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Community Club in Cape Town - July 9-14

The DC delegates arrived in Cape Town on a cool, clear night. The next morning the group took the Cable Way to the top of Table Mountain where we hiked and enjoyed the vistas.

The following day we visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years. We took a ferry over and had a bus tour before entering the prison, where we were guided by a former prisoners. Upon our return, we took a walking tour of Cape Town .

A highlight was our visit to the Langa and Guguleto townships. The townships are what we would call the ghettos in DC, but what we saw was far worse. We went to a preschool, where the children sang and danced to South African music, and met seniors at a community center who we talked to about life during Apartheid.

Later in the week we visited another township, Imizamo Yethu, located in Hout Bay . Here we saw many efforts underway, including African women from the township working on beautiful mosaics at the Mandela Parks Mosaic Project.

Early one morning we met the South African students from various townships surrounding Cape Town . We discussed similar and common challenges that parallel in both the U.S. and South Africa .