In class this week we watched a file “Age 7 in South Africa”. This film goes through the lives of various children all age 7 living in South Africa. All the kids were really cute and it was interesting to see all their different lifestyles. It was interesting to hear their thoughts about blacks, white, coloureds, and the government at the time. The white and Indian children talked about how townships were bad and how they would never want to live there and the black children talked about how they wanted to be rich and live in the white areas. This shows how the inequalities during that time were apparent to children as well. The condition of the schools in the townships and the white neighborhoods was also very different. Some of the children in the townships could not even attend school. Lastly, I liked to see the differences in languages which the children chose to speak, Afrikaans, English, Zulu, etc. I am eager to watch the following videos as the same children get older and see how their ideas have changed.
This class made me excited to work with the children when we get to Cape Town. I love how children are so open with their personalities and have their own opinions about things. It will be interesting to see the differences between children of South Africa and the United States which regards to how they spend their free time and what is important to them.
