as "shacks".

Photo Credit - not me

We ate lunch at a restaurant called Mzolis.  Mzolis is famous for its braai (barbecue) in the Cape Town area, and is not a typical American restaurant.  You order from a selection of meat, and they bring you everyone's meal on a platter. No sides or fixings, just meat.  You take the platter wherever you can find a spot, most likely the street as the surrounding area is packed with people, mostly waiting to order at Mzoli's.  it kind of reminds me of Pat's and Geno's cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, but less formal.  There are no forks or knives, just napkins.  You are also expected to eat everything up to the bone, or else it is a waste of precious meat.

Photo credit - not me (I forget who I stole these from... either Lucine or Ivette I think)

There is music and dancing inside Mzoli's, and there are people selling souvenirs in the street.  the whole atmosphere feels like a block party, and apparently this happens every Sunday. I felt more out of place in the township than I have in the informal settlement where I've been working.  It was interesting, and I'm not entirely sure why.  Perhaps it was because we were 14 white people unsure of what to do, attracting the attention of every merchant in the street.  It was definitely an interesting cultural experience.

The Passing of Madiba - 5/12/13

When people ask where I was when I found out Nelson Mandela passed away, I am able to say I was in South Africa.  At 8:50 pm when he died, I was at dinner with the guys of the project centre.  The girls had organised a "girls night" with Lorraine, our female advisor.   The guys decided to walk around Camps Bay, a beachy area of the city a short can ride away from the lodge and find some good food there.  We got to the beach around sunset.  The wind was blowing furiously toward the ocean, creating an interesting effect with the waves, as if the wind and the tide were fighting.  It was really cool to watch.  We climbed on some rocks to get a better view, and almost got blown off by the wind.  We found a really good seafood 

restaurant called Tuscany Beach, a little more upscale than we were 

planning but worth the trip.

We got back to the lodge around 10, and sat down to finish our work for the night.   My iPhone lit up with a notification from my CNN app.  I realised I had forgotten to shut its wifi off.  (We're only supposed to have one device connected to the Internet at a time, especially during peak hours).  Just before I did I glanced at the alert "South Africa's president to address the nation.  Watch live on CNN". I was puzzled. My phone had automatically adjusted to Cape Town time, and South African Google but I didn't think the CNN app would change for local news.  I shut off the wifi on my phone, and opened up CNN on my laptop, and saw the news right away.  "Nelson Mandela passes away at 95".

I told everyone around.  We were stunned.  We also didn't know what the reaction would be like.  There had been threat of more political riots recently by the ANC (Mandela's political party).  How would they take this news?  A few friends had gone to a bar for drinks, so we called them to give them the news, and to warn them to be careful.  (They got back a few hours later without incident).  We then called Scott (our advisor), who was less worried for or safety than for progress on our projects if the nation slows down to mourn.  He recommended that everyone work from home, which my team was planning on doing anyway.  I emailed my family to break the news and assuage any concerns if they shared mine.

The next morning I walked to a nearby cafe to buy a newspaper, which I'll be saving as a souvenir.  Life proceeded as usual for South Africa.  In the following days there would be flowers and cards enshrining any pictures and statues of Mandela in the city.  There was a memorial service Friday evening that some of the other students went to.  I was unable to go due to my weekend plans.  There were plenty of other events scheduled for the next 10 days that I    

                                                                               would try to attend.

South African flag flies at half mast