So here I sit, resting after Sunday lunch while Mama Nomsa naps in her room. I arrived yesterday to her humble but warm home on Mendi Ave. in Langa, which is the oldest black township of Cape Town. Nomsa welcomed me with open arms, informing me that my Xhosa name is Nombulelo (meaning ‘thanks’), or Buli for short. We sat together and got acquainted, sharing photos of family and friends and drinking hot tea (which I just might learn to love). Nomsa told me a little bit about her family: she has two children who live in the Eastern Cape, and a sister from Langa who is away for her son’s celebration as he comes home after several months in the bush. She showed me around her two bedroom house: the front room with couch, table, stove, sink, refrigerator, and small TV on which we’ll be watching “Generations”- the local favorite soap opera. At the back of the house, there are two small rooms: one with toilet and bathtub, and the other with a shower. I have my own bedroom, complete with bunk beds and a chest of drawers. It’s been nice to finally unpack after living out of my suitcase for the last week and a half! Nomsa told me a little bit about the area, lamenting the shebeens (pseudo-legal establishments that sell alcohol) and the activities that occur there. Several times since I’ve been here she’s mentioned the problem with drugs and alcohol that exists here, wishing that her neighbors would accept God into their lives and be healed. She belongs to a gospel church in the nearby township of Nyanga and is strongly committed to her faith.

Noise is constant here in my little corner of Langa. Day and night, people shout, sing, and laugh. Last night I fell asleep to fast-paced music and loud expressive voices that sounded as if they were right outside my window. I awoke to praises being sung in the street, which have gradually given way to laughter, music, and slamming doors as the day drags on. Despite the concerned responses that we have gotten from people in Cape Town when they learn that we are staying in Langa, I feel very safe. Apparently even the taxis refuse to come here at night, fearing the worst in this area that is known for its crime and poverty. One of the most common problems is theft of cell phones, which are then sold on the street for several rands. Both Nomsa and Shane (the SIT Academic Director) have given warnings about using cell phones on the street. We are not supposed to carry bags, either, or give any obvious sign of wealth. With vigilance and common sense, I’m sure I’ll be fine here.

So I’ve skipped about a week and a half of my time in South Africa, most of which was spent in Johannesburg, and some in Cape Town. After the 18 hour flight here, the group (22 of us, plus Shane, Nomewethu (“Mama”), Tabisa (“Sisi”), and driver Joe) spent five nights at the Diamond Diggers backpacker’s lodge just outside of Joburg. We went into the city several times, beginning to orient ourselves as well as educate ourselves about the history of South Africa. Among the places we visited were MuseuMAfrica, Constitutional Court, the Hector Pieterson Memorial, the Mandela House, and the Apartheid Museum. Visiting Soweto (short for South Western Townships) was incredibly eye-opening, as we learned about the Soweto uprising of 1976. Under the apartheid mandate of “Bantu Education”, it had been authorized that Afrikaans be the language in which school was taught—even though very few black South Africans spoke it. Even the teachers did not speak Afrikaans, and were forced to attempt to teach using the language of oppressive white South Africa. On June 16, 1976, over 15,000 schoolchildren organized a march to protest the forced use of Afrikaans in secondary schools. Police panicked and opened fire on the children, the first of which to die was 13-year-old Hector Pieterson. The chaos spread to every town and township in South Africa, resulting in countless injuries and deaths of children, police, and anybody who got in the way. I felt completely ignorant to the struggle of this country, as this was the first time I had ever even heard of the Soweto uprising. It got me thinking about the U.S.—what injustice, if any, could trigger such a massive response amongst the youth of America? Anyway, learning about these tragic events was just the start of my education about the struggle against inequality in South Africa.

So much could be said about the Apartheid Museum…but I don’t think I can write about it just yet. It was an emotional day for all of us.

“The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia and of Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.”
-DuBois

Every afternoon, thunderstorms rolled across Joburg. Rain, thunder, and lightning pounded down upon the city for just a few hours. On our second night, the power went out and we all sat in the small pub that was part of the lodge and ate our stew by candlelight. [As I sit here and write this, the rain picks up outside and Nomsa comes out of her bedroom – “Ah, it is raining cats and dogs!”] That was the first night that the group really began to bond, and we have since become good friends. Shane, the scatterbrained little Irish man in charge of our academics, provides us with a lot of entertainment. Nomewethu, who insists that we call her Mama, really is our mother. She is warm and loving, and always a comforting presence. And Tabisa, the student liaison, is adorable. She is forever laughing at us, especially when we try to speak in Xhosa.

Classes have sort of been going on since we’ve been in South Africa, although the real routine starts tomorrow. I will be picked up around 7am by Desmond, who will be gathering 8 of us to go to the SIT classroom in Rondebosch, where we meet the rest of the group. Xhosa class starts at 8:30, followed by a lecture on the political economy of South Africa. We have a break in the middle of the day for about 3 hours, then Xhosa tutorials before we head home at 5pm. Every weekday for the next month will be set up like this…then we hop on a plane and head to East London for the rural homestay.

That’s enough for now…if you’re reading this, please know that I miss you and love you and hope that all is well. I’ll try to update fairly soon. Feel free to email- I would love to hear from you!

Usale kakuhle,
Cari

P.S. I’m now posting this from the little internet café near our classroom in Rondebosch – Cocoa Wah Wah. Mom, Dad, and Joel – miss you and love you!

written by  CariLeighAnn on February 11, 2008 from Cape Town, South Africa
from the travel blog: Semester Abroad: South Africa
tagged Joburg and Langa
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“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.”
-Elizabeth Gilbert

Soon after we arrived in Langa, we took a walking tour of the township to get a better feel for its history and people. We started out at Lagunya, a sort of trade school that attracts matric-level students from the four major Cape Town townships (Langa, Gugulethu, Nyanga, and Khayelitsha). I immediately noticed the heavy police presence; officers casually walked around the gated entrance carrying large knives and guns. I later learned that the school also served as a pension collection center, which required extra security – a necessary precaution in this culture of poverty. Dr. Sean Fields, director of the Centre for Popular Memory, joined us and presented a video that he made in an attempt to preserve the stories of the dying generation of people that have experienced both pre- and post-apartheid South Africa. The people he had interviewed were among first to be forcibly removed from an area called Ndabeni and relocated to government-planned Langa. The removals took place during the 20’s and 30’s as part of the larger project to “cleanse” the city of blacks, keeping them confined within townships and restricting their freedom by requiring them to carry government-issued passes (“dompas”) at all times. The words of the people who had endured this process and still remain in Langa today were full of pain, but they also reflected the incredible strength of these people and the community that has been built here.

Two tour guides from Tsoga, an environmental organization nearby, began the walking tour by explaining the so-called “four worlds” of Langa– subsidized housing, the working class area, the hostels, and the informal settlements. The extreme socioeconomic disparities that exist within Langa was shocking, as housing ranges from the decent-sized homes of government workers to the shacks of Joe Slovo—which are impromptu shelters made of whatever scraps are available, and lack electricity and running water and even sturdy walls. We frequently hear of fires in the informal settlements, which can destroy dozens of shacks in just a few minutes time. The city has plans to demolish Joe Slovo pretty soon, claiming that apartments will be provided for the people who currently live in the shacks.

Walking through Langa, I became increasingly aware of my whiteness, and not just because I could feel my skin getting redder under the harsh midday sun. I wondered what people thought of us, not wanting to give the impression that we were there to judge or make a spectacle of their lives. Meanwhile, small children crowded around us, grabbing our hands and sometimes walking with us for several blocks. People selling wood carvings, beaded jewelry, and other crafts persistently tried to get us to buy their products. We walked by people cooking lamb’s head, a.k.a. smiley, on the street—something that has since become commonplace (in the context of Langa, not on my dinner plate!). We all felt really uneasy and out of place during the tour, but it was good to contextualize our stay in Langa by getting to witness its various areas and people.

Last weekend we had a two-day Peacebuilding Workshop with the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory. The DACPM was founded by Yazir Henry, who just so happens to be the son of Desi—the wonderful ex-cricket player who drives my bus. Yazir left home at the age of fifteen to join the MK (Umkhonto we Sizwe – the armed resistance group formed by Nelson Mandela). He leads the workshop with several other members of the DACPM, who have similar backgrounds to Yazir. Forming a personal relationship with these ex-freedom fighters was incredibly humbling, and we had an ongoing dialogue throughout the weekend about the meaning of peace—for South Africa, for the US, and for ourselves.

This past weekend we took the train to Simonstown, a nearby seaside town that is in stark contrast to Langa, with its multi-million rand homes and high frequency of white tourists. We stayed at a really cute bed and breakfast, which was a nice break from the bed bugs for many of us. On Saturday I walked down to Boulders Beach with several other girls…and we hung out with hundreds of African penguins all afternoon. Penguins were everywhere – on the rocks, under the rocks, lying on the beach, gliding through the clear blue water. They did not seem at all bothered by our presence. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and we spent a few hours on a deserted stretch of sandy beach, climbing over boulders and wading in the still ocean. Mountainous silhouettes loomed above the horizon, separating the deep blue of the sea from the bright blue sky. I could have stayed there for days, but we soon piled into the vans and drove out to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope—the most southwestern point of South Africa. On the way we drove by a family of baboons (yeah, really) walking next to the road. Later we had to stop and wait for a group of ostriches to cross the street. We climbed the steps to the lighthouse at the top of Cape Point, pausing every once in awhile to soak up the breathtaking views. All day long I could not stop thinking about how much my family would have loved to be there—and how much I would have loved to share the experience with them. Maybe someday I’ll be back here with them…

On Sunday we had our Farewell Langa party. All 22 of us and our homestay families ate, danced, laughed, and sang, and now we are preparing to say goodbye. We leave on Friday to go to the Eastern Cape for a weeklong rural homestay, followed by a week in Durban. We return to Cape Town on March 23rd, and I will probably not have access to a computer until then. Thank you so much for all of the wonderful comments and messages of support—it means so much to know that people are thinking of me. You are in my thoughts as well, and I wish you all the best in the coming weeks!

“Many people ask me what I have learned from all of the experiences in my life, and I say unhesitatingly: People are wonderful. It is true. People really are wonderful.”
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Be well,
Cari

written by  CariLeighAnn on March 3, 2008 from Langa, South Africa
from the travel blog: Semester Abroad: South Africa
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I hope you enjoy the recently posted photos of bald Buli…and please check out my shavee webpage:

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.html?ParticipantKey=2008-48078

where you can learn more about St. Baldrick’s and make an online donation to support ongoing cancer research.

To all you bald UVA kids—you are my inspiration, and I admire each and every one of you.

Thank you all for the continued love and support!

Molweni!

So much has happened since my last real update. I apologize for being delinquent in my blogging…I’ll try to give a quick overview of my last several weeks.

After we left Langa, we flew to East London in the Eastern Cape province. For five days, I lived with a Xhosa family in the rural village of Tshabo. My mama and tata spoke maybe 10 words of English, so my Xhosa skills definitely came in handy—I think my most commonly used phrases were “Ndingakunceda?” (Can I help?), “Enkosi kahkulu” (Thank you so much), and “Ndihluti” (I’m full). I stayed with one other student, Cat, and we had 3 bhutis and 2 sisis. Sinathemba, our 16-year-old bhuti, befriended us immediately, helping us out when we had no clue what mama was trying to say to us. We also became close with the 23-year-old twins, Amanda and Asanda. We shared a room with Asanda, and she pretty much took care of us—cooked our mealie pap for breakfast and heated up buckets of water for us to bathe in. Our other two bhutis, Thulani and Xhabiso, were 19 and 21 and were not around very much. By the end of the five days, I had begun to become really comfortable with the routine of rural life. Every morning I awoke with the roosters, trekked through the field to the small outhouse at the edge of the hill, and admired the beautiful view of thick forest and rolling fields. While in Tshabo, we took part in the women’s community beadmaking project as well as their paprika farming co-op. One afternoon, a bunch of us piled into a truck and went to a local rugby playoff game…where I didn’t watch much of the game, but I did get a marriage proposal from a nice young Xhosa man. Later, we were invited to participate in a Xhosa ritual in Tshabo in which the ancestors were summoned in order to bless a marriage. All of a sudden, amidst the singing, stomping, dancing, and drinking of “African beer” (sort of a milky alcoholic concoction that is essential to these rituals), one of the elders pulled me up into the dance circle and I quickly learned how to properly stomp to the songs. Cat and I made good friends with two young neighborhood girls: Sinaxolo and Mbasa…they taught us their favorite clapping games, one of which I remembered from my own childhood—a small world this is. I spent a day at Nowawe High School, the center of the community, and witnessed firsthand the appalling conditions that are still allowed to exist in rural schools. We attended a four hour church service, which was just a small gathering of about 16 in somebody’s home. I grew accustomed to the layout of the village…traveling along the worn dirt paths, stepping over and under barbed wire meant to keep the goats where they belonged, becoming familiar with the little children that were always roaming around, belonging not just to their biological families but to the entire community. Leaving Tshabo just about broke my heart. I loved every minute of it, and wished our stay was longer than it was.

Our next stop was Buccaneers Backpackers, in Cintsa Bay on the coast of East London. Buccaneers is touted as one of the best backpackers in South Africa, and I’d say that sounds about right. Right when we arrived, several of us ran into the warm Indian Ocean in all of our clothes…I spent most of our three days here on the beach, and took a 3 hour surf lesson one gorgeous morning. I pretty much sucked (shocker I know), but had a great time.

After our mini-spring break, we piled into some vans and drove the 10 hours to Durban (stopping for the night in Kokstad). Our week in Durban was interesting…there is a large Indian population there, and we spent most of our time in lectures for our seminar on Indian Identity in South Africa. The highlight (well, maybe lowlight) was eating “bunny chow”…an Indian turned South African dish of a lot of spicy stuff inside a half a loaf of white bread. I’m not so big on spicy food, and I thought I was going to die…but as our academic director would say, it was ‘experiential learning’ at its finest.

Quick recap [will elaborate later], because I’m dead tired right but I really want to post something:
Okay, after Durban…we went to a game reserve for 2 days (saw rhinos, giraffes, zebras, buffalo, hippos, and other less exciting animals), I went back home to Langa on Easter Sunday, had a weeklong homestay with an Afrikaner family in Stellenbosch, stayed for another week with a “coloured” family in the Bo-Kaap (a Muslim community at the top of the city), and I’m now staying in a loft apartment in the Gardens district of Cape Town with my good friend Claire…we are finished with structured classes, and we are now in the middle of our independent research projects: mine has involved conducting focus groups with high school students in 3 schools (predominantly “coloured”, black, and white), talking to kids about the proposed school pledge as it relates to building a unified national identity. More on this later, it’s been fascinating.

As I write this, I am laying in bed in my room in Langa. I spent all morning doing interviews at Langa High School, and I decided to come spend the night here with mama Nomsa. Walking into this house felt like coming home. Everything is so familiar…I didn’t realize how much I missed being away from this place, and it breaks my heart that tomorrow I actually have to say goodbye.

If this experience has given me nothing else, it has given me family. I have family scattered across this country, and that is an incredible thing. I have witnessed the deep divisions that exist in this society…and I have been blessed with the ability to transcend those divisions, experiencing South Africa in a way that most South Africans may never be able to.

<3

written by  CariLeighAnn on April 29, 2008 from Cape Town, South Africa
from the travel blog: Semester Abroad: South Africa
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ABSTRACT
This study seeks to reveal the various discourses among South African learners surrounding issues of racial and national identification, by examining their reactions to the proposed school pledge. The primary objective was to include the voice of the youth in the current debate surrounding the suitability of the proposed pledge, while seeking to understand the ways in which young South Africans navigate ideas of national identity. The research is particularly relevant at this time, because the implications of instituting a school pledge are not yet fully understood. The capacity of a pledge to instill values in the youth and aid in the creation of a unified national identity is examined in this paper, which focuses on the opinions of learners from three high schools in the Western Cape.

In order to gain insight into the opinions of high school learners on the school pledge, I arranged focus group discussions at three schools in the Western Cape. Each school was predominantly mono-racial, and the findings have been analyzed with regard to the particular racial identifications of the learners: ‘coloured’, ‘white’, and ‘black’. The focus group transcriptions were analyzed in order to identify the main themes that emerged in the discussions about the school pledge, and these themes are reported with a critical interpretation of their role in the creation of youth identities.

The research discovered many similarities between learners of differing racial backgrounds with respect to their opinions about the pledge. Four main themes emerged from the conversations, including perceptions of youth rights, nation-building and nationalism, racial and linguistic exclusivity, and the role of history in reconciliation. Analysis of these themes reveals the tendency of South African youth to remain entrenched in the racial categories of apartheid, and produces uncertainty over the potential of a school pledge to aid in the creation of a truly unified national identity.

written by  CariLeighAnn on June 22, 2008 from Roanoke, United States
from the travel blog: Semester Abroad: South Africa
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