During the summer, I had the opportunity to travel to the continent of South Africa. I had never been to South Africa and anticipated this trip since I did not think that I would ever get the chance to visit the now liberated South Africa in the future. So, I decided to embrace this opportunity and travel there with my fellow colleagues. After all, Apartheid is over and all is well, or is it? My background, prior to the trip, consisted of a couple of reading books and an autobiography by Nelson Mandela, the political activist and former South African president. Among the books suggested by the Professor leading our group, the book titled, "The Making Of Modern South Africa"� by Nigel Worden was especially interesting to me. Perhaps it was because I found it to be an easier read. I was quickly drawn in by the manner in which Worden makes a summation of the themes that built the modern South Africa that I was about to visit.
English: Nelson Mandela Bridge
The statue of Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square,...
English: Nelson Mandela's prison cell on Robben Is...Upon my arrival in Cape Town, South Africa, I saw vast geographical similarities to the United States mainly because we were lodging in the city surrounded by freeways and shops where most tourists tend to frequent. As our trip progressed, we began to penetrate the suburban and rural areas of South Africa. At that point, I realized that I was in fact not prepared to witness the poverty and socio-economic injustices rendered by the apartheid move, which I had only read about in the previously mentioned books. Although blacks and colored individuals (Afrikaners as well) had survived the enforcement of Apartheid, they had yet to overcome the horrific repercussions that apartheid had manifested throughout the South African continent.
The polarization of the present day socio-economic statuses in South...