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.

Well, there goes that New Year’s resolution

Two days into my first homestay in Langa Township and I already have an authentic South African house playlist on iTunes thanks to my homestay brother, Odwa. I already have an isiXhosa name (“Noxolo”, meaning "peaceful girl") that my homestay mom, Mama Dudu, calls me; and I’m already getting into the swing of the routines of daily life. I’ve already adjusted to hearing clicks sprinkled throughout the conversations that transpire at home in a language that, two weeks ago, was entirely foreign to me – and I’ve already mastered the clicks myself. However, there are some things that haven’t been quite as easy to adjust to, first and foremost being THE FOOD.

One of my most vehement New Year’s resolutions for 2011 was to lose the 15 not-so-glamorous pounds that I gained my freshman year in the dirty south. I was under the impression that this would be pretty easy to while being abroad – I mean most people lose weight abroad, right? All of the daily walking, dancing, shuffling, sporadic hiking, etc. usually contributes to students coming back as much more chiseled versions of their pre-exploration selves - this is, of course, excluding those returning from countries with bountiful pastries, pasta, or beer. However, once again, South Africa has thrown me a curve ball to complicate my presuppositions. The strategy that I thought out before I came here of making excuses as to why I cannot eat this dish or that meat is proving to be not so effective. Many African cultures including those of South Africans are primarily centered on community based interactions—for students coming from the United States, that most essentially means that all of a sudden “I” comes only second in importance to “we”. And what better a manifestation of this collectivity than that of eating? Through eating together a family is nourished together; comes together for even a fleeting moment of their day spent traversing each others’ paths; indulges in the collective realization of gratefulness for the bounty of life. It’s been a really nice thing to have on a daily basis, even if it is spent sitting around the television watching American music videos and South African soap operas, which are called “Soapies”. Eating together is one of those necessary indulgences that I think every family should try to make time for even as kids grow older and lives become more complicated. However, here for me, that means that there’s not always room for the stark pickiness that I would usually allow myself at home or at school. It’s not necessarily about what I like anymore, but rather what has been prepared for me by the hands of my Mama. Thus many complexities arise when I realize that my breakfast toast is smeared with the “medium fat spread” in the fridge, or when some meat that might or might not be cow rectum is placed in front of me in bulk. This is not to belittle African food, Americans eat some pretty funky things too (case and point: can you tell me just what was packed into that delicious hot dog you just ate last week?), but this is just to emphasize the point that in being in an African home, I have to be a little more diplomatic about my choices. If you were wondering about what I did with the mystery (possibly rectal?) meat, I ate a bite and then politely asked my Mama if I could potentially save it for later because I wasn’t that hungry… it’s still sitting in the fridge, but my compromise was eating the bread smothered in fat. Almost needless to say, today during lunch I purchased a gym membership.

South Africa so far…

So, I’ve been in South Africa for exactly a week as of today, and although I have seen so incredibly much that this week it has already felt like a month, I promised myself that one of my main goals of this trip would be to try to be fully present in this experience. I’ve realized that because I love to travel so much, I also have this burning desire start memorializing before I’ve even finished experienced it in the very moment – to take pictures of everything in an effort to remember things before I’ve even finished seeing them. Although this is the reason for some of my great visual travel logs, the consequence is that I’m wired on being connected in a way that sometimes detracts from the realization that, hey, I’m here, right now, in South Africa… just live; and also detracts from the responsibility of making that realization my most essential priority in approaching every situation. It creates a weird tension where my loyalties are divided – on the one hand, not everyone I know has, can, or will come here, so I feel this strong duty to be the middle man for information, for the things I see and hear and taste and feel on the daily. But at the same time, I have to stay true to the duty to myself to realize that this is an incredibly unique experience and I should try to be here – truly here - before I start trying to remember it or simulate it for others.

It’s been difficult this first week, especially being in Johannesburg. There were a lot of moral qualms I had with pressing myself up to our tour bus window taking pictures of the townships but I did it anyway; I kept trying to conceptualize what the equivalent would be in New York – riding in a limo through the projects and secretly snapping pictures? I don’t know, it’s all very strange and I guess I haven’t figured it all out yet, nor my place in it. That feeling was only exacerbated today when at the end of the day as our class was exiting our teacher said in a funny conglomeration of English words “If you believe you are not white, please stay behind” and proceeded to tell the remaining minority students, including myself, about the very different way we will be treated starting from when we embark on our very first homestay this Saturday. He pointed at us one by one and informed us exactly what race we would be perceived as and its implications for how we would be treated. My other African-American classmate, he said, might “pass” as Coloured along with my Puerto Rican classmate; my Columbian classmate would be perceived as Indian; and I, with no mistake, was Black, in other words, the very bottom of the barrel. I was so glad that our teacher chose to have this conversation with us and not to ignore the realities of how different the coming experience in South Africa will be for some of us, but it was definitely a huge reality check that I’m not sure my happy-go-lucky approach to this trip has tried to reconcile with quite yet. Anywho, all of this being said, I would love to deliver my first taste of South Africa through some of my most notable pictures from this first week. Enjoy!

 

The Orlando Cooling Towers in Soweto. 

These towers used to be the symbol of apartheid oppression since they were used to supply power to White areas but not to the Black townships that it was directly surrounded by. Electricity to the surrounding townships, I believe, only came in 1994.

 

Part of Soweto. "Soweto" is a name that stands for South West Township, which was one of the famous and most populated townships during Apartheid, and still is today.

 

My ticket into the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. I was randomly assigned a ticket for "whites only" so I had to go through that entrance. This was probably one of the best museums I've ever been to - it was fascinating in terms of both its content and decor. The slogan on the pamphlet that you receive before you enter is "Apartheid is exactly where it belongs - in a museum". Furthermore, the museum is architecturally laid out to represent the phrase "it's no easy walk to freedom" - the beginning of the museum is a dark and uses a lot of gates, wires, and dirtied concrete to surround all of the material that is displayed. As you walk through, the museum becomes more linear and less daunting, and at the halfway point, there's a little courtyard where you can see the end of your journey, but are physically barred from reaching it. On the last stretch of the museum you walk through a corridor where you have finally reached natural sunlight and when you finishing walking you literally arrive at a big wall with the word FREEDOM.

Graffiti in downtown Johannesburg

 

A few and my friends and I found this guy in Johannesburg. We realized he was dressed pretty uniquely so we stopped him to ask questions. He explained that he was part of a "movement" in Johannesburg of artists, designers, dancers, singers... and that he was about to shoot a music video.

 These were his friends... they all dress like this everyday, their art is their life. 

A few of us by the pool. We were staying at this place called the Train Lodge in the city center of Cape Town. It used to be a working train station, but then they took all of the cars out of commission and turned it into a sort of hostel for travelers. The rooms were TINY and stifling hot but it was a cool experience with a beautiful view. 

Me! At the top of the Lions Head, a mountain in Cape Town. I know it doesn't look that high up, but let me assure you... IT IS. That, combined with the fact that the last 15 minutes to the top was legitimately ROCK CLIMBING with no ropes, safety nets, or anything means that this was definitely a big moment for me and my fear of heights. I was the last one to make it to the top (me and my friend who was also unexpectedly nervous were about 20 minutes behind the rest of our group) but it was SO worth it. My body still hurts.

The view from the top. Keep in mind this is only about 1/8 of what I could see from up there... stay tuned for some panorama shots.

The View from My Bedroom Right Now

I haven't been posting as much as I would like to because life has been going about a million miles a minute, but sometimes, if you're really lucky, a picture really can be worth a thousand words. I'm pretty sure this one qualifies.

Destination One: Amsterdam, NL

So I start this journey not where my journey was actually supposed to begin, but in a place that’s actually very connected to where I will be studying abroad this year:  Holland, also known as the Netherlands. The Dutch are connected to South Africa since it was the Dutch East India Company that contained the first Europeans to become settlers by establishing a trading post in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Not too long from then the trading post became south Africa's first colony and the rest is history. In high school I was lucky enough to be a participant in this program through my school in which we did an exchange with our “sister school” in the Netherlands called "Dalton Den Haag". It was so startling to finally see the faces of this group of Dutch students- it was a bit like looking into a parallel universe. However, after the initial weirdness subsided it became clear that for a first view of this new culture and alternate life, I could not have had a better or more perfect experience. But enough with this nostalgia: the point I want to get to is that the friends I made on this program are so near and dear to my heart that on my way to this great new journey I couldn’t imagine not passing through Amsterdam to spend time with them given the chance. In the end the trip wound out being so creepily flawless that I’m still in awe.

Last Wednesday, the day of my flight, I was sitting in bed watching the snow pour from the sky just knowing that my evening flight to Amsterdam would be canceled and I would miss out on this amazing day trip that I had planned on for months. However, as the time approached, hour-by-hour, there were no delays for JFK (where I was flying out of), unlike LaGuardia which was already about an hour and a half behind schedule by 9am. On my way to the JFK I even called the airline in disbelief that I hadn’t heard about my cancellation yet, but in the middle of this call was interrupted by a text from my new friend who is also studying in South Africa for the semester, saying “Flight is still on time yayy”. It seemed she was right: we wound up taxiing for an hour while a big scary-looking machine de-iced our plane, but we were assured that we would make up the time en route and only arrive 5 – 10 minutes late, max. It wasn’t until I got to Amsterdam that I realized just how lucky I was - not just kind of lucky, but crazily, scarily lucky. The roommates of the Dutch friend I was staying with, who also were part of the exchange in high school, were scheduled to see A-track, half of the DJ-duo of that song “Barbara Streisand” that night, but had just found out that the concert was canceled because his flight could not make it out of NY. I don’t think I’ve heard the word “conquer” (a Dutch curse word) thrown around so many times in a row. As roommates and girlfriends came back to the apartment and heard the bad news it was like “Are you serious?!! Conquer! Conquer! Conquer! [some words I don’t understand] Conquer! Conquer!” Although they eventually got over it and we all had a marvelous night on Leidenstraat (or something like that?) in the city center, the situation was the first indication that I was exactly where I was supposed to be at that moment in time; for later, the friend with whom I stayed who also happens to be obsessed with everything plane-related, told me that every single flight through Amsterdam to Johannesburg after mine was delayed or canceled. That means that if I hadn't scheduled this trip through Amsterdam, I would've been one of the five other people who missed a whole day of South Africa due to flight delays. Fate was most definitely on my side.

 Flower market in the city center. Holland is one of the (if not the) world's biggest exporter of flowers.

 One of the Canals on Leidenstraat.

Canal with bikes.

Canal at night.

My Dutch friend and me.