Morning at the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town

V&A Waterfront. Photo by Gavin Jenkins

May 3

The V&A Waterfront lies between towering Table Mountain (3,563 feet) and the Atlantic on Table Bay, South Africa’s oldest working harbor. The Dutch occupied the land here in 1652, and in 1665 built the first wooden jetty, which they used to supply passing ships with fresh food and water.

The harbor is still home to commercial fishing vessels and pleasure craft, but is now a dynamic tourist destination that has preserved its industrial past by transforming many historic buildings into shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues.

The Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island Museum is here, and the OT Abroad group will depart from it on May 6 for a 30-minute ferry ride to the island. This World Heritage site, which was from the 17th to the 20th centuries a place of “banishment, isolation, and imprisonment,” is now a symbol of “the triumph of the human spirit over adversity, suffering and injustice.”

‘Ubuntu:’ A Tattoo Origin Story

Story by Anyssa Sepulveda

Tattoo that says UBUNTU. On the shoulder, just above tattoos of flowers.
Ubuntu, an ancient African word meaning “humanity to others.”

UAB OTD 2 student Nike Sumler got a tattoo of the word “ubuntu” during his study abroad trip to South Africa inspired by the visit and his life. Ubuntu is an ancient African word that means “humanity to others.” Sumler also defined the concept behind the word as, “I am because you are.”

Ubuntu has roots in the Bantu languages of South Africa, but its meaning has evolved over time. Ubuntu is a way of life that values relationships over individualism and encourages people to work together for the greater good. Ubuntu has played a significant role in the history of South Africa, particularly in the struggle against apartheid. Today, it continues to inspire people around the world who are committed to building a more just and equitable global society.

Sumler said this about his reasons for tattooing this philosophy close to his collarbone:

“I wish people would understand that we’re all the same. We all deserve respect, dignity, love, and compassion and, at the end of the day, we’re all human. This word perfectly describes the way I think and how I live my life every day. I finally found a word that embodies what I have been thinking ever since I was younger.”

Sumler went to South Africa with the intention of getting a tattoo but was not sure of what he wanted. Once he heard the word ubuntu, and learned its meaning, he immediately knew that was the tattoo he wanted.

Sumler shared that his former experiences with inequality and racism have led him to “truly embody the meaning of ubuntu” by showing kindness to others no matter their background. He hopes that sharing this word and his experiences will raise awareness of the inequalities that still exist in the United States and help to eliminate them over time.

Image is a young Black person blindfolded, facing forward. The scales of justice, tipped to one side, are just over their left shoulder.
This street mural calls for freedom at Johannesburg’s Constitution Hill.
The image contains black and white sketches of smiling faces of multiple people of different ethnicities and genders. There are also colorful plants of wild garlic, sour fig and buchu. And there are colorful rectangular and bent shapes of red, brown, black and tan throughout.
A mural of hope personified at the University of Western Cape, where the OT Study Abroad Team visited with occupational therapy students and faculty.
This is a photo of an isolated beach inlet. The foreground has bushes. The small beach has a person standing, looking at the water. There are giant rock formations on the beach and all around the water. There are two people climbing on one and three people standing and sitting together on another.
Boulders Beach, near Cape Town
There are six zebras running by a watering hole. It looks like four adults and two adolescents.
Zebras at Pilanesberg National Park, a favorite stop on the 2023 OT Education Abroad trip.

District 6 Museum: Memorial to a Neighborhood Destroyed by Apartheid

By Anyssa Sepulveda

The fresco wall of the museum, entitled "Where ever we go here we are" was dedicated on Human Rights Day, March 21, 2006. The mural is dedicated to all those individuals who have made and continue to make the District Six Museum a living project.
remains from a forced removal

The OT Abroad group spent some time on May 6 at the District 6 Museum in Cape Town, South Africa. The museum takes its name from the neighborhood it commemorates, a once multiracial community whose residents were forcibly removed in the 1960s and 70s by the apartheid government.

After slavery was abolished in South Africa in 1833, District Six was settled by formerly enslaved people and became home to a diverse community that included artisans, merchants, immigrants, and Malay people brought to the area by the Dutch East India Company. At its peak, the neighborhood made up one-tenth of Cape Town’s population and was home to almost 2,000 families.

A reminder of tea time in District 6
A map of the neighborhood before its destruction.

In 1966, the apartheid government declared District 6 a “whites only” area, though at this time whites made up only 1% of the community’s residents. By 1982, more than 60,000 people had been removed from the district. Many of their homes were destroyed to make way for new development, and most former residents were relocated to the Cape Flats area, around 25 km away.

The museum takes approximately 1 hour to walk through and contains written notes, large hanging “memory cloths” with embroidered messages from former residents, traffic signs and maps from the vanished neighborhood, and pictures of its people and their daily lives.

Click here to learn more about the museum and District 6.

A Day at Robben Island

Former prison buildings on Robben Island, now a World Heritage Site and a symbol of a 500-year struggle for freedom and justice.

“A triumph of the human spirit over adversity, suffering and injustice.” ~Robben Island Museum website.

The OT Abroad group spent the morning of May 6 touring Robben Island, a desolate, rocky outcropping that lies in Table Bay about 5 miles offshore of Cape Town. The island was used to isolate people–from lepers to prisoners–for more than 500 years. Most people banished to or imprisoned on Robben Island from the 1400s till its closure as penal facility in 1991 were sent there as punishment for their resistance to the oppression and domination that lay at the heart of colonial and apartheid rule in South Africa, according to the Robben Island Museum website.

From 1961 until 1991, the island was South Africa’s maximum security prison and held many apartheid leaders and activists, including Nelson Mandela, the legendary anti-apartheid leader and former president of South Africa. Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 of the 27 years of his incarceration by the apartheid government. There, he labored daily in a lime quarry, eventually developing “snow blindness” from the glare and dust.

South Africa’s Department of Arts and Culture established the Robben Island Museum in 1997. Today, it’s a multilayered venue that represents conservation of the island’s natural and cultural resources and provides education and a platform for visitors to engage in critical debate and learning.

The OT Abroad group and other visitors learn about the island’s long, brutal history.
Prison walls
Nelson Mandela was held in a 7-by-9-foot cell lit 24 hours a day by a bare bulb.
Political prisoners in the 1960s used hunger strikes to bring global attention to the prison’s brutal conditions, which included beatings, starvation diets, and solitary confinement.
A prison no longer, Robben Island serves as a stark reminder of South African’s difficult and costly–but ultimately successful–fight to end apartheid.
Table Mountain and Cape Town seen from Robben Island

Nobel Square, Cape Town

Statues of South Africa’s four Nobel Peace Prize Laureates with Table Mountain in the background. Photo by Gavin Jenkins

May 3

These four larger-than-life bronze statues at the V&A Waterfront’s Nobel Square pay tribute to South Africa’s four Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and stand tall as symbols of the country’s ongoing struggle for equality and justice. Seen from left to right are:

Albert Luthuli, a teacher, anti-apartheid activist, and African National Congress president–general who spent many years under house arrest in an effort by the government to stifle his political leadership. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960 for his non-violent struggle against apartheid.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a South African Anglican cleric who in the 1980s brought international awareness—and economic pressure—to speed the end of apartheid. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role as a unifying symbol for all South African freedom fighters and for his emphasis on a nonviolent path to liberation.

Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who released Nelson Mandela and other political activists from prison soon after taking office and worked to help dismantle apartheid.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years in prison for his fight against apartheid before becoming the nation’s first Black president.

Mandela and de Klerk, who laboriously negotiated terms for the peaceful termination of apartheid, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for that work and for “laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”

Old Cape Point Lighthouse

May 1

Dr. Jewell Dickson and Dr. Gavin Jenkins at the Cape of Good Hope. This narrow, rocky promontory juts out into the sea at the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula, one of the southernmost points on the African continent.

The Cape of Good Hope is known for its stormy, unpredictable weather and rough seas, but the OT Abroad group visited it on beautiful day.

1st Human-to-Human Heart Transplant

May 2, Heart of Cape Town Museum

The OT Abroad team visited this interactive museum that immerses visitors in the events of the first human-to-human heart transplant. South African cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard led a 30-person surgical team that successfully completed the 5-hour operation on December 3, 1967, at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur Hospital.

Continue reading “1st Human-to-Human Heart Transplant”

Pride of Lions Walks Past

April 30, Pilanesberg National Park

“We had all hoped to see lions but we acknowledged that it was pretty unlikely, so getting to see so many up close was incredible.

I was in awe. I had seen lions in the zoo before, but this was completely different. Seeing these animals in their habitat made me feel small somehow.”

~Madison Gaston, OTS