The
Oprah South African Leadership Project provides cross-cultural
immersion and international exposure through travel
and study in South Africa for Morehouse College students.
In the future, it will involve an exchange of students
between Morehouse and South Africa, and will encompass
ethical leadership training and community service
in both Atlanta and South Africa.
May
30, 2005
 After
a short flight on Sunday to Cape Town from Johannesburg,
the group is on solid ground. The difference between
Cape Town and Jo’burg is like night and day.
Trade Jo'burg's concrete and metal for water and mountains
that rise through clouds and fog higher than the eye
can see. Trade cold nights and sunny days for Cape
Town's humidity and frequent showers. And trade Jo'burg's
large black population for an overwhelmingly large
colored, or biracial, population—largely because
of the mixing with the Dutch settlers who arrived
in South Africa—with tourists, students and
professors from abroad forever entering and leaving
the city. Even the young people have a different way
of dressing—a more urban style with stilettos
and boots, Armani shirts and Prada bags.
In a mall a few blocks from the University of Cape
Town, one of South Africa's most prestigious universities,
the shops look more Lenox Square (a tony shopping
mall in Atlanta, Ga.) than local artisan.
But
the Morehouse and Butler students, a little more than
a day into this new city, are ready to meet their
peers at the University of the Western Cape, a historically
black college. During apartheid, it was the only school
that admitted blacks. Today, coloreds and blacks seem
to have equal numbers at the school.
Before the second student forum of the trip, the Morehouse
College and Butler University group take a tour of
the Mayibuye Archive, which is owned by the Robben
Island Museum. Focusing on women of the anti-apartheid
movement, the archive offers a look at women who led
the fight against apartheid and other human rights
struggles—something unseen at many of the museums
the group has toured in South Africa.
A video showing the plight of children was also a
centerpiece of the exhibition. Testimonies from children
under the age of 12 and scars on the backs of teenage
males were reminiscent of U.S. slavery for some. In
one clip, the viewer sees a police attack on students
in their schoolyard. Behind a fence, behind a car,
behind a window, the viewer could very well be a school
child, listening to the dialogue of their mates as
they see their comrades chased, attacked then arrested
by police.
 After
the museum and a relatively free day of milling about
on the small campus, Morehouse and Butler students
walked to a student residence to talk with the Association
of Catholic Tertiary Students, a Catholic student
group on campus. The format for the discussion was
much like the previous one at CIDA: students divide
into small groups and talk about issues on HIV/AIDS,
poverty and youth empowerment.
Moeng Mpye, a third-year social science major, talks
about the generation gap and economics implications
of HIV.
""My
dad was going to start a funeral parlor business because
that's big business in Jo'burg. If you have a funeral
parlor, then you know you're going to make money,"
he says. "Where my dad used to work, they had,
like, 30 funerals a week."
When asked if a connection exists between so many
deaths and HIV/AIDS, Mpye is at first hesitant to
offer his opinion.
"A
lot of people die. Say a person dies of HIV, a family
doesn't want to go out and say their relative died
of AIDS. But on the real, a whole lot of people are
dying of AIDS," he says, pausing for a moment.
"That's scary; that's really scary to look at
it and see that so many people are dying of AIDS."
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