Solitary enjoyment

This morning I utilized my free time for some “me time.”  I walked to school and grabbed a coffee and a quiche about half-way there to eat on the way.  The guy at the quiche shop has offered to take us to some cocktail bars and each time we inquire about his latest goings-on he always replies something along the lines of partying with his friends and working.  So, I acquiesced to his request and agreed to let him show us around PE soon and traded numbers.  A wise world traveler once told me to take each opportunity to get to know locals because he or she may know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone who I could get along really well with.  So, I look forward to meeting more young PE locals.

When I got to school I activated my username and password at the IT help desk.  Some Norwegians that I recognized were also there and we waded through the muddy waters together, waiting in half-hour long lines and traipsing across campus thanks to the misdirection of the IT lady. In the end I was able to print off my lit assignment, but I failed to activate my email.  I also met a Zimbabwean international student, Arnold, who is also friends with the Norwegians.  It is so much easier for me to get to know people when I am not with my flatmates or other Americans.  It was really refreshing to discover that I am still capable of interacting with others and starting conversations without being akward.

I also activated my library card.  I found six books about travel, cuisine, and cookbooks specific to South Africa.  While I waited in line to check out, I had a half-hour to get to know Jess, a social work major who lives in a suburb of PE called Walmer.  I got her number and although she said that third year is very busy, she thought she might be able to show us around Walmer which has many nice coffee shops and shopping.  Coffee made from beans rather than the instant powdered coffee is extremely hard to find here.  Although I arrived to campus three hours early, my long wait in the library check-out line caused me to arrive to class barely on time.  

I enjoyed my first Lit class, but after three afternoon-hours (much different than morning-hours) of class we dragged ourselves home, tired from the hot, muggy weather, and ready for a good meal.  We have one more class tomorrow and then a fun weekend including a trip to Addo Wildlife Park that is famous for its elephant herds on Saturday.

I have a journaling assignment for my Study Abroad Seminar, so “Culture Questions for Bruce” will be an additional section at the end of each post that any reader can feel free to read if she or he chooses.

Culture Questions for Bruce

In lit today we discussed a slew of short stories that are uniquely South African. One story by Stephen Gray called “The Building Site” examined the inherited preoccupation the country has with the race which marginalizes other social issues such as homosexuality.  “Carlotta’s Vinyl Skin” by Sheila Roberts claims that South African authors cannot escape their unique frame of because geography, rather than biology, is destiny.  In my experience, this is true of all people.  It is hard to remove one from her cultural heritage and the perspectives born of that culture.  

We also read a book mirrored after Gma Ann's fav, Out of Africa.  The humorous story by Marlene Van Neinerk called "Labour" shows the unremitting grip of the role of the colonizers and the colonized, presented in Out of Africa, carries on in the “Madame and maid” relationships of domestic servants with white suburban women.  Although the main character tries to establish a role outside of the traditional white suburban woman, in the end she cannot shake the clichéd “black labour, white guilt” theme.  In the end one of her gardeners comes to the door not having had a meal in three days and no work because of the weather.  He has alcohol on his breath and the woman recognizes that she has no place to judge him, but by giving him money she is feeding into the cycle of abuse in which he will use his money for more alcohol and feed an immobilizing addiction.  He realizes her condescension and switches to the persona of a colonial black worker addressing his master and she realizes that he can see right through her.  When she treats him like trash, he acts like trash.  He can see that she wants him to act the role of the lower, because he knows that she can deal with him in the familiar “Madame to maid” fashion despite her efforts to rise above the inherited stereotype. This story helps me to realize the futility of judgment.  Black Africans have largely been spit upon for centuries and who am I to judge how anyone who has been treated like that should live?  I respect the main character, but in the end she could not shake the social constructions into which she was born.  I hope that is not true for all of us. 

Another story that shed a lot of light on the South African social dynamics was “Sacrificial Lamb” by Sindiwe Magona.  The most eye-opening part of the story was the feminist author’s placement of a female child as the head of the family after the father’s passing.  The son was a wreck, suffering from alcoholism and joblessness.  Professor West told us that many South African men suffered emasculation in the Apartheid regime because they were not able to live as free men and provide for their families.  That emasculation rears its ugly head now with rape and acts of violence against women to force their masculinity as a rebellion against the femininity men feel through subordination and oppression that lingers with the legacy of the Apartheid.