August 18-25: Abantu

New family in Oceanview; Jace and Cleo trying to catch a buoyant ball; Mama Lorna doing what she does best--cooking with love. (And that's not cheese she's grating; it's butternut squash, for soup. Genius. Sheer, delicious genius.)

Hello, hello! Molweni! I hope you’re all well, healthy, and happy. I know for some of you, happiness might be evasive—back to school, much? Ah, well lucky for you, I’ve decided to put off homework to provide you with some African enlightenment. Can you believe I’ve been here for almost two months? I can barely grasp it myself—I keep checking the calendar. But here I am, still alive, and trudging through an insane amount of work. The deal, however, is pretty typical of… THE WEEK BEFORE SPRING BREAK! Ha! Yes, while y’all are just starting the year, I am almost halfway through the semester, battling the requisite pre-vac onslaught that seems to be typical of universities ‘round the world, unfortunately. (At least it’s interesting—economic policy analysis in developing countries. Okay, decide for yourself whether it titillates you.) But the reward for my sleepless nights and Red Bull dependency is great; by Saturday morning, I’ll be off for 10 days in Bostwana and Victoria Falls! Another couple of stamps on my passport, and another crucial experience in shaping my understanding of Africa. Although I think Cape Town (Kapa, in Xhosa) is fascinating and offers plenty of lessons, I’m ready to connect with nature, sleep under the stars, and cavort with some hippos. (Remember my penchant for wild animals and potential peril.) The trip is so close, yet so far, and my choice to blog doesn’t exactly bring me any closer. But let’s face it: I have policy-writer’s block, I work better under pressure, and I miss you all. :-)

While it’s great to sit and reflect on the larger revelations I’ve had here, I’m realizing that the smaller, more transitory moments have been really enlightening and uplifting. Although I maintain that Cape Town and UCT are not the easiest environments in which to immerse oneself, I’ve had the privilege of encountering some wonderful agents of understanding—the locals themselves. While I couldn’t possible recount the fleeting instances of gravity and joy I’ve had here, I can do my best to provide snapshots of people and moments that, for me, have made a difference. Read in doses, if you must; each person is wonderful and deserves your attention. (In other words, procrastinate from whatever you’re doing in shifts.)

o My roommates, Bokang and Nkoana: (Go ahead, sound those names out, you can do it! They’re phonetic.) When I first moved in, I was a little nervous about living with guys, let alone African guys whose backgrounds and culture was so different than mine. I can’t tell you how I agonized over my over-enthusiasm when I met Bokang and seemed to scare him stiff. While he was perfectly nice and made every effort to make me feel comfortable, he retreated to his room and seemed nervous when he ran into me in the kitchen. When Nkoana, who was away for winter break, returned before the start of classes, I was even more anxious. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me or our American roommate, Claire. Plus, he seemed to have this perpetual unannounced visitor, who after a while we were convinced was a squatter. (I’m actually still convinced he was a squatter, although he’s gone now. Welcome to Africa!) Between their constant visitors, tendency to speak in Sotho (they’re lifelong friends from Lesotho, the tiny country entirely encompassed by South Africa), and habit of never washing/never putting away dishes, I feared not only that we would live out the semester in uncomfortable silence, but also that my goal of making friends by living in the residence hall with Africans would be in vain.

Always the worry wart, I had no reason to fear. Both guys are shy and sweet and quite funny, if you can bring it out of them. We’ve taken to standing around our kitchen talking about our days and “back home.” I’ve learned that Lesotho has great skiing, since it’s all mountains, and that engineering, which both study, is even more impossible at UCT than at Penn. I nearly died when I mentioned President Bush and Nkoana asked me in earnest who that was. !!! THAT was a first! And an awesome one, at that. It was so refreshing to hear that after the negative things I’ve heard over and over about the U.S. here, to some people, somewhere, there are other things to worry about.

Favorite moment: I came home one day on a mission. After a month of living in my flat, I decided to give it a scrub-down. I began by tackling the first of our two bathrooms, the one with the shower. (There’s another with only a bath; Africans like a good soak, apparently.) I had bought a new shower curtain to replace the absolutely abhorrent one provided to us by UCT, which was basically a bed sheet covered by mold. I swear, every time I bumped into it while showering, my skin crawled. Enough was enough, so I picked up a super-cheap plastic one, cream-colored with plastic rings, and after scrubbing the shower stall, I put it up. When Bokang came home, I showed him my handiwork. As I babbled about how dirty the shower had been and how I probably hadn’t been clean since I arrived in Cape Town, he grew quiet and reached for the curtain. Feeling it between his fingers, he said, “This is beautiful.” I scowled. The curtain is basically the lining of a regular curtain and cost the equivalent of $2.50 in South African rand. It was the only one I could find in the area, so I’d settled. To Bokang, however, it was a luxury to have a new shower curtain, and it was absolutely lovely. His appreciation, however, soon turned to fear. He asked me what I had done with the other shower curtain, and I told him I’d pitched it in the trash, where it belonged. He grew frantic, saying “No! We’ll get in trouble, we’ll have to pay for it!” Feeling slightly guilty, I told him that there was no way that I’d allow any of us to live in such an unhygienic environment out of fear of dorm fines, and if UCT wanted to take it up as an issue, I’d stand up for all of us and pay if I had to. When he didn’t seem convinced, I told him that the mold would make him sick and he wouldn’t be able to study, and really, not to worry, I’d take the blame. He smiled, looked at the curtain again, and walked out.

Favorite moment: I woke up one Sunday morning to blasting music. It was early and I really wanted to go back to sleep, but despite my fuzzy REM haze, I couldn’t ignore the twang of country infiltrating my room. Sitting up and glancing at the clock, I realized that I was awake 30 minutes earlier than I needed to be, and I was upset. Who would possibly be up at 9:30 on a Sunday, playing outdated country music? Nkoana. As I listened more carefully, the songs grew familiar and resurrected memories of fifth grade. He was playing that Faith Hill album with “Breathe” and “The Way You Love Me” on it, at full volume. I couldn’t help but laugh at this African boy, who wore a bucket hat and spoke in quiet but confident English, who apparently had a thing for Faith Hill. I couldn’t blame him; I remember being a fan back in the day, myself. But I laughed even harder when three hours later, I found myself listening to the same album, which he had put on repeat. While I thought the incident was isolated, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the dulcet tones of Shania Twain wafting through our flat one weeknight. Three songs on repeat for a solid hour or so, oldies, but goodies. It was the last thing I expected from my sweet Lesothoan roommate, but as I contemplated that strange minx globalization, I found myself mirthfully humming along to “That Don’t Impress Me Much.” (“So you’re a rocket scientist?”)

o A classmate, N: (I’ve chosen not to disclose his name; know that it’s an awesome name likely to be used by an amateur author who’s trying too hard, like “Olive” or “Cash.”) You know those people in lecture that you desperately wish would put their hand down and just shut up? I’ve learned not to judge them so quickly. My class on post-colonialism, despite being focused on a wonderful topic, can be kind of dense and dull, but the one thing that causes everyone’s ears to perk up is a comment from N, who seems to know everything about everything. As the professor is lecturing, N’s hand will shoot up, and he’ll spurt some random fact or date, or ask a question, and then express utter shock at the response. You can’t help but notice him, pale, lanky, noticeably older than the average student, in a beanie hat and leather jacket. I smiled in spite of myself when he chose to plop down and project his effusiveness from the seat next to me. I smiled even more broadly as he kindly showed me to a part of campus where I had my next class, which I otherwise would not have found. The next time we had class, I snagged a seat next to him and started up a casual conversation, asking him how his week had gone. “Well,” he said, “I’ve had a good week. On Monday I celebrated 10 years of life after being diagnosed with HIV.” In equally measured cheer and solemnity, he detailed how he’d been given five years to live, and explained his choice to go off antiretroviral drugs, since they made him sick and too tired to do anything. For the past five years, he’s been a walking miracle. His exuberance for everything, especially learning, all made sense now. My eyes must have been the eyes of saucers, for he nodded vigorously and continued, explaining how many kilos he’d weighed at the height of his illness. Shame overpowered me, as I admitted to my American hubris and told him I didn’t know kilos, only pounds. Only when he had quickly taken out a book of conversions he carried around and had done the math for me did he ask why I didn’t know the metric system. I told him I was American, surprised that he hadn’t caught on already. “Oh, darling!” he said in his enviable South African accent with a huge guffaw and a playful punch on the arm. “It’s time to get with the times!”

o Mama Lorna: It’s always at the front of my mind that I’m not at home, I’m in Africa, but with Cape Town being as Westernized (and white) as it is, it’s sometimes easy to draw too many easy parallels. This past weekend, I hauled my cookies out of Kapa to get a taste of the “real South Africa,” and it only increased my hunger. In participating in a weekend home stay organized by CIEE, I was placed in the hands, home, and heart of Lorna, a single-mother of three who lives in Oceanview, 45 minutes outside of the city. Oceanview is a coloured township, created and sponsored by the apartheid government. (It’s a town; I’m not discussing the blanket of tin shacks that flanks the highways, created by people who tried to move as close to Cape Town as they could in hopes of finding work.) Lorna and most of the members of the Oceanview community are former residents of Simon’s Town and Noordhoek, which in the 1960s were deemed prime real estate suitable for white settlement. The entire coloured community that once lived there was relocated, forced to abandon the place where their families had lived for decades. Each year, the Oceanview community opens their homes to 200 CIEE American exchange students so that they might come to understand the day-to-day lives of South Africans in post-apartheid realities.

Not to put down anyone else’s home stay family, but Mama Lorna was the best, hands-down. She opened her home to me and Claire, giving up her bedroom and sleeping on the couch so that we could sleep comfortably in her room. She made us a feast of incredible lamb-and-cabbage stew, lentil-and-butternut soup, the works. She shared with us her stories of constructing a life in the apartheid state, and of constructing a life as an average human being with average human challenges. Her experience was at once specific to South Africa yet universal. I can honestly say that I’ve never met such a warm and giving person. The pivotal moment of the home stay, however, came when Lorna and her friend Roger took me and Claire to Noordhoek, Lorna’s hometown, for lunch. We walked into a restaurant that was half-café, half-high-end grocery. All but one of the tables were unoccupied, and three employees stood around chatting amongst themselves. A sign was propped against the wall: “Please wait to be seated.” Seeing that the place was practically empty, Lorna made to go sit down, when one of the waiters stopped her, saying “May I help you?” When she told him we’d like a table, he shook his head and told her than every last table was already booked for lunch. Lorna simply nodded and made for the door, Roger behind her. I followed, but with furrowed eyebrows. The restaurant had been a cute place, but definitely not the kind of joint where you needed a reservation. Both Lorna and Roger were silent until we found another restaurant that seated us without a problem. When we returned later to pick up tea on the grocery side of the restaurant, about half of the tables were full, but every last patron was white. I was livid. After the way that Lorna’s family and neighbors had been forced from their homes, the very land on which the restaurant now stands, they should have rolled out the red carpet for her and given her a free five-course meal. It made me want to cry, despite the fact that we’d had a perfectly delectable meal elsewhere. But if it bothered Lorna, she didn’t show it. She handled the situation with the dignity of a woman who’d seen it all before.

I spent the rest of the weekend stuffing my face, watching “The Simpsons” and playing games with Lorna’s 12-year-old son Jace (who looks like an older version of little Ian!!!), and soaking up the experience of being in a real South African household. A glass of wine seemed to improve everyone’s spirits, and I found myself engaging in adult conversation with people who were genuinely interested in me as an American citizen. Roger quickly grilled me on my thoughts about Obama and other American cultural and political ballasts, and despite my nerves, I think I played ambassador pretty well! It was from him that I learned about Obama’s choice of Biden for Veep, which Roger translated from Afrikaans while watching the nightly news. (Interesting note, though: Roger was very critical of Barack Obama's candidacy, a trend I've noticed among coloured South Africans. While he wasn't as vehement in his opinions as others I've come across, perhaps because he was talking to an African-American, he contended that the United States is not ready for a black president, and that it wouldn't be good for the country. Others have said flat-out that a black president would be disasterous for the country. They contend that electing a black president would mean that blacks would "take over the country," as they have in post-apartheid South Africa. While coloureds were discriminated against during minority white rule, they certainly did not have it as bad as the nation's blacks. Many say that they are worse off now that apartheid has ended, as legislation seeking to empower the previously disenfranchised, i.e. black South Africans, does not apply to them. To elect Obama, in their eyes, would be to let African-American interests and African-American interests alone dictate the policy and direction of the U.S. I thought this assessment said volumes about the condition of South African government and the bumpy road to equality and reconciliation.) After attending church with Lorna on Sunday, eating some more, and playing Frisbee and ball with Jace and Cleo (a neighbor whom, like all children, I wanted to put in my pocket), it was time to go home. Well, back to UCT and homework, at least. Mama Lorna, whose open arms I will always remember, has demanded that Claire and I return, and I can’t wait. (My stomach can’t, either.)

o Favorite moment: Driving down the highway on my way to Baphumelele, the children’s home where I have been volunteering for almost a month, I love to survey the life that ebbs and flows on either side. It’s a sharp juxtaposition, striking as you emerge from clean and shiny Cape Town, to suddenly be confronted with mile upon mile of tin shacks crammed against the roads leading in and away from the city. Although the settlements are systematic, with rows of Port-a-Potties and stores among their midst, far from temporary housing, the poverty is beyond extreme. This is no collection of He-Man-Woman-Haters clubhouses to be knocked down when Mom gets tired of looking at it out the kitchen window. This is home. This is life.

Children running around and playing soccer on flanks of grass (yes, on the highway) are pretty standard, but one day I saw something that absolutely took my breath away. As the highway split and we approached an overpass, I saw the sun glinting off what appeared to be a huge puddle of rainwater. We drew closer. Two boys, skinny and dark brown, were sitting in blow-up rafts of red, yellow, and robin’s eye blue, precariously navigating the water. They had huge sticks which they used to paddle and propel themselves into each other’s rafts, playing some kind of boat bumper car. I saw them for only a second or so, but the sheer joy of the scene was utterly touching. I could imagine them as they sighted the puddle from their homes on the side of the road, perceiving it as an oasis, a conquerable river. They had had to dodge three lanes of traffic, with their huge rafts under arm, probably, to get there, but they’d made it, and I could almost imagine their gleeful laugher through the din of the highway rush. It was a beautiful sight, a reminder of why I adore children, and the joy that lies in the small things in life, regardless of what you “have” or “don’t have.”

I know you all are probably dying to hear about the kids of the children’s home, but you’ll have to wait. They’re amazing and adorable, and there’s so much to be said, but I just can’t bring myself to tell you about them without having pictures to go along with the stories. (We haven’t been allowed to bring our cameras yet, but starting Wednesday, we will be, so it’s coming.) Know that the home and the children alike are an incredible lesson to a girl who thought she knew it all about “the babykins,” and an invaluable component in my effort to construct an inclusive and accurate understanding of South Africa. (Also know that my repertoire of hand-clapping games, songs, and cheers has not gone to waste. Kids, no matter where they are or what their story is, all love an over-grown and over-active child.)

As much as I’d like to think that my words to justice to these incredible abantu (people), I can’t help but wish that you all could meet them for yourselves. The wonder and promise of my time here lies most firmly in the people around me, who pass in and out of my life slowly or quickly, and sometimes I catch it, sometimes I don’t. What’s clear is that when it comes to South Africa and her people… well, I guess we just needed some time to warm up to each other.

Heads up that between work and Bostwana (!), I’ll be out of touch over the next two weeks, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you and miss you. It only means more stories with which to gorge yourselves upon my return. Want something more with which to entertain yourself? Write me an email! Seriously! I love it!

Hleka (guess who ACED her Xhosa tests!),
Christina