there's no such thing as a stop-over town.

The following blog posting probably can't do justice to the event it seeks to describe. Just so you know.

The Traveling School was loaded up in the safari truck. It was drizzling outside, the same mildly miserable stretch of cold rain that had haunted us for a week now and had already thwarted our plans on several occasions. The thought of setting up canvas tents loomed ominously over TTS girls bundled in every layer they had as we were en route to the coast and hopes of the sunshine for which its named.

This was a stop-over town. The hostel was a pass-through hostel - never intended to be anything more than a warm place to sleep the night. And yet this desolate town, hillsides dotted by the simple houses of the people is also the birthplace of Nelson Mandela. And yet, there can be no such thing as a stop-over town or a pass-through hostel. We pulled over and unloaded into tiny Xhosa-style round huts, simple but clean, with beds and roofs..about the most we could ask for that night. In the morning the girls woke at 5:45am to a dreary gray morning and a workout of hill sprints on the dirt road that stretched endlessly out into desiccated farm land. Needless to say, their enthusiasm was lacking in this stop-over town.

The girls piled into the safari truck and as we started to pull away, a police car with sirens blaring seemed to flash down a silver BMW heading down the road. To our astonishment, the BMW pulled into the rocky dirt road to the hostel, and, police in what seemed like pursuit behind. The two cars headed straight towards us, veer off to the right, and a well-dressed man steps out and runs in to talk to the owner of the hostel. Meanwhile, Claire leaped out of the truck, and ran back up the road. The girls afterwards reflected on the questions about Claire's legality that ran through their heads at that moment. But through the flirtatious knowledge-gathering of Japhet, our Zimbabwean driver, she had received notice that Nelson Mandela was to be passing through his hometown. Given that this is rural South Africa, the Transkei and one of the poorest regions of the country - men in suits and BMWs were a strong indication of big things to come.

After some finagling that could only be done in Africa, Japhet was speeding down the road in the behemoth safari truck, on a wild goose chase after the phantom Mandela that we believed might possibly be, though no one was really sure, somewhere in the general vicinity. We drove for 15 minutes or so, the girls alternately laughing hysterically and then sitting in petrified silence and stopped to ask workers on the side of the road. We must have been an odd sight, the white girls in our huge beige truck, but they pointed us on down the road.

Suddenly we drove otu over a lookout, and down below in the middle of the barren grassland was a gated area, a monument, and a collection of well-dressed individuals and very nice cars. The energy in the truck was palpable as the anticipation built.

We drove to the gate, and again, only in Africa - Japhet pulled in and parked our truck behind the Mercedes and BMWs, as if it would be camouflaged and inconspicuous somewhere back there. The girls fell silent. We waited.

No more than 10 minutes later, we saw a long chain of police cars with flashing lights pulling around the overlooks edge, and in the center came a black sedan with tinted windows.

"That's him..." one of the girls whispered.

They pulled into the very same gated compound that we were in, past the giant beige safari truck, and pulled up to the monument. We were peering silently from our windows - an unspoken code of reverence.

Slowly, tantalizingly slowly, a white-haired head emerged from the vehicle.

"That's Nelson Mandela..." one of them croaked, speaking in awe for the rest of us.

Japhet and friend walked slowly down towards the crowd, Japhet hurriedly tucking in his shirt and trying to make himself presentable.

We felt silly, gawking, awkward - and yet, none of us could tear ourselves away from the significance of this moment. Suddenly, we saw Japhet - hefty Japhet who moves his large body with purpose - running towards us. "You can come closer if you want," he said..

A collective breath caught at the same time, we crept out of th truck, and dressed in the TTS uniform of oddly matched sweatpants, polypro, and tshirts we struggled to make ourselves mildly presentable. We walked slowly, as if for fear of disturbing this dream we're living, down towards the crowd. I looked at the girls and teachers around me - and each of us is caught somewhere in our emotions, eyes welling. And we arrived at the edge of the crowd, and people make space for this odd assortment of American girls, and suddenly, we are no more than 10 feet from Nelson Mandela.

There is a flood for me just then - a flood of all that I have ever wanted to learn and understand about the struggle, about oppression, about freedom. And suddenly I am standing there, staring at someone who embodies the cliches and the grandeur. And he is just a man, with white hair and a wrinkled face. But he is just a man - and that fact is enough to sink in so deeply and so pervasively.

This man lived imprisoned for 27 years and then came out of prison to unify South Africa - not for black power or to defeat white power, but with the ideal of coexistence.

He climbed into the waiting sedan, and as Claire remarks - all formality was lost. We grin at him as he drives away, and wave - a little wildly. We'll never know if he saw the group of 17 white girls, frantically trying to express in one moment everything that seeing him had just meant.

There's something magical about this group. There's something about being open, being present. That moment something snapped in all of us and we are let loose.

To those who say that this generation is lost - I challenge you to think again. To those who think that all teenagers can idolize is Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake - I challenge you to think again. I saw young women on this raw morning profoundly and achingly inspired by the sight of a man who made change in his country - and their awareness of his greatness was held in every pregnant moment of being there.