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.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, May 21, 2007
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."
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."
Saturday, May 19, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
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.
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.
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