My journey to South Africa was a part of my Graduate Study Abroad, "Democracy and Development in South Africa" program. I was selected out of a pool of competitive applicants to attend this program with a group of ten other PhD and Masters students.

When you look around Cape Town, it is a colorful city. They call it the "Rainbow Nation" for its diversity in language, and race, but equally for its architecture and design. Too often we see all over the media of Africa as a conflict ridden country. There are some truths to that, but I want to shed light on the beauty of Africa.

Table Mountain sets the backdrop of Cape Town. Cape Town consists of many little "hip" areas from Bo-Kaap (the city on the hill) to the Waterfront. Without fail, you will stumble upon a well-designed boutique shop, chic bar, hipster bookstore, or well ambiant coffee shop. It has a touch of Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco. Naturally I feel right at home. Speaking of home, it was also unexpected to find a touch of Indonesia, my motherland that sits here in South Africa on the hills of Bo-Kaap. We dined at a famous Indonesian run restaurant, and I was satiated.

As a class, we had a lesson on South Africa and Culture, and due to unexpected circumstances our lecture was moved to "The Bank", which is now known as the "World Design Capital Center" located in a type of design district of Cape Town. I was excited of the topic, as design and art is a hidden passion of mine (not a secret now).

Currently there are hundreds of design projects to help the ongoing development of South Africa from sustainable food, education, business and Innovation, and many others industries. It was a great insight, and great exposure for those who are not as design savvy of the massive influence design has in our environment.

In connection, my colleagues and I- Talib, and Andy went to the Cape of Good Hope Castle, which was once used by the Dutch colony for military purposes, which I cannot speak much in-depth about, but within this castle there were several art exhibitions on installation. One being on food and design. The exhibition was intriguing as it covered the evolution of food transport, sustainable food, and food innovation that has lead to our food production system today.

A sculpture made out of recycling containers, and sustainable materials to package our foods.

A piece exhibiting the different methods of packaging from plastic bottles to wine bottles.

Time is far too short, as I could spend my hours in this one museum alone. Some other sites we attended was Robben Island famous for the 26-years imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, and the District area that inspired the District 9 movie, where hundreds of black citizens were unlawfully moved out of their hometowns.

The hallways of Robben Island jail cells where Mandela spent 26 years in prison.

That my friends is a little insight of South African design, and culture. Keep your eyes open! You never know what you will find in the Rainbow Nation! Molo!

Seventeen Days in South Africa, Cape Town