By Ron Hickerson, Chief Reporter
Each year at Masters Week a group of students and faculty travel across the world in order to spend a week in South Africa, a land riddled with a history of prejudice and revolution.
Since 2009, Lecturer Robert Ness has led students and faculty members on four study abroad trips to Cape Town, South Africa – a city mostly known for its history during the apartheid and for being home to human rights activist Nelson Mandela.
Ness said southern Africa has always interested him ever since he and his wife were stationed in Lesotho, a county “land-locked” within South Africa, during their time volunteering with the Peace Corps.
“That was in the ’70s and at that time, the system of oppression called apartheid was in full bloom down there,” he said. “None of us in that Peace Corps group were allowed to cross the border. The politics fascinated me, and it’s always been an interest.”
Since then, Ness’ interest in the region has been apparent to any students who have taken his classes or those who have stepped into his office, which is littered with photos of landscapes and people in South Africa as well as memorabilia like bead necklaces and other handmade items bought in African markets.
Once he came to the university, Ness said he began working with a former member of the Study Abroad Office to plan the trip.
“I was approached in 2008 by Dr. Holly Carter, who was in charge of the Study Abroad program at that point,” he said. “I had, in conversations with her, said that I had been in the Peace Corps in southern Africa years ago and had a great interest in that part of the world, and she suggested that we collaborate in planning a trip to South Africa and I jumped on that. I was absolutely excited.”
Ever since then, Ness said he and his wife have been able to provide students with the chance to experience Cape Town. He said the group often participates in tourism activities, such as going on a safari and touring the city, but students also get to really experience the people and history of South Africa by journeying to Robben Island, a historic prison island off the coast of Cape Town, and working with non-profit organization the Amy Biehl Foundation.
“Maybe one of the most moving things for all of us is a trip by boat out to what’s called Robben Island,” Ness said. “There we take a tour of the prison where Nelson Mandela and many others were imprisoned for so many years. It’s quite an experience for a student to literally stand in the cell where Mandela spent close to 30 years.”
Stephen Kelly, a lawyer and former Augusta State University student who went on Ness’ first-led trip in 2009, said going to the prison, being shown around the facilities by former political prisoners and getting to see Mandela’s cell was a very emotional time for students, causing a lot of them to tear up.
“Being able to stand inside and touch (Mandela’s) very, very small cell and thinking of what he meant as a political prisoner, what he meant for the country and also for the world was very emotional,” he said.
And by working with the Amy Biehl Foundation, which typically works with school-age children living in the city’s townships, which Kelly characterized as the ghetto, Ness said the students get to experience the “grinding poverty” of the people’s living situations.
Allison Foley, an assistant professor at Georgia Regents, was part of the group that traveled to the city in 2011. Experiencing the poverty largely impacted students who went on the trip, she said.
“A lot of students feel like the poverty that we see and the living conditions that we see when we do venture out of the touristy and downtown areas and go into the poor townships are really struck by the magnitude of the poverty and the living conditions,” she said. “We got to be on foot in the townships on one particular afternoon and in cars mostly a couple of other days. Getting to experience that, to observe first-hand, I think is the most valuable part of the trip.”
Kelly agreed, saying the contrast that people can see between poorer and more affluent communities is even more exaggerated than it is in Augusta, Ga.
“In the area over by Augusta State, you have the hill and you have Walton Way – nicer areas – but you make two or three right turns and you’re in the heart of the ghetto,” he said. “Now, with South Africa, it’s even more of a contrast. Two seconds away you’ll see this beautiful, lavish area and then right across the highway, you’ll see a township that’s made up of tin houses.”
But he said the people living in those townships changed his life because of their joy.
“The people are amazing,” Kelly said. “Some of these people are very poor, and they are the happiest, most pleasant people that you’ll ever meet. It really made me realize how fortunate I was and to never take what I have for granted, just to value every day. It opened my eyes to a whole lot.”
Since his first trip, he said he has gone back to South Africa just about every year.
Last year, Foley said the university did not offer the South Africa trip as some changes were being made to the program. While, in the past, the trip has been largely representative of the sociology department, Ness said this year, the trip is doing something new by having students and faculty from the education department being represented in the trip as well.
Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley, an associate professor and coordinator of the counseling education program, said she is very excited to be a part of the trip this year, saying that this year students will be able to meet college students from the University of Cape Town, observing to see the similarities and differences between the education processes.
“We hope to get a broader perspective on what some of those differences are and what people are doing to make improvements,” she said.
In order to create a more complete academic aspect to the trip, both Ness and Anderson-Wiley are teaching classes this semester acting as companion courses to the trip. Every spring, Ness teaches his South Africa class, and this year in Anderson-Wiley’s diversity sensitivity and counseling class, one of the textbooks examines educational inequality in the United States and in South Africa.
“The whole idea of students having the cross-cultural experience is very appealing for that particular course,” Anderson-Wiley said.
They both said students enrolled in these classes that are also going on the trip will give a graded presentation about their experience to their classmates.
Ness said he is always excited about the trip, saying it is too bad that Cape Town is not closer to Augusta. When asked what his favorite thing about the trip was, he said he has always enjoyed watching the students’ reactions.
“My wife and I love to watch the faces of the students as they encounter different things around the city,” he said. “I love to watch the students as they move through the prison at Robben Island and listen to the speakers. We love to watch them as they go into the local African market and have to barter and shop. And I love to watch their faces when they interact with and talk to the local students at the Amy Biehl Foundation…The first year I acted more as a tourist. Ever since the first year’s been over, my excitement has come in watching these students.”