By Agatha Nyambi
Cape Town is a beautiful city. I had the privilege of spending the majority of my childhood in a few different countries in Southern Africa. So, having the opportunity to return for such a long period of time was a prospect that truly excited me. I have been to Cape Town a couple of times since leaving this part of the world but never for such a significant amount of time. To this end, I have been sifting through my memories to really remember what things were like in this part of the world approximately 15 years go. Obviously, this is an impossible task as the human brain does not work in that way. However, thanks to the magic that is photography, we can capture moments in time in a manner that is somewhat more objective. In order to complete this exercise in nostalgia I contacted my brother and got him to send me some pictures from our family albums that were taken on one of our trips to Cape Town. All I can vaguely recall from this fruitless trip down memory lane was that there was a lot of walking involved in our sightseeing.
My first visit to the Cape of Good Hope and my brothers and I on Table Mountain (I think).I have a number of places I would like to visit/revisit and things I would like to do in my time here. However, I’m waiting for summer to really begin here in order to start knocking things off my list. Despite the rocky weather, I have found myself doing things that would never be on any list of my making. For example, I am not what one would consider a person who enjoys going to the beach but I found myself at the beach a couple of weekends ago. It was actually quite pleasant and the icing on the cake was that a company was handing out free chocolate in exchange for a like on their Facebook page! Seemed like a pretty good deal to me.
Muizenberg – A very popular spot for surfing enthusiasts. After three (almost four) weeks here, I also finally got around to changing the time on my laptop to reflect my current time zone. This might seem like a small thing (and I’m pretty sure most computers do this automatically) but I see it as another step towards my integration here. It took me such a long time to change the time zone because I was concerned about what time it was back home in order to communicate with people and such. However, it just became far too confusing to me. I suppose this is my way of saying: I’m all in!
On another note, for the past couple of weeks, students and workers at the University of Cape Town have been protesting about variety of issues and as a result, the university has had to shut down a lot of its operations, including scheduled classes. Because of this, for the better part of last week, we were unable to access the office. In discussing the protests with different people, I found that they have been highly cynical about the amount of change that these protests will actually bring about. To this end, I have to remind myself that as a female person of colour who is a first generation immigrant, many aspects of my life which I take for granted were borne of the struggle and sacrifice of others. Whether it’s here in Cape Town, Charlotte (North Carolina), Tulsa (Oklahoma), or at a football game – people around the world are taking action and standing up for their rights. I think Bob Marley said it best when he said “Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights”.
Time really seems to be flying by as I am closing in on 1 month in Cape Town. I’m looking forward to the rest of my time here!
Agatha Nyambi is working as an Intern in Sexual Minority Health with the University of Cape Town in South Africa.