Transport Tales

Culture for Bruce

This morning I woke up and read for a few hours, worked out, and then went to Green Acres Mall.  We took the bus to Green Acres, and it reminded me a bit of my Megabus trip to Chicago with my sister in December, except the vibrant conversationists were a motley crew of teenagers rather than robust African-American women.  It was impossible not to overhear stories from at least one side from a disgruntled Indian boy. “You embarrassed me in front of her!.. (other boy talking who was a bit quieter)…. No! Of course you knew; I was cherry red because you embarrassed me.”  There were other stories of teenage drama which helped to distract from the vomit-inducing ride for those not so fond of bus transport (It came very close for some of my flatmates).

With an atmosphere like the bottom level of a parking garage, the transfer station could put a novice bus-rider on edge (ahem- my flatmate who flanked my right side).  But, I was keen to use the resources around us by asking the verbose Indian boy about the procedure.  Apparently, we just sat tight for a few minutes until the bus in front of us moved.  In the meantime, I watched the women selling long rows of chips, suave-looking business people, and people of all ages waiting for their bus.  After sitting for about five minutes, we continued on our way.

After many more stops to let people on and off and zigzagging in the area of the mall, we arrived at Green Acres.  We entered and shopped for a few hours, finally finding a store where people buy all of their toiletries, as there are no department stores like Target, ShopKo or Wal-Mart.  We also found a little bakery shop where I got a muffin and some pastry appetizers each with meat, herbs, or cheese to make a savory start to my soup and salad dinner back at the flat.  We also got to stop in the food-section of Woolworth’s which is a very pleasant experience!  They have a whole wall of food, decorating, and gardening magazines that always tempts me terribly.  Someday I will get one, for the cultural experience of course, but I can’t give in too early or I will want one every time I go.  We tired of Green Acres far earlier than Walmer Shopping Center, and Laura and I went to the bus stop and the other ladies called a cab.

Laura and I waited for bus #3 for about thirty minutes before we decided we’d try a kombi.  We were reluctant because it is often hard to communicate with kombi-boys in English, and we didn’t want to be stuck in “Central” a hub of activity which is the launching point and check point of every kombi in the city.  However, we spoke with the man before we got in and he explained to us in perfect English that we need to ride with him to Central and then hop on a kombi headed for Summerstrand (the location we live in).  He was kind enough to tell us when to get off and point us in the direction of the Summerstrand kombis.  When we sat waiting for the kombi to fill at Central it had been an hour since the other girls left in the car.  They had been home for 45 minutes already, but at least we were paying much less for our form of transportation.  And, we had great tunes, “I Can See Clearly Now, the Rain is Gone” and “I Believe in Love.” 

It is interesting to consider what a privilege it is for us to ride on kombis.  It hit me the other day that we are always the only white people in kombi’s.  Although white people make up only 10% of South Africa’s population, that is not the case in Summerstrand, it’s just that white people own their own cars.  The kombi system, referred to by most black South  Africans as taxis (which is totally different than a cab—so that is confusing for us to remember), were developed to transport people into their domestic worker jobs after they were moved to townships on the edge of cities.  It is a cool way to see a diverse group of people interacting, and, as I think more about it, it is the most contact we have with South Africans in a day considering we don’t have any classes with or live with South Africans.  I think the kombi might be my ticket to meeting South Africans to hang out with, so stay tuned to find out more ;)

When we arrived back home, I spoke with Katy Bockhaus, and we are going to live together this summer in St. Joe!!!!!  I am very excited!  I also got to Skype with Michelle and hear about her adventures in Spain.  I watched a South African movie called “Discrete,” which was a great examination of faith and the church’s place in our lives through the discussions of a pastor’s son with a prostitute.  It was a really fascinating movie.  Then I packed for our trip to Hogsback tomorrow and I am about to write out directions to our backpacker (a.k.a. hostile) and the hiking trails.

Peace out.

March Birthday Braai

Taylor and I walked to bio, and after class we walked to the Pic n’ Pay for a few groceries and then took a kombi back.  Thursday afternoon we made a salad from Heather’s South African Salads Cookbook for a braai that night celebrating the March birthdays and Norma and Bruce’s 43^rd wedding anniversary.  We had kudu and warthog skewers, lamb, fruit salads, prickly pear, our spinach and noodle salad that god good reviews, a fabulous custard, crumbled cookie dessert (kind of like a less-chemical version of dirt pie), and warm rolls.

After the braai, I got in my robe and read for class since we’ll be gone all weekend.  I pretty much chilled for the night and went to bed early.

Steeped in Apartheid

This morning we had a stereotypically African experience when our service mentor couldn’t make it to our early-morning meeting because her nanny didn’t show up and there was no way to reach her.  Instead, we watched a movie for our Lit class that was directed by Tsitsi Dangeremba, a world-renowned Zimbabwean author who dabbles in film-making.  She will be visiting our class April 13^th. Although the movies left a bit to be desired for in the action, acting talent, plot intricacy, and cinematography categories, I appreciated the emphasis on women’s liberation, music, and class struggles.  I look forward to reading her books and meeting Tsitsi.  After the movie, I grabbed some lunch at Madibaz café on campus (Madiba is Nelson Mandela’s clan name).  Then I wrote a long-needed email to mom and headed to Lit. 

In Lit, we discussed two films and the South African classic Triomf.  Triomf is the new name of a formerly black settlement called Sophiatown.  When the Group Areas Act was inacted in 1950, non-European people were moved from their homes into townships.  Black, Coloured, and Indian people were relocated into townships filled with matchbox houses and no infrastructure in order that they might develop and grow in what President Botha referred to as a policy of “good neighborliness.”  In reality the policy put all non-Europeans away from whites, neither seen nor heard of without permission from white employers who signed non-Europeans’ passbooks to be in white areas.  Sophiatown was a vibrant artsy township outside of Johannesberg that was bulldozed and, as the story Triomf describes, was filled with white-trash families moving into the city to find work.  It is a hard book to read, as it is a string of narratives from different family member’s viewpoints, so there is no overarching plot.  And the characters are all incestuous people who represent the epitome of Apartheid’s aim to ‘take care of your own.’  Needless to say, it is a bit disturbing, but the comic relief is often hilarious, and we were lucky enough to act out those funnier parts in role play in class last week.  Although it’s embarrassing to get in front of one’s class and act like a complete idiot, it set a lighter tone than the normal intense discussions surrounding the incredible harm of Apartheid which fill every one of our classes.

Culture for Bruce

I may not have expressed it before, but it is emotionally taxing rehashing Apartheid events in each class (except Bio).  We are learning about township jazz in music, which is music born of the struggle of being relocated.  In lit everything is about race, class, and gender struggles, and in seminar we are rehashing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which aimed to put the past behind and move forward as a united country.  It can be depressing when we see these issues drug out and considered from every possible angle.  I never realized how tired I would get, not like bored tired, but just exhausted from trying to really understand what people went through and are still going through because of Colonial rule and its culmination in Apartheid. I really look forward to weekends to try and clear my mind for a while (when I'm not reading about it).

Since Sunday

Sunday was a pretty uneventful day.  After the long day Saturday in Grahamstown, I fell asleep at 8pm and didn’t get out of bed until what most would classify as late on Sunday.  I went to the market on the boardwalk just to look, and Taylor and I got our quota of sun for the weekend during the afternoon.  

Monday, service was a bit challenging.  I read to Lisa, a very, very intelligent student at the playschool.  She speaks English very well, can identify shapes and colors very well, and likes to make up stories based on the illustrations in books.  These traits put her head and shoulders above most of the other students at the playschool.  She squirmed around on my lap while I quasi-read and she quasi-narrated.  I asked her questions about the characters represented in the story to expand her vocabulary, count, and compare items.  In my cerebral, detail-oriented mindset, I was suddenly surprised when I could not ask Lisa about some of her experiences that might relate to the story.  I was immediately saddened to realize that Lisa didn’t have any stories about visiting her grandparents, owning a pet, or visiting a farm hours away.  We learned shortly after that some of the kids were going to the hospital to treat some pretty serious infections.  It hit me pretty hard in that moment that these kids that we’ve played with, who have energy to rival a hungry tiger, play hard, test their boundaries (more some days than others), and the desire to just be held, are orphans.  We see them in a daycare setting, so I haven’t thought deeply about the implications of their situations.  They have foster mothers, foster siblings, and live in a faith-filled, caring community which may be much better than the township they likely lived in before coming to the Haven.  They have really well-balanced diets and basic needs met, but I can’t help but consider how the best memories from my childhood would not exist in that environment.   For instance, four-wheeling, county fairs, summers on the boat, weekends at grandparents’ cabins, days at the farm, going to the park and roaming the neighborhood on our bikes alone, and the endless hours at the skating rink.  None of these opportunities are available to most children in South Africa (due to the 80-90% unemployment rates in the townships of the Eastern Cape Province).  And, the children at the Haven are in this position because of AIDS, it has claimed their families and even some of them.  What a blessing it now seems that each day after service I return to Langerry and a university education.

Today, I whiled service away peeling carrots in the kitchen.  Between service and class I put final touches on a paper, emailed it, and took a kombi to class.  In class we hosted SJU alum, Saavo, Bosnian by birth, married to a South African, and studying his PhD at NMMU.   Our discussion topic today was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose aim was to bring closure to Apartheid and face the brutal past of the liberation struggle in order to move forward as a united rainbow nation.  Saavo survived the civil war in his home country as an adolescent, and a member of the SJU Board of Regents sponsored a trip for young students to go to Hawaii as a respite from their war-torn country.  While there, the Regent offered to fund any endeavor each Bosnian student would like to pursue.  Saavo said that he would like to study wherever the Regent studied, so he came to St. Johns, studied abroad in his Junior year on this trip to South Africa in 2005, met the sister of a famous cricket player (apparently this guy knows how to make connections in short amounts of time—haha, but really he won a contest while he was here for dressing up at a game), and came back to SA after graduation.  They were recently married =D awwwe.   

South Africa’s conflict resolution procedures fascinated him, and he now works between South Sudan and South Africa studying the process of rebuilding after reaching peace.  He wrote a book about his experiences in Bosnia as a child, and it was mind-blowing to have his input on our discussion today about what constitutes justice when so many atrocities are committed.  In South Africa, there were no Nuremberg trials, rather the country chose to use what meager resources it had to offer recompense to those victims who came forward with their stories.  Amnesty was granted to perpetrators after submitting applications delineating the full truth of all of their crimes.  Today we undertook questions such as why would South Africa opt to allow brutal killers who burned the bodies while having a braai with their colleagues walk away with amnesty?  How can a mother who knows the police officers who barbequed her innocent son ever have closure?  How can an anti-Apartheid white forgive an organization who blew up a building and killed his son in the name of liberation from Apartheid?  How about a wife who found her husbands mutilated body along with three other’s benefit from knowing that police men committed the terrible crime to make it look like vigilantes, and even preserved his hand in a jar at the police station to scare others into talking?  Or, how can a man who was blinded from acid from being tortured give such words of forgiveness to the criminal?  The book called No Future Without Forgiveness by Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu quotes some of the testimonies of victims and offenders, showing the extremes of human capacity to hate or love.  

After class, we watched a movie for lit tomorrow, and  I stopped at the grocery store on my walk home.  I am exhausted now, so although I would like to write more about today, maybe I can add another time.

Peace

Grahamstown

So, Friday night I fell asleep before I could even post my blog.  I woke Saturday with a runny nose, sinus headache and a mild cough.  We left Langerry at 8am towards Grahamstown on a bus with Bradley as our tour guide.  There was fog so thick that we could barely see 20 feet in front of the bus.  First, we stopped at a musical instrument manufacturer who makes African instruments such as the marimba (the same instruments we had a workshop with for music class), kalimba (finger pianos), and xylophones.  We waited outside for a bit in some drizzle, and it was actually cold!  We heard the history of the company and how the instruments have spread over the world since the time of WWII by the efforts of Hugh Tracey and his son, Andrew.  Our guide, Christian, shared his passion of integrating music into education, emphasizing the importance of creativity and right brain development.

Next, we visited Egwazini Outreach Center, a police-station-turned-community-arts-center.  The police station was known during Apartheid to have housed some very violent interrogations, and now Egwazini employs community members to create linocuts, carved linoleum blocks used for print-making, and some other fabric crafts.  I got a piece of fabric to match a pillow cover that I bought in J Baai yesterday.  I also saw a beautiful lighter tan tablecloth with dark brown toile.  It was unique because toile is usually Victorian scenes, but, rather than Courier-and-Ives-esque, this was African scenes.  I would love to find some at a fabric shop and bring some home to work with.

Next we went to the rural areas of Hamburg, near Grahamstown, to a Heritage Site.  We saw a traditional music and dancing program from some young girls of the village, “sampled” HUGE portions of traditional food such as samp and beans, squash, chicken, potatoes with peas, and ginger beer with a bite.  We had drumming lessons on Djembe drums and were challenged with singing and drumming at the same time—way harder than it may seem.  And finally we were subjecting to the humiliating performance of Zulu dance.  It wasn’t that bad, but an entire village laughed at us “all in good fun” I’m sure ;)

Kalimba= finger piano.  Apparently these are popular in the NW coast of the US, mostly Washington.  Perhaps there are a lot of Zimbabwean immigrants there?

Christian playing the kalimba

Two people on the xylophone

Some of the prints of linocuts at Egwazini

A linocut. 

Culture for Bruce

Bradley mentioned that it is often misinterpreted as disrespectful to women when traditionally men entered and left rondavels (round mud homes with thatch roof) first, holding a stick.  He said this tradition is meant to protect women from wild animals or intruders.  He pointed out that in the West, it is polite for men to open doors for women to go through first.  These traditions both, in their own way, stem from the ideology that women need men for strength and protection.  I will not pretend that men are not bigger than women, in most cases, but in this day and age, women are strong enough to open their own doors and just as likely as men to get eaten by a wild beast who has taken up residence in their home.  Unless women begin taking responsibilities unto themselves such as paying for dinner, opening doors, and outside work, we enable the stereotypes of women’s weakness and therefore inequality.  These ideas affect women in the workplace in terms of promotions and equal pay (look up the current case against Wal-Mart if you need an up-to-date example).  In addition, I am of the opinion that services are rarely a free gift.  If men are always the ones to offer protection, women always owe, and it becomes a control mechanism.    I guess what I’m trying to say is in the interest of gender equality, “Thanks, but no thanks.”  And yes, I'll step down off the soap box now.