Grand Canyon University Athletics
Daniels spends final day in South Africa
8/7/2010 3:19:36 PM | Dominique Daniels - BMX
Hey GCU students! Dominique Daniels here letting you know the conclusion to my exciting week in South Africa.
Well my friends, this week has certainly opened my eyes in more ways than one. I finished up the weekend with a World 4 and World 10 title under my belt. Not what I was expecting honestly, but that just means that I will have to work harder once I get back home and improve skills that I seemed to lack this weekend.
The next intense race that I will have is going to be in Louisville, Kentucky. That race will be none other than the NBL Grands, one of the hardest BMX tracks in the nation, known for its long turns, hard rhythm section and notorious 3rd straight doubles. There is expected to be over 20,000 riders and fans there. This time I will be defending my NBL title for the third time for the Women’s Elite Title. The race may be different but I will still have to work hard and do my best to if I want to repeat the winning the Grand Championship.
Back to South Africa…
Although the racing was over, my time in South Africa had not yet completely run its course. On the very last day in South Africa I traveled away from Pietermaritzburg back to the big city Johannesburg. Our flight back to the states wasn’t going to beautiful later in the evening so my Dad and I decided to take a tour around the city. I was, needless to say, more than excited to embark on the new side adventure, but again, it was nothing that I was expecting.
The city of Johannesburg is built similar to that of Phoenix or even L.A. if you look at just the superficial layer, but once you investigate the inner circle, one finds that it is nothing much like any of the cities I mentioned. Some of you may have noticed that a few months ago, South Africa, right before the FIFA World Cup, fell into pure anarchy. Rioting in the streets, fights and brawls everywhere, broken windows and looters running along their way unhindered, it was a chaotic area, putting it nicely.
Now all the tension has settled into a somewhat calmer state and the rioting has stopped, even so, some anger remains within the city as hidden as it may try to be. But one of the most noticeable things that I encountered was something most of us in our generation never actually experienced was segregation. Never in my wildest dreams or nightmares did I ever think that I would live to see the borderline tension separated by skin color, nationality, or ancestry. It was very saddening to see how two different people of nationalities interacted with each other. If they interacted at all... It wasn’t that way if you were a tourist but it was different if you lived there.
Still and all, the worst was yet to come.
It was almost as if I had stepped back in time into the 1970s and before.
The tension…the underlying misunderstanding, which lead to confusion and apprehension… It was almost as if a balancing act was being performed and at any moment the performer would fall and all the performer had held high in the air above him would tumble far down, break and crash.
Not only was the city subtlety segregated, as they didn’t have “Whites Only” or “ Colored Bench” placards posted on this wall and that, but it was acts of avoiding, of drawing that distinct line of being different, and separation, that the people passed on to their children. The familes would not buy a home in a certain neighborhood because it was a “white neighborhood.” There would be different areas where the Jewish families lived, just because. In short stereotypes ran deep here.
But not only people separated by color but class as well. There was no such thing as a mansion here. There was middle class, the “semi” rich, and then there were the poor which took up the vast majority. And I mean dirt poor.
Certain people that could not find work went to live in villages where shanty homes made out of tin and cardboard. Whatever they felt that they could utilize is what they did exactly. The people there had absolutely no choice but to try and survive. And that is exactly what they are doing…
Within the homes, the families have small gardens where they try to support themselves. Some of the children got to go to school, not all but some. Jobs were scarce but the people did what they could.
Another important thing that I was able to witness was the better side of South Africa. A lot of the people that I met were genuinely nice. I got to go see Nelson Mandela’s house and Desmond Tutu and got to visit the interesting village of Soweto. By going to all these places I found out how fortunate we are as Americans.