Each event in Project Capetown is accompanied by a set of professional perspectives that address the issues raised in the questions at the end of the events. These perspectives are provided by Joanne Herbert, a teacher education professor at the University of Virginia, and Enrico Pedro, a South African graduate student in education also at the University of Virginia. The Perspective Clicking an item below will take you to the indicated part of this document, or you can scroll through the questions in order. It is possible to maintain a strong center in a tribal culture and become part of a newly integrated culture.
Human beings have the wonderful ability to adapt to all kinds of situations.
This has happened so often in the world, and certainly in the former colonies which include South Africa. After the European invasions in the late 1800s, indigenous peoples had to adapt to a foreign culture, and at the same time they maintained their own culture. It was only the tribal life of the Khoikhoi that was totally destroyed by the European settlement. Even today, the Sotho, Nguni and Venda tribes demonstrate that people can live two or more cultures at the same time. Since the beginnings of European settlement, three and one- half centuries ago, Africans gradually lost some of their tribal customs and adopted new ones from the Europeans.