Perched at the base of the astounding Table Mountain, looking out from our balcony at the beautiful nighttime scene of the city, my fellow Camel classmate Winslow Murdoch ’13 and I sit in our newly acquired apartment in the city bowl area of Cape Town. The two of us are focused on a laptop screen, watching interview and game footage Winslow documented from a day’s worth of work at the township. For the past few months the two of us, along with twenty-six other small liberal arts school undergrads, have had the privilege of studying abroad with the School for International Training’s (SIT) program in Cape Town, South Africa. As per all SIT programs, the last month of the semester entails conducting an Independent Study Project, or ISP. The ISP period gives each student the opportunity to carry out a mini thesis, a research based project that culminates in a forty-page paper. (Despite this seemingly large task, the ISP period has its perks, most notably the ability to live on your own in the city in which you are studying, hence our apartment neatly tucked into one of Cape Town’s most aesthetically impressive areas).
While some of our peers have had research topics in mind since they arrived in South Africa, others, like myself, scrambled to come up with concrete topics to focus on for the ISP period. However, as a member of the men’s soccer team at Conn, Winslow had long considered looking into one of his passions, the game of soccer in a South African and Capetonian context throughout our time here. In fact, for his ISP he is currently working with an NGO that organizes homeless soccer tournaments while teaching life skills to some of Cape Town’s most destitute and marginalized citizens in the township of Parkwood.
For the past two weeks, Winslow has left the comfy confines of our apartment in Cape Town, and traveled to the township to get footage for his documentary. Each day that he goes to the NGO he brings with him a large backpack filled with all the necessary film equipment and comes back with great interviews and game footage as well as moving encounters with the urban poor. It has become a habit for my housemates to ask him every day about his experience at the NGO as he consistently talks with homeless citizens willing to share their life stories of scavenging around the city, doing their best to stay alive amidst the dangers of life in a South African township.
Thanks to the work being done by this particular NGO, these homeless men have been afforded the support to try and uplift themselves from their former lives of crime and complete poverty. The people Winslow has spoken with are in a constant struggle for survival, dodging starvation and awful forms of township murder. Yet, through watching his film thus far, it is clear that these people welcome his presence, eager to impart him with the knowledge of the harsh realities of life for the urban poor in arguably the world’s most unequal city.
Staring at the computer screen, I watch as a group of young boys and men engage in a scrappy game of soccer on a cement soccer field surrounded by tin shacks that are quizzically still standing. These humble abodes are astonishingly lived in by the players and millions of South Africans alike. Every time I see these shacks I am reminded of the predicament of those living in South African townships and even more so of how privileged my own life has been. For much of my life, I have been ignorant to this truth and have considered the “public” and private spaces I inhabit to be a reality for the rest of the world. I can’t yet say that spending my semester with SIT Cape Town has made me a better person in the way of being a truly conscious global citizen. But I can say that my experience thus far has been nothing short of eye-opening.
Just last week, Winslow, our apartment mates and I took a day off from our ISP research to enjoy the outdoor splendor of one of Cape Town’s beautiful coastline areas, Clifton Beach. We had just started playing a game of 2 on 3 beach soccer when Winslow asked a man watching us off to the side if he would like to join in and make it an even 3 on 3. For the next two hours a group of five American 21-year-olds were on the same level socially as a 30-something-year-old Zimbabwean who had arrived in Cape Town six days earlier with no family, job or place to stay. This playful game of soccer at once made us (the Zimbabwean and I) equal while also reminding me of the context of our lives that makes us so incredibly different.
As is the case with the NGO that Winslow is currently working with, playing sports can be a source of inspiration; a way to teach, mentor and support displaced citizens. That day on the beach, my friends and I, much like the homeless soccer players, were taught an equally important lesson. That game of soccer was humbling. If anything, going abroad has made me realize the value of such activities or experiences, including sports, that bring me down to earth.
