Globalization 1

Born in the dirty streets of Port Elizabeth and growing up in the poor of the poorest communities in Alice (Eastern Cape), I know how it feels to have access to technology late in life. Being connected with a superpower like America elevates our lives in South Africa in many ways. We feel honoured. But how long is the project going to continue? I wish we all (students and staff) could continue sharing and retain the relationship even after the project. I wish the established relationships could continue forever and not end like the projects eventually end. I perceive this Sharing Cultures Project as a step towards a free and global community, a community in which the local culture does not disappear but maintains its place the academy and in society. The Sharing Cultures Project brings the United States into our classrooms as a partner rather than a conqueror. I salute this type of globalization and I don't merely salute it because I now belong to the group of the few that benefit from it in my country. I'm aware that there are many unequal relationships developed as responses to the pressures of globalization, and I note the many inequalities created in Third World societies by globalization. But this project creates a global space that offers more benefits than difficulties – benefits that can be taken advantage of not only by the "haves" but also by the "have nots." All the knowledge and skills acquired by the educated group in a state could be a tool to pull the rest out of the darkness. Knowing that the rest of Black South Africans are still "lingering in the dark dungeons" of poverty, I do not enjoy the position this project has placed me in. Knowledge and connectedness would bring change to their lives.

Providing township and rural community libraries with theInternet to could narrow the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots." I first saw a library when I started at a Teachers' College. Before that time, throughout my academic life, I was using my imagination. I never saw a laboratory until I was about ten years in the teaching field. I am not complaining; that was the type of education given to a Black child during the apartheid era in South Africa. What happened happened, but I'm proud as I struggled and managed to be here today. I don't want to cling to the past. Nearle Hurston (1979) proudly says that "the operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you" (p. 153) – I also feel like that when I think of apartheid. So, you can understand that I do not have a reading cultural background, and this technological science is new to me. Thus, reading and writing through computers gave me culture shock, which is a disconcerting feeling that I don't want South African township and rural children of this generation to experience.