Before arriving in South Africa, I was able to make a 24 hour stopover in Amsterdam to visit my friends I met in a high school exchange program through Dalton, who are both currently attending the University of Amsterdam. They took time out of their busy exam schedules to house me, feed me, and provide a very jettlaged me with entertainment including visiting a street filled with many of the popular university hangout spots. I also had the chance to wander around on my own for part of the day to revisit a city I only remembered from a distant past.
My first week in South Africa was spent exploring Johannesburg which unfortunately was primarily confined to staring out from the windows of a mini-tour bus. However, we did see some pretty great museums including the Apartheid Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum. We were able to get a peek of the dichotomy between Joburg as the financial capital of South Africa, and Joburg as housing one of the countries largest slums. We would come to see that these same disparities remained a prominent theme throughout our stay in the country.
Our arrival in Cape Town was epic. As we drove along the highway approaching the colossal Table Mountain for the very first time, all of our jaws dropped simultaneously. Table Mountain never fails to mystify even the most seasoned mountain dwellers. The first backpackers' lodge we stayed in was a place called the train lodge which consisted of a set of retired passenger cars turned into stationary low-price accommodations. Despite the infinitesimally small and claustrophobic rooms, the lodge had a pool, a bar, and five star views of the mountain. On the morning of our first homestay we were hiked Lion's Head mountain to see a view of Cape Town as we had never seen it before. Needless to say, the first week in Cape Town was full of countless joys and fascinations.
Our first homestay was with primarily Xhosa-speaking families in Langa Township. The township was approximately a half hour drive from our classrooms so we regressed from fully-independent university students, to students who rode the bus to school daily. We had our first introduction to South African cuisine (two words: MEAT and STARCH) and began to practice some of our Xhosa language skills. Our families, although residing within the same township, were from a range of socioeconomic brackets, and each household was filled with a range of different experiences. While the highlight of my friend's homestay was probably decapitating a chicken in her backyard in preparation for a funeral ritual, some high points of my experience were marked by attending family gatherings and spending copious amounts of time with my homestay brother, his cousins, and a newborn kitten in the family.
During our Langa homestay we had a few excursions, the most important being to Robben Island, the maximum security prison where many resistors to apartheid were detained as political prisoners. Interestingly enough, the island holds more than just the prison - it also houses a community where the families of the prison guards and prison administration historically resided. There is still a small population living on Robben Island, and entirely perplexing to me is the fact that many weddings take place there. The 3-week homestay in Langa went by in a jiffy and before we knew it we were saying our goodbyes at the homestay party. I cooked a meal for my family on the last night: they liked everything but the greens, go figure.
Before heading to the rural Eastern Cape, our program took us on a detour excursion to unwind and prepare for what was ahead. We stayed in Simon's Town which gave us our first taste of Indian Ocean waters and encounters with the warm-water penguin colony at Boulder's Beach. My friends jested that the penguins didn't know that apartheid was over as I was the only one to get bitten by a penguin when it suddenly became territorial. We also made our way to the destination spot Cape Point, which contains the Southwesternmost tip of the African Continent: The Cape of Good Hope. We were met with breathtaking views including that of where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet. As if the excursion wasn't great enough already, we had our first ostrich sighting upon heading back to our Simon's Town lodge.
We glimpsed the expansive rural life of South Africa through our homestay in Tshabo village in the Eastern Cape. Our faculty prepared us for the worst: no running water, no electricity, no sewage systems, just us and nature. However, not one of our homes was lacking electricity, and although we had to make major adjustments in our hygiene patterns for the 10-day homestay, the lifestyle made it much easier to bear. We spent tons of time with our siblings which inevitably resulted in following around packs of neighborhood children, and we benefited from adapting to more organic sleeping patterns. Although aspects of rural life were refreshing, one had to realize that we were still amidst ubiquitous poverty. The village was almost entirely populated by women due to the migration of men to cities as well a shockingly high level of substance abuse deaths. And although we did not know the statistics for our village, rural settings are where health issues such as HIV/AIDS run rampant.
After concluding our rural homestay, we got a taste of what native South Africans, surprisingly, rarely see: wild life. We stayed at a backpackers lodge in the Eastern Cape that was in the heart of nature with direct access to a misty beach and miles of sand dunes. The first morning in our cabin I woke up to the sound of feet pattering on the roof and was surprised to find small monkeys climbing through the trees and trying to get a good look at me once they realized I was awake. On our game drive at a nearby game reserve, we played with elephants, pet cheetas, and spotted classic safari favorites such as lions and giraffes.
After the Eastern Cape we flew back to Cape Town and made our way to Stellenbosch, home to a large portion of South Africa's Dutch and British Afrikaans-speaking people; those historical classified as "White" or "European" under apartheid. We toured many a winery, and took our classes for the week at Stellenbosch University, nestled in a quaint college down with abundant foliage and cafés that were both adorable and delicious. Because of a holiday our homestay in Stellenbosch was cut short, and directly after we continued to !Khwa ttu, a Khoisan cultural education center in the Western Cape. The Khoisan were the first hunter/gatherers and pastoralist peoples to roam South Africa's land, and centers such as !Khwa ttu made an attempt at linking the tourism industry with a reclaiming of these historic roots.
For our final 10-day homestay, we stayed with Muslim families in a predominately Muslim section of Cape Town called Bo Kaap. Formally known as the "Malay Quarter" this area houses people of Malaysian decent who are ethnically referred to as Cape Malays. Although classified unfavorably under apartheid, Cape Malays somehow got to keep their prime realty overlooking the city of Cape Town. The area is known for its colorfully painted houses, and it's savory South-Asian delicacies such as samosas and curries.
For the last month of our program, we separated into small groups, moved into apartments in Cape Town, and had the entire month free to pursue our independent field-research on the topics of our choosing. This month-long period also gave us the freedom to explore the city in ways in which we had been previously limited since we had been living with families and attending class daily. I, with four other girls, found a lovely two bedroom two bathroom apartment, fully furnished with awe-inspiring views of the city and its mountains. One of our favorite destinations for the weekend was the Old Biscuit Mill, a run-down mill turned farmer's market with mouthwatering foods and a wide assortment of crafts. We were also pretty thrilled about having the chance to control our diets for the first time while being in South Africa: almost needless to say, we commenced the month with a detox.
We spent the last few days of our program at a retreat in the woods debriefing and unwinding. We rafted, frolicked in the grass, and sat around many a camp fire drinking hot cocoa. However we did not swim seeing as swimming in fresh water was not covered by our program's insurance policy. Although following this retreat our program concluded and most of our group returned to the US, a couple of friends and I decided to continue our explorations. My friend Nora and I took a road trip on the infamous Garden Route, where we experienced magnificent landscapes, jumped off the highest bungee bridge in the world, went waterfall ziplining, and dawdled in an off-season beach town called Plattensburg Bay. Upon arriving back in Cape Town we shamelessly indulged in all of the city's touristy delights from visiting the aquarium to taking the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. My last day in South Africa ended beautifully with a classy and satisfying round of afternoon tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
An attempt at deconstructing “The Township”
Townships are such a difficult thing to understand or even attempt to explain, really. The thing is they’re not the same as “the projects” in the states, and if you try to understand them through that lens you’re bound to encounter many misunderstandings. From what I can understand, the most essential difference between segregation in the US and apartheid in South Africa was the sheer extent of oppression. While the US had segregationist policies implemented in things like water fountains and schooling, the equivalent of these policies were only considered acts of “petty apartheid” in South Africa’s book. The US never implemented the policy of territorial segregation that South Africa did under apartheid. Although this seems like a minute distinction in two stories of massive oppressive it actually makes a huge difference, both in historical terms, and in terms of effects on contemporary lifestyles. The difference is, while blacks in the US were forced into places like projects and slums because they were excluded from the economic opportunities to grant them purchasing power, blacks (including Coloureds and Indians) in South Africa were forced into townships by law.
So what does this mean for South Africa today, you ask? It means that the townships are very confusing places, and areas of astounding socioeconomic diversity. You could be living in an informal settlement (effectively a tin shack), or you could be living in a house like that of the family with which I stayed, where they certainly possess the purchasing power to live outside of townships but decide not to. Furthermore, there is often very little spatial division between these two extremes; for example, there was only a one-street-separation between the house I lived in and the informal settlement housing. This disparity was extremely baffling to me upon my arrival to Langa Township and inspired some of the very first questions I asked my homestay brother, Odwa. He explained that people tend to stay in townships because of the community and camaraderie that lies within, irrespective of the amount of personal wealth one possesses. He added that the townships also provide a certain extent of free amenities such as water and electricity, which makes staying in the township more convenient on a very basic level. What this cracks down to is that there’s, perhaps, not as much of an ultimate goal to “move on up to the east side”, or to the suburbs, as would be the equivalent here. Although complex, to me it seems to exemplify the African concept of “ubuntu”, or humanity, in which the value of our neighbors and communities is emphasized over our own personal goals and desires.
So what does this mean for South Africa today, you ask? It means that the townships are very confusing places, and areas of astounding socioeconomic diversity. You could be living in an informal settlement (effectively a tin shack), or you could be living in a house like that of the family with which I stayed, where they certainly possess the purchasing power to live outside of townships but decide not to. Furthermore, there is often very little spatial division between these two extremes; for example, there was only a one-street-separation between the house I lived in and the informal settlement housing. This disparity was extremely baffling to me upon my arrival to Langa Township and inspired some of the very first questions I asked my homestay brother, Odwa. He explained that people tend to stay in townships because of the community and camaraderie that lies within, irrespective of the amount of personal wealth one possesses. He added that the townships also provide a certain extent of free amenities such as water and electricity, which makes staying in the township more convenient on a very basic level. What this cracks down to is that there’s, perhaps, not as much of an ultimate goal to “move on up to the east side”, or to the suburbs, as would be the equivalent here. Although complex, to me it seems to exemplify the African concept of “ubuntu”, or humanity, in which the value of our neighbors and communities is emphasized over our own personal goals and desires.
Not to scare you Mom and Dad, but…
… there’s some guy here who’s calling me his traditional newlywed: a “makoti” (I can see my mom reaching for the telephone right now). But really don’t worry, I’m actually learning so much about the intricacies of South African cultures from this guy, and I’m 95% sure he’s only joking. He’s of Sotho (pronounced “soo-too”) heritage, meaning although his family now stays in South Africa, their historical origins are in the country Lesotho, one of the two small landlocked countries that lies within South Africa’s borders. My introduction to this guy, who we’ll just call “Kamani”, involved a host of combinations of and contradictions between tradition and modernity, a classic tension in the rhetoric surrounding Africa. Kamani is the cousin of my homestay bhuti (brother) from Langa so I met him at a family gathering on my very first day, in which the uncles had come together to praise the ancestors through song, prayer, and the home brewing of a traditional beer. All of the females of the family were in a room to the side preparing and sharing heaps of freshly prepared dishes, which is where I had my first taste of traditional South African food. All of the cousins in the family who were more or less around my age were in a room to the side of the ceremony watching MTV and chastising the young cousins for being too rowdy.
I realized that Kamani and his cousins, upon arising to take a walk around the block, all wrapped themselves in these huge, vibrantly adorned woolen blankets, picked up wooden walking sticks, and put on farmer-like straw hats. It turns out that the outfits that Kamani and his cousins were wearing are a requirement for their initiation ceremonies as Sotho young adult males to become men. The ceremony starts when the boy turns 18 years old, at which point he goes “into the mountains”, to get circumcised and to learn the trades of becoming a man. When the newly initiated males come back into society, now as men, they must dispose entirely of their old boyhood wardrobes and acquire new clothes that will lay the foundations of their manhood attire. In addition they must wear the traditional outfit described above whenever they are in public irrespective of the weather or occasion. Although the format of this initiation stays the same from ethnic group to ethnic group, the required dress changes. Whereas a newly initiated Sotho man must wear traditional beads, a blanket, a straw hat, and a walking stick as I explained above, a newly initiated Xhosa man, who has his roots in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa must wear a full suit with a Kangol-style cabbie hat during the first few months post-initiation. The newly initiated men tend to take the demands of their initiation very seriously. There was one time where, out of curiosity, I attempted to touch Kamani’s walking stick, and he quickly took it away and got upset with me for the first time. I later asked my homestay bhuti why Kamani had reacted the way he did, and he explained that it was because the stick was “for him, and him only.”
Despite the heavy emphasis on these traditional practices, it is impossible not to notice how “westernized” the South African youth is - not just young males, but females as well. The very first thing I bonded over with my 24-year-old bhuti was our mutual love for Coldplay and (don’t judge) Keeping Up with the Kardashians, my infamous guilty pleasure. It totally makes sense when you look around; the youth is flooded 20 out of the 24 hours in a day with images of western media and culture, predominately steered by the US music and television industries. Furthermore, it seems as if it is a matter of pride to be a young person in South Africa to be recognized as understanding and emulating western culture; it’s apparent in the brands they seek, the music they listen to, the rich people they aspire to follow, etc. It creates this interesting dynamic of young South Africans weaving in and out of their various identities, and outsiders learning to accept this weaving as legitimate, for culture inevitably becomes something of its own when it is appropriated by a different group. In the case of my friend Kamani, the transformation from a reckless, hip, young adult, to a dutiful and responsible man guarding his traditions and heritage, and then back again, or perhaps the combination between these two, created the perfect grounds for being able to understand the predominate tone of South African youth culture on a more personal level.
I realized that Kamani and his cousins, upon arising to take a walk around the block, all wrapped themselves in these huge, vibrantly adorned woolen blankets, picked up wooden walking sticks, and put on farmer-like straw hats. It turns out that the outfits that Kamani and his cousins were wearing are a requirement for their initiation ceremonies as Sotho young adult males to become men. The ceremony starts when the boy turns 18 years old, at which point he goes “into the mountains”, to get circumcised and to learn the trades of becoming a man. When the newly initiated males come back into society, now as men, they must dispose entirely of their old boyhood wardrobes and acquire new clothes that will lay the foundations of their manhood attire. In addition they must wear the traditional outfit described above whenever they are in public irrespective of the weather or occasion. Although the format of this initiation stays the same from ethnic group to ethnic group, the required dress changes. Whereas a newly initiated Sotho man must wear traditional beads, a blanket, a straw hat, and a walking stick as I explained above, a newly initiated Xhosa man, who has his roots in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa must wear a full suit with a Kangol-style cabbie hat during the first few months post-initiation. The newly initiated men tend to take the demands of their initiation very seriously. There was one time where, out of curiosity, I attempted to touch Kamani’s walking stick, and he quickly took it away and got upset with me for the first time. I later asked my homestay bhuti why Kamani had reacted the way he did, and he explained that it was because the stick was “for him, and him only.”
Despite the heavy emphasis on these traditional practices, it is impossible not to notice how “westernized” the South African youth is - not just young males, but females as well. The very first thing I bonded over with my 24-year-old bhuti was our mutual love for Coldplay and (don’t judge) Keeping Up with the Kardashians, my infamous guilty pleasure. It totally makes sense when you look around; the youth is flooded 20 out of the 24 hours in a day with images of western media and culture, predominately steered by the US music and television industries. Furthermore, it seems as if it is a matter of pride to be a young person in South Africa to be recognized as understanding and emulating western culture; it’s apparent in the brands they seek, the music they listen to, the rich people they aspire to follow, etc. It creates this interesting dynamic of young South Africans weaving in and out of their various identities, and outsiders learning to accept this weaving as legitimate, for culture inevitably becomes something of its own when it is appropriated by a different group. In the case of my friend Kamani, the transformation from a reckless, hip, young adult, to a dutiful and responsible man guarding his traditions and heritage, and then back again, or perhaps the combination between these two, created the perfect grounds for being able to understand the predominate tone of South African youth culture on a more personal level.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Village Anecdote
As you might know, I spent the past week staying with a family in a rural village in the Eastern Cape. The village's name was Tshabo II in the greater town of Berlin. It surely had it's challenges (getting used to the "loo" (toilet), questioning the fluorescent pink sandwich meat that sometimes came with my fat cakes, spongebathing daily, etc.) but for the most part it was so relaxing, epically beautiful, and involved routines that felt so healthy to fall into. Every few weeks for my program we have to describe and analyze an event that transpired during our stay that exemplified some type of cross-cultural clashing, so I wanted to share the description part of this assignment as a little village anecdote accompanied by some photos from the village. Enjoy!
My transition to Tshabo was one that involved very few adjustments, much to my surprise. I’ve grown up and have lived in a big city for most of my life, so I was preparing myself for some massive crisis to fall upon me when thrown into a rural environment. On my third night, some version of this crisis did manifest itself in, perhaps, a more embarrassing way than I thought it would. Earlier that day, my and my partner Katharine’s Mama had fussed at us about our use of the all-purpose-bucket she had designated for our use. We had already adjusted to using it to brush our teeth, but peeing and defecating in it we simply could not bring ourselves to feel comfortable with doing. “You must use the bucket when it gets dark!” our Mama exclaimed, scolding us for our tendency to venture out into the dark nights together to use the loo. Apparently there were many inconspicuous dangers inherent in village life that were far from obvious. For example, our first night in Tshabo our Mama warned Katherine and I that we had to make sure to close our window every night in case someone in the village didn’t like us and decided to torch our room with us in it; I was waiting for her to crack a smile in jest, but that smile never came. Going to the loo in the dark was on the list of things we were not to do, with no questions asked. To be honest, peeing in the bucket did not bother me so much; I rather enjoyed the opportunity to use the bucket, which seemed like the safe and comfortable alternative to trying to avoid blood-hungry spiders, giant mutant roaches, and other terrors of the night. However, I knew that Katherine didn’t really appreciate the whole peeing in the bucket concept so I felt pressed to find a solution that would leave all parties feeling contented.
This opportunity came late one night – and by “late” I mean around 11pm or so since adjusting to Tshabo completely shifted our conception of an appropriate bedtime. Everyone was fast asleep: our 50-odd-year old Mama and her slightly mentally handicapped sister-in-law (who we called Sisi) that Mama was left to take care of when her husband died of lung cancer in 2001; our eight-year old bhuti, Soso, and our feverish four-year old sisi, Bukho; and last but not least, ourselves, down for a pleasant night of sleep after a packed and productive village day. I was having one of those odd dreams in which you find yourself on a toilet and know what’s going to happen next so I immediately woke myself up and knew I was on a mission. I quietly slipped out of bed, grabbed the bucket, and crept out of the door so as not to awake Katharine. I thought I was in the clear as I pulled the door shut so I scurried down the hallway heading for the living room where I planned to conduct my business, but all of a sudden a ruckus broke out. As I ran down the hallway with my bucket I saw a light turn on in Sisi’s room followed by her exasperatedly screaming “Uya phi?!” (“Where are you going?!”). Given that I had no clue how to say “I have to pee!” in Xhosa, I knew I didn’t have time to explain what was going on, especially to this woman who, unlike our Mama, spoke no English.
All of a sudden Sisi started chasing after me down the hall while still yelling, Mama’s three dogs that sleep outside started howling at the top of their lungs, and our feverish sisi, Bukho, who awoke from the commotion started bawling. Amidst the chaos one thing was clear; I was in quite a pickle. I stood in the living room with my legs crossed and bouncing up and down, bladder near explosion, while attempting to explain to Sisi in Xhosa that I actually never intended to go outside, but just to move to the living room where I would not disturb Katherine. However, Sisi, who probably assumed that I was attempting to sneak outside use the bathroom, proceeded to tell some narrative of what she thought was going on to my Mama who was still in bed in her own bedroom with our sisi and bhuti. I started to realize my efforts were futile and so I did what any normal person would do at that point: I pulled down my pants and peed in the bucket, lights on in the middle of the living room, in front of Sisi and all. As if the situation was not bad enough, during what felt like the 10 minutes that I was squatting over the bucket, the largest living roach that I’ve ever seen in my life casually sauntered past my foot and into the kitchen. Throughout all of the chaos, I was not so embarrassed that I wound up urinating in front of Sisi, but rather that I did not have the chance to explain myself to anyone, and that I would thus be perceived as the disobedient guest. As my little sisi stopped crying, the dogs stopped barking, and everyone made their way back to bed, all that I could manage to shout out was a pathetic sounding “Sorry!”, walk back to my room, and shamefully climb back into bed.
Here's our sisi and bhuti with their Mama. Our Mama's husband died from Lung Cancer in 2001. She has 3 kids who are older but she is now taking care of her granddaughter (our sisi) who is 4 years old and her great nephew (our bhuti) who is 8
My transition to Tshabo was one that involved very few adjustments, much to my surprise. I’ve grown up and have lived in a big city for most of my life, so I was preparing myself for some massive crisis to fall upon me when thrown into a rural environment. On my third night, some version of this crisis did manifest itself in, perhaps, a more embarrassing way than I thought it would. Earlier that day, my and my partner Katharine’s Mama had fussed at us about our use of the all-purpose-bucket she had designated for our use. We had already adjusted to using it to brush our teeth, but peeing and defecating in it we simply could not bring ourselves to feel comfortable with doing. “You must use the bucket when it gets dark!” our Mama exclaimed, scolding us for our tendency to venture out into the dark nights together to use the loo. Apparently there were many inconspicuous dangers inherent in village life that were far from obvious. For example, our first night in Tshabo our Mama warned Katherine and I that we had to make sure to close our window every night in case someone in the village didn’t like us and decided to torch our room with us in it; I was waiting for her to crack a smile in jest, but that smile never came. Going to the loo in the dark was on the list of things we were not to do, with no questions asked. To be honest, peeing in the bucket did not bother me so much; I rather enjoyed the opportunity to use the bucket, which seemed like the safe and comfortable alternative to trying to avoid blood-hungry spiders, giant mutant roaches, and other terrors of the night. However, I knew that Katherine didn’t really appreciate the whole peeing in the bucket concept so I felt pressed to find a solution that would leave all parties feeling contented.
This opportunity came late one night – and by “late” I mean around 11pm or so since adjusting to Tshabo completely shifted our conception of an appropriate bedtime. Everyone was fast asleep: our 50-odd-year old Mama and her slightly mentally handicapped sister-in-law (who we called Sisi) that Mama was left to take care of when her husband died of lung cancer in 2001; our eight-year old bhuti, Soso, and our feverish four-year old sisi, Bukho; and last but not least, ourselves, down for a pleasant night of sleep after a packed and productive village day. I was having one of those odd dreams in which you find yourself on a toilet and know what’s going to happen next so I immediately woke myself up and knew I was on a mission. I quietly slipped out of bed, grabbed the bucket, and crept out of the door so as not to awake Katharine. I thought I was in the clear as I pulled the door shut so I scurried down the hallway heading for the living room where I planned to conduct my business, but all of a sudden a ruckus broke out. As I ran down the hallway with my bucket I saw a light turn on in Sisi’s room followed by her exasperatedly screaming “Uya phi?!” (“Where are you going?!”). Given that I had no clue how to say “I have to pee!” in Xhosa, I knew I didn’t have time to explain what was going on, especially to this woman who, unlike our Mama, spoke no English.
All of a sudden Sisi started chasing after me down the hall while still yelling, Mama’s three dogs that sleep outside started howling at the top of their lungs, and our feverish sisi, Bukho, who awoke from the commotion started bawling. Amidst the chaos one thing was clear; I was in quite a pickle. I stood in the living room with my legs crossed and bouncing up and down, bladder near explosion, while attempting to explain to Sisi in Xhosa that I actually never intended to go outside, but just to move to the living room where I would not disturb Katherine. However, Sisi, who probably assumed that I was attempting to sneak outside use the bathroom, proceeded to tell some narrative of what she thought was going on to my Mama who was still in bed in her own bedroom with our sisi and bhuti. I started to realize my efforts were futile and so I did what any normal person would do at that point: I pulled down my pants and peed in the bucket, lights on in the middle of the living room, in front of Sisi and all. As if the situation was not bad enough, during what felt like the 10 minutes that I was squatting over the bucket, the largest living roach that I’ve ever seen in my life casually sauntered past my foot and into the kitchen. Throughout all of the chaos, I was not so embarrassed that I wound up urinating in front of Sisi, but rather that I did not have the chance to explain myself to anyone, and that I would thus be perceived as the disobedient guest. As my little sisi stopped crying, the dogs stopped barking, and everyone made their way back to bed, all that I could manage to shout out was a pathetic sounding “Sorry!”, walk back to my room, and shamefully climb back into bed.
The main road of Tshabo. All of the houses are pretty much off the side of this road to the right, and to the left are rolling hills with grazing cows and goats and such.
My darling bhuti (brother) and sisi (sister)!
One of our older sisis, who is currently studying Journalism at university, took me and my roommate to the center of the village in order to register for municipal elections.
Some of our many inkhukus (chicken in Xhosa - pronounced IN-CUCKOO) and lil chickadees.
The biggest rainbow I've ever seen!
The loo. My bathroom for the past week. I've spared you the view of what's down the hole.
My adorable sisi in her Sunday best!
So the Sunday we went to church in the village was pretty much the hottest day of my life. I didn't get to check the weather but I'm pretty sure it was ten billion degrees. Anyway, our Mama arranged for a transport to get us to the two-hour long service but not back in hopes that we would perhaps find a taxi along the road... but that transport never came and we wound up walking about a mile uphill and then another mile or too in the scorching heat back home. Our bhuti noticed that our sisi was getting so tired from walking and decided to carry her on his back for part of the way, a sacrifice that seems small but I can testify that in this heat it was a big one to make. I'm so glad I was able to capture this moment as a token of the bond between siblings, whether biological or simply in spirit, like these two were.
Here's our sisi and bhuti with their Mama. Our Mama's husband died from Lung Cancer in 2001. She has 3 kids who are older but she is now taking care of her granddaughter (our sisi) who is 4 years old and her great nephew (our bhuti) who is 8
Our backyard in Tshabo.
Beautiful sunset.
Another epic sunset.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Some things I want to share!
Many apologies for my hiatus from this blog! One thing about adjusting to South Africa is adjusting to the realities of internet usage. It's a city that is, for the most part, just as industrialized as anywhere in the US but things just work differently here. You can purchase the same amount of internet and one day it can last you an hour and the next just eight minutes. You must constantly be ready and able to adjust your contanct to the limitations of the unknown. However as I'm savoring my last minutes of internet before my departure to my rural homestay (aka no SHOWERS, let alone some wireless) I'd like to share with you again some memorable pictures from my past few weeks. Time is slipping away too quickly, as usually, so it's nice to have something to ground me in the present and allow me to reflect on the last few weeks amidst worries about summer internships/fall housing/life, etc. ENJOY!
Nelson Mandela's Cell
Me with a penguin... before it bit me on my leg.
Two oceans, one picture.
Me at the southernmost tip of Africa.
Will the REAL South Africa please stand up?
There’s this big debate here as to what the real South Africa is. Now, by “debate” I don’t mean that South Africans are sitting in coffee shops everyday pondering over this question, but there’s an underlying tension that is impossible not to feel when moving around from place to place within this nation. The debate is, in a way, a microcosm of the argument that South Africa is not real Africa: it’s white, it’s European, it’s just different. Similarly, within South Africa, there’s a sort of discomfort that comes with moving from the townships to the touristy or ritzy areas. You go to the waterfront and you say this is not real South Africa. You go to Longstreet and think to yourself “I must have been teleported to a strange Victorian party-town…” but this is not real South Africa. You go to Claremont Mall or Canal Walk, which resemble literally any super high-end mall in the states, and say this can’t be real South Africa. You get the point. But then what is so-called “real” South Africa? The thing is I realized that I need to stop trying to classify what is or isn’t real South Africa, because the fact is it’s all real; all of what I see is here, now, as it is, everybody is here living together, Black, White, Indian and Coloured… or rather South Africans… and this is how life goes. Everything that I see, that’s it: the real South Africa. The way my mind has been justifying seeing such stringent dichotomies in South African lifestyles has been to align more with the rugged experience and shun the manicured one; however, both are equally a part of what it is to visit here, to make a life here and build a home here. It’s navigating between the overlapping worlds, attempting to bridge the gaps or, for some, avoiding the “other” that makes this place what it is, and thus it’s simply ignorant to deny or privilege one part over the other.
Long Street
Canal Walk Mall
The Waterfront
Sunday, February 13, 2011
La Mama Desnuda (The Naked Mama)
Friday morning. I had survived my first full week in Langa despite the fact that I was so fraught with anxiety that I didn’t think I’d make it through the first day. I was more than doing okay: I was excited for the weekend (TGIF), excited that I finally got a great night’s sleep, and excited to wish my Mama a happy birthday. My Mama, a big, bubbly, and boisterous sixth-grade schoolteacher was turning 51 and, I swear, could not have been happier that another 364 days had passed in order to celebrate this joyous day with friends, food, photos, and an opportunity to shamelessly promote herself as the center of attention. It was a self-serving industriousness that I could not help but admire and that I somewhat hope she will subconsciously impart to me for my many birthdays to come. I leapt out of bed to start my day and took a peek at my class notebook to make sure I had the Xhosa words to the happy birthday song memorized. Imini mnandi kuwe, Imini mnandi kuwe, Imini mnandi kuMama, Imini mnandi kuwe. Check. I could hear the television emitting the wholesome voices of African gospel singers and knew that, just like most mornings, my Mama was already awake and ready to begin her day.
I quietly cracked open the door, slipped out of my bedroom and started walking down the hallway towards the noise. However, when I reached the living room I immediately knew something wasn’t quite right. It only took me a quarter of a second to realize that I was beholding the back of my 200-odd lb. Mama, stark naked and doing a little birthday jig in front of the television. I froze; that’s not an exaggeration, I literally froze in my tracks. I froze because I knew that I had to be quiet to give myself a minute to decide whether I was going to venture forth into the presence of my Naked Mama or to retreat into the confides of my room and pretend as if I had never seen a thing. You know those Twix commercials that show people in dire situations and then freeze-frame to a male commentator saying, “Need a moment…? Chew it over with Twix”. Well, despite the irrelevancy of the brand name, let’s just say I could’ve really used a Twix at that moment. My very first feeling was that of guilt and it hit me like a brick. My Mama had obviously made a mistake, right? She had crept out here thinking she could have a private moment to herself without some household invader discovering her in this defenseless state. Who the hell was I to think I could come out here and disrupt her attempt to enjoy a birthday dance in her birthday suit?
If guilt hit me like a brick when I first entered the room, then it hit me like a house crumbling upon me when my Mama, perhaps sensing my frozen and criminally-posed presence behind her, turned right around exposing her entirely bare front side. The only way I could think of to rectify the situation was to somehow figure out a way to channel the uncomfortable energy into action. I knew that I couldn’t turn around and run at that point, for I’d already been caught: the jailbreak option had failed as the spotlight turned on me. But, I also knew I couldn’t just stand there speechless or I’d look like a freak. I swear that in that split second I imagined this fast-forwarded scenario of my Mama calling up the directors of SIT (my program) and requesting a change of students after a blatantly inappropriate “incident” in which I stared at her naked; or at least I imagined the feeling of criminality associated with if this scenario had happened. With these two options eliminated, the only obvious one still stood: to sing. Before I knew it, the Xhosa birthday song played itself flawlessly through my mouth, and with each line, my smile got wider, and the timbre of my voice raised itself to girlish heights; for that moment I trained myself to believe that if I behaved as if the whole situation was normal for me, as if it was something I had intended to encounter, that my statistical chances of coming out unscathed would be increased. And to my surprise, with each line, my Mama cooed with joy, chuckled heartily, clapped her hands and danced, not once attempting to reach for a piece of clothing. “You clever, clever girl!” she shouted gleefully in her distinctive South African enunciation, and motioned for me to come get a kiss. So I came to get a kiss, practically enveloped in my Mama’s bare bosoms, and that was the time that will go down in history as the morning I sang to my Naked Mama.
I quietly cracked open the door, slipped out of my bedroom and started walking down the hallway towards the noise. However, when I reached the living room I immediately knew something wasn’t quite right. It only took me a quarter of a second to realize that I was beholding the back of my 200-odd lb. Mama, stark naked and doing a little birthday jig in front of the television. I froze; that’s not an exaggeration, I literally froze in my tracks. I froze because I knew that I had to be quiet to give myself a minute to decide whether I was going to venture forth into the presence of my Naked Mama or to retreat into the confides of my room and pretend as if I had never seen a thing. You know those Twix commercials that show people in dire situations and then freeze-frame to a male commentator saying, “Need a moment…? Chew it over with Twix”. Well, despite the irrelevancy of the brand name, let’s just say I could’ve really used a Twix at that moment. My very first feeling was that of guilt and it hit me like a brick. My Mama had obviously made a mistake, right? She had crept out here thinking she could have a private moment to herself without some household invader discovering her in this defenseless state. Who the hell was I to think I could come out here and disrupt her attempt to enjoy a birthday dance in her birthday suit?
If guilt hit me like a brick when I first entered the room, then it hit me like a house crumbling upon me when my Mama, perhaps sensing my frozen and criminally-posed presence behind her, turned right around exposing her entirely bare front side. The only way I could think of to rectify the situation was to somehow figure out a way to channel the uncomfortable energy into action. I knew that I couldn’t turn around and run at that point, for I’d already been caught: the jailbreak option had failed as the spotlight turned on me. But, I also knew I couldn’t just stand there speechless or I’d look like a freak. I swear that in that split second I imagined this fast-forwarded scenario of my Mama calling up the directors of SIT (my program) and requesting a change of students after a blatantly inappropriate “incident” in which I stared at her naked; or at least I imagined the feeling of criminality associated with if this scenario had happened. With these two options eliminated, the only obvious one still stood: to sing. Before I knew it, the Xhosa birthday song played itself flawlessly through my mouth, and with each line, my smile got wider, and the timbre of my voice raised itself to girlish heights; for that moment I trained myself to believe that if I behaved as if the whole situation was normal for me, as if it was something I had intended to encounter, that my statistical chances of coming out unscathed would be increased. And to my surprise, with each line, my Mama cooed with joy, chuckled heartily, clapped her hands and danced, not once attempting to reach for a piece of clothing. “You clever, clever girl!” she shouted gleefully in her distinctive South African enunciation, and motioned for me to come get a kiss. So I came to get a kiss, practically enveloped in my Mama’s bare bosoms, and that was the time that will go down in history as the morning I sang to my Naked Mama.
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