Archbishop Desmond Tutu


While some may already know, for some reason I feel that I often leave out some of the most important details of my trip. As if going around the world on the world's fastest passenger ship to 11 countries wasn't enough, I also get the honor of experiencing the entire 100 day voyage with Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu.

Desmond Tutu what what I would like to call the Gandhi of South Africa. Born in the middle of the Apartheid (legalized racism that took place in South Africa that is comparable to the Holocaust when in comes to inhuman treatment of people). He was the very first as a black man in many things such as a religious leader and an educator. While Nelson Mandela seems to get most of the attention about South Africa, that is like saying somehow the rest of the world only heard of Malcolm X while Tutu is Martin Luther King Jr. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and has continued his efforts beyond South Africa to the world. He is now heading numerous delegations around the world helping to maintain peace in a world that is so consumed by war.

I get on the boat on February 2nd, and have the honor of being one of the first students to meet him. Currently I am reading "The Power of One" and "Kaffir Boy" to prepare myself for him and to help better understand life in the Apartheid. The last thing I want to do when in conversation is disappoint someone so important due to lack of research before hand.

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