We have made our first friends in South Africa! Last night we went to a Tapas and salsa restaurant/ bar with Isabel. Isabel is a native German who has worked in a variety of countries, including Ireland, which gives her accent a bit of the Irish touch. She is working in the Early Childhood Education area of SAEP with me. Apparently, she really loves to salsa dance and does it quiet regularly. The current plan is for Sanford, Ryan, and me (and Heloise and Pauline if we can convince them) to go take a beginners’ salsa class on Thursday. Goodness! Last night was a real blast though and the food was fabulous. I’ll be honest—I’d been hungry and had an upset stomach for three days at that point, so I was delighted to eat some good food! Upon our return to the house, we proceeded to play Gin Rummy and Spite and Malice and conduct our own karaoke session… thus ensued our plans for next weekend: find a karaoke bar!
Today were our first ventures into the Cape Town Townships. We were delivering food to centers with Norton in response to the violence that has been occurring the last few days. There are hundreds of refugees leaving the townships around, particularly, Jo’berg, but as of last night Cape Town as well, due to the violence and rioting. The issues are mostly economic—xenophobia as a result of inadequate jobs for natives and non-South Africans seeking jobs in the, relatively-speaking, better South African economy. (It’s a very angry Southerner meets a Mexican immigrant feeling.) A paper that I read covering the problems, which I thought was *very*good can be found at: www.mg.co.za/xenophobia. I thought it was particularly good because it seemed really well balanced. It was critical of Mbeki’s absence and distance from the ‘common’ South African, but it was also critical of Zuma for not taking a stronger stand against the violence and the ‘tests’ to determine if those that are being attacked are South African Zulu or not. My interpretation of the information that I’m getting is that Mbeki is a little like Woodrow Wilson, in that he’s very academic and not particularly personable, while Zuma is a lot like George W. Bush—he is using fear mongering and us versus them rhetoric, and a charming façade, to gain power. Having taught, I know that making connections and finding similarities is just the way the brain works to process new information, but I do find it remarkable how many similarities can be drawn between politics a world apart.
It’s hard to even begin to explain or describe the townships. I make no presumption to know or understand the kind of poverty experienced in South Africa, but I think it’s the ‘urban-ness’ of the township poverty that was so hard to process. I imagined, based on the news and movies, a terrible poverty, looking more like villages with shacks and dirt roads and little access to electricity. But the poverty of the townships is people living on top of people. I haven’t taken pictures yet, because I’m still uncomfortable as an outsider and feeling like I’m invading privacy by photographing, but in order to picture it: Imagine those Home Depot backyard storage/ garden sheds, only made of many different pieces and not sturdy at all. Then, imagine hundreds of them lined up next to each other with virtually no space between them left and right and very limited space front to back. That’s what the townships look like.
We were out there on a Saturday morning, so there were lots of people out on the streets. I did kind of like the feeling of everyone being out together and the children roaming in packs. I know that the townships are dangerous, but at least this morning, it felt like a bright, lively neighborhood. On the sides of the main road, people were cooking braai, which just means grill, but it was every meat imaginable, right there on the road. We were advised not to eat it, because it could easily be a source of Hepatitis A, and I love me some BBQ, but with the smell of that much meat cooking, it was even hard for me not to feel queasy.
After we dropped off the food, we ran by one of the high schools that SAEP has students in. Norton was supposed to have had a meeting with several former students there, but because of the issues with the refugees, he was unable to make it. When we got to the school about sight students were standing outside. We ended up having a forty-five minute conversation with them about politics; South African politics, Mbeki and Zuma, the current violence. It was an invigorating conversation. I especially loved hearing the young women talk about the issues. The older I get the more adamant I get about women’s issues and the problems our gender faces. I know that sounds like a duh! statement to those who know me well, but before it was just passion and righteousness, now it is frustration! Today, there was a quote in the South African paper from Barak Obama saying how Hillary Clinton should be commended because she had broken down barriers that would benefit his daughters. I don’t want to have to wait another generation to tackle these problems. And the quote bothered me in part because it just goes to show how far we have to go… the women’s issues just aren’t even really being talked about any more! We make 75 cents to every dollar a man makes, but it is still rationalized and ignored. No! Women who never leave the work force to have children, who advance at the same rate as a man, still make only three-fourths as much! But for some reason women have stopped talking about it as well, as though talking about it admits some kind of defeat for the last thirty years of work. Dumb. It was absolutely fantastic to hear these young women talking about these issues and framing them in terms of women’s involvement. It was brilliant.
Following this conversation, we returned to Norton’s house to make peanut butter sandwiches to be delivered that evening to the townships. This is where we connected with Heloise and Pauline, our other new friends. Heloise and Pauline are in South Africa working with SAEP’s Gap Year Program. They are both working with SAEP as a part of the undergrad degree programs; Pauline’s is a business program and I forget Heloise’s program. They are from the French Alps and go to school in France. Heloise and Pauline were some of the very first SAEP people that we met and learn to appreciate. Every Friday, one or two of the SAEP staff cooks lunch for the rest of the staff. Heloise and Pauline made lunch on Friday, which we had the pleasure of enjoying. Once we finished our 400 million peanut butter sandwiches, the five of us left to have dinner together.
Dinner was at Chez d’UACS IPSP! The girls dropped us off and then ran home for a minute. While they were off, Ryan, Sanford, and I started dinner. Let me just say, this is the way people are meant to prepare dinner. We were all working on the various parts of my shepherd’s pie and singing to oldie but goldies. When the girls returned, we ate and then enjoyed a game of sugar bean poker. Oh yes, BIBY crew, you trained me well! We had a great time and it bodes for a really fantastic summer.
Always,
Sarah
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