Sawubona my friends! It is pronounced (SOW-BOHN-AH) and means “hello” in Zulu.

Here I am on my third day in Johannesburg, and I have already learned and experienced a lot.

Saturday, I petted around seven baby lions, watched a pride of lions feed on cow legs at Lion Park and took incredible photos of a mother and baby zebra. Africa has treated me pretty well so far.

South Africa is surprisingly similar to the U.S. I knew that it was an industrialized nation before I arrived, but other than the fact that cars drive on the “wrong” side of the road, the feel of Johannesburg is not extremely different than Minneapolis or Chicago.

On our tour of the Soweto township outside Johannesburg, I noticed that people are out and about a lot. Some of this could have been because people are still on holiday after the “festive season,” but it was noticeably different than behavior in the U.S.

People in the U.S. always seem to need a destination. Rarely do you find someone walking just to walk. The pace of life in the U.S. seems much quicker than here in South Africa.

The focus of our course is how the apartheid regime affected culture and communication in South Africa. Apartheid was a system implemented by the South African government in 1948 that was similar to the segregation experienced by African-Americans in the U.S. before the civil rights movement. However, the South African government tried to force people of different races into particular regions of the country. For example, only “whites” were allowed to live in Johannesburg. The “blacks,” “coloureds” and Indians were forced to move into “homelands” and had to have special passes to come into “white” areas.

From what we’ve learned so far, I noticed a distinct correlation between the anti-apartheid movement and the civil rights movement. Both were started peacefully, but eventually erupted into violence and both had very strong leaders emerge from the struggle, like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. I am fascinated observing how the challenge faced by the U.S. in the ‘60s is paralleled by the anti-apartheid movement in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

The first three days in South Africa have been jam-packed with tours and learning experiences, but I have loved every minute of it. I can’t wait for the rest of the trip!

Baihly Warfield can be reached at warf3860@stthomas.edu.

TommieMedia will continue to feature student abroad perspectives during the month of January.