Wrapping Up and Getting Ready!

We are so excited we graduated from LINK and are ready to go to South Africa

Wow! Where did the semester go? I can't believe we leave for South Africa in 5 days!

This past semester we hammered out the details of our civic engagement as well as continued to learn about the South African culture. We had a South African guest speaker come and talk to the group about racism in South Africa as well as the importance of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a humanist philosophy that talks about the relationships that human beings have with each other. People with Ubuntu are open and willing to talk to others. They do not feel threatened by another race or other person's idea. Ubuntu is the philosophy that humans can't isolate themselves. Rather, we are all connected by a circle of life. Even though this discussion wasn't what the group was expecting, it helped bring the group closer and helped us realize that we all make up this LINK group and would have not accomplished anything without everyone's ideas and contributions in the group.

As for our trip, we are sadly no logger staying with host families but will be living in cottages near the University of Stellenbosch. We will still be involved with our comrades, and we can't wait to meet them. We finally received the schedule, so we have an idea of the events we will be doing each day.

Hopefully, when we get to South Africa, we will be able to update this blog to keep everyone informed about our activities and what the group is learning and experiencing.

Molly