This video is for my mother. I tried to e-mail it but it did not work so I had to put it on here. Anyone else who watches it has too much time on their hands.
I love you mom and I hope you have a great day!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Table Mountain
Cape Town is famous for its huge mountains and bordering oceans. Basically since the moment we arrived in Cape Town everyone in our group has been staring to the mountains in vain waiting to climb them. We have not been allowed to go without a guide because people are often robbed on the mountains and it’s not smart to go without someone who is familiar with the paths and the area. Our academic director has been talking about coordinating a group hike since we arrived but it keeps getting put off. I had finally accepted that we were never going to get the opportunity to climb any of the mountains when we received word that they had a guide for us to climb Table Mountain, one of the most famous mountains in South Africa. It was scheduled for this past Sunday and then had to be canceled due to thick cloud cover on the mountain. However, luckily enough for us this Monday was a public holiday (for freedom day) so we had the day off of work and were able to make the trek. It was a 6.5 hour climb and I think was just over 6 miles in total. It was probably one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life and one of my favorite days here. It was a huge workout but the most breathtaking views imaginable. I took close to 600 pictures during the hike. I also got so exciting that I was basically leaping from rock to rock down the side of a cliff and jumped one too many times and blew out the bottom of one of the air pockets of my sneakers.... the rest of the hike it felt like I was walking barefoot and it would make noise and let out a gush of air with every one of my steps.
After we got back from the hike and hung out at our apartment for awhile, one of my roommates and I decided to pop over to one of our other friends apartments 3 streets over because I had left our laundry soap over there the other night and we needed it back. So we walked the familiar 5 minute walk over around 7:20pm. On our way there we were confronted by beggars for spare change, an ordinary occurrence in Cape Town. However, usually when this happens you can shake them off and continue walking without any hassle, but these guys were different. We said no and continued to power walk past them when all of a sudden my friend and I were swarmed. They split us and one guy blocked me off so that I couldn’t walk anywhere. He got in my face asking me for money. I just looked at him and then pointed to myself. I was wearing hospital scrub pants and a t-shirt. I said, “hey man, I don’t even have pockets. I don’t have anything.” (luckily enough for me he did not realize that I actually did have a pocket in the back of my pants that had my cell phone in it, so I was able to get away without having that taken). He quickly backed off and said, “okay, okay I’ll get my friends away.” Meanwhile three of his friends had swarmed my friend and cornered her against a wall. They were going through all of her pockets and questioning her about money. She told them she didn’t have anything, and sure enough she didn’t. She had actually had her phone stolen earlier that day while at work and neither of us had money. The guy who tried to take money from me got his friends to leave her alone after thoroughly digging through her pockets and not managing to find anything. Actually the only thing in her pocket was a slip of paper with a phone number on it that they knocked out of her pocket when they were searching her and one of them even picked it up and gave it to her as they walked away. The entire time this was happening a city worker was standing a few feet from us watching all of the commotion and not saying anything. Thank god we had nothing on us to be taken, and they didn’t find my cell phone, and also that they decided not to attack us. We have heard stories of people getting attacked because they aren’t carrying money and the robbers get so frustrated with them for not having money that they beat them up. It was a scary situation but a good lesson for us to all learn. We have gotten very comfortable here and often walk around alone at night with our cell phones out and our laptops in our bags, and it was a good security check for all of us.
ISP
We are now on the last leg of our program, the Independent Study Period. For this last month we are living in apartments with other students and each of us is completing a different research project. I live with 5 other students in a flat right in Green Market Square, basically the center of the city. Two of the other groups of students live within walking distance from our flat and we see them often. They come over a lot to use our Internet because we get free Internet at our apartment; we also have cable TV, which has been a big treat.
For my ISP I am interning with a non-profit, non-governmental organization called Sports Coaches OutReach (SCORE). The organization focuses on community development through sport. Basically what they do is take volunteers and train them in the area of sport as well as community development processes and then they place them in rural communities or townships in South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. The volunteers live with host families for 6 months or a year and basically immerse themselves in the community teaching life skills through the medium of sport. The organization is really cool and was actually founded by an Olympian from the U.S. My job there however, is not very exciting. I am volunteering in their head office and working full time for three weeks. What I do is try to contact past volunteers and then I ask them questions about their experience with SCORE in order to be able to generate feedback about the organization and establish a database of past participants. So basically I spent my first few days entering names and contact info into Microsoft excel, and I have spent the last week or so trying to get a hold of people and get them to agree to an over-the-phone interview. It is interesting to hear about the organization from a volunteers perspective, but it is no fun to sit in an office all day and play phone tag with people who can barely understand me.
It is now on to my last week of work. After which I will have about a week to compile all of the data I have gathered from my interviews and write a 35-40 page paper evaluating the organization. I will then present this information to my teachers, classmates, and coworkers. After all of that we have a 3 day evaluation period at a resort and then I’ll be home. It’s amazing how fast time here is flying and I really think that the only way that they can convince people to get on the plane is that we are so busy and drained from completing such a huge project in such a short amount of time that we can no longer think.
In the meantime I have tried to pack in as much fun as possible into the last few weeks and moments and am still in denial of the fact that I have to leave the most beautiful country that I’ve ever imagined.
For more info on SCORE, you can check out their website at http://www.score.org.za/
For my ISP I am interning with a non-profit, non-governmental organization called Sports Coaches OutReach (SCORE). The organization focuses on community development through sport. Basically what they do is take volunteers and train them in the area of sport as well as community development processes and then they place them in rural communities or townships in South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. The volunteers live with host families for 6 months or a year and basically immerse themselves in the community teaching life skills through the medium of sport. The organization is really cool and was actually founded by an Olympian from the U.S. My job there however, is not very exciting. I am volunteering in their head office and working full time for three weeks. What I do is try to contact past volunteers and then I ask them questions about their experience with SCORE in order to be able to generate feedback about the organization and establish a database of past participants. So basically I spent my first few days entering names and contact info into Microsoft excel, and I have spent the last week or so trying to get a hold of people and get them to agree to an over-the-phone interview. It is interesting to hear about the organization from a volunteers perspective, but it is no fun to sit in an office all day and play phone tag with people who can barely understand me.
It is now on to my last week of work. After which I will have about a week to compile all of the data I have gathered from my interviews and write a 35-40 page paper evaluating the organization. I will then present this information to my teachers, classmates, and coworkers. After all of that we have a 3 day evaluation period at a resort and then I’ll be home. It’s amazing how fast time here is flying and I really think that the only way that they can convince people to get on the plane is that we are so busy and drained from completing such a huge project in such a short amount of time that we can no longer think.
In the meantime I have tried to pack in as much fun as possible into the last few weeks and moments and am still in denial of the fact that I have to leave the most beautiful country that I’ve ever imagined.
For more info on SCORE, you can check out their website at http://www.score.org.za/
Bo-Kaap
After Stellenbosch we headed back to Cape Town. There we had one night in a backpackers before we would move in with our next family. We walked into the backpackers and immediately someone saw my Gustavus shirt and they all freaked out. Apparently the group was from St.Johns/St.Bens. It was the program my brother, Ian, had done. They were in Cape Town for a week before going on spring break. Oddly enough one of the kids in the program was someone I had gone to high school with, so it was fun to get a chance to talk to him a bit and to hear a little bit more about their program.
The next morning we were bused to our classroom in Rondebosch again and had a workday to finish our papers as well as to work on the other 10 projects that we were in the middle of. That evening we headed back to Cape Town and into the Bo-Kaap. Bo-Kaap is an area of Cape Town that is comprised of almost only Muslim people. Many of them are descendents of slaves and so we also went to the Slave lodge (old slave area of cape town in which all slaves were kept but is now a museum). When we arrived in the Bo-Kaap we had a tour of the area and went to the local museum to learn the history of the community. We then went back to a local restaurant where we awaited our families. Oddly enough I had already met my mother. When we arrived my host mother was there waiting to greet me and she introduced herself and my host brother, shafika, and then said that they would be back to fetch me later. I later found out they were there early to get a look at me because they had never hosted before and were very nervous about having a student.
My host family was very very wonderful and probably the most welcoming family that I had so far. Because they had never had a student before, they spoiled me beyond belief. There was constantly food in my room, they always brought me juice and fresh fruit and biscuits. It was wonderful. We probably had five meals a day while I lived there. Every morning I would wake up and they would have yogurt and wheet bix (sort of granola sort of cereal). There was also fruit and juice and coffee and tea. One of my friends actually came over every morning to walk down to the restaurant where we all got picked up and she would eat breakfast there because my family was so nice and welcoming and always made coffee for her. Often they would also pack me a lunch of leftover food from the night before. As well as a few snacks to munch on during the day. (This was wonderful because I was still out of money and been skipping meals because I couldn’t afford to eat). When I got home we would have huge dinners that was basically like a different buffet every night. I had many different variations of curry. Oh and I absolutely fell in love with samoosas. They are my new favorite food and I think one night I had over 25 of them, after already eating dinner. Then after I was stuffed at dinner they would usually bring out chips and biscuits or cake or some other kind of dessert. That was usually followed by a round of samoosas or some other type of treat. And then they usually tried to get me to eat again before going to bed.
My host parents were pretty young and wonderful. The father did construction work and used to work on ships. He has actually traveled around most of the world and even lived in the U.S. for a few years so it was fun to talk to him about his experiences. The mother works in the community trying to create jobs and also trying to do work in the community for the people. The oldest daughter has finished her studies and is looking for a job while living at home. She was a lot of fun to be with and we hung out all the time. The son is a junior in high school and pretty funny. He is constantly picked on by everyone in the family but he also made me laugh the whole time I was there which was great. The youngest just turned 14 a couple weeks ago and is definitely trouble. She loves boys, fashion, and gossip. She was a lot of fun to be around as well and felt like my little sister.
They lived in a flat that had 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. I had one of the bedrooms to myself that normally belongs to the two girls. Shafika’s room doubles as the living room and the parents have the other room. The bathroom actually had a shower, which was a huge treat. They also had a TV in both of the bedrooms and the living room so it was such a luxury to get to lie in bed and watch TV, I almost didn’t want to ever sleep.
Although I absolutely loved my family, even with them I was not able to escape the racism that seems to still live in the hearts of so many South Africans. The first night I was there one of the neighbors came over and decided to give me a lecture on Islam. He basically attacked me and I kept trying to explain to him that I had had a class on Islam and knew a fair amount about it but he wouldn’t believe me. He kept talking about how Americans knew nothing of Islam even though they had a huge Muslim population in America. He then went on to insult Christianity saying that even in the bible Jesus tells people that he is not god and Christians are only Christians because they are too ignorant to know their own bible. I also had an interesting discussion with my host mother in which she revealed to me her very out rightly racist feelings and pretty much all around hatred for black people. She talked about how life was better under apartheid, and she wished that things could return that way. She also got a bit more vulgar, but I’ll choose not to repeat it all. It was interesting to learn about the coloured identity and experience it a bit more. There is still such strong ethnic divides and there is a strong perception that the coloured identity is one that has suffered the most. Under apartheid, coloureds were treated better than blacks but not as well as white people. However, since the end of apartheid blacks have been given better treatment (since they now dominate government) and whites are still treated well (since they still maintain the highest economic standings) and coloured treatment has only declined in comparison. It was hard to hear the hate that so many people had toward people of other skin color, but at the same time it was very valuable in my understanding of my family as well as feelings of people in South Africa today.
The first night I was there I actually got to go out with my host sister. One of my host sisters, Noaaz (20), took me and a couple of my friends into green market square to see the jazz concert. Every year there is an international jazz festival in Cape Town and the first night of the concert is outside and free to the public. It was packed and amazing but we managed to push our way to the front row. It was a lot of fun. We actually went out a lot while I was in Bo-Kaap which was interesting because none of the families there drink and we were told they would not go out, but they went out more than any of my other host families. Another night a bunch of us went to a movie and my host sister came with us as well. I also went to karaoke with a friend and her host mother one night, which was very entertaining. The family that we went to karaoke with goes there regularly, and they do not do it as a joke. Everyone who goes there is very serious about singing and apparently they usually stay there all night, we thought that they were joking when they first told us that but soon realized that it wasn’t so. We finally had to beg them to drive us home at about 1am because we were falling asleep at the table. My friend and I decided to wholeheartedly embrace the experience, despite our serious lack of singing ability. We thought it would be funny to open up with the song “Born in the U.S.A.” We thought it was a good way to make fun of ourselves. Although neither of us knew any of the words or the beat, and despite having them up for us it was very hard to sing with a song we didn’t really know. What made things even more awkward was that neither of us knew that song talked about going off to “fight the yellow man,” not really appropriate for our colored audience. We managed to salvage the crowd by singing “Aint no mountain high enough” later on in the night, but it was a tough lesson.
On nights that I didn’t go out, friends from my trip would often come over to visit me and hang out with my family. They were so much fun and gave us so much food that everyone wanted to come over. We would always sit around talking and laughing and watching TV. I felt right at home and it was such a wonderful environment. They family really welcomed me in and were very laid back about it. The mother was constantly taking pictures of me (in every room of the house and with every member of the immediate and extended family). She also had us walk up the hill to go on a photo shoot one afternoon and had the extended family over to meet me. They invited me to live with them for the last month of the trip and I seriously considered the offer, but thought that in order to fit into my bridesmaid dress when I return home, I better live in an area that didn’t have so much good food around. However I have already been back to visit a few times with friends. I planned to go every weekend but they said that seeing me just once a week wouldn’t be enough and I needed to come back more often. We have had a couple of braai’s and it has been great to have somewhere to go for food and a break whenever I need to.
The next morning we were bused to our classroom in Rondebosch again and had a workday to finish our papers as well as to work on the other 10 projects that we were in the middle of. That evening we headed back to Cape Town and into the Bo-Kaap. Bo-Kaap is an area of Cape Town that is comprised of almost only Muslim people. Many of them are descendents of slaves and so we also went to the Slave lodge (old slave area of cape town in which all slaves were kept but is now a museum). When we arrived in the Bo-Kaap we had a tour of the area and went to the local museum to learn the history of the community. We then went back to a local restaurant where we awaited our families. Oddly enough I had already met my mother. When we arrived my host mother was there waiting to greet me and she introduced herself and my host brother, shafika, and then said that they would be back to fetch me later. I later found out they were there early to get a look at me because they had never hosted before and were very nervous about having a student.
My host family was very very wonderful and probably the most welcoming family that I had so far. Because they had never had a student before, they spoiled me beyond belief. There was constantly food in my room, they always brought me juice and fresh fruit and biscuits. It was wonderful. We probably had five meals a day while I lived there. Every morning I would wake up and they would have yogurt and wheet bix (sort of granola sort of cereal). There was also fruit and juice and coffee and tea. One of my friends actually came over every morning to walk down to the restaurant where we all got picked up and she would eat breakfast there because my family was so nice and welcoming and always made coffee for her. Often they would also pack me a lunch of leftover food from the night before. As well as a few snacks to munch on during the day. (This was wonderful because I was still out of money and been skipping meals because I couldn’t afford to eat). When I got home we would have huge dinners that was basically like a different buffet every night. I had many different variations of curry. Oh and I absolutely fell in love with samoosas. They are my new favorite food and I think one night I had over 25 of them, after already eating dinner. Then after I was stuffed at dinner they would usually bring out chips and biscuits or cake or some other kind of dessert. That was usually followed by a round of samoosas or some other type of treat. And then they usually tried to get me to eat again before going to bed.
My host parents were pretty young and wonderful. The father did construction work and used to work on ships. He has actually traveled around most of the world and even lived in the U.S. for a few years so it was fun to talk to him about his experiences. The mother works in the community trying to create jobs and also trying to do work in the community for the people. The oldest daughter has finished her studies and is looking for a job while living at home. She was a lot of fun to be with and we hung out all the time. The son is a junior in high school and pretty funny. He is constantly picked on by everyone in the family but he also made me laugh the whole time I was there which was great. The youngest just turned 14 a couple weeks ago and is definitely trouble. She loves boys, fashion, and gossip. She was a lot of fun to be around as well and felt like my little sister.
They lived in a flat that had 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, and bathroom. I had one of the bedrooms to myself that normally belongs to the two girls. Shafika’s room doubles as the living room and the parents have the other room. The bathroom actually had a shower, which was a huge treat. They also had a TV in both of the bedrooms and the living room so it was such a luxury to get to lie in bed and watch TV, I almost didn’t want to ever sleep.
Although I absolutely loved my family, even with them I was not able to escape the racism that seems to still live in the hearts of so many South Africans. The first night I was there one of the neighbors came over and decided to give me a lecture on Islam. He basically attacked me and I kept trying to explain to him that I had had a class on Islam and knew a fair amount about it but he wouldn’t believe me. He kept talking about how Americans knew nothing of Islam even though they had a huge Muslim population in America. He then went on to insult Christianity saying that even in the bible Jesus tells people that he is not god and Christians are only Christians because they are too ignorant to know their own bible. I also had an interesting discussion with my host mother in which she revealed to me her very out rightly racist feelings and pretty much all around hatred for black people. She talked about how life was better under apartheid, and she wished that things could return that way. She also got a bit more vulgar, but I’ll choose not to repeat it all. It was interesting to learn about the coloured identity and experience it a bit more. There is still such strong ethnic divides and there is a strong perception that the coloured identity is one that has suffered the most. Under apartheid, coloureds were treated better than blacks but not as well as white people. However, since the end of apartheid blacks have been given better treatment (since they now dominate government) and whites are still treated well (since they still maintain the highest economic standings) and coloured treatment has only declined in comparison. It was hard to hear the hate that so many people had toward people of other skin color, but at the same time it was very valuable in my understanding of my family as well as feelings of people in South Africa today.
The first night I was there I actually got to go out with my host sister. One of my host sisters, Noaaz (20), took me and a couple of my friends into green market square to see the jazz concert. Every year there is an international jazz festival in Cape Town and the first night of the concert is outside and free to the public. It was packed and amazing but we managed to push our way to the front row. It was a lot of fun. We actually went out a lot while I was in Bo-Kaap which was interesting because none of the families there drink and we were told they would not go out, but they went out more than any of my other host families. Another night a bunch of us went to a movie and my host sister came with us as well. I also went to karaoke with a friend and her host mother one night, which was very entertaining. The family that we went to karaoke with goes there regularly, and they do not do it as a joke. Everyone who goes there is very serious about singing and apparently they usually stay there all night, we thought that they were joking when they first told us that but soon realized that it wasn’t so. We finally had to beg them to drive us home at about 1am because we were falling asleep at the table. My friend and I decided to wholeheartedly embrace the experience, despite our serious lack of singing ability. We thought it would be funny to open up with the song “Born in the U.S.A.” We thought it was a good way to make fun of ourselves. Although neither of us knew any of the words or the beat, and despite having them up for us it was very hard to sing with a song we didn’t really know. What made things even more awkward was that neither of us knew that song talked about going off to “fight the yellow man,” not really appropriate for our colored audience. We managed to salvage the crowd by singing “Aint no mountain high enough” later on in the night, but it was a tough lesson.
On nights that I didn’t go out, friends from my trip would often come over to visit me and hang out with my family. They were so much fun and gave us so much food that everyone wanted to come over. We would always sit around talking and laughing and watching TV. I felt right at home and it was such a wonderful environment. They family really welcomed me in and were very laid back about it. The mother was constantly taking pictures of me (in every room of the house and with every member of the immediate and extended family). She also had us walk up the hill to go on a photo shoot one afternoon and had the extended family over to meet me. They invited me to live with them for the last month of the trip and I seriously considered the offer, but thought that in order to fit into my bridesmaid dress when I return home, I better live in an area that didn’t have so much good food around. However I have already been back to visit a few times with friends. I planned to go every weekend but they said that seeing me just once a week wouldn’t be enough and I needed to come back more often. We have had a couple of braai’s and it has been great to have somewhere to go for food and a break whenever I need to.
Stellenbosch
From Langa, we headed to a Cape Town suburb called Stellenbosch. It is in the heart of wine country and a predominantly white community. We stayed in pairs for this homestay and I was with a girl from Boston, named Alyssa. We were with an Afrikaner (white South Africans) family in a Stellenbosch suburb. The family was very nice and we quickly felt at home. The parents, Louis and Leizel, were very young and kind. They had two kids, Michael (8) and Jana (12). They also were renting out a room to a University of Stellenbosch student named Jeane-Marie (23). She was a fifth-year student who was finishing her graduate program to be a teacher.
Stellenbosch was a difficult homestay and an incredibly reflexive period. Our program directors told us before we got to our actual homestays that Stellenbosch would be the area that reminded us the most of home (in the U.S.). I’m not sure what it was, but for some reason Stellenbosch was the homestay that I had the most difficulty in feeling comfortable in. The family was wonderful and some of the nicest people that I have ever met. But something about it just felt wrong. Perhaps it was because the house and the neighborhoods were so much like those that I grew up in, and I was desperately scared to have to leave and go home. Whatever the reason, it felt wrong to stay in a nice house that had more rooms that necessary and a real shower. There was a maid that came in twice a week to clean and do laundry and she was a Xhosa. I felt like I should be spending my time with her rather than with my host family.
An interesting aspect of Afrikaner people seemed to be that everywhere we went people made it a point to tell us that they were not racist. Our host parents said that they never supported apartheid and didn’t even realize everything that happened under it until after it was over (talk about an upper class bubble). One of my friends actually was at a dinner party when a relative arrived, walked up to her and practically yelled in her face “Who shot Martin Luther King?!” She was bewildered and just kind of mumbled in confusion and he responded “A white guy! Yeah that’s right, white people do bad things in America too.” He then went on to tell her all about how her ancestors did worse things to the Native Americans than Afrikaners ever did to the blacks.
I have to admit that I rebelled strongly against being white in South Africa. Without realizing it, I had built up a negative perception of Afrikaners and was very defensive and apprehensive toward them. One of our lectures talked about group responsibility and we discussed the idea of what it meant to take responsibility for one’s actions. We also talked about the idea of collective guilt and whether or not it was reasonable and justifiable.
We didn’t have too many lectures while in Stellenbosch but we did complete a couple of projects with some University of Stellenbosch art students. One of them was a drawing project in which we drew portraits of the Stellenbosch students as well as ourselves. It was very embarrassing since I haven’t taken an art class since grade school and they were art majors. But I ended up having a good time with it. We also had a photography project while we were in there in which we walked around the town with university students taking pictures of things that we had in common, things that were different, things we were moving away from, and things we were moving toward. It was a cool project but the students that were in our group were kind of dull and were not into either listening to our ideas or talking to us much during the project. Other than that project, it was fun to get a chance to interact with students there and it also gave us the opportunity to give a different perspective on life in Stellenbosch. Apparently it’s a big college town so we were all excited for that kind of atmosphere.
It was nice to be on a college campus again and for our breaks most days we would just sit outside and people watch. Food on campus was cheap which was exciting and we all hadn’t realized how much we missed college life until being there. However we quickly began to see the unique atmosphere of Stellenbosch that set it apart. It is a very conservative area, which was different for us to be around. We had a friend who went to school there that some students had actually met on the plane ride over who hung out with us while we were there. Several times he had to remind us to act differently and after awhile the world Stellenbosch turned into a type of warning about appropriate behavior. One night we went to a rugby game and we were very excited. Pretty much the whole town was attending and it was a really important game because it was playoffs. After being there for a while we decided that it could only be a fulfilling experience if we penetrated the student section. We saw people in body paint and capes and knew that was the crowd we were meant to hang out with. So we made our way over and ended up being in the second row of the student section, we even got our hands on some face paint. However, that too turned into a surprising experience. We actually had people asking us to sit down, and they were other students. Also none of the students were really yelling much or cheering. They just sat back, beers in hand, and said that they liked to relax and enjoy the game (even though these guys were wearing only spandex shorts, capes, and masks and the rest of their bodies were covered in paint). It was kind of disappointing.
Also while there Alyssa and I attended church with our host family. It was another interesting church experience as our host family attends an alternative church. They called it a “charismatic” Christian church. Basically the majority of the service was music, which was good, and they had a huge band and people were dancing everywhere and crying in the aisles. Then they gave different people the opportunity to go up and speak about their faith and then a woman gave a sermon (sort of) it was kind of a cool experience but a couple of different times Alyssa and I had trouble taking the whole thing seriously. After church there was a baptism taking place in the swimming pool outside. It was children who had chosen to accept god and wanted to be saved. So they were being baptized in the pool by a member of the church and one of their parents. It was interesting to learn that things like that do not just take place in movies. There was also a big picnic at the church and they were having a braai and there were huge inflatable bouncing structures for the kids. We hung out with our host parents and had really interesting conversations with them regarding faith and why they felt the way that they did and what drew them to their church. So that was a really nice way to get to know our family and it was especially cool that they were willing to share such a personal and yet important aspect of their lives with us.
An interesting aspect of Afrikaner people seemed to be that everywhere we went people made it a point to tell us that they were not racist. Our host parents said that they never supported apartheid and didn’t even realize everything that happened under it until after it was over (talk about an upper class bubble). One of my friends actually was at a dinner party when a relative arrived, walked up to her and practically yelled in her face “Who shot Martin Luther King?!” She was bewildered and just kind of mumbled in confusion and he responded “A white guy! Yeah that’s right, white people do bad things in America too.” He then went on to tell her all about how her ancestors did worse things to the Native Americans than Afrikaners ever did to the blacks.
I have to admit that I rebelled strongly against being white in South Africa. Without realizing it, I had built up a negative perception of Afrikaners and was very defensive and apprehensive toward them. One of our lectures talked about group responsibility and we discussed the idea of what it meant to take responsibility for one’s actions. We also talked about the idea of collective guilt and whether or not it was reasonable and justifiable.
We didn’t have too many lectures while in Stellenbosch but we did complete a couple of projects with some University of Stellenbosch art students. One of them was a drawing project in which we drew portraits of the Stellenbosch students as well as ourselves. It was very embarrassing since I haven’t taken an art class since grade school and they were art majors. But I ended up having a good time with it. We also had a photography project while we were in there in which we walked around the town with university students taking pictures of things that we had in common, things that were different, things we were moving away from, and things we were moving toward. It was a cool project but the students that were in our group were kind of dull and were not into either listening to our ideas or talking to us much during the project. Other than that project, it was fun to get a chance to interact with students there and it also gave us the opportunity to give a different perspective on life in Stellenbosch. Apparently it’s a big college town so we were all excited for that kind of atmosphere.
It was nice to be on a college campus again and for our breaks most days we would just sit outside and people watch. Food on campus was cheap which was exciting and we all hadn’t realized how much we missed college life until being there. However we quickly began to see the unique atmosphere of Stellenbosch that set it apart. It is a very conservative area, which was different for us to be around. We had a friend who went to school there that some students had actually met on the plane ride over who hung out with us while we were there. Several times he had to remind us to act differently and after awhile the world Stellenbosch turned into a type of warning about appropriate behavior. One night we went to a rugby game and we were very excited. Pretty much the whole town was attending and it was a really important game because it was playoffs. After being there for a while we decided that it could only be a fulfilling experience if we penetrated the student section. We saw people in body paint and capes and knew that was the crowd we were meant to hang out with. So we made our way over and ended up being in the second row of the student section, we even got our hands on some face paint. However, that too turned into a surprising experience. We actually had people asking us to sit down, and they were other students. Also none of the students were really yelling much or cheering. They just sat back, beers in hand, and said that they liked to relax and enjoy the game (even though these guys were wearing only spandex shorts, capes, and masks and the rest of their bodies were covered in paint). It was kind of disappointing.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
District 6 Poetry
This is poetry from the District 6 Museum in Cape Town. We went a couple of weeks ago but I haven't had time to get this up here. It was by far one of my favorite museums and that was primarily because of the poetry written everywhere.
I have a lot more than I will post here, so if you are interested let me know when I'm home and I'll forward it to you.
Also, the poetry was copied down by me after I took pictures of it, so spaces where there are blanks or (?) means that I was unable to read it.
Phulaphulani
Tired, bored
reluctantly we sit & wait.
“Phulaphulani”.
They say the trains are running late again,
the air is cold & yet more rain
is here
summer is not remotely near
and neither is the train.
Tired, waiting bodies on the seat,
hunger pangs, cold limbs, cold hands,
bored eyes meet the pepsi poster,
the sight of bare midriff is erotic
blue-jeaned buttocks
swinging as if in dance
hand clutching cool drinks
under the legend in Afrikaans
“pepsi mense voel vry.”
“Phulaphulani”.
The trains are late they’re in a muddle
we sit on the platform wet with rain
and see the pepsi poster
reflected in a puddle.
There’s a hint of more rain in the air.
Two schoolboys play as if they couldn’t care
such is the way of their world
though it looks odd.
for that attitude thank god.
The sight of those schoolboys offers hope.
soon we think of all the scope
that possibly there’ll be
when they are men.
They’ll have their views by them...
the ones with the brains that _lide the trains...
for some the train must come.
- Peter E Clarke
To White South Africa
If, when you walk around the cape’s sand flats
You do not see men laugh or sing or play,
But only hear them swear and shout, then say
That here are those who work in your stone flats;
Who walk your streets; who see your sights, who are
Your blood, your sin, your guilt, your crime; who own
No colour in their lives but their own;
Who live with it in dark because your bar
From light, the children of the sun, who pray
To God for help that never came or will;
Who are to hunger, pain, each human ill,
Just as you are, and last to death, all prey...
Your wealth feeds want, two-thousand miles o’ersea-
You’re blind to, ten miles from your eyes stark misery.
- Cosmo Pieterse 1960s
“It’s not specifically the bricks and the mortar of
District Six which have to be remembered.
But the piles of rubble symbolizes an ideology
which created the environment in which
forced removals were justified, accepted as
normal and rational. I have tried to achieve
a balance between the always Friday night
atmosphere which existed in the District;
the social pressures which brought people
together and the iron fists of unchecked
State power which brought it to an end”
- Richard Rive
D6 ’52-76
For us the world happened
between a mountain and
a sea.
Somehow we were dislodged
and then we began to set
ourselves free...
-Rusholy Sien (?) ‘99
District Six
Ghost Town
My feet are awash
with the red clay
of the windswept plains
of district six
the houses have long gone
and the ghosts
of my ancestors
play haunting melodies
on nameless street corners.
I watch the renaming of a town
and remember
the taste of naan bread
mutton curry
and the sweet smell
of incense
burning in old door frames.
I stand and think
of days loud
with police sirens
of money made
in darkened brothers
and of josthing women
in cinemas turned wash houses
I still hear
the voice in the minaret
calling the faithful.
Now the mosque
stands alone
a solitary figure
gazed upon
by tourists eyes
now when the rumble
of the bulldozers reach me
and the sight
of the homeless
seeking shelter
in smashed buildings
I discover
the hate still simmering
-from the collection “suck the bone”
by Keith Adams
- Skotaville Publishers 1989
Poem For My Mother
That isn’t everything you said
on the afternoon I brought a pogrn(?)
to you hounched over the washtub
with your hands
the shrivelted
burnt granadilla
skin of your hands
covered by foam.
And my words
slid like a ball
of hard blue soap
into the tub
to be grabbed and used by you
to rub the clothes.
A poem isn’t all
there is to life, you said
with your blue-ringed gaze
scanning the page
once looking over my shoulder
and back at the immediate
dirty water
and my words
being cisnched
smaller and
smaller.
- Jennifer Davids
A Poet’s Routine
for T.A./IJ.
The old man struggles up the hill
clutches a carrier-bag of metaphors
while murmuring a prayer of gratitude
for the rising of a blushing sun
He turns in his stride, catches the drift
of people into the city, feetingly
in the corner of his left eye. He
checks for the uneven slab of concrete
which might unhinge his progress;
notices the face drawn in the cement
then loses it amidst the surreal patterns
of rectangular shapes in the pavement.
The pillars of the colonial buildings
salute his passing with the honour
of a shadow, which remains fixed
to the elliptical reflection of glass.
He strides further up the incline.
The depth of noise recurs in the carry
of the wind, amplifying the isolation.
The ubiquitous mountain leans over the city.
like a sculpture of considered repose.
he rests periodically; reinvigorates
his frail lungs with the recycled stench
of neglected gutters finally inside
his refuge of hood; surrounded by modest
instruments for stories, he rediscovers
the splendour of his private imaginings
and dreams with the abandon of a child.
- Mark Espin 1999
“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and the invisible guests come in and out at will.”
- Czeslaw Milosz (1974)
My Pigeons Came Home
My family and I moved to Athlone in 1975
together with my prize racing pigeons.
I built a loft using the same wood I had
used in District Six
After caging them for three months I
released them to see if they would return.
When I returned home that evening I went
directly to the loft
Not a single pigeon had come back.
After a sleepless night I returned to work
Driving through the demolished landscape that
once was District Six.
As I drove past the now empty plot that
used to be my home in Caledon St.
I saw a sight that shook me to the core.
My pigeons, all 50 of them were on the
empty plot. They did not fly away when I
approached them but looked into my eyes as
If to say
“WHERE IS OUR HOME?”
- Noor 2000/03/28
The Jobless Poet
Were I less inclined to daydream...
the brute realities of my burdens
would be banished to the borders.
but the days are closing in.
shadows should be friendly signs,
defining the routes to deeper places.
Instead, I am a dog chained and fenced,
Frenzied into fear by the hint of a presence -
A demand, a summons, a barking threat.
If only words could serve as currency.
If only passion could produce some gold.
The soul, perhaps, could sell some solace.
But, the evidence of poverty is plain
To any observer,
for whom distance has become a fonder choice.
This place demands one course be chartered
so I closet up my dreams
and in the morning,
I knock on doors,
I beg the means,
I keep the living,
I lose the life.
- Barry Ellman 17/11/’99
Faraway city, there
with salt in its stones,
under its windswept doek,
There in our Cape Town where
they’re smashing down homes
of the hungry, labouring people
- will you wait for me, my love?
In that most beautiful, desolate city of my heart
where if staying on were passive
life wouldn’t be what it is.
Not least for those rebuilding
yet again their demolished homes
with bits of plastic, port Jackson saplings,
anything to hand – unshakably
Defiant, frightened, broken,
and unbreakable are the people of our city.
- Will you wait for me, my love?
Jeremy Cronin
First Night
on my first night
i saw the moon.
Dennis Brutus only saw the stars
once in three years;
Breyten Breytenbach only saw the moon
once in seven years.
but on my first night
through the six windown slits of C block cell 205
through the jailyard floodlights which lash
five orange weals on the left wall,
five orange weals on the right wall
the moon anoints me with silver photons
six silver banners
on parade, half mast,
slow march across the wall,
signal: strength – endure the night.
the moon
holds vigil over the captive.
- Keith Gottschalk 1985
For Sara Baartman
I have come to take you home
home – remember the veld?
the lushgreen grass beneath the big oak trees?
The air is cool there
and the sun does not burn.
I have mde your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in muchu and mint,
the proteas stand in yellow and white
and the water in the stream chuckle sing songs
as it hobbles along over little stones.
I have come to wretch you away
away from the poking eyes
of the manmade monster who lives in the dark
With his racist clutches of imperialism –
who dissects your body bit by bit –
who likens your soul to that of satan
and declares himself the ultimate god!
I have come to soothe your heavy heart.
I offer my bosom to your weary soul
I will cover your face with the palms of my hands –
I will run my lips over the lines in your neck –
I will feast my eyes on the beauty of you –
and I will sing for you.
for I have come to bring you peace.
I have come to take you home –
where the ancient mountains shout your name.
I have made your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in buchu and mint –
the proteas stand in yellow and white –
and I will always sing for you –
for you have brought me peace.
- Diana Ferrus
- Written in Holland (Utrecht), June 1998
Shadows of history
Three seabirds fly across a lilac sky
layered with azure, pink and palest amber
echoing the moon
How beautiful is our bay from out at sea!
Those wind whipped sailors must have breathed
a sigh when with billowing sails, they first
set eyes on Table Bay
It is with a(?) surprise that I understand
why they so much wanted to stay.
We welcomed them, bartered with them.
Soon they would be gone.
We were wrong.
It took us seven years to realize
that they wanted more than sheep
and for our folly, hard we fought
our land was not for barter
Eyhamma was the first to fall,
the first kholman to be slaughtered in that war
He died as bravely as any Dutchman
The diarist said
But he and many other after him, were dead.
The moon and shaded evening sky
evoke these memories.
Perhaps the time has come to end distorted
[histories]
The coloured brightness of our hue
stems from wise an ancient people,
from clever craftsman from the East
and from the strength of Africa.
It is west and east and African blood
Which flows through all our veins
Mixing, strengthening genes
To make survival sure.
We have survived in shades of many colours
Our pride must shine
As bright as evening sky.
- Mavis Smallbarg, Robben Island 21 April 1997
I am the Exile
I am the exile
am the wanderer
the traubadour
(whatever they say)
gentle I am, and calm
and with abstracted pace
absorbed in planning,
courteous to servility
but wailings fill the chambers
of my heart
behind my quiet eyes
I hear the cries and sirens
- Dennis Brutus
For Ralton
In the seventh season of the nineties
the winter wind has taken another friend
it is a mild and subtle, sweeping wind
which calls us to remember:
how the city centre swung its arm
and cleared a path across the flats.
The bones of old homes were rack
and every loosened tenement
cracked and bled a little.
(Some of the older residents
hover on their balconies,
determined to wait things out quietly
in the calm of the air pockets).
A major blast it was
A strange and violent
notlessness(?) ensued
We have seen language fragments
being moulded harshly in our art
and listened at jazz gatherings
to the skree(?) and call and memory.
The saxophone has come for us
to tean and bleed and curse
at the fatal stage, and young poets
rage out their masculine rebellion
Perhaps the dancers understand
the ways we break
the body’s rules.
A stranger, small and strangely sad,
is running from house to house, from movement
to movement, stage to state,
setting the scenes
behind the performers. His smile
spreads like a text across his face.
Words that bubble up too fast to fashion
elude the longing of his tong and float
upward into the mind
Where they poise, like a wave waiting to break.
he carries himself like a dancer and launches his voice like a boy’s paper plane
which circles, dips towards a grin
at every swivel,
but who’s to know
the memories that live behind those eyes?
He gathers the pieces of our pasts
like tiles flying from window sills,
like old pebbles that may still be found
in the smaller corners of this city;
odd shards of _____ lying half baried
in the sand, still tai____ with the blood
of a passer-by. Grey winter days
that suddenly grin and burst into a dance
in the sudden, slim shaft of winter sun.
Mothers lost, like falling gutters.
Dogs that come rushing out of the dark
Hardly recognizable as your own. The low
regular, familiar, soundless weeping we hear
from the long-grassed spaces between the newer houses.
Trucks arriving, loaded with furniture and people
Trucks leaving, loaded with people and furniture.
Young girl(?) children being taken by the hand
fathers, brothers, grandfathers
with huge, silent vessels
swiveling like searchlights in their heads.
And the rocks at the sea at night
the huge rocks around the lighthouse
that everyone knows could break
the human bones and drown the spirit.
The women were being turned inside out
by this strange normality. Its late,
and someone has tot find the garden
even if only to give it back into the house again
because we’ve lived too long
beneath the furtive gesture
breathing dark messages, mouth to mouth
like knives swallowed into the heart;
too long we’ve fashioned weapons of logic
with word over word, ideas rolled into ideas
until the shining intellect of love became an icon.
Now, in the seventh season of the nineties,
the winter wind has taken
another friend; a mild and subtle
generous wind calls us.
The city centre swings its arm
and decrees a place, a space upon its breast.
Oh city,
Now the Sweet Things hold the corner shops
of Manenberg way into the night,
jeering at the lovers who huddle by
their arms locked under loosened clothes.
Away into the same wind they’ll be blown
out and beyond the Hottentots
this time next decade while here
we kneel obeisance to the New City.
Oh city, turn yourself around now
with some sudden grace, gaze deeply
at your history; the wiles of hands
are fingering your pockets
for a hot feel of success, and you’ll not
call your children back to a void
where your heart used to be.
- Donald Parenzee(?) August 1997
Where the Rainbow ends
Where the rainbow ends
There’s going to be a place, brother,
Where the world can sing all sorts of songs
And we’re going to sing together, brother,
You and I, though you’re white and I’m not.
It’s going to be a sad song, brother,
Because we don’t know the tune,
And it’s a difficult tune to learn.
But we can learn, brother, you and I.
There’s no such tune as a black tune.
There’s only music, brother
And its music we’re going to sing
Where the rainbow ends
- Richard Rive
- Prologue to a short story 1951
Poem
Undoubtedly
we live in a time of storm
and stress.
But this weather
will not last.
Nevertheless
the tide will turn.
- Peter E. Clarke
For the Mother of a Son Shot Dead During the Riots – 1976
She lights yet another cigarette
and stands with her hand
under her armpit,
puffing away.
Dressed in her funeral mother’s black
she is caught in a mesh of thoughts,
silent at the non-answered questions
regarding the death
of this son of her flesh.
About how he died,
they said nothing
smirking behind their uniforms and officialdom,
leaving her with the hurt
of the dead son’s shirt
bulletholed red and the thought that they _____
but she knows that they know
each dog gets his day,
dying bad.
- Peter E Clarke
I have a lot more than I will post here, so if you are interested let me know when I'm home and I'll forward it to you.
Also, the poetry was copied down by me after I took pictures of it, so spaces where there are blanks or (?) means that I was unable to read it.
Phulaphulani
Tired, bored
reluctantly we sit & wait.
“Phulaphulani”.
They say the trains are running late again,
the air is cold & yet more rain
is here
summer is not remotely near
and neither is the train.
Tired, waiting bodies on the seat,
hunger pangs, cold limbs, cold hands,
bored eyes meet the pepsi poster,
the sight of bare midriff is erotic
blue-jeaned buttocks
swinging as if in dance
hand clutching cool drinks
under the legend in Afrikaans
“pepsi mense voel vry.”
“Phulaphulani”.
The trains are late they’re in a muddle
we sit on the platform wet with rain
and see the pepsi poster
reflected in a puddle.
There’s a hint of more rain in the air.
Two schoolboys play as if they couldn’t care
such is the way of their world
though it looks odd.
for that attitude thank god.
The sight of those schoolboys offers hope.
soon we think of all the scope
that possibly there’ll be
when they are men.
They’ll have their views by them...
the ones with the brains that _lide the trains...
for some the train must come.
- Peter E Clarke
To White South Africa
If, when you walk around the cape’s sand flats
You do not see men laugh or sing or play,
But only hear them swear and shout, then say
That here are those who work in your stone flats;
Who walk your streets; who see your sights, who are
Your blood, your sin, your guilt, your crime; who own
No colour in their lives but their own;
Who live with it in dark because your bar
From light, the children of the sun, who pray
To God for help that never came or will;
Who are to hunger, pain, each human ill,
Just as you are, and last to death, all prey...
Your wealth feeds want, two-thousand miles o’ersea-
You’re blind to, ten miles from your eyes stark misery.
- Cosmo Pieterse 1960s
“It’s not specifically the bricks and the mortar of
District Six which have to be remembered.
But the piles of rubble symbolizes an ideology
which created the environment in which
forced removals were justified, accepted as
normal and rational. I have tried to achieve
a balance between the always Friday night
atmosphere which existed in the District;
the social pressures which brought people
together and the iron fists of unchecked
State power which brought it to an end”
- Richard Rive
D6 ’52-76
For us the world happened
between a mountain and
a sea.
Somehow we were dislodged
and then we began to set
ourselves free...
-Rusholy Sien (?) ‘99
District Six
Ghost Town
My feet are awash
with the red clay
of the windswept plains
of district six
the houses have long gone
and the ghosts
of my ancestors
play haunting melodies
on nameless street corners.
I watch the renaming of a town
and remember
the taste of naan bread
mutton curry
and the sweet smell
of incense
burning in old door frames.
I stand and think
of days loud
with police sirens
of money made
in darkened brothers
and of josthing women
in cinemas turned wash houses
I still hear
the voice in the minaret
calling the faithful.
Now the mosque
stands alone
a solitary figure
gazed upon
by tourists eyes
now when the rumble
of the bulldozers reach me
and the sight
of the homeless
seeking shelter
in smashed buildings
I discover
the hate still simmering
-from the collection “suck the bone”
by Keith Adams
- Skotaville Publishers 1989
Poem For My Mother
That isn’t everything you said
on the afternoon I brought a pogrn(?)
to you hounched over the washtub
with your hands
the shrivelted
burnt granadilla
skin of your hands
covered by foam.
And my words
slid like a ball
of hard blue soap
into the tub
to be grabbed and used by you
to rub the clothes.
A poem isn’t all
there is to life, you said
with your blue-ringed gaze
scanning the page
once looking over my shoulder
and back at the immediate
dirty water
and my words
being cisnched
smaller and
smaller.
- Jennifer Davids
A Poet’s Routine
for T.A./IJ.
The old man struggles up the hill
clutches a carrier-bag of metaphors
while murmuring a prayer of gratitude
for the rising of a blushing sun
He turns in his stride, catches the drift
of people into the city, feetingly
in the corner of his left eye. He
checks for the uneven slab of concrete
which might unhinge his progress;
notices the face drawn in the cement
then loses it amidst the surreal patterns
of rectangular shapes in the pavement.
The pillars of the colonial buildings
salute his passing with the honour
of a shadow, which remains fixed
to the elliptical reflection of glass.
He strides further up the incline.
The depth of noise recurs in the carry
of the wind, amplifying the isolation.
The ubiquitous mountain leans over the city.
like a sculpture of considered repose.
he rests periodically; reinvigorates
his frail lungs with the recycled stench
of neglected gutters finally inside
his refuge of hood; surrounded by modest
instruments for stories, he rediscovers
the splendour of his private imaginings
and dreams with the abandon of a child.
- Mark Espin 1999
“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and the invisible guests come in and out at will.”
- Czeslaw Milosz (1974)
My Pigeons Came Home
My family and I moved to Athlone in 1975
together with my prize racing pigeons.
I built a loft using the same wood I had
used in District Six
After caging them for three months I
released them to see if they would return.
When I returned home that evening I went
directly to the loft
Not a single pigeon had come back.
After a sleepless night I returned to work
Driving through the demolished landscape that
once was District Six.
As I drove past the now empty plot that
used to be my home in Caledon St.
I saw a sight that shook me to the core.
My pigeons, all 50 of them were on the
empty plot. They did not fly away when I
approached them but looked into my eyes as
If to say
“WHERE IS OUR HOME?”
- Noor 2000/03/28
The Jobless Poet
Were I less inclined to daydream...
the brute realities of my burdens
would be banished to the borders.
but the days are closing in.
shadows should be friendly signs,
defining the routes to deeper places.
Instead, I am a dog chained and fenced,
Frenzied into fear by the hint of a presence -
A demand, a summons, a barking threat.
If only words could serve as currency.
If only passion could produce some gold.
The soul, perhaps, could sell some solace.
But, the evidence of poverty is plain
To any observer,
for whom distance has become a fonder choice.
This place demands one course be chartered
so I closet up my dreams
and in the morning,
I knock on doors,
I beg the means,
I keep the living,
I lose the life.
- Barry Ellman 17/11/’99
Faraway city, there
with salt in its stones,
under its windswept doek,
There in our Cape Town where
they’re smashing down homes
of the hungry, labouring people
- will you wait for me, my love?
In that most beautiful, desolate city of my heart
where if staying on were passive
life wouldn’t be what it is.
Not least for those rebuilding
yet again their demolished homes
with bits of plastic, port Jackson saplings,
anything to hand – unshakably
Defiant, frightened, broken,
and unbreakable are the people of our city.
- Will you wait for me, my love?
Jeremy Cronin
First Night
on my first night
i saw the moon.
Dennis Brutus only saw the stars
once in three years;
Breyten Breytenbach only saw the moon
once in seven years.
but on my first night
through the six windown slits of C block cell 205
through the jailyard floodlights which lash
five orange weals on the left wall,
five orange weals on the right wall
the moon anoints me with silver photons
six silver banners
on parade, half mast,
slow march across the wall,
signal: strength – endure the night.
the moon
holds vigil over the captive.
- Keith Gottschalk 1985
For Sara Baartman
I have come to take you home
home – remember the veld?
the lushgreen grass beneath the big oak trees?
The air is cool there
and the sun does not burn.
I have mde your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in muchu and mint,
the proteas stand in yellow and white
and the water in the stream chuckle sing songs
as it hobbles along over little stones.
I have come to wretch you away
away from the poking eyes
of the manmade monster who lives in the dark
With his racist clutches of imperialism –
who dissects your body bit by bit –
who likens your soul to that of satan
and declares himself the ultimate god!
I have come to soothe your heavy heart.
I offer my bosom to your weary soul
I will cover your face with the palms of my hands –
I will run my lips over the lines in your neck –
I will feast my eyes on the beauty of you –
and I will sing for you.
for I have come to bring you peace.
I have come to take you home –
where the ancient mountains shout your name.
I have made your bed at the foot of the hill,
your blankets are covered in buchu and mint –
the proteas stand in yellow and white –
and I will always sing for you –
for you have brought me peace.
- Diana Ferrus
- Written in Holland (Utrecht), June 1998
Shadows of history
Three seabirds fly across a lilac sky
layered with azure, pink and palest amber
echoing the moon
How beautiful is our bay from out at sea!
Those wind whipped sailors must have breathed
a sigh when with billowing sails, they first
set eyes on Table Bay
It is with a(?) surprise that I understand
why they so much wanted to stay.
We welcomed them, bartered with them.
Soon they would be gone.
We were wrong.
It took us seven years to realize
that they wanted more than sheep
and for our folly, hard we fought
our land was not for barter
Eyhamma was the first to fall,
the first kholman to be slaughtered in that war
He died as bravely as any Dutchman
The diarist said
But he and many other after him, were dead.
The moon and shaded evening sky
evoke these memories.
Perhaps the time has come to end distorted
[histories]
The coloured brightness of our hue
stems from wise an ancient people,
from clever craftsman from the East
and from the strength of Africa.
It is west and east and African blood
Which flows through all our veins
Mixing, strengthening genes
To make survival sure.
We have survived in shades of many colours
Our pride must shine
As bright as evening sky.
- Mavis Smallbarg, Robben Island 21 April 1997
I am the Exile
I am the exile
am the wanderer
the traubadour
(whatever they say)
gentle I am, and calm
and with abstracted pace
absorbed in planning,
courteous to servility
but wailings fill the chambers
of my heart
behind my quiet eyes
I hear the cries and sirens
- Dennis Brutus
For Ralton
In the seventh season of the nineties
the winter wind has taken another friend
it is a mild and subtle, sweeping wind
which calls us to remember:
how the city centre swung its arm
and cleared a path across the flats.
The bones of old homes were rack
and every loosened tenement
cracked and bled a little.
(Some of the older residents
hover on their balconies,
determined to wait things out quietly
in the calm of the air pockets).
A major blast it was
A strange and violent
notlessness(?) ensued
We have seen language fragments
being moulded harshly in our art
and listened at jazz gatherings
to the skree(?) and call and memory.
The saxophone has come for us
to tean and bleed and curse
at the fatal stage, and young poets
rage out their masculine rebellion
Perhaps the dancers understand
the ways we break
the body’s rules.
A stranger, small and strangely sad,
is running from house to house, from movement
to movement, stage to state,
setting the scenes
behind the performers. His smile
spreads like a text across his face.
Words that bubble up too fast to fashion
elude the longing of his tong and float
upward into the mind
Where they poise, like a wave waiting to break.
he carries himself like a dancer and launches his voice like a boy’s paper plane
which circles, dips towards a grin
at every swivel,
but who’s to know
the memories that live behind those eyes?
He gathers the pieces of our pasts
like tiles flying from window sills,
like old pebbles that may still be found
in the smaller corners of this city;
odd shards of _____ lying half baried
in the sand, still tai____ with the blood
of a passer-by. Grey winter days
that suddenly grin and burst into a dance
in the sudden, slim shaft of winter sun.
Mothers lost, like falling gutters.
Dogs that come rushing out of the dark
Hardly recognizable as your own. The low
regular, familiar, soundless weeping we hear
from the long-grassed spaces between the newer houses.
Trucks arriving, loaded with furniture and people
Trucks leaving, loaded with people and furniture.
Young girl(?) children being taken by the hand
fathers, brothers, grandfathers
with huge, silent vessels
swiveling like searchlights in their heads.
And the rocks at the sea at night
the huge rocks around the lighthouse
that everyone knows could break
the human bones and drown the spirit.
The women were being turned inside out
by this strange normality. Its late,
and someone has tot find the garden
even if only to give it back into the house again
because we’ve lived too long
beneath the furtive gesture
breathing dark messages, mouth to mouth
like knives swallowed into the heart;
too long we’ve fashioned weapons of logic
with word over word, ideas rolled into ideas
until the shining intellect of love became an icon.
Now, in the seventh season of the nineties,
the winter wind has taken
another friend; a mild and subtle
generous wind calls us.
The city centre swings its arm
and decrees a place, a space upon its breast.
Oh city,
Now the Sweet Things hold the corner shops
of Manenberg way into the night,
jeering at the lovers who huddle by
their arms locked under loosened clothes.
Away into the same wind they’ll be blown
out and beyond the Hottentots
this time next decade while here
we kneel obeisance to the New City.
Oh city, turn yourself around now
with some sudden grace, gaze deeply
at your history; the wiles of hands
are fingering your pockets
for a hot feel of success, and you’ll not
call your children back to a void
where your heart used to be.
- Donald Parenzee(?) August 1997
Where the Rainbow ends
Where the rainbow ends
There’s going to be a place, brother,
Where the world can sing all sorts of songs
And we’re going to sing together, brother,
You and I, though you’re white and I’m not.
It’s going to be a sad song, brother,
Because we don’t know the tune,
And it’s a difficult tune to learn.
But we can learn, brother, you and I.
There’s no such tune as a black tune.
There’s only music, brother
And its music we’re going to sing
Where the rainbow ends
- Richard Rive
- Prologue to a short story 1951
Poem
Undoubtedly
we live in a time of storm
and stress.
But this weather
will not last.
Nevertheless
the tide will turn.
- Peter E. Clarke
For the Mother of a Son Shot Dead During the Riots – 1976
She lights yet another cigarette
and stands with her hand
under her armpit,
puffing away.
Dressed in her funeral mother’s black
she is caught in a mesh of thoughts,
silent at the non-answered questions
regarding the death
of this son of her flesh.
About how he died,
they said nothing
smirking behind their uniforms and officialdom,
leaving her with the hurt
of the dead son’s shirt
bulletholed red and the thought that they _____
but she knows that they know
each dog gets his day,
dying bad.
- Peter E Clarke
Monday, March 23, 2009
Insinkwe
From Durban, we drove about 3 and a half hours to Insinkwe. There we were able to travel to Umfolowzi Park and go on our first Safari. I was so excited even though we had to get up at 4:30am. We spent 5 hours in the park and I was pretty much the equivalent of a little kid who went to the zoo for the first time. We saw zebras, hippos, rhinos, warthogs, kudus, buffalo (different from the ones you see in the U.S.), water buffalo, elephants, and giraffes (my personal favorite). We were all disappointed because in the park there are also lions and leopards, but we did not see any. Apparently it is very rare to see either, but we had heard from the Durban group that they saw a pack of lions eating a Zebra, so we got our hopes up a bit. I kept singing the song Wondering Where the Lions are, but sadly no one else knew the tune and thought that I was making it up. I looked for it in my itunes library, but I don’t have it, try not to be disappointed in me Dad.
After Umflowzi, we headed back to the backpackers for lunch and a bit of relaxation around the pool. It was a super hot day so it was nice to be able to cool off a bit. Later that afternoon most of the group decided to go on a river boat ride. We drove about an hour in order to take a boat tour in which we saw a bunch of hippos and crocodiles and another kudu. We were so close to the hippos that it was amazing and they were in large packs. It was a lot of fun to be right next to animals that for so long seemed like such an odd commodity.
The next morning we woke early to drive the 3.5 hours back to the Durban airport. We got inside the airport and saw a Subway and a few of us went pretty nuts. We decided to eat there for lunch but were quickly disappointed. It looked exactly like an American Subway, in everything but the food. You couldn’t build your own sandwich and all of the meats were different than I had ever seen, it was a bit of a let down. But also a good lesson to not expect everything to be the same here as it is back home.
When we landed in Cape Town we were picked up and taken back to our homes in Langa. It was wonderful to reunite with my family there. Zina ran outside and hugged me and tried to help me carry my big bag. The mother gave me a huge hug and a smile and then asked all about my experience. Toko also gave me a huge hug and then immediately went to change so that we could go out. When Lohlhi came in and saw me he immediately started laughing and fell to the ground. I then chased him around and tickled him. Nwabiza saw me from the street and called to me there. It was quite the welcoming and it really felt like I was home. I will be so sad when we have to leave Langa for good tomorrow morning. However a few of us are positive that we will be visiting during our ISP’s.
For now, I am loaded with homework as crunch time is starting to set in. We have a term paper due in a week that I have yet to start and we also have to finalize our ISP’s. Not to mention the fact that I have a lot of medical bills to deal with and just got notices saying that if paperwork is not filed soon I will be solely responsible for the bill. Oh yes, and did I mention that I managed to lose my Check Card..... so I am now without money. I’m pretty much the world’s worst traveler, but somehow I’m managing to survive.
I hope that things are wonderful with everyone at home and that these posts made up for my inactivity in the last few weeks. Myrna, I apologize for missing your shower, but I hear that it was great.
Durban
From Bucs, we drove about 5 hours to Kokstad. Where we stayed a night at one of the creepiest hostels I have ever seen. I swore that we were all going to get hacked in our sleep there. The place looked like the scenery from the ring. There were animal heads on the walls, and a well in the back yard. We had no cell phone reception and there was no internet, so no contact with the outside world. The last guest book entry was from over a year ago. The room I stayed in had horses all over the walls and a random chalk drawing of a boy named billy whose face was rubbed out. There was also a mirror with half of a woman’s face painted on it. Me and another girl were so scared of our room that we moved a single mattress into the floor of another room and shared it, rather than sleep in our room.
Oddly enough, we all woke up just fine the next morning and had a lovely breakfast. The women working there were very nice and packed us lunches for the road. They also took pictures of us because they were so excited to have a group of Americans come and stay there, they asked us to each individually sign the guest book (my guess is so that it wasn’t so blank anymore).
We hopped in the car and drove the rest of the 4 hours to Durban. In Durban, we stayed at Gibela backpackers, which is right near Florida Road (the big place to go out in Durban). While in Durban we spent almost every day at the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN). We had lectures and seminars and basically not a ton of fun, although it was interesting. We learned a lot more about race problems in South Africa both in lectures and out. While on the campus eating lunch in the courtyard, all of the different groups of kids are based on ethnicity, which is different from the way we divide ourselves in the U.S. Some girls also had experiences at a club when a bouncer threatened to kick them out if they danced with any more black guys while they were there. It was pretty hard for all of us to swallow and I think we decided as a group that we didn’t like Durban all that much.While in Durban we ran into two other SIT groups who are based there. It was fun to talk to them for a little bit and find out about their experiences. I think that we decided we were all happy to be in the group that we are in and to have chosen our program. So that was a nice bit of reassurance.
Buccs
After Tshabo, we drove about 2 hours to Cintsa on the wild coast. We stayed at the most amazing backpackers, called Buccaneers. As sad as I was to leave Tshabo, I quickly forgot about it. Buccaneers was basically the paradise pictured in every movie in which they show warm climates near the ocean.
We stayed in cabins there, but there were also tents for people to camp in. We were up a hill, overlooking a bay that went out into the ocean. Bucs had its own pool, climbing wall, volleyball court, horseback riding, surfing (yes I went again, and I survived), bar, restaurant, gift shop and so much more. Every evening there were group activities that we participated in.
We got to know the staff very well, and had an amazing time with them. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures with my blog, although they don’t do a good enough job of capturing the wonder of this backpackers. If anyone is planning a trip to South Africa, they must make this one of their destinations.
We stayed in cabins there, but there were also tents for people to camp in. We were up a hill, overlooking a bay that went out into the ocean. Bucs had its own pool, climbing wall, volleyball court, horseback riding, surfing (yes I went again, and I survived), bar, restaurant, gift shop and so much more. Every evening there were group activities that we participated in.
We got to know the staff very well, and had an amazing time with them. Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures with my blog, although they don’t do a good enough job of capturing the wonder of this backpackers. If anyone is planning a trip to South Africa, they must make this one of their destinations.
Tshabo
We spent the last two weeks traveling around South Africa. One March 6th we flew from Cape Town to East London. From there we drove about 2 hours to our rural homestay, about 45 minutes of the drive was on dirt roads. Most of us stayed in a village called Tshabo, which is divided up into different blocks and we were in block 2. A few others from the group stayed in a neighboring village called Dongwe.The village had it’s own school system and several churches. The homes all had electricity, something that was brought to them after the end of apartheid. However there was no running water in each of the homes, but there were water taps dispersed throughout the village.
Tshabo was really an amazing place and if I ever get the chance to come back to South Africa, it will be one of the first stops on my list. The village was beautiful, located at the top of the hill with an amazing view. Goats, chickens, and cattle roamed freely throughout the village. I was scared of the cows since they were bigger than I had ever seen and all had horns, but we did have some fun attempting to stare them down off of different pathways. I also attempted several times to catch a chicken with my bare hands, but I was unsuccessful. However I did help a little boy to catch one in a giant group effort that consisted of us surrounding a few families of chickens and leaping wildly at them, it was quite a sight.
Most of us were paired up with another student for this homestay. I lived with another girl from Minnesota. Our family consisted of our Mama, her 35-year-old son, and 3 of her granddaughters (grade 5, grade 1, and 2-years-old). The house was a bit smaller than my house in Langa, but a fairly similar setup. There were 5 rooms: a kitchen (without a fridge or a sink), a living room (complete of course with a tv and a stereo), and 3 bedrooms. One of the bedrooms was about the size of a closet and contained only a single bed, which was all that could fit in the room, that room belonged to the son. Another room was shared by the 3 girls and it contained a double bed and a couple of wardrobes, the room that Sarah and I stayed in was actually the mothers room and was very nice. It had a double bed, a wardrobe, 2 nightstands, a dresser, TV, and a vanity table. It was kind of ironic that the first time we would be able to look in a mirror whenever we wanted coincided with the first time we would be living in an area with no running water and therefore limited bathing opportunities.
It was amazing how much certain aspects of Tshabo reminded me of my Voyageurs trip, in which I spent a month in northern Canada. Oddly enough I felt at home immediately in Tshabo. Something about peeing outside and brushing your teeth with water from a water bottle is oddly invigorating.The first day we were there we had a family day, so we were able to just hang out and get a feel for the area. We learned some new games from the kids, and also were to some degree put on display for them as they poked and prodded at us. They were very open about our bodies, and curious and would often grab at us in ways that neither Sarah nor I were used to. Apparently in their culture breasts are not a private thing, and therefore often they were talked about and kids kept grabbing our shirts to look down them.
We talked the kids into taking us on a walk and we explored the valley that lay at the back of our house and separated us from Tshabo 1. It was breathtaking, and I could have spent all day in the fields there, except some of the largest cows I have ever seen came up and I got scared and had to run away. We found some of the other students in our group in a field across from the high school. They were with most of the kids from the village. Some were playing soccer while others were sitting on the ground being mobbed by kids. I played soccer. It was a lot of fun, but also one of the biggest workouts of my life. The grass there is never cut, except by the cows. The nets were wooden posts with a log balanced across the top of them, and a couple times I had to have kids stand on my shoulders to place the logs back up. The field was also located on a hill so half of it was up and the other was down. Due to the long grass, I cut my foot open kicking rocks instead of the ball. The ball was flat but it still worked. Despite the challenges we had an amazing time playing with the kids, and the kids were very good.The next day we had a lecture at the school on education in the area, although I missed half of the lecture because I got distracted playing stickball with the kids outside and no one notified me that we were starting up again. The rest of the afternoon we had free to do as we pleased. So a group of us explored the area again and even walked to the next village in Dongwe.
On Sunday Sarah and I walked to Dongwe to attend church with some of our friends whose host sibling was singing in church. It was an amazing service, although it was given in Xhosa, so I didn’t comprehend most of it, but I loved listening to the songs.
We spent 5 days in Tshabo and each day we had different activities planned in the morning, and then an open afternoon. Our activities were aimed at learning about life in Tshabo. One day was spent working in the fields and learning about their agricultural challenges. Oddly enough, I felt at home there and Dad I know that our leader would have loved talking to you about different gardening strategies. Another day we learned to bead things, since that is a big trade for many of the women in the community. I made my own necklace and hope that it doesn’t break before I get home. We also had a day that we spent in the schools, this day was very disheartening. Many of the 11th graders didn’t know basic math and had trouble with easy algebra problems. They had to use calculators to do the simplest of multiplication and we spent about an hour and a half trying to tutor kids through 3 problems. Some were good at it, but the majority of the students in the class were not beyond a 4th grade math level.
The majority of my time in Tshabo was actually spent in the yard of some of my friends homestay families. They had a big yard and their grass was cut so we could lay in it. It is also where most of the kids spent there time, so we learned a ton of new games and basically laughed and played outside all day. It really brought me back, and I don’t think I’ve ever been sadder to leave a place before. A lot of us cried as we drove away and I really felt like part of my heart was staying in Tshabo.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Health Care in South Africa
So I apologize to all 3 of my devoted readers. I have gotten way behind in my blog and I promise that I intend to catch up and fill you in on the last couple weeks when I have a chance. I actually meant to do it this weekend but got fairly sidetracked. Perhaps I should start with that story...
On Sunday I went surfing with 3 other girls in my group. We took the train and had a professional lesson so it was pretty great. We got like a 2 hour lesson and wetsuits all for 20 bucks. Surfing was absolutely amazing. But apparently the beach that we were at has a lot of shark problems. There apparently are shark sightings there everyday. But the place was packed with people, so we weren't too deterred.
Surfing was so much fun. I could definitely do that everyday while I am here. I got up on my first try and after about an hour I was catching waves and getting up without the help of the instructor. So I was really proud of myself. However apparently I was too proud. As the day was coming to a close and we were getting ready to leave I had some trouble in the water.
I was standing in the water holding my board , I had just come in off a wave. All of a sudden my whole body felt like it slammed into something. I shook my head and sort of looked around, very confused. It was like I ran as fast as I could into a rock, but there was absolutely nothing around me. Then I thought maybe I got stung by something. All of a sudden it happened again. The most intense pain of my life, like my whole body being thrown against a brick wall, but I was just standing still in the water. I quickly realized that my defibrillator had just gone off for the first time. I knew I had to get to shore and I started to make my way in when bam! I got shocked again. I called for help and my instructor was nearby. He put me on the surfboard and started pushing me in. Bam! again... I fell off the board and stumbled into the beach calling to my friends for help as I was shocked 3 more times.
I made it out of the water and was able to tell my friend what happened and that I needed to get to a hospital. We made it back up to the surf shack and I walked on my own the whole way up feeling a bit faint but fine overall. I sat down up at the shack and got some water as I explained to them what had happened and asked about the nearest hospital with a cardiology unit. Luckily a man at the shack was headed that way and offered to give us all a lift. As we were sitting there getting everything together to leave I started getting really dizzy. I wasn't sure if I could make it across the street to the car but my friends helped me over and we headed on our way.
In the car I started getting much sicker. I was dizzy and my chest started to get tight and I couldn't breathe. I knew that I was close to passing out so I told my friends what meds I was allergic to and warned them that I was close to passing out. All of a sudden I lost my vision and couldn't handle the moving car. We got the driver to pull over and I immediately fell out of the car, threw up and passed out in the road. My friends and our kind drivers called an ambulance, the police, and also ran for help. They were all truly amazing throughout the ordeal and managed to stay calm and take control of the situation.
I got to a hospital in strange fashion and I had an interesting few hours at the first hospital they brought me to. (The first ambulance ride and hospital visit I will be happy to describe for people when I return home. However, I know if I post it now my mom will immediately insist that I come home for fear of my general welfare. But really mom, I promise that I'm fine).
I was transferred to a hospital with a cardio unit and a medtronic rep flew in from Joberg to read my device. Turns out that my heart got up to around 350-360 bpm and thats when my device kicked in. It had to shock me 6 times in order to calm me down. Apparently the problem was too much adrenaline... the doc told me basically not to do anything fun while I am still here, but that don't worry I can life a normal life. I just nodded. What do doctors think a normal life is for a 21 year old?!
I am fine now and back at class. It was an interesting experience in which I got a chance to experience first hand the health care system in South Africa, which I have some serious concerns with. I also got to feel the effects of my device and while incredibly painful, it was a good learning experience. I am slightly more humbled now and realize that the putting this thing in me really was for the best.
Hope this bit of excitement makes up for my lack of posts in the last few weeks.
And don't worry mom, I promised I'd come home alive and I don't intend on breaking that promise!
On Sunday I went surfing with 3 other girls in my group. We took the train and had a professional lesson so it was pretty great. We got like a 2 hour lesson and wetsuits all for 20 bucks. Surfing was absolutely amazing. But apparently the beach that we were at has a lot of shark problems. There apparently are shark sightings there everyday. But the place was packed with people, so we weren't too deterred.
Surfing was so much fun. I could definitely do that everyday while I am here. I got up on my first try and after about an hour I was catching waves and getting up without the help of the instructor. So I was really proud of myself. However apparently I was too proud. As the day was coming to a close and we were getting ready to leave I had some trouble in the water.
I was standing in the water holding my board , I had just come in off a wave. All of a sudden my whole body felt like it slammed into something. I shook my head and sort of looked around, very confused. It was like I ran as fast as I could into a rock, but there was absolutely nothing around me. Then I thought maybe I got stung by something. All of a sudden it happened again. The most intense pain of my life, like my whole body being thrown against a brick wall, but I was just standing still in the water. I quickly realized that my defibrillator had just gone off for the first time. I knew I had to get to shore and I started to make my way in when bam! I got shocked again. I called for help and my instructor was nearby. He put me on the surfboard and started pushing me in. Bam! again... I fell off the board and stumbled into the beach calling to my friends for help as I was shocked 3 more times.
I made it out of the water and was able to tell my friend what happened and that I needed to get to a hospital. We made it back up to the surf shack and I walked on my own the whole way up feeling a bit faint but fine overall. I sat down up at the shack and got some water as I explained to them what had happened and asked about the nearest hospital with a cardiology unit. Luckily a man at the shack was headed that way and offered to give us all a lift. As we were sitting there getting everything together to leave I started getting really dizzy. I wasn't sure if I could make it across the street to the car but my friends helped me over and we headed on our way.
In the car I started getting much sicker. I was dizzy and my chest started to get tight and I couldn't breathe. I knew that I was close to passing out so I told my friends what meds I was allergic to and warned them that I was close to passing out. All of a sudden I lost my vision and couldn't handle the moving car. We got the driver to pull over and I immediately fell out of the car, threw up and passed out in the road. My friends and our kind drivers called an ambulance, the police, and also ran for help. They were all truly amazing throughout the ordeal and managed to stay calm and take control of the situation.
I got to a hospital in strange fashion and I had an interesting few hours at the first hospital they brought me to. (The first ambulance ride and hospital visit I will be happy to describe for people when I return home. However, I know if I post it now my mom will immediately insist that I come home for fear of my general welfare. But really mom, I promise that I'm fine).
I was transferred to a hospital with a cardio unit and a medtronic rep flew in from Joberg to read my device. Turns out that my heart got up to around 350-360 bpm and thats when my device kicked in. It had to shock me 6 times in order to calm me down. Apparently the problem was too much adrenaline... the doc told me basically not to do anything fun while I am still here, but that don't worry I can life a normal life. I just nodded. What do doctors think a normal life is for a 21 year old?!
I am fine now and back at class. It was an interesting experience in which I got a chance to experience first hand the health care system in South Africa, which I have some serious concerns with. I also got to feel the effects of my device and while incredibly painful, it was a good learning experience. I am slightly more humbled now and realize that the putting this thing in me really was for the best.
Hope this bit of excitement makes up for my lack of posts in the last few weeks.
And don't worry mom, I promised I'd come home alive and I don't intend on breaking that promise!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Weekend in Simonstown
On Friday we took the train from Rondebosch all of the way to Simonstown. The train station is right across from our classroom so that was really convenient. It was about a 45 minute train ride but it seemed much shorter. The train ran right along the coast so we had a mountain on one side and the ocean on the other... not bad scenery. I put up a bunch of pictures of the view on facebook, so for those who are able feel free to search me and check them out.
Our vans met us at the train station when we arrived and brought us just a few blocks to our hostel. On the train on the way there our student liaison officer (basically an older group guide) was telling us that we were staying in an old convent and we would have to be very quiet and pray several times a day. It was a big deal over whether she was joking or not and she had quite a lot of fun with us. We got there and sure enough, it had been a convent. However it was now converted into a Bed and Breakfast. We all found our rooms and then regrouped before heading out to dinner. About 10 of us went out to eat at a restaurant that our Student Leader knew about. Her brother is in the navy and stationed in Simonstown so he met up with us and showed us where to eat. The food was great and a bunch of the people at the restaurant came over to our table to hang out with "the loud Americans." The cook even came out and bought us all a round of drinks. It was a fun night. I ate springbok steak that was delicious.
On Saturday morning we woke up and walked around Simonstown. It was pretty cloudy so we stayed in town and checked out some of the little shops and grabbed lunch. Then at 2pm we all got in the vans and headed to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. They are two different capes in the Southernmost tip of Africa. Cape Point is also the point where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. We climbed all of the way up to the lighthouse and then we climbed all of the way down to the beach. It was quite the workout but absolutely beautiful. It was really interesting because there were a lot of tourists there so there were many languages being spoken. But it was also very frustrating because we are finally getting used to walking on the left side of roads, paths, and people, but everyone there was doing the opposite so it felt wrong to switch back.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Education in South Africa
This week we talked a little bit about education in South Africa, both pre- and post-apartheid. The lectures were not that interesting but yesterday (Thursday) we actually got to go hang out at some of the schools in Capetown. The 19 of us split up into 5 groups and all went to different high schools. At the end of the day we met back up and shared our experiences and it was very interesting to hear the extreme differences in our accounts.
My group went to a high school in Athelone. It was called Garlandale High School. It is grades 8-12. The school has about 800 students and 33 teachers. It is a state-funded school but there are tuition fees of R1250 ($125) per year which the principal said most students do not pay.
Right when we got there we met with the principal and she told us that today was a bit different from their normal day and they had a group called Life Choices there to talk to the students about HIV. She invited us to the pep rally and of course we went. The guy leading the rally started off by getting everyone excited about the day. He got them to chant and cheer and you could feel the energy in the room. Then he asked for 3 volunteers for a game. 4 kids went up on stage and he made fun of them for not being able to count well. Then he set up the game that each section of the crowd would cheer and dance if a certain contestant got the question right. And everyone would say something like "sorry boghuti" if anyone got a question wrong.
So the game started and the first question was "What does HIV stand for?" The first 3 kids did not know. The fourth girl knew the answer but forgot that before you answered you were suposed to say "Better choices makes a better future." So she didn't get credit. The second question was "What does AIDS stand for?" None of the 4 kids on stage knew that one. Last question was "How is HIV transmitted?" Everyone said unprotected sex.
So then the game ended and he started talking about their program. He said that they were at the school to do VCT which is Voluntary Counseling and Testing. There are a couple representativs of Life Choices at the school 2 days a week in case any of the kids want to talk about HIV. And that day they had free and confidential HIV testing for any of the students that wanted to get tested.
While at the school we shadowed one of the 12th graders. It was cool to talk to her because she is actually from Iraq and just moved to South Africa about a year and a half ago. She moved with her mother and her younger brother. Her father stayed behind. She did not want to move but her parents made her. They were very worried about her health and her safety if she stayed in Iraq. But she said she wanted to go back and that as much as she liked South Africa it would never be home. I was a bit nervous when I heard where she was from because I feel like whenever I meet someone from Iraq I should apologize for being an American, it's a really awkward feeling. But she was very nice and friendly. She talked to us about differences in the school systems between Iraq and South Africa. She said that in Iraq you are given homework and expected to do it and know it the next day because you use it in the classroom. She said that in South Africa they barely ever go over the homework and are often not expected to know it. She also said that in Iraq students are much more respectful. She said that there is hardly any talking in class and people listen and respect the teacher.
Our first class was called Life Orientation and is one of the 4 required classes for students to take. In that class they had another speaker from Life Choices there to talk to them about HIV and sex. He talked to them about some of the facts and some of the myths associated with HIV and it was interesting to see how well informed the kids were. It was also interesting to see how informed and participatory they were, and how sexually active.
The next class we went to was Biology. They were learning about genotypes and phenotypes. That class was very chaotic and people hardly listened to the teacher. He would randomly walk out of the room in the middle of explaining things for no apparent reason. Some students said that sometimes it was to answer his phone. At one point one of the students said to him "Why are you so nervous, afraid your wife will find out?" So it seemed as though something was going on with that teacher. The classroom had graffitti everywhere: tables, walls, chairs. And the students did not have any books for that class. Only handout copies of things if the teacher was able to make them from a book.
Then we had a 15 minute break in which we talked with our student guide and some of her friends. It was kind of interesting. The kids asked what we were doing in South Africa and also why we were at their school. They kept saying we should have gone to see a better school. One of the boys offered to get us drugs and we told him no thanks. We asked them about their plans for next year and our student guide said that she was going to study at UCT (University of Cape Town) while the other kids didn't know. Although one of the girls had a baby and she said she needed to start her life after high school. At the end of the break the girls wanted pictures of us on their cell phones so that was both strange and complimentary (I hope).
The last class of the day that we were able to attend was Math. Math is another of their 4 required classes. Apparently they were reviewing for an exam so the teacher was giving them practice problems and they were working on completing them. They were covering series and sequences.
Since our ride would be coming in the middle of the next class we parted ways with our student guide and stayed and talked with the math teacher for a bit. He was very interesting and beneficial to speak with. He had worked at the school for close to 25 years, so close to the school's opening. He spoke with us about education both pre- and post-apartheid and he said that in some ways things have gotten better but in other ways they have gotten worse. He said that students used to have to memorize things such as multiplication tables and they would make songs for memorization. However he said that his students now do not do such things and often when he asks them to multiply simple fractions they cannot do it in their heads. He described the struggles of teaching saying that being a teacher was supposed to be a prestigious job but that is not true at all. He says that most students do not listen or respect their teachers. He also said that teaching is difficult because he is only about to cover about 80% of the material that he needs to cover in the day.
We also talked with him about politics. He was involved in organizing the Sowetto uprising. He said that back then they used the younger students as a tool for the struggle. They got them riled up and convinced them to fight back. He said that acts of sabotage were not capturing the attention of people, but that young children rebelling would capture the attentions of people in the U.S. and Europe for more than a day. He also talked about how he used to be very involved in the ANC but because of corruption he plans to become a member of COPE and vote for them in the election. (Cope broke off from the ANC and is a somewhat controversial party).
After that we headed back to the classroom to meet up with the rest of the students. It was interesting to hear their experiences since the schools we went to ranged from the poorest of the poor (which was the high school in Langa) to very wealthy and nice schools. The school that I was at was just above the Langa school.
It was a hard day for me. I have always valued education and it's hard to think of the serious disparities that happen in education systems everywhere. It made it especially hard for me to think of my 13 year old sister who attends Langa High School. She is very smart and a great kid. She takes medical training classes on the weekends. I think of what she could do if she was able to go to a nicer school with real resources and teachers who cared and challenged students. That was another big issue, the work ethic of a lot of the teachers. Many of them complained about their jobs and did not care to be there and it reflected in their classes. When I think of the impact that some of the teachers that I have had over the years had on me..... It's just awful to think that so many kids don't get that in their lives.
My group went to a high school in Athelone. It was called Garlandale High School. It is grades 8-12. The school has about 800 students and 33 teachers. It is a state-funded school but there are tuition fees of R1250 ($125) per year which the principal said most students do not pay.
Right when we got there we met with the principal and she told us that today was a bit different from their normal day and they had a group called Life Choices there to talk to the students about HIV. She invited us to the pep rally and of course we went. The guy leading the rally started off by getting everyone excited about the day. He got them to chant and cheer and you could feel the energy in the room. Then he asked for 3 volunteers for a game. 4 kids went up on stage and he made fun of them for not being able to count well. Then he set up the game that each section of the crowd would cheer and dance if a certain contestant got the question right. And everyone would say something like "sorry boghuti" if anyone got a question wrong.
So the game started and the first question was "What does HIV stand for?" The first 3 kids did not know. The fourth girl knew the answer but forgot that before you answered you were suposed to say "Better choices makes a better future." So she didn't get credit. The second question was "What does AIDS stand for?" None of the 4 kids on stage knew that one. Last question was "How is HIV transmitted?" Everyone said unprotected sex.
So then the game ended and he started talking about their program. He said that they were at the school to do VCT which is Voluntary Counseling and Testing. There are a couple representativs of Life Choices at the school 2 days a week in case any of the kids want to talk about HIV. And that day they had free and confidential HIV testing for any of the students that wanted to get tested.
While at the school we shadowed one of the 12th graders. It was cool to talk to her because she is actually from Iraq and just moved to South Africa about a year and a half ago. She moved with her mother and her younger brother. Her father stayed behind. She did not want to move but her parents made her. They were very worried about her health and her safety if she stayed in Iraq. But she said she wanted to go back and that as much as she liked South Africa it would never be home. I was a bit nervous when I heard where she was from because I feel like whenever I meet someone from Iraq I should apologize for being an American, it's a really awkward feeling. But she was very nice and friendly. She talked to us about differences in the school systems between Iraq and South Africa. She said that in Iraq you are given homework and expected to do it and know it the next day because you use it in the classroom. She said that in South Africa they barely ever go over the homework and are often not expected to know it. She also said that in Iraq students are much more respectful. She said that there is hardly any talking in class and people listen and respect the teacher.
Our first class was called Life Orientation and is one of the 4 required classes for students to take. In that class they had another speaker from Life Choices there to talk to them about HIV and sex. He talked to them about some of the facts and some of the myths associated with HIV and it was interesting to see how well informed the kids were. It was also interesting to see how informed and participatory they were, and how sexually active.
The next class we went to was Biology. They were learning about genotypes and phenotypes. That class was very chaotic and people hardly listened to the teacher. He would randomly walk out of the room in the middle of explaining things for no apparent reason. Some students said that sometimes it was to answer his phone. At one point one of the students said to him "Why are you so nervous, afraid your wife will find out?" So it seemed as though something was going on with that teacher. The classroom had graffitti everywhere: tables, walls, chairs. And the students did not have any books for that class. Only handout copies of things if the teacher was able to make them from a book.
Then we had a 15 minute break in which we talked with our student guide and some of her friends. It was kind of interesting. The kids asked what we were doing in South Africa and also why we were at their school. They kept saying we should have gone to see a better school. One of the boys offered to get us drugs and we told him no thanks. We asked them about their plans for next year and our student guide said that she was going to study at UCT (University of Cape Town) while the other kids didn't know. Although one of the girls had a baby and she said she needed to start her life after high school. At the end of the break the girls wanted pictures of us on their cell phones so that was both strange and complimentary (I hope).
The last class of the day that we were able to attend was Math. Math is another of their 4 required classes. Apparently they were reviewing for an exam so the teacher was giving them practice problems and they were working on completing them. They were covering series and sequences.
Since our ride would be coming in the middle of the next class we parted ways with our student guide and stayed and talked with the math teacher for a bit. He was very interesting and beneficial to speak with. He had worked at the school for close to 25 years, so close to the school's opening. He spoke with us about education both pre- and post-apartheid and he said that in some ways things have gotten better but in other ways they have gotten worse. He said that students used to have to memorize things such as multiplication tables and they would make songs for memorization. However he said that his students now do not do such things and often when he asks them to multiply simple fractions they cannot do it in their heads. He described the struggles of teaching saying that being a teacher was supposed to be a prestigious job but that is not true at all. He says that most students do not listen or respect their teachers. He also said that teaching is difficult because he is only about to cover about 80% of the material that he needs to cover in the day.
We also talked with him about politics. He was involved in organizing the Sowetto uprising. He said that back then they used the younger students as a tool for the struggle. They got them riled up and convinced them to fight back. He said that acts of sabotage were not capturing the attention of people, but that young children rebelling would capture the attentions of people in the U.S. and Europe for more than a day. He also talked about how he used to be very involved in the ANC but because of corruption he plans to become a member of COPE and vote for them in the election. (Cope broke off from the ANC and is a somewhat controversial party).
After that we headed back to the classroom to meet up with the rest of the students. It was interesting to hear their experiences since the schools we went to ranged from the poorest of the poor (which was the high school in Langa) to very wealthy and nice schools. The school that I was at was just above the Langa school.
It was a hard day for me. I have always valued education and it's hard to think of the serious disparities that happen in education systems everywhere. It made it especially hard for me to think of my 13 year old sister who attends Langa High School. She is very smart and a great kid. She takes medical training classes on the weekends. I think of what she could do if she was able to go to a nicer school with real resources and teachers who cared and challenged students. That was another big issue, the work ethic of a lot of the teachers. Many of them complained about their jobs and did not care to be there and it reflected in their classes. When I think of the impact that some of the teachers that I have had over the years had on me..... It's just awful to think that so many kids don't get that in their lives.
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