Unitarians: What's the Point?

Hello from the hallowed halls of Harvard! Harvard sure thinks they're hallowed, I'll tell you that for free. I've never seen such a self-satisfied place. I am becoming more conservative by the day just to push back against the group-think orthodoxy here. Soon you'll hear I've joined the NRA and started giving my student loan money to Focus on the Family.

But there will be plenty of time to talk about the many foibles of this joint. First, let's talk about the Unitarians.

Why? Why, Unitarians? What's the point? Why bother? By my lights about half the M.Div students are Unitarian, which is roughly 60% of the Unitarian population in America. C'mon, you know you've only ever met like 5 outside of Massachusetts. It's not really a religion that ever took off, except here. I'll hazard a couple of guesses on why that is: 1) Unitarians believe people are basically good and becoming better, while those of us who stayed awake through eighth grade history are a little more skeptical, and 2) their music sucks.

A basic primer for the uninitiated: Unitarians, who are properly called Unitarian-Universalists, or UU's, believe in one God (hence the Unitarian, as opposed to Trinitarian) and that S/He can be found everywhere and in everyone (hence the Universalist). Things Unitarians Don't Do: they don't have a creed. They don't have a sacred text. They don't believe in divine revelation. They don't believe in redemption and sanctification or anything about Jesus except he seems like a nice guy. They don't believe in hell; not sure about heaven. Things Unitarians Do: recycle. And go to antiwar rallies.

I play a little game with my classmate called Spot the Unitarian, in which when you think you've identified another Unitarian in class, you hiss "Unitarian!" and slap your hand on the desk like you're buzzing in. We can pick them out by the inane things they say. I believe my favorite was last week, when we were talking about various ways of conceptualizing sin: sin as rebellion, as sickness, as brokenness, as violation of creation, etc. Girl in the front row raises her hand. "I don't find sin to be a helpful concept," she said. "Unitarian!" my classmate and I hissed, buzzing in (I narrowly won). "Apparently she doesn't find truth to be a helpful concept either," I whispered. "Or common sense," she whispered back. Unitarian Girl, oblivious to the fact that I was now 10 points ahead in the game thanks to her, droned on, "My mom's spiritual mentor said she thinks of sin as being untrue to your authentic self, and I find that more helpful because it calls people back to their own selves," she said. Yeah, people, you can ponder that all you want and it won't make any more sense on the tenth read-through than it did on the first. I lobbied unsuccessfully for double points based on the fact that she was like Unitarian squared.

When I go back to my authentic self, I find someone who's pretty selfish and petty and argumentative and arrogant, not to mention prone to making fun of foolish people on her blog. Is this the self Unitarian Girl would have me go back to for truth and light? Because this is what I'm working with, people. It's what we're all working with.

Having established that UG didn't really have much use for sin, redemption, salvation, or God, my classmate leaned over and whispered, "So why does she want to be in ministry?" And that's really my question.

Here's the thing: I totally get that you want to make the world a better place, Unitarians. I get that, and I applaud it. You should be social workers, and Legal Aid attorneys, and inner-city teachers, even though honestly I don't think you'll last very long in any of those careers because they will all challenge your belief in the innate goodness of humanity, but you should give it a shot. And you should recycle to your heart's content, and go to protests, and put bumper stickers that say "War Is Not the Answer" (really? doesn't that depend on the question?) on your hybrid cars, and I will support and applaud you. But don't call yourself a church. That's all I'm saying: you're not a church. Churches are communities bound by common belief and a common Savior, redeemed from our common sin and called to live uncommon lives. We don't always like each other, but we're tethered to each other, so we stick it out, bearing one another's burdens, encouraging and holding each other accountable, sometimes disciplining (I know, Unitarians! Disciplining! It's CRAZY out there!), sometimes edifying, celebrating and grieving together.

A common belief in recycling and the Democratic Party does not a church make (though, church folk, we should recycle more and give the Dems another look, just so we're clear on that). So don't call yourself a church. You can be a club! Or a convening! You can get matching hats! I'm with you, Unitarians, I would totally support all of that!

But if you can't say "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting," then church maybe isn't the best description of what you are. Give it some thought.

Back by popular demand

Sorry I've been so slack on the posting, guys, I promise to be better.

So let's play a game called "What Have the Egyptians Invented?" Here's the short answer: everything! At least according to Tariq, who is our guide on our Thursday field trips, which so far have included the pyramids at Saccara and Giza, the Sphinx, Coptic churches, some mosques, and medieval Cairo. And at every stop, Tariq informs us that Egypt was the innovator or leader in some great cultural advancement we all take for granted. Example:

"Do you see these steps leading up to the platform of the pyramid? They are the first steps in the world. Egypt invented stairs."

"These arches hold up the building. Egyptians invented arches." And so on.

My friend Steel and I got a little tired of it after a while. I mean, we get it, you were a great and magical country, although now you survive only because of American foreign aid, but you did not invent everything in the whole world. So now on field trips Steel and I riff on Tariq, like this:

Tariq: "The way they preserved the internal organs of mummies was the first..."
Steel: "Egyptians invented modern medicine."
Me: "Egyptians invented *death*, Steel. And possibly resurrection."

Tariq: "These lamps are the very finest in the world."
Steel: "Egypt invented lamps."
Me: "Egypt actually invented light. And the sun."

Tariq: "This hieroglyph is the first piece of art to depict children as they actually are, with rounded bodies and softer features."
Me: "Egyptians invented modern art."
Steel: "Egyptians invented *all* art, Shannon. Just make it easy on yourself. ALL art."

So on the last field trip, we are standing in a circle around an arched ceiling in some mosque, and Tariq is going on about the workmanship and the innovative architecture, and he says "Egypt invented the squinch," which is apparently some architectural thing but I believe also a Dr. Seuss character. And I start looking around for Steel, who is on the other side of the room, and he catches my eye, and he is smirking. "The squinch," he mouths, and points to the ceiling with mock awe. And I just lose it--at exactly the time Tariq decides to turn his full attention to me (I am standing near him) and act as if he is giving a lecture for one. So I stand trying to look properly interested and respectful, but my laughter is hovering between my face and mouth, and I am SO BAD at hiding what I am thinking, and it does not help that Steel and Michael, who have watched this whole exchange but are standing across the room far from Tariq, have turned their backs to the group and are laughing so hard I can see their shoulders shaking. I finally step back behind someone and shriek with silent laughter. Later on Steel says "That was the worst imitation of someone trying not to laugh I have ever seen. You actually have *no* ability to hide what you are thinking!" I was like, Steel, you are only one in a long line of people to have discovered and mocked this in me.

My other adventure in the mosque occurred when I noticed people sleeping there--because apparently, if it's not prayer time, it's OK to duck into your local mosque and take a nap. I point this out to Steel, and immediately his eyes gleam. "Go lie down next to one of them and I'll take your picture," he says. "It would be the best picture EVER." Absolutely not, say I, but I am already thinking that it actually would be an awesome picture. But there are other people around, including the mullahs, and I'm pretty sure this would be seen as inappropriate. But Steel and Michael are tag-teaming now. "Best. Picture. EVER," says Michael, and Steel chimes in, "I'll pay you 100 pounds. Please do it, you'll hate yourself if you don't." And I say, guys, if this guy wakes up while we're doing this, I'm pretty sure he has to either kill me or marry me.

Steel: "I feel like if he married you, *you* would kill *him.*
Michael: "One of you is definitely not coming out of this alive, but smart money is on you."
Steel: "Because you persevere."

And so on. In the end I stood firm, but then I regretted it all day. So next time we go to a mosque we're totally on for it. We're just going to make sure that as soon as the photo is taken, we make tracks out the door and back to the hotel. And it will be the picture that goes on the Christmas cards.

Why Am I 30 and Taking Quizzes?

I have three Arabic teachers, and my favorite one is Nancy. Seriously, if I could shrink her down and make a pocket Nancy, I would. She's the most exuberant, affectionate person ever, and we compare notes on kids because she asks me every day, "How is your walad (little boy)?" and so we chat. And she pats my face and strokes my hair because Middle Easterners seem to be just a little more tactile than we are. They also get right in your face when you talk, but that's another post.

Here's the thing: she's a fantastic teacher, we're learning tons, we're perking along in our class being all productive and go-team-go, and then she feels pressure from another teacher who gives her class daily quizzes, which they DREAD, because no one is 12 anymore. So yesterday Nancy announces we may have a quiz today. Except here's how she announces it:

"I think tomorrow maybe we have a quiz. Maybe I give you the Arabic and you give me the English, maybe I give you the English and you give me the Arabic. Maybe it is matching. Maybe it is finish the sentence. Maybe I divide you into teams and we keep score. Maybe you make a play or a song. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week..." At this point I'm like, maybe we fight in the caged ball at the Thunderdome! I mean seriously, what the hell?!?! How do you even prepare for that? So we said Nancy, what might be on this quiz-that-may-or-may-not-happen-tomorrow-or-at-some-point-in-the-indefinite-future? And she named off...everything we've covered in the last three weeks of being in class for four hours a day.

So today was in fact a quiz. And there was English-to-Arabic, and Arabic-to-English, and matching, and fill in the blank--it was a veritable smorgasbord of quiz options. And I only missed one! But still on the evaluation forms I filled out today, I wrote, "No quizzes, Nancy. Quizzes are not for grown-ups. Let Yvonne torture Class A if she so chooses." So we'll hope for the best.

Meanwhile you'll be glad to know I can say "My father works at the United Nations" in Arabic...because that's a phrase I'm sure to have ample use for.

Guitars and Overheads in Egypt: No Escaping the Evangelicals

Last night I went to church for the first time since I've been here. It appeared to be a nondenominational community church; my Arabic teacher, who I went with, just kept saying "It's Protestant, it's Protestant," and I couldn't get her to be any more specific than that. Maybe they don't have as many flavors of Protestant here as they do at home.

So we walked in and were immediately greeted with--wait for it--a worship team led by a guy on guitar with the words on the overhead projector! People, I was so at home. It's like the evangelical version of the Mass or Communion: wherever you are in the evangelical world, you're home, because they too will have guitars and overheads.

There was a section where we sat that was labeled "For Foreigners," which I'm going to assume sounds more inviting in the original Arabic, but it was because those pews had headphones where you could listen to an English translation. It felt like sitting at the U.N., so I chose to eschew the headphones and trust in my ability to follow the basic arc of a worship service. Since I've been to a few in my life, you know.

What I found was that not understanding most of what was going on was actually refreshing, because I felt like it bypassed my rational mind and just went straight to my spirit like a healing balm. I just wanted to be in church. I have finally made peace with the fact that no matter how far afield I am tempted to wander, Jesus has caught ahold of me and is not letting go.

When you are not absorbed in understanding every word, you can hear the brokenness and desire in people's voices when they pray. You can hear the passion when they sing. There was one song where I understood exactly three words: walidi (my father), kul boum(every day), and alleluia, which apparently translates the same way in every language. Alleluia, my Father, every day. It's pretty much all you need to know.

I looked around that church at these brown-skinned people singing in a language that is so close to the one Jesus actually spoke when the Word was made flesh, in this land where He fled to safety as a child and where so many of our spiritual forebears--Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Joseph--have sojourned, and was so struck by the reality that of all the places to go and people to be born into, He chose the poor, the dispossessed, the marginalized, those in turmoil, those who are seen as "other" by the people around them--and He chooses them still, and your best chance of seeing Jesus is to do like Zaccheus did--fight your way into the midst of those people and find a perch. I can meditate on that forever and give intellectual assent to that truth but sometimes I just need to sit and experience it happening around me, and last night I got to.

Alleluia, my Father, every day.

I went to Luxor this weekend, in southern Egypt, with several friends, because there are a ton of pharaonic ruins here, including the Valleyof the Kings. And yeah, the temples and tombs were great, but here's the best part.

We climbed up a mountain to get a better look at some ruins, and I looked out on some kids below us who were playing soccer barefoot onthis rocky field. "I want to play!" I squealed, and promptly bailed on the ruins to join the game. There were 10 of us, all the rest of them Egyptian boys between about 11 and 15.

In pickup games, you don't ask to join, you just jump in. I jumped in. An older boy took command: "One, two, three, four, five," he counted, naming off teams. "Wahid, etneen, talata, arbaah, khamza," I returned in Arabic, and earned a grin, and we were off. Now I am not a brilliant player, friends, but I know how to exploit an opponent's weakness, which is that when I walk on the field, and I am smaller than everyone but the youngest kids, and a girl, and an American, I know they have no expectations. If I can make a few strong moves before they decide I'm worth marking up on, maybe score a goal or make an assist, I've made an impact on the game.

I played for about 45 minutes, in the heat of the day. At the end, Iwas slick with sweat, my hair had fallen out of my ponytail and wassticking to my neck, my face was that dark red color that used toalarm Mom when I played as a kid; my feet were cracked and bleeding from playing barefoot on rocks and I was covered in dust and I had a scrape all the way down my elbow from getting knocked down just as I made a sweet cross to center (I tucked and rolled to my feet like Ilearned as a kid, Daddy). And I had scored twice and had one assist. When I left, they called out, "Good soccer, madam, good soccer!""Good soccer, shebab (young ones)!" I called back. "Masr kwaiis!"(Egypt is great!") They cheered in return, "Amrika kwaiis! Welcome to Masr!"

Sometimes you get a moment of pure grace. I got 45 of them today. We cheered when we did well, we cracked on each other when someone juked or got juked, and we high-fived after goals. Pure love of this game that we have all played since we were knee-high to the ball was more important than where we came from or what language we spoke. It is one of the things I love best about sport: the team, the community, is more important than the differences between its members. These kids have probably heard some things said about women and about Americans that I would find deplorable, and when I am honest, I have ideas about Middle Eastern teens that I'm not proud of. But today, we were just teammates. I laughed when I set up the youngest kid for a goal and he jumped into my arms, I almost got teary when I scored and one of the older kids on the other team nodded with respect and said "Nice soccer, madam, good soccer," and for a minute we were all better than we usually are. As the old lady said during the Montgomery bus boycott, "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest."

Frederich Buechner, by way of my friend Linc Ashby, says the gospel should make you laugh, make you cry, and make you believe impossible things, like a fairy tale. Today I saw the gospel on a dusty soccer field in Egypt. And friends, it really is good news.

I am not a sentimentalist who believes these moments are all it takes to create global peace and affirm the humanity of all mankind. I just believe in naming things when we see them; and we spend so much time naming the bad. We must remember also to name the good and true and holy, the perfect moments, the moments of grace, to celebrate and commemorate when we catch a glimpse of the way things should be.

To those of you who are my compatriots, happy Independence Day as we celebrate 230 years of fumbling and striving for liberty. For my friend who has just celebrated a landmark in his own country's liberation movement in June, blessings as we all seek a more just and honest world. And to all of us who are citizens of the Kingdom of God, as Paul writes, and know our allegiance is not to a country but to a King and a Kingdom of peace and justice, may we all continue to live into the grace and liberty of God. Grace grows in unlikely places if we have eyes to see it.

Thoughts After A Week in Cairo

1) It is one of the great ironies of life that Africa produces some of the best coffee in the world, and then everyone drinks Nescafe instant coffee. I have drunk more Nescafe in the past six weeks than ever in life. Where is the Ethiopian blend that Starbucks sells? Oh, right--it's at STARBUCKS, in the U.S. And here there is only Nescafe. I think that could come up on Judgment Day, guys.

One of the guys in my group was complaining about it, because it gets served at every mid-morning break, and I explained that you can't think of it as coffee, it will throw you off completely; you have to think of it as a drink unto itself. "Awesome, Nescafe!" I find that it's much more palatable that way. And honestly, if you put enough cream and sugar in anything, it will taste OK. Much like you can't taste the nail-polish-remover vibe of Egyptian vodka if you mix it with enough mango juice.

2) Bakshish. Bakshish means tipping, and EVERYONE gets bakshish. The culture of bakshish is what makes Egyptian life go round. You bakshish the guy who cleans the room, the guy who picks up the laundry, the guy who brings back the laundry, the guy who gives you directions on the street, the guy who walks you to your destination because you didn't bakshish him when he just gave oral directions, ad infinitum. I think the first gesture little kids learn here is the upward-turned palm: "Bakshish?" Sometimes we are just the Ugly Americans who refuse to bakshish, like on our field trip yesterday when this woman was standing at the door of the bathroom so she could push the button on the automatic hand dryer for you. We were all like, united we stand guys, there is no bakshish for that.

3) Insh'allah. It punctuates every sentence, because an Egyptian will never tell you he is going to do something without adding "Insh'allah" at the end--"if God wills it." So my friend Michael and I throw Insh'allah into every conversation now, whether it makes sense or not, and I may not be able to break the habit when I get home. "I wonder if it's used for puntuation, like Americans use 'like,'" I speculated one day, and Michael immediately launched into a whole riff on it: "And she was, insh'allah, 'Why you can't answer your phone?' and he was, insh'allah, 'Bitch please,' and she was insh'allah 'Oh hell no.' Insh'allah." Today Michael and I are going to sneak into the Hyatt to go swimming. Insh'allah.

First Day of School!

I started Arabic classes today. It's an incredibly hard language, and I don't want to be presumptuous, but I might be good at it, people. The conversational teacher thinks so. She appreciates that I am willing to make mistakes in oral conversation, which has really always distinguished me as a language learner: my ability to make mistakes. But I have learned to say "I am not Egyptian" in Arabic. In case anyone thought I was trying to pass.

And so the second phrase I'd like to learn is "Back the f**k off" which until now I've had to use in English, and I feel it would be so much more effective to communicate with people in their native tongue. Because we are DAWs (see post below), some people were trying to get a little handsy in the bazaar yesterday. I ignored it when it was just people stroking my hair and even when someone grabbed my thigh, mostly because I couldn't see who it was, but when someone pinched me from behind, I said "F**K OFF" very loudly. (The asterisks are for my dad, folks, he likes to believe I don't use words like this and I like to humor him.) And it seemed to do the trick.

Egypt was partially redeemed, though, when we took a boat ride on the Nile and ate mangoes and apricots. I have to say I geeked out a little. Everyone thought it was cool, because it's the Nile, but they'd have thought the Amazon was just as cool, whereas I was like "This is where the baby Moses drifted! This was all blood once! Those reeds could have been where Miriam hid to watch him!" Yeah, I Bible-geeked on these poor people, who basically humor me without really knowing what I'm going on about. Except for one guy who is doing his grad work at Baylor and also grew up Southern Baptist and between the two of us we can name all the books of the Bible, the 10 plagues of Egypt (that one was all me--we were stuck until I remembered boils), the Old Testament kings, and we were both sword drill champs as kids. I don't think I need to tell you we've really established ourselves as the cool kids in this set.

Cairo is wild and chaotic and energetic, it sounds like a block party every night, with horns honking and people yelling and music playing, and it's great. I can't get over how different it is from my travel in South Africa, though--we are not encouraged to mix with locals, we have a security guard with us at all times, they won't let us out of the building where we study during our lunch break--in fact they won't even let us linger on the stoop--and we have to let someone know where we are at all times. We are the State Department's delicate desert flowers, apparently, but I'm sure my parents aren't the only ones breathing a sigh of relief.

Oh, and our Fourth of July celebration is--wait for it--at the British International School! Could it be any more perfect that Independence Day is being celebrated with the Brits?! Apparently the American Embassy is being reupholstered or something, there's some reason it's not there this year, so the Brits kindly offered their facility. We're going because we're fiercely patriotic and, you know, free booze.

Dirty American Whores

OK, so there are a few posts below that I wrote while in Cape Town but just put up. I'm in Cairo now, where I've been since Wednesday night. We're at a kind of shady hotel, but in a really good neighborhood, since as one of the program coordinators told us, as Americans we're automatically considered upper class, and class is VERY IMPORTANT to Egyptians. I am always aware that being white and American opens a lot of doors, and it's good to openly acknowledge it, but not necessarily in a "GOOOOAAAAAALLLLL!" kind of way. I mean, she was really psyched to let us know that we were all upper-crust as far as the unwashed masses were concerned.

We are also, of course, Dirty American Whores, forthwith shortened to DAWs, in their view. I mean the women in the program, of course--the guys are fine. But the women wear pants, and short sleeves, and we are bare-headed. And those of us who have been to other countries are like whatever, we know that's how we'll be viewed, you ignore it and go about your business. But some of these poor girls are out of the country for the first time and they can't understand why they're being stared at. I very helpfully explained, "We are the Dirty American Whores. Embrace it. And remember that since you can't understand what they're yelling at you anyway, you can let it roll of you." It is funny, though--you can immediately pick out those of us who have been out of country and know that we are objects of interest because we are American women, and those for whom it is a brave new world.

What I have also realized is that it's really hard for American women to be discreet, even when they want to be. We have all been talking about how short-sleeved shirts are usually cap-sleeved, and V-necked, and pants sit low on the hips, so even as you aim to be conservative in your dress--no one's trying to wear a burka, we're just trying not to draw undue attention--you're kind of hampered by American fashion choices. Oh well. Dirty American Whores. And what makes it worse it that when someone smiles at me, I smile back. Women don't do that here, they look away because no one should smile at them, because you shouldn't see them. But I am cheerfully American, and I have a Pavlovian response to smiles, even skeevy ones--I smile back. Whatever, I know I'm a cultural ambassador, blah blah, but they need to know there's another way.

I have been glad, though, that I dyed my hair a darker brown. The blondes are definitely drawing more stares. Although "more" is really relative at this point.

Classes start Sunday. We're just kicking around getting the lay of the land until then. There are some very cool people in this program, which makes all the difference.

Still in top form

A couple of recent incidents, just so you don't think I've lost my form:

1) Father Terry drove me out to Khayelitsha recently and was asking after my (nonexistent) romantic life. And I was saying, you know, I don't stress about it too much, but it's a little disheartening, because I'm funny, I'm bright, I'm pretty cute--and then I realize that he has only ever seen Traveling Shannon, which is to say Scrub Shannon, with no makeup and a baseball cap and wind jacket. And I am inexplicably seized by a desire to make it clear that I Do Not Always Look Like This. So I blurt out, "I mean, you haven't seen it here, but at home I'm totally cute! I have good hair and my clothes fit and--I'm really cute with a little bit of effort!" And he, poor man, is saying, "Yes, of course you are!" And I think, I am an ASS. Really no way to salvage that one.

2) I was waiting for the elevator the day we left for Cairo and we had the morning free. I'm feeling particularly buoyant, listening to my iPod; I have just run 5 miles, so I'm feeling strong and high-spirited, if a bit flushed and sweaty, and I am heading to the swimming pool, so I am wearing my bikini top and short shorts. And the iPod is playing booty-shaking music, so I doing the full-on booty-shaking dance, because I think I am alone in the hallway--until I turn around, mid-dance move, and three guys in my program are staring at me. Fortunately the elevator arrived then to swallow me in my ignominy. Because I am an ASS. And damn you, Ciara, for making such irresistible booty-shaking music.

The State Department has plans for me

So we had a day-long orientation for Cairo, where I will be studying Arabic for two months, on Monday. There are 30 of us, and the group is weighted a little more heavily toward grad students than undergrads, so we have already sorted ourselves into the "over-25s" and the youngsters. At one point in orientation, the girl next to me said, "I'm really glad to see there's an age spread." "Yeah," I agreed, "I was afraid everyone would be 19, and I'd be the old lady at 30."

"Oh, but you look young, so you'll be fine," she said.

I LOOK young? You know I almost stabbed her in the eye with my pen. I AM young. Ridiculous child.

Orientation included a panel that should have been called "The State Department Has Plans for You." Turns out it is costing them about $17K a head for each of us this summer, and the panel was about career options in--surprise!--the foreign service. They've probably got retinal scans and blood vials on all of us already.

Here's the thing: I am an academic crackhead. EVERYTHING is interesting to me. When they spoke about careers in foreign service and how you would have to study Arabic for at least 10 years to be proficient, I go, "That is AWESOME! How much would I love to do that? I could totally be in the foreign service!" And I have to remind myself that I have that reaction to every new career option that comes along: I could totally be a historian! Or a clergy member! Or an attorney! Or a public health specialist! Or an AIDS educator! Or...and then I have to remind myself, Self, you already know what you are really, really passionate about, so let's not get sidetracked. But it's hard, because I feel like I am dominated by my inner 4-year old who is like "I want to be an astronaut and a ballerina and the president of the world" and doesn't realize those first two are mutually exclusive careers and the third doesn't exist.

So I will probably not join the foreign service. But let's not rule anything out.

Last Day in Cape Town

Today was my last day in Cape Town. I walked around the botanical gardens, went for my last cup of coffee at Seattle's Best, where they were so sad to see their best customer go that my coffee was free, and chatted with Father Terry. Before I left, I said, "I want a blessing." I mean, that's part of the gig as a priest, right? I figured he'd just rattle off a brief prayer in his offices, but he said, "Meet me down in the cathedral." He put on his collar, and then I knelt in front of the altar in this great church that has been such a voice for justice and joy--in short, such a voice for the gospel, in this broken, beautiful place. He made the sign of the Cross on my palms and forehead, and said, "In the name of the God who created you, the Christ who died to redeem you, and the life-giving Spirit who breathes on you" before speaking a blessing over me. Seriously, Anglicans do it up right. When they bless you, you know you've been blessed.

Then we walked out in the brightness of day, and he hugged me and said, "All right, girl--safe home. Take care of yourself. And don't be too good." I believe I will keep him as a friend, which is the very best thing I could have brought back from South Africa.

Headed home in the evening. 48 hours until I head to DC and then to Cairo.

Shoes and Jackets

My mom and some of her friends sent money so I could buy winter coats and shoes for all the kids at the group home where I have been volunteering. So now every kid has a coat and shoes, and they are ridiculously cute.

Working with the kids has been an interesting experience. In some ways it's been very like working with homeless kids in the U.S.: same emotional outbursts, same desire for affection, same core loneliness. And frustratingly, same lack of expertise on the part of many caregivers. The caregivers at this home are wonderful, nurturing people, but like at home, childcare doesn't pay much, so you're not getting people with masters' degrees in child development. I've already posted on how they discourage volunteers from holding the babies because "they'll get spoiled," so now let's talk about education.

There are 4 school-aged kids at the home, but only two are in school; two are basically being home-schooled, minus the education part. The two who are in school are woefully behind. Ani is 7 and her brother Ctaum is 6, and one day when they got home from school Ani was supposed to practice writing the numbers 1-10 and their names on the chalkboard. She did that, although she's just copying from a chart because she can't read yet, and then she started making up nonsense words, stringing together letters and saying "What does that spell?" Then a new one: "What does this spell?" She was really enjoying herself, until one of the caregivers snapped, "Ani, you are not taking it seriously. If you're not going to copy your lessons, go in and take a nap."

If you have a modicum of child development knowledge, you know what she was doing is a critical preliteracy step. She is making the connection that these squiggles we call letters are each associated with a sound, and when you string these sounds together you get words, and words have meaning. And you learn to make nonsense words before you make real words. Frankly she should have been doing it at 4 or 5, but since she's finally doing it now, let's not shut it down.

In another instance, I was working with CarRlo, who is 7 and has only been at the home a month or so. "He doesn't know anything, he hasn't been to school," one of the caregivers said in his hearing. "He doesn't even know his numbers." Well, true enough, CarRlo can't write every number. But if you put a pile of crayons in front of him, he can count them all. If you take some away, he understands that you have less. If you add some, he understands that you have more. He has the basics of numeracy and he's actually pretty sharp; he just can't yet associate the amount with the number that stands for it.

It is frustrating to watch this and know these caregivers, so well-meaning and so loving, just aren't equipped to help these kids the way they need. And as a visitor and a white person, I can't jump in and say "No, what she's doing is an essential part of learning" or "Actually, he knows quite a lot." I say it to the kids quietly when I get a chance, and I tell the caregivers in private about what I've observed and what might be done to help them. But they're not well-educated themselves and they don't know how to assist kids who have so many gaps--kids who remind me so much of their Star of Hope counterparts.

It has made me really, really glad that Phenias is at KIPP, and really, really despairing that there are just not enough KIPPs for every kid in the world who needs one.

Apartheid

I went to the Apartheid Museum the other day, which is a really good way to recognize the absurdity of racialized laws, and also a good way to make you feel that your own country has its crap to deal with, but hey, you're not South Africa, and that's gotta count for something.

Honestly, a lot of the stuff at the museum just brings home how awful American segregation was because there are so many parallels, and somehow you can get so outraged at other people's flaws and forget your own. That way lies madness, friends. And self-righteousness, which is the same thing. So I'd be in the museum going "They separated out the black children and gave them inferior educations--that's AWFUL! Oh, yeah, we did that too." "Look at how they didn't allow people of color to choose where they lived and they paid them less...wait, never mind."

But the craziest part was that when they assigned race to people after the apartheid era began in 1948, and you had to carry a pass book that said your race and where you were allowed to live and work, etc., so much of it was arbitrary that people could, and did, successfully appeal. "I'm not colored, I'm white" and then they'd win. By the way, the prize is getting to be human.

So speaking of colored, that was one of the three main castes under apartheid: white, colored, and Bantu , or black. Colored was the in-between caste: people of mixes origins. While they had nominally greater rights than blacks, they still suffered discrimination, relocation and most of the other ills of apartheid, and were a significant part of the liberation struggle. I've heard it suggested several times that the colored are the people who have suffered the most psychologically, although perhaps not materially. Under apartheid, they were too black to be white, and now that the ANC is running things, they are too white to be black. It's like having a whole social class of mixed-race kids, and they never know where they belong.

Father Terry--you will remember him, children, as the priest who *didn't* arrange for me to meet Desmond Tutu--is colored. He married a white woman when that was still illegal. I believe in order for it to be OK--and this is where we truly see the absurdity of the race laws--she had to voluntarily give up whiteness and become colored. Incidentally, can you even imagine what a weapon that could be in a marital spat? "I gave up being white for you and you can't even walk the damn dogs?" Wow.

I went with him yesterday to drop off some donations to a parish in Khayelitsha, a township outside Cape Town. He was talking about the parish priest, who is black, and the great work he is doing, and then added "He's a great chap, but he's said that colored people have no culture, so I really want to kick his arse." Now, aside from the fact that people saying "arse" is always funny, and that he said it somewhat in jest, there was an undercurrent of hurt there as well. The apartheid government did a really good job of pitting tribe against tribe and black against colored, and they are still reaping the whirlwind.

This country is beautiful and wretched, with such big problems and such vast potential. Like all of us, I suppose.

Hitching a Ride in Soweto

So you immediately know Johannesburg, consistently rated one of the most dangerous cities in the world, is an entity unto itself when you get to the airport. There, amidst the food stalls and tourist kitsch, is a place where you can drop off your gun--because so many city residents are armed. Presumably you can pick it back up on your return to Joberg. That's some municipal service, I tell ya.

I stayed at one of the only, if not *the* only, backpacker hostel in Soweto. It's really just a house, run by this really enterprising young guy named Lebo, who turned his parents' old house into a hostel, and it's great for getting a feel for the area instead of just trundling around on the day tour.

I had another unfortunate run-in with my sense of direction. I walked to the Hector Peterson museum, which is about 10 minutes from Lebo's. Now since Soweto streets are not often marked, and in fact do not always exist, the directions went something like "So cross this vacant lot, and then there's this footpath--well, not really a footpath, it's like a dirt mound, and you'll walk by that and climb the hill and cross the train tracks." The only way I found the place is that it's housed in an old church, so I could follow the steeple. The museum commemorates the student uprisings that started in 1976 over the introduction of Afrikaans as a language of instruction for black children, and ended up giving the liberation movement its second wind when so many of the leaders were in exile or prison. So I went to that, and then to Mandela's house, and Tutu's house, and I buy some stuff at the craft market and now it's getting on toward dusk, so it's time to head back to Lebo's. Except here's the thing. Vacant lots all kind of look the same, and there are lots of places to cross the railroad tracks. So I am wandering all over Soweto. And people are incredibly kind--they stop to ask if I am lost, and if I need a lift, and I'm all brave and confident like they say you should be, saying, "No, no, I'm fine, thanks." And then I notice that this particular vacant lot has children foraging for scrap metal, which Lebo's does not, so I've hit a slummier area. Another car stops and a man and his wife say, "Are you lost?" Yes, I say, but I'm sure I'll find it. "Are you safe?" they ask. Well, you probably know better than I do, I think, but I nod enthusiastically. They offer a lift, I decline, they drive off. I head back towards the museum.

One of the craft sellers at the museum recognizes me, and asks again if I am lost. Yup, I am, I say, and since I can't remember the name of Lebo's street, which probably doesn't *have* a name, I'm just going to sit there until Lebo comes looking for me. So this guy says, My brother and I will give you a ride. You bought something from me, we are friends now, is no problem. And for a minute I think, there's a chance I could end up in pieces in one of the countless vacant lots in Soweto. But you gotta take chances. So I let him drive me home--which he actually did, because sometimes people are lovely.

One of my favorite sites in Soweto: children flying kites they have made out of sticks and plastic trash bags. Aren't we marvelous creatures?

Soweto!

So the blog silence has been because I have spent the last four days in Soweto! Soweto, site of the student uprisings of the 1970's and '80s that gave the liberation movement its second wind when most of its leaders had been jailed or exiled; Soweto, synonymous with resistance and struggle; Soweto, slum of the world.

No, no, kidding on that last part. But Soweto is fascinating in its contradictions. Some parts look like fairly well-kept lower middle class neighborhoods: brick houses, cars in the driveways, well-tended lawns, kids playing in the street. Many of the houses were built around World War II when the residents had to rent them from the government--blacks weren't allowed to own property--but they've now become homeowners, and it's a sign of prosperity to have made renovations to your house, like replastering it or replacing the tin roof. Then a block away will be vacant fields where kids scavenge for scrap metal to sell, and at night the sky gets heavy and hazy with smoke as people start their fires because there's no electricity.

There are many things to say about Soweto, and I will touch on some of them in future posts. But here's one that stands out:

I ate kota, also known as bunnychow. Yeah, exactly. It's designed to be heavy, substantial food for very little money--5 rand, or about eighty cents. For that you get about half a loaf of bread filled with mashed potatoes, unidentified meats, chicken feet--the FEET, people, not a drumstick, not attached to a leg, just the feet, complete with little chicken toes and little chicken toenails--and some vegetable stew, all crowned by a piece of American cheese and a slab of bologna. When I ordered it at one of the little roadside stands where it's sold, the lady thought I was mistaken because white people never eat it. She kept trying to redirect me to the sandwiches. But I had been told that my Soweto experience would not be complete without eating kota, so I ate it. I ate it all. I even ate what little meat I could find on the creepy little chicken feet. And here is my conclusion:

Black people are not nearly angry enough.

We all know that in the U.S. we did the same thing: during slavery, whites gave whatever was left over of the animal to blacks. And I have always focused on the creativity and ingenuity of American blacks in taking that meat and making delicacies out of it. But having now eaten some of these inferior cuts of meat, which here was called "boysmeat" (i.e. the meat you would feed to your house boy) I say again: you should be much, much angrier than you are. Really, it should be a rallying point. And while people have done a great job of making it palatable, even tasty, I mean there's no lack of effort here, you can just tell it's not good meat. Taco Bell would reject this meat, is what I am saying. And by the way, you can pile anything you want on top of tripe and it in no way diminishes or disguises the fact that it's sheep intestines. The tough chewiness gives it away every time. Yeah, I've eaten that too.

Off to Jo'berg

I am heading to Johannesburg tonight for a few days, and am staying in Soweto. Will post more from there.

Ships Passing in the Night

So apparently I've barely missed several chances to meet Archbishop Tutu. My mojo for meeting famous people is waning. I'm entirely blaming this on Father Terry, though, who has been hanging out with him all week. They saw "Amazing Grace" together, they were at a funeral, and Tutu officiated at Friday morning mass, which is, I don't know, THREE MINUTES from where I stay and I would totally have gone, had I known. But did Father Terry mention it? No, he did not.

So when I took him to task for this, pointing out that it was a long-held dream to meet the archbishop and he might have given me a heads-up, he said, "I had no idea! You should have told me!"

Now on the one hand, I like that Tutu is apparently just one of his boys and he forgets that he is, you know, a towering moral figure and Nobel Prize winner. However, when you're talking regularly with a pilgrim who has come 12,000 miles because of her fascination with the South African freedom movement, you would think it would occur to you to let her know when her hero is around.

"But you should have said something!" he insisted. Look, Father Terry, says I, I didn't say anything because I thought it was a pipe dream. It would be like if you came to America and told me you wanted to meet President Clinton; I probably can't arrange that for you. If, perchance, I am having lunch with Bill, I would probably tell you where to be and when. If you came as a student of the civil rights movement and I was having coffee with John Lewis and Andy Young, I don't think you would specifically have to tell me you'd like to meet them for me to know that would probably be a big deal to you. I'm just saying.

So I said look, since you favor explicit requests, if you're having a friendly game of cards or a round of drinks with Mandela, I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO MEET HIM. Geez.

So bummed. I was this close to receiving communion from Archbishop Tutu. I would have talked about that for the rest of my life. For that reason alone, you can probably all be grateful that I missed it.

Touring

So I've been quite touristy lately--went down to the Cape of Good Hope the other day, where Vasco de Gama sailed around Africa to complete the trade route to the East. Bartolome Dias had tried before and failed, naming it the Cape of Storms. When de Gama made it around, it was rechristened. All those fifth-grade lessons on the conquistadors really do come back to you.

The Cape of Good Hope was long believed to be the southernmost tip of Africa. Actually, Cape Argullus a few miles away is, but it's not nearly as good a name or story as Cape of Good Hope, so we'll keep believing the myth. So I have stood at the end of the world. You know how when you're younger you make lists of "Things to Do by the Time I'm 30" because you'll be so old and decrepit by 30 you won't be able to accomplish anything significant after that? Standing at the end of the world was on mine. Check that one off the list. And it was just as cool as I had imagined it would be. Some of the dreams you had at 16 you look back on later and think, "Why on earth did I ever think I wanted to do THAT?!" But sometimes it's just as satisfying as your 16-year-old self had hoped.

I went on a day-long safari on Saturday at a game reserve about two hours outside of Cape Town. It's so strange to see animals just wandering around like they belong there. Giraffes, lions, cheetahs, ostriches, antelope, rhinos, zebras, wildebeest, it was like the road show of The Lion King. What's disconcerting is that it doesn't feel like Africa--it feels like being in a movie of Africa. You half expect Meryl Streep and her Afrikaaner accent to pop up. You drive past a herd of zebra and say, "Wow, it's just like 'Out of Africa,' except not so long and boring!" I guess that's because Africa has taken on such a mythical quality for us that even when you're here, it feels a bit like living in a myth.

There were several Americans on this tour. Let's start with the bearable one--and yes, that was singular. The guy next to me was a very interesting man, in town for the World Association of Newspapers convention. "Oh, which newspaper do you work for?" I ask. The New York Times, he replies, and explains he is not a journalist, he is on the business side. "So you were part of the Times going digital?" I ask. He confirms. So I did what any of us would do: I launched into a tirade about Times Select. I'm like look, you're basically making me pay for Kristof and Friedman and occasionally Dowd. Who the hell reads Krugman? Or Rich? And I can't even remember the others. It's only after he takes me to dinner and gives me his card to keep in touch that I find out he is the PRESIDENT of the news division. I harangued the president of the news division of the New York Times about the $8 a month the Times online costs me.

People, I think we all know there's a change a-comin'. I think he heard me, and through me, the will of the people.

This brings me to the other tourists, who are the reason the world hates Americans. We really are dreadful in groups. I won't dwell on the woman in the "It's good to bee Grandma" shirt festooned with bees, or the chain-smoker, or the couple who talked loudly about how they couldn't figure out their camera while everyone else was trying to listen to the tour guide. No, I think I'll just leave you with this exchange:

Loud American Tourist: The Africans, how many of them have AIDS now?
Me: Well, it varies by country. South Africa and Botswana have the highest rates at around 25%.
LAT: Yeah, and just think about who's fixing our meals.

Wow. I mean, wow. I thought we were past all that. Does she know you can't get it from toilet seats either?

NY Times guy said later that my face was priceless, so Kim, you'll be glad to know I haven't lost my inability to keep my thoughts from appearing on my face.

Less Than Two Weeks Left

For the last several days, I've been debating whether to head for another country. Maybe to Namibia to see the sand dunes, or over to Zimbabwe to raft Victoria Falls and then come back through Botswana.

Confession: I am a passport stamp junkie.

In fact, I'm disappointed that they no longer put those colorful exotic stamps on your passport. I want as many as I can get.

And realizing that has made me realize something else. We all have status symbols we revere. For some, it's Gucci shoes or a Prada handbag. For others, the opposite--a certain simplicity of wardrobe that suggests the wearer is too absorbed with the grand and lofty things of life to be bothered by something so frivolous as fashion. For me, it's the passport. A well-worn passport suggests sophistication, worldliness, a certain cultural hipness, a propensity for risk-taking.

This is as unfounded and trivial a way to judge someone as judging them by their handbag would be. Well-worn passports also suggest great privilege, both the time and money to travel the world in a way most people will only ever see in books.

It is easy to condemn other people's status symbols, but hard to own up to your own. On safari yesterday, I met a very interesting guy whom I later had dinner with. He's originally Chilean, educated in the States, and is the president of the news division of the New York Times. I like to think that I would be friends with him no matter what his station in life were, but I have to admit that I mentally checked off all the status symbols he hit (international background: check, Choate for prep school: check, Ivy League undergraduate and graduate degrees: check, well-traveled: check, and double points for the Times affiliation). And having checked them off, thought, "I could be friends with this guy." I'm not proud of that.

I didn't come to Africa to raft the Zambezi or hear Namibia's roaring dunes. I came because I think this country is at an extraordinary crossroads as it decides that kind of nation it will be and reckons with its legacy of injustice and oppression. I came to see what the church is doing. I came for the people--people who are doing everything from tentatively starting dialogues to those who are in the trenches of land reform and AIDS.

I want to go to Johannesburg and see the apartheid museum and the site of the Soweto uprising. I want to stand in the place where the Truth and Reconciliation hearings were held. I do want to see Namibia's sand dunes and Victoria Falls, and I will come back to see them. But not this time. For now, I stay in South Africa.

Rite of Passage

For those of you worried that at 30, my marriage prospects are waning, fear no more. Emmanuel has stepped in the gap. Or something.

Emmanuel teaches African drumming with his friend at my hostel on Thursday evenings, and last night I took his class. By the way, when the other drummers are drunk British guys, it doesn't take much to be the standout of the group. Anyway, I go, because I am all about blending in with the local culture. (On the local culture note, someone said to me the other day, in tones of genuine consternation, "You really don't speak any Afrikaans?" I was like mmm, you do realize it's basically a Dutch patois used exclusively in this nation? I mean, it's not like I don't speak the lingua franca. Which, in fact, I do, because it's English.)

Anyway, back to Emmanuel. Turns out he is from Congo. I tell him about Phenias. He gets really enthusiastic about this and insists that I tell him more, because the Muhimbaras might be long-lost family. Seems unlikely to me, but what do I know. Then he asks if I have children with Phenias. No, I say, I would be in jail were that the case, and explain again, painstakingly, that Phen is 11. He watches wrestling and wears my pajamas when it is cold. He is my heart, but he is not a marriage prospect.

This apparently opens the door for Emmanuel, though at this point I am unsuspecting. He tells me he wants to know more about his potentially long-lost relatives and asks if I'll go for a beer with him on Long Street, which is basically Cape Town's Bourbon Street and is a block or two from the hostel. What the hell, it's Africa, take a chance, I reason. Besides, I'm carrying Mace in case it goes left on me.

We end up at a place called Dubliners--because when you're in South Africa, you should totally hang out at an Irish pub. Better yet, an Irish pub with a one-man band covering '80s hits. This is when Emmanuel decides to profess his undying love for me. I must stay in Africa, he implores. We will get married and MOVE BACK TO CONGO and help rebuild it! Congo needs young, bright people who are tired of the fighting to rebuild it, he says enthusiastically. I agree, but I don't think I should help rebuild it by living in a failed state rapidly approaching the Hobbesian existence in which life is "nasty, brutish and short." I think I should rebuild it by sending money to aid agencies and conscientiously reading the foreign coverage in the New York Times.

So he is pressing his suit, and I am giving brush-off answers and trying to make it clear that I am far more interested in the soccer match on TV between Japan and Germany, which I am regarding as a referendum on the respective success of the Axis powers. (Japan won narrowly, 2-1, which seems about right. But it was Germany's B side. When Germany brings its A-game, everyone else can just leave the field. I am just using soccer as a metaphor here, people.) All this against the backdrop of the one man band playing Billy Joel songs and "I Shot the Sheriff," while donning a Rasta wig and hat. I am drinking my beer as quickly as possible--and you guys know how I feel about beer, I'd as soon drink cold pee--and of course because it's an Irish pub, the drinks are twice as large as anywhere else. Damn alcoholic Irishmen. I then insist I have to get back to the hostel because I have a mythical early morning appointment. We part only when I assure him I will come to hear him play at Zula's on Monday night. I don't know where I'll be on Monday night, but I know where I won't be--Zula's.

I'm kind of annoyed too, because I really just wanted to talk about the Congo with him. Really I just wanted to talk about Phen. Do you hear that, Cheeky Monkey? I talk about you to everyone! You're a legend here!

Sipho's Lovely Letter P

So people have been asking about my work at the group home for HIV infected/affected kids. Here's the skinny: about a dozen kids up to age 8 live in this group home supported by the Anglican diocese and other churches. Some are HIV-positive, others have parents who are, most were removed by the state (whatever their version of Children's Protective Services is) because they weren't being properly cared for. They stay at the home up to two years, ideally being placed with adoptive parents or reunited with rehabilitated birth parents at some point in the process, very much like foster care in the U.S. I go there four days a week for six or seven hours a day. I help with general care, but more specifically tutoring the 5-7 year olds, who are school-aged but not in school. This leads us to the week's big victory: I taught Sipho to write his name! And he is only 3! He writes his S properly every time, which leads me to believe he is dyslexic, since little kids never get their S's straight. Sipho is what would be considered Bantu, or black, and he speaks Afrikaans, like all the children and caretakers at the home, but when he does speak English, it's the Queen's English. So it throws me off when he turns and says earnestly, "Is it a proper S? Must I practice?" Sipho is one of my favorites. I got a little annoyed the other day when one of the caregivers was admiring his name, but then tried to improve it, i.e. "your P shouldn't be as tall as your H, and you must make the tail longer." I'm like, HEY, he just learned what a P *is*, and that it makes a sound, and how to write it, and that he has one in his name. Back off, it's been a big day. I said, "It's a *lovely* P, Sipho, a *marvelous* P." He stood by the blackboard chanting to himself, "Lovely, lovely letter P, Sipho's lovely P."

The arm babies are Ipondo, Abu, Jason and Christopher; Candy is 2; Wendell and Sipho are 3; Chad is 4; Julian, Crissy and Ctaum (pronounced Stohm, such a cool name) are 5, and Ani and CarRlo are 7. Is that a typo, you ask? It may be, I haven't figured it out yet. That is how CarRlo writes his name, and he has some problems with his letters (we have just learned to consistently distinguish a 6 from a P). However, I have known my share of kids with innovatively spelled names, full of apostrophes and capital letters, which translated to Brandon or Tiffany, so who am I to say that's not exactly what CarRlo's mom had in mind? CarRlo he writes, so CarRlo he is.

A couple of observations: 1) AIDS meds have gotten so much simpler since I was dosing Juwan 6 times a day several years ago. Now it's just once or twice a day. 2) These kids' biggest problem isn't that they have HIV; it's that they haven't got stable homes or access to decent education. Even a good group home is an abnormal situation, because the caregivers are paid; it's not a family. When the babies cry, they tell me not to pick them up, because there's nothing wrong with them, they just want to be held. I would argue that that is developmentally appropriate for babies. The caregivers (who, to be fair, are very affectionate with and fond of the kids) say they won't get anything done if they are toting babies all day, and the kids will get spoiled. Kim, tell your mom I can hear her voice saying disdainfully, "Fruit spoils; children don't spoil." So I teach Sipho to write his name and work with CarRlo on B and D while bouncing Candy or rocking Abu. I think babies should be held. Life is tough enough, eh?

I'm sure as the days go by I'll have more musings and observations on South African society and HIV and available resources vs. need, but for now, there's your cast of characters.

Waffle House Nation

Some of you know of my prodigious affection for the Waffle House, that enduring American institution of greasy cheap food. Its menu prices have not changed since 1958. You can get eggs, toast, grits, a waffle, and coffee and it's still under $5, with tip.

This is a Waffle House NATION.

Need blue jeans? You can get them for $10. My friend James bought a pair of sunglasses for 10 rand, which is like $1.40 US. And last night 4 of us went out for a nice dinner, where I had steak, 6 king prawns, and dessert and coffee.

It cost me less than $20.

The only things that tend to cost something approximating US value are services catering specifically to tourists, like internet cafes or American coffee shops. (I am writing this from a Seattle's Best Coffee joint, so those of you concerned about my coffee jones can be at ease--I won't have to brave that sludgy Turkish coffee for a few more weeks. And even here my chai latte is about a buck less than in the States.)

In other news, one of the things I am loving about my hostel are the people I am finding who are interested and active in issues very similar to mine, but who come at it from a different enough angle to make it a valuable and provocative perspective. (Because it they were just like me, one of us would be redundant.) Sure, there are a good number of people who came to drink and party their way across the continent; but there's Tim, the Duke grad student interning at a policy think-tank on justice and reconciliation around land reform; Brandon, who just finished 3 months here studying international development and is thinking of divinity school; and Aubrey, the brooding Irishman who's lived here 5 years and runs a nonprofit for HIV/AIDS education, and who started our conversation being very critical of what he thought was going to be my American save-the-world idealism and do-gooder Christianity and ended up sending me off with a Great Commission to harness the power and good will of American Christians to do development work in a more sustainable, empowering way than we have done it in the past. "I had you very wrong," he admitted during our very intense 2 am conversation; "if you had thought you had it all figured out after 2 weeks here I'd be very suspicious of you, but you've said all the right things, most significantly 'I don't know.'" Oh, Aubrey, if only you knew how regularly I use those three little words.

And then there's the grab-bag of random folks: James, the London university student who's wrapping up a month-long overland tour in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana and Swaziland, and who got mugged yesterday for his Coke (not his wallet, not his cash, not his jacket or sunglasses; his half-drunk can of Coke); Simon, who when he's not cavorting about the globe runs 1/3 of the London metro system--he RUNS THE LONDON UNDERGROUND, people, I am so travelling for free next time I'm in London; and Ingrid, the Swedish girl I immediately sized up as the pretty, vacant au-pair type, until I found out she's writing her master's thesis in political science on African development; thou shalt not judge a book by its fair-haired cover, children. The four of us went out to the beach to watch the sun set over the Atlantic yesterday, a great flaming ball sinking into the sea, and it was one of those moments when I think "I'm in Africa!" and it's surreal, because it's too good to be true.

Running for the (mini)bus

Mijha and her Puerto Rico experience are bearing out, as there is some universality to developing world travel. As it happens, I not only have adventures with buses, but with trains and taxis.

Trains are no big deal--they mostly run on time, they just don't seem to have any sort of fire code capacity laws. Thursday I rode with so many people I could have lifted my feet off the ground and and still been born aloft by the crowd. At some point, we were so full the train doors wouldn't close--which doesn't mean the train won't run, gentle reader; it means it runs with the doors wide open and the people closest to the door clinging to the ceiling straps to avoid being sucked out. Among my fellow travellers were a guy bleeding from a fight, a guy carrying a TV, and a street preacher who yelled over the ruckus that Satan had kidnapped our souls.

Ah, but the real adventure. The real adventure is the strange hybrid known as the minibus taxi. It is a minivan designed to seat maybe 8-10 people and regularly seating twice that, with people perched under the dashboard, crushed against the door, and sitting by the driver with someon else's toddler in their lap. There are, need I say it, no seat belts. Here's how the minibus taxi works: you, the prospective rider, stand on the side of the road aimlessly like a common prostitute. As cabs packed like clown cars go by, they flash their lights and yell out their destination. If they're going where you're going, you wave casually. They then stop for you to get in--or they don't totally stop, they slow down, and you jump on the running board of the car and the passengers pull you in.

People, I LOVE IT. It is an adventure every day.

The train and minibus are how I get to the AIDS group home for kids that I am now volunteering at 4 days a week. I take the train part of the way and the minibus the rest. Round trip it costs me less than $3 a day. And what price entertainment, really? Yesterday a woman got on with a chicken, and no one even looked at her funny.

I have not yet seen white people on the minibus or the train, so it is a refreshing change from the hostel and the touristy areas. Whites seem either to drive cars or take regular taxis. If they ride the train, they ride first class. The minibus is a response to apartheid, when townships were built outside the city and seen as a steady supply of labor, but arrangements weren't made for getting people into and out of the city. So it still remains quite segregated. I am gate-crashing as usual.

And our worst cultural exports

This is simply the requisite post, because Dionne had hoped against hope that hip-hop culture had not made its way across the Atlantic, to inform you all once again that hip-hop culture is GLOBAL youth culture. The street kids at the soup kitchen where I have been volunteering all sag their pants and wear hoodies and knit caps. And they sing American rap songs. I grabbed one kid by his pants and said, "Do you even know where this fashion comes from? It's a prison fashion because prisoners aren't allowed to have belts. PULL UP YOUR PANTS!" And he's laughing and going "Miss, miss, it's in the videos!"

I keep forgetting that SA cars are like British ones in that the driver sits on the right, so hilariously as I went to get into the right side of the car the other day, my cabbie says, "Like Beyonce say, 'to the left, to the left.'" I about fell out. This man had to be 50 years old, but he was all over the latest Beyonce.

I went today to the home for AIDS orphans where I will be working! When I tell you it is in a slum, people, I mean a straight-up slum. As in, there are no street signs because they steal them for scrap metal. Father Terry (my previously alluded to beloved minister) got all turned around and he had grown up in the area, which was a colored neighborhood under the Group Areas Act. "I guess they don't care if you can get around inside the township, as long as there's one entrance and exit they can seal off," he said drily. I told him American projects were built the same way. We sat in silence for a moment, and I said, "I suppose evil looks pretty well the same anywhere you go," and he agreed.

And the young men stood around in their sagging pants and knock-off FUBU sweatshirts. Oh, fear not, Dionne, hip-hop culture blooms everywhere!

Harlem, Alabama

I went by the Slave Lodge today, a museum about slavery in South Africa. Interestingly, the slaves here weren't the indigenous people, the San and the Khoi--the Europeans didn't want to enslave them because they wanted to trade with them. So they imported slaves from Central Africa and Malaysia and Southeast Asia. One particularly compelling exhibit was about the civil rights movement in America, particularly school segregation, and its comparisons to apartheid in SA. And the BEST MOMENT--Mijha, you're so bummed you weren't here because you'll think I'm making it up--was when this African guy was saying it seems like the South always gets depicted as the only region with racial issues but that he thought it was because whites in the South were more threatened by blacks since blacks made up such a significant portion of the population and therefore were a substantive threat to political and social hegemony. Bravo, African guy! (not to mention he was elucidating one of my pet peeves, the vilification of the South as the only home of American racism) And then this AMERICAN GIRL--oh, the shame--proceeded to explain to him that it was because at that time, there were NO BLACKS IN THE NORTH! None! Apparently the Harlem Renaissance happened in Harlem, Alabama! Mijha, does your dad know? Why then is he in exile in New York? And the African guy looked confused and said, "Not even after the Civil War?" Again, we hang our heads in shame that he knows more about our history than we do. And she allowed that there were a few after the Civil War. I tried to stay out of it, I really did, it was a private conversation and all. Except it was the civil rights movement, and there were photos of Ruby Bridges and Barbara Johns and Thurgood Marshall everywhere, and I just couldn't let her go on being ridiculous all over Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit." So I sketched a brief history of the Great Migration for them, and residential segregation in the North, and busing in Boston, et al. I couldn't help it. She can't be helped but he seemed like a bright young man.

Oh, and there was a video with Ted Shaw so I waved at your uncle, Runako.

Let's talk about how much I love Father Terry. He is the sub-dean at St. George's Cathedral, and he sees me abour every other day for chats about South Africa and the church's role in rebuilding it. Or at least, we talk about that for like 10 minutes, and then we're on to Sudan, and liberation theology, and do I really think G.W. is a Christian, and do I think he is stupid or crazy like a fox, and the evangelical response to homosexuals. I tell you, I am FASCINATING to Father Terry. He is taking me to the diocese's home for AIDS orphans tomorrow, and today he set me to work in the church's soup kitchen for street people, which led to an interesting conversation on mercy ministries vs. justice or long-term restorative ministries. I met a couple of other American and European volunteers there, and it was intriguing, and a bit troubling, how jaded they were. This 19-year-old Swedish kid said he thought he'd feel more sympathetic to street people after working there, but he feels less, because none of them are trying to do anything better with their lives so he figures they deserve it. I think he wanted them to be the "deserving" poor, sort of Oliver Twist-y with large eyes like in Keane paintings. And instead he found that hard lives make hard people. I didn 't find them troubling--the kids in particular had the same mix of charm and menace I'm used to in the kids I know, where if one tack doesn't work they'll use the other. And the older guys just aren't entirely there. Although Bouje, the most flamboyantly queenly street guy I have ever seen with his sparkly pink turban, deserves his own TV show.

Love from South Africa and its lovely, tragic people. As Shane Claiborne says, "We are all wretched, and we are all beautiful. May we see in the faces of the oppressed our own faces, and in the hands of the oppressor our own hands."

Jane

I do not like poor people. I don't like how uncomfortable they make me with their naked need, how overindulged and selfish I know myself to be in their presence. I don't like how they destroy my illusion that I have some power to make things better. I do not like their unflinching witness that life is more often brutal and unjust and casually violent than otherwise.

I was on my way home from St. George's Cathedral Thursday night when a young woman approached me, asking for money for food. "You can even go in and buy it for me," she said, her way of assuring me she wouldn't spend it on drugs or beer, I guess. Now, it did flash through my mind that this could be one of those set-ups in which an unthreatening woman approaches you so your guard is down, but she's just the decoy and then her menacing partners in crime emerge from the shadows to rough you up and take all your money. But she was tired and young, no more than 19 or 20, and about 4 or 5 months pregnant (yes, Runako, I am as uncannily accurate in pinpointing pregnancy stages as I am at guessing children's ages. I am just that good), and I decided I would rather risk being mugged than be the person who turns away a pregnant woman. So I gave her 50 rand, which is about $7 US, and a pretty cheap price to pay to assuage your conscience. And in a move that is very uncharacteristic for me (VERY. I do not have the gift of evangelism) I prayed for her and her baby. Look, it's Ascension Day, you step up your game.

So I saw her again tonight, and she called out and waved to me. I walked over to say hello, but I really don't want to be bothered, so I lied and said all I had was 1.5 rand in change, which is, like, $.0004 US. And she nodded and said thanks and said, "Enjoy your evening, miss." Crap. I'm holding a takeout bag with chicken and rice, and I am going back to my hotel that finally got a heater installed in the room today, so it is toasty and warm and outside it is cold and rainy and I suck. I rounded the corner, and doubled back, and said, "What's going on?" And she told me her grandparents (parents are dead, you always wonder here if it's from AIDS) put her out when she got pregnant because they didn't like the guy. Then that guy left. "I hate his guts," she said softly. Yeah, me too. Her grandmother would take her back, she said, but her grandfather won't until she has the baby and gives it away and he doesn't have to be reminded of what a disappointment she was to him. And her eyes filled up and she said softly, "I hate my life. I can't keep living this way, begging for enough rand to stay at a backpackers' lodge."

I am so not the Christian for this, because I can't do the "But God loves you anyway, all evidence to the contrary!" thing. I am more of the "Yeah, I don't know why God lets lousy stuff happen. I keep believing He loves us through it simply because the alternative is too awful to contemplate." I would not make a good crisis counselor.

I asked her if she had tried the shelters, and she said she had but they were all full, which I have heard is a problem here; unemployment is at 25%. "I really do go to the shelters, miss," she said earnestly. Now it could all be a well-rehearsed story, and maybe she's just a skilled scam artist who honed in on the naive and well-meaning American. I can take that chance. I gave her 120 rand, less than $20 but enough to stay in a hostel and get something to eat, and she agreed to go to St. George's after services tomorrow; it's a very socially conscious church and maybe they can help her find a more long-term solution. Stop laughing at me, Runako, it was cold and rainy.

There's never a good answer to what to do in these situations because there's no good answer to why the weak and vulnerable suffer and always have. If I see her tomorrow, do I give her another 100 rand? For how long? I wouldn't do it in America because at home, I'd know how to get her into a shelter or a young mother's home. And in some cities like Calcutta, you'd be inviting every beggar in the city to follow you, although I'm not sure that's reason enough not to do it.

Anyway, if you have any ideas on how Christians ought to handle things like this, I'm all ears. Meanwhile, her name is Jane. Pray for her if you think of it. And if you want to wish bad things upon the boyfriend and grandfather, that would be OK too.

Scaling great heights

I climbed Table Mountain yesterday, the great landmark of Cape Town. You can take a cable car up, but I am young and fit and robust, I'm not one of these fat tourists with their baggy t-shirts and plastic visors, I can climb the mountain. Except it's 1,050 METERS UP. WHICH IS A KILOMETER. Which is some relation to a mile, I can't remember the conversion, but I believe it must be more. It felt like more. It took two hours of climbing up a sheer cliff hanging by my fingernails. OK,not quite, there were stone steps and ledges to pull yourself up by, but it was no joke, people. Between that and the mile-long run for the bus yesterday, this is turning out to be like training camp.

It was gorgeous, though. Steep cliffs, bubbling springs, and beyond that the Atlantic. It was stunning. Some hikers probably like to enjoy it in reverent silence, but not me. I like to enjoy it while breathlessly singing "This Is My Father's World" to let any snakes or rodents know I am coming.

At the top, I met three American girls from Texas and Tennessee who also go to Presbyterian churches and are involved in urban ministry and one of them teaches at an urban public school and one's boyfriend is principal of a KIPP school in Nashville. I tell ya, wherever you go, there you are. It was great though, we hung out together for the afternoon and we're trying to connect to go to church tomorrow in one of the townships since they have a friend who worships there. And then we took the cable car down the mountain, which takes about 2 minutes and really minimizes your achievement in getting to the top.

Then I walked along the beach front and walked the several miles home because I am a cheapskate and I don't pay for taxis for places I can walk to, even if that walk will take me two hours. I mean, you pay for lodging because you can't build yourself a hut, and you pay for food because you can't plant a garden or shoot a deer, but I can sure walk.

This morning I had coffee with the priest at St. George's Cathedral. He finds me very interesting and is introducing me to people I can talk to about what faith communities are doing to deal with racial and economic inequity in post-apartheid South Africa. I'm going to volunteer at their soup kitchen a few days a week because it will give me a chance to talk to some folks about life before and after, and the diocese also runs a home for AIDS orphans. I'm hoping it all falls into place because the townships are crazy hard to get to, and there's no place to stay once you get there. It would be easier to stay in the city. But we'll see.

By the way, the place I'm staying right now is this old Victorian house and the door handles and locks are about 2 feet off the ground. It's like it was built for hobbits.

It's pouring rain today, so while some hardy souls might go out and be productive, I believe I will read and drink coffee and try to find old American reruns on TV. So far I've found Desperate Housewives and Days of Our Lives. Add to that the constant loop of old Michael Jackson and Beyonce songs they play on the radio here and I am genuinely proud of our cultural exports, people.

Running for the bus

I took a bus tour of Cape Town today, one of those where you can hop on and off at several stops. I got off at the District Six museum, which commemorates this multiethnic, multireligious community that thrived peacefully until the government decided it was a whites-only area in the 1960's, razed it and displaced all the residents to townships. Oddly, they never built on the site, just leaving a scar on the land. There is a large map in the museum where former residents can come in and write down where they used to live. Now the government is considering moving some of these people back in. There's considerable support for it; one of the most striking things in the museum is a large wall where former residents have written their thoughts, and over and over is the refrain "I would love to return home." But I wonder if they can. They can build homes, but they can't rebuild that community, where people worked and worshipped and sent their kids to school all within a few square blocks. What they want back is their community, or even their sentimentalized memory of what their community was in the 1960s, and you can't get that back. Any reconstructed neighborhood will be subject to the same gentrification and property values and market forces that every other neighborhood contends with. Sometimes you can't recover what was lost. You just grieve it and start building again.

Then I left the museum and realized I had missed the bus by five minutes and another one wasn't coming for 1 hour 15 minutes more. I start heading to the next stop to meet it there, except we all know my sense of direction, and it is faltering. And then I see it, down the road: the big red double-decker bus, stopped at a traffic light. And I break into a light jog. And then a dead sprint. I am hauling tail down the street, and it is raining, and apparently American girls chasing down a bus are not a common sight here because I am the show of the boulevard. Cars are honking, people are laughing and yelling, I am yelling; I am bumping into fruit stands and women with babies; I am vaulting barricades like an Olympian and crossing six lanes of traffic as people hoot and clap, because I will not...wait...for this...bus.

And do I catch the bus?

People, I think you know that I do not. I am tempted to lie and say of course I do, I am victorious, but after a mile I was winded and the bus was pulling away from me and I gave up. When I finally gave in, flushed and breathless, the spectators cheered and applauded. I did all I could do: I waved, and took my bow. And spent 30 minutes relocating the original bus stop. I stopped for a minute at the court house, because there was a covered pavilion where I could duck in from the rain. A 12-year-old girl was a few feet away, watching her little brothers and sisters while her mom was inside. In her hooded sweatshirt and sneakers, she was like my 12-year-olds at home. Her sullenness was universal to 12-year-olds everywhere. I put on some lip gloss, and held it out to her wordlessly: the unspoken girl code that transcends race, culture and age. She took some, smeared it on her lips, and we chatted about school and parents and little sisters. I am a bridge-builder, a bridge-builder with MAC lip gloss.

This evening I went to St. George's Cathedral for the Feast of the Assumption, which commemorates Jesus' assumption into heaven. It includes the reading from Acts in which he tells the disciples they will be witnesses for him "in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." And in this multiracial church, in this country, where I received communion from an African priest, it seemed so appropriate to be reminded that for all humanity has done wrong, all the ways we have degraded ourselves and the Imago Dei within us, the Assumption tells us that God will receive us into His divinity for eternity. In the church where Desmond Tutu preached against apartheid as archbishop of Cape Town, it was about perfect. So I close with his words, engraved on the wall of the church:
Good is stronger than evil
Love is stronger than hate
Light is stronger than darkness
Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.

First day in Cape Town!

I rolled out today to the South African Museum and the art gallery and botanical gardens (thank you, Cecil Rhodes, you crazy old racist, you do plant a lovely garden). In the museum I was looking at an exhibit on the Bantu people, which is what they lumped all the native South Africans together as for a long time, and they called them bushmen. And there were video interviews with them and I noticed these clicks and pops in their language and all of a sudden I went OH MY GOD, IT'S THE CLICKING BUSHMEN! I mean you've heard of them all your life, but sort of as a mythical thing, and then there it is. Then I noticed that all the people walking by me were clicking too, because it's not a dead language, folks! I could not have been more surprised if a dodobird had waddled up and laid an egg next to me. It's very fluid and part of a recognizable language, not just a series of clicks and taps like I'd imagined (yes, Sonia Sanchez, I'm talking to you, and Mijha, you know I immediately re-indicted her).

Now let me take a minute to say that the British and the Dutch are some devilish people who have committed some heinous human rights abuses in their time, but those people can build you an infrastructure. They are some managerially gifted people, because by sheer dint of will they looked at the land and said, "We will build another Amsterdam, it will just be hotter than the one in Holland." And folks, they did it. You've got to admire that kind of drive. You're particularly grateful for it when you're finding that ATMs, grocery stores and Internet cafes are readily accessible, and that planes run on time and the roads are decent. Have you noticed that the former French colonies are all falling to crap and the British ones pretty much thrive? I mean, France: Algeria, Morocco, Haiti, Vietnam. Shitholes all. Britain: USA, Canada, Australia, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa. All thriving, except for Zimbabwe, and we blame that squarely on you, Robert Mugabe. The French can't get anything right.

To cap the day, I was walking through the botanical gardens and joined a pickup soccer game with a few guys. Soccer in the park in South Africa, in the shadow of Table Mountain, with some guys who a generation ago I wouldn't have been able to speak to. I played till it was dark. A perfect moment.

Pocket Texan

I got into Cape Town on a Tuesday night after two days of travel and an impromptu overnight in DC, occasioned by a mechanical problem with my flight which led to missing the London connection. I shared my flight to Johannesburg with a clutch of undergrads going to a medical conference, including that one girl, you know the one, loud and over-gesticulating and DON'T YOU KNOW YOU SOUND LIKE A HOWLER MONKEY, YOU SHREWISH HARPY?! On the other hand, I caught up on several romantic comedies I'd missed, a rerun of "House," and "Blood Diamond" (you were right, Mijha, it was mostly about the relationship between Leo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connely. Your instincts were sure and true.) I love international flights.

My cabbie from the airport was colored--that is an official designation for people in South Africa who are neither all black nor all white, children, not a derogatory term. (Older friends, if this blog is didactic at times, it's because I have some fifth-grade readers.) So mixed-race, Indian, Asian, they're all colored. My cabbie was undone, totally flabbergasted, that I was from Texas. Apparently I am too small to be a Texan. All the ones he's driven, including the 300-pound woman who broke his seat in November, have been grotesquely obese. It's the Texas beef, he opined, so I must be eating Texas celery. He was full of the funny, this guy. "Smallest Texan I ever drive," he kept saying. Also, he accurately surmised that I am a Democrat because of my cargo pants and T-shirt. "Republicans, they come in white shirts and black shoes and lots of money, but we see khaki, we know you are Democrat and you are OK." Apparently in South Africa at least, Democrats are still the party of the common man. Also, a joke courtesy of the cabbie: what's the difference between South Africans and Americans? Answer: South Africans were raised in the bush and Americans are run by one. He'll be here all week, folks, try the veal.

He did say something I found interesting: he said you can immediately tell the difference betwen Europeans and Americans. "Americans, you are looking outward," he said, which I figured out meant that we look up and out at the world. "You are walking boldly." He grinned. "Like you own the world." And he said we smile a lot. Grinning idiot has long been the rap Americans get, but you know, there are worse things to be known for then being friendly and confident.

A week from today...

I will hop a plane to South Africa and spend a month there before I spend two months in Cairo and then head to Cambridge to study for my Master of Divinity degree at Harvard. It promises to be an exciting few years. I should be able to post pretty regularly from Africa (and *very* regularly from Boston) so check in to see what I'm doing. Talk amongst yourselves (and with me) in the comments section, and leave your name or I won't know who you are.

Phenias is downstairs watching TV after swimming. He smells of chlorine and spices and his own 11-year-old Phenias-ness. He is one of the hardest things to leave behind.