Furman University

Thirty-four Furman students and faculty visited four countries in 42 days: Namibia for nine (9) days, Botswana for three (3) days, South Africa for twenty-eight (28) days, and Swaziland for two (2) days.

Dr. Gordon and Dr. Ching taught post-Apartheid politics and the historical formation of the modern nation states.

The trip began in Namibia, with six days in Windhoek, the capital city, and three days on the Atlantic Coast. In Windhoek, students visited the Old Location, which is the former Katatura township. Students explored the area on foot with with residents and had homestays with Katatura families.

Next the group traveled to Johannesburg and Pretoria in Guateng, South Africa. Students spent five days in Guateng studying issues related to the former townships and meeting with many grassroots community activists.

During their time in Guateng, the group took a three-day trip to Gabarone and Molepolole, Botswana. The students learned about Botswana's ethnic composition and the role that ethnicity plays in the construction of the colonial and postcolonial state.

After returning to Guateng, the group traveled east to Kruger National Park and Swaziland. For the next three weeks, the group traveled along the coast of South Africa for three weeks, visiting KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape. The group spent three days in Durban and five days in Cape Town. The group sites along the way, like the Drakensburg Mountains, Wilderness National Park, battlefields from the British-Zulu War in 1879, the city of East London, and a nearby village called Mooiplas, where students witnessed complicated land tenure and rural agricultural production issues.

Throughout the trip, students met and conversed with a variety of scholars, politicians, political activists, and authors. One particularly memoral exchange included a meeting with Lauretta Ngcobo, who wrote And They Didn't Die which was assigned reading for the students.