LCC students have travelled to South Africa to attend the International Round Square Conference. Before activities get underway, the group has taken the time to learn a little about the country. Here are some reflections:

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September 22, 2012

The first thing that is noticeable are the fences. They literally surround everything. Although oddly enough, the only place that wasn’t fenced in was the Porsche dealership! Crime is a huge issue here, and the reason why we won’t be going into the city.

South Africa may be on the rise with a growing middle class, but severe poverty, unlike anything we see in Montreal, is still running rampant. There’s the rush hour traffic of workers commuting to Jo’burg, passing right by little shantytown-like huts with broken tin roofs and no doors.

After about an hour’s drive out of Jo’burg, we arrive in The Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO world heritage site and the home of one of the most important archeological dig sites on the planet.

We also visited a non-operative gold mine. As the owner was explaining a few things, we saw monkeys climbing in the trees around us. Needless to say we couldn’t focus much after that. The cave was pretty cool, we saw a few bats and, fortunately, no spitting cobras.

We then toured the museum, which houses several important Hominid fossils. The artist’s reconstructions of the fossils caught all our attention. Despite minor physical differences, they all looked undoubtedly…human.

After lunch, we headed out to the reserve where we were staying, observing rhinos, ostriches, antelope and wildebeest on the way. After a traditional “braii” (BBQ) and a lesson on the local astronomy, we headed off to bed. An early 5:00 am start tomorrow! — Zachary Dionisopoulos ’13