South Africa

I was ecstatic when I found out I would be  going to pursue my undergraduate degree from the university of cape town in south Africa in 2009.As soon as I got my admission ,I googled  everything about cape town and the search was absolutely beautiful, this got me even more excited.

When I told my friends that I would be going to south Africa ,some of their comments  freaked me out. They started talking about the crime in south Africa and when i googled crime in South Africa what they said was very true .Well I had alternative opportunities to go to university elsewhere but I stuck with this one.

A month later, I was on a plane to South Africa .I got the privilege of staying in Johannesburg for 3 days before heading off to cape town. While in Johannesburg, the security was so uptight compared to Uganda especially in the suburban  and we always had to move in car. The Johannesburg I got to see in the start had predominantly white people ,fancy houses and Europe vibe.

I got a chance to CBD(central business district) which was a completely different Johannesburg  I had seen on arrival. Who knew crossing a bridge and I would see a different world. On the one side ,I felt like I was in a developed country in Europe and on the other I was in developing African country. Before crossing the bridge, I was told to leave my cell phone and pursue behind because we had to seem as plain as possible. On crossing the bridge ,there were small shops and it looked less developed, predominantly black people and a more African vibe.

I got excited because at least something I could relate with. Well after Johannesburg ,I was off to cape town. On the drive to university, the first thing you see are the township houses(in Uganda it would be slums).But as you begin to draw closer to the university or the mountain you begin to see the nice upscale houses.

The university of cape town is a beautiful university and gave me an opportunity to experience the different types of south Africa .South Africa is a country that is healing from the apartheid era that ended in 1994.When I first got to south Africa I was ignorant of this fact and always misinterpreted so many situations.  For example I always wondered why there was so much tension among white people and black people  and generally all races after  16 years of no apartheid. After 2 years of  living in South Africa ,I learnt the wounds(economically and socially) that apartheid left on people is going take a long time to heal. Despite the wounds ,South Africa is beautiful country with a lot of diversity to offer.