Day 40--Off South Africa enroute to Cape Town

2 October. 29° 43” S, 15° 56” E. Course = 150°. Speed = 20 knots

If territorial waters extended 250 miles offshore, I could say we just passed into South Africa. And, after 3 very cloudy, windy, cool, “lumpy” days at sea, the sun is finally out, the temperatures are going up, and the swells are beginning to unswell. These are good omens for the upcoming days in South Africa.

I’ve spent these days between Ghana and Cape Town focusing on classes, either refining the prep I did before we sailed or reading and commenting on the journals I received from my intercultural comm. and business comm students. It’s while grading essays that I have the most admiration for those who choose to make teaching a profession. The difficulty of reading 60-or-so papers, all on roughly the same subject, written by students whose writing skills—at least for many—are still works in progress, is something that must be experienced to be appreciated. A reviewer must go back and forth constantly between evaluating the thought and critiquing the mechanics—an exhausting process.

The good news is that most of my students have taken my “talk to me on paper” sermon to heart. The writing is much clearer, the grammar is more correct (which must mean that many of the errors I saw in the first batch sprung from carelessness more than ignorance), the content is more interesting . . . though still very much the same from paper to paper.

So now I’m starting to see the writing migrate into the three broad categories: highly skilled, highly unskilled, and the broad range in the middle. The rewards happen when a student moves up or, at least, acknowledges that he or she needs work and wants to do the work to improve. My experience is that most students are perfectly content staying where they are. The movers make teaching worthwhile.

We’ve had two excellent lectures on South African history over the past couple of days, and, now that my classes are over and Friday happy hour is almost here, I can start thinking about and looking forward to Cape Town. Like most Americans, I’m familiar with the evils of apartheid and know that Nelson Mandela became president of the country in the early ‘90s, effectively ending the policy. What I wasn’t familiar with was the history that led to what were genuinely horrific years for Black South Africans, especially after the Afrikaners’—descendents (loosely) of the Dutch who established a foothold at the southern end of the continent in the 17th century—took firm control of the government in the 60’s.

Now the country—still a highly developed, very wealthy nation—is in the throes of big-time culture change. As we’ve learned, racial violence, including black-on-white violence, has fallen dramatically under the leadership of the African National Congress, which is the party of Mandela and his successors. But crime rates have soared to among the highest in the world. Cape Town’s numerous gangs roam the streets to prey on anyone who isn’t alert. They hijack cars in broad daylight (a recently passed So. African law allows unaccompanied women drivers to run red lights), they lurk around ATMs, they ply the crowds looking for pockets to pick. All this as a result of the extreme disparity in wealth that still exists, a remnant of the apartheid years.

So we’ll be arriving in a port that is both beautiful and dangerous. The message has come through very clearly. We’ll see how carefully the 550 students and 100+ faculty and staff remember the message once we wake to see ourselves sailing into the welcoming arms of what everyone says is one of the world’s most spectacular harbors. I can’t help thinking a little of Odysseus and the sirens.

But I also know we all can’t wait to get off the boat!