I am now a week in to being settled in to my new home for the year: Grahamstown, South Africa.
I am still reeling a bit after a heartbreaking departure from Cape Town. The city kind of took me by surprise, and captured my heart in all sorts of ways. For the first week and a half or so I played hard-core tourist, reveling in penguins, baboons, etc. etc. Then I started to really listen to people. This nation is phenomenal.
The story of this country is just unbelievable - there is the story of their struggle to overcome an oppressive and unfair regime, but even more phenomenal, there is the story of their reconciliation and forgiveness. Apartheid was in place in this nation for over 50 years - that's fifty years of complete segregation, forced removals of millions of people from urban areas, inhumane social policies, and on and on... and then in 1994, when the tides were turned, and the majority had their voice again, instead of revolution and violence, there was forgiveness. I don't understand it even a little bit, but I know that there is something very very amazing to learn in this country.
My 2nd weekend in Cape Town, Wezi, (my Xhosa teacher) took Jeannie, Victor and me to Khayletshia, the largest township in Cape Town (a township is an area where the black population was forced to live during apartheid - incredibly run down, the areas we are "not supposed to go") The occasion was an umgidi - a coming of age ceremony for a Xhosa boy. The cultural experience was amazing in itself (for pictures and such see www.whereishaley.blogspot.com) but even more amazing was how we were treated. Jeannie and I were the ONLY white people we saw all day long. Cape Town is still essentially segregated, and the township is definitely, definitely segregated. People stopped dead in their tracks as we drove towards the party, heads turning, etc. etc. I was admittedly nervous (they like to pump you full of stories about Amy Biel, an American woman who was murdered there in 1993) But it was a calculated risk, and one that I wasn't willing not to take. I was tired of the stories. I mean, let's put this in perspective - that was 15 years ago, JUST after apartheid ended. The fear factor here is ridiculous about that one story - but I digress.
So I was a nervous. For about 5 seconds. The second we stepped out of the car, women surrounded us, clapping, cheering and yelling, pulled us inside, pushed a few other women off of chairs so that we could sit, and stuck some food on our laps. Soon they were singing and dancing at the top of their lungs, and I was right in there with them, dancing like a fool and pretending like I was singing. It was lovely.
After I had eaten my fill, I started trying to talk to people a bit. After a while an older lady dressed in dark blue (traditional color) and with an apron tied around her waist (signaling that she is married) plopped herself at my feet. People here aren't too shy about sitting on your feet, or your lap, really. She ate and drank and danced and sang and kept coming back to where we were sitting to rest and such. After a while of this, she looked right up at Jeannie and I, and in Xhosa (Wezi translated for us) she said something to this effect. "Things were really, really hard during apartheid, but that was the past. Now we all have to be together. My heart is in your chest and your heart is in my chest, and we understand each other. The past is behind us and now we have love."
I was floored. There was no way that this woman didn't know that Jeannie and I were not South African - the same people who had oppressed her people for decades. Jeannie, Wezi and I were of course all tearing up, as was the woman. We held hands for a bit and then she went on with her drinking and dancing and eating. Less than an hour later, an old man snuck into the women's room (where we were), walked right up to us and said something to the effect of: "In the past things were really hard, but now we are together. The past is gone and so now we have to go forward together and forgive one another." Then he was yanked out of the room. Wezi turned to us and said - "this is very special, see, this is our country."
That changed my experience in South Africa, honestly. It seemed like I didn't go a day after that in Cape Town without someone sitting next to me and talking to me about apartheid, the struggle for freedom, and forgiveness.
The last week of Xhosa lessons Jeannie and I essentially stopped learning Xhosa. Instead, we spent the hours talking with Wezi about her life in a township, her experiences pre and post-apartheid, her hopes and dreams for the future. She truly became a dear, dear friend. During the course of our studies, she shared with us a project that she is working on. Children in the townships in general enter school completely unprepared - not school-ready. The literacy and numeracy rates are shocking. They are set up - for failure. Wezi has been a primary school teacher for over ten years (which makes a GREAT language teacher by the way - I highly recommend learning a new language from someone who is used to dealing with 5 year olds) so she has seen this problem play out first hand. And she's tired of it. Her goal now is to create a program designed to ready kids for school, so that by the time that they enter grade 1, they are set up for success rather than failure. You would think that kindergarden would be the answer to this, but kindergarden in South Africa is not sanctioned by the state as part of the school system, and therefore has little or no funding at all. Wezi took Jeannie and I to look at a couple of schools in one of the townships so that we could see first hand the problem with the kindergardens - it is shocking. No desks, no carpet, no real classroom (more like closets or halls), no school supplies, 50-60 kids in a classroom, etc. Sometimes the kindergarden teachers don't even get paid. Anyway, her project proposal is amazing. Jeannie and I spent a lot of time with her talking over the logistics and encouraging her to write up a formal proposal. Hopefully within this year we will see her implement her project and that many more kids will be school ready. It is our first potential "Rotary" project.
It broke my heart to leave it behind in Cape Town, and to leave the experience there, in general. But leave it I did--- on February 4th I headed to my new home in Grahamstown.
This is getting ridiculously lengthly, so I'll save Grahamstown news for later, but just for update sake:
- I am settled in to a house - I live with 5 South African post-graduate students who are really, really wonderful, I'll update more about them soon.
- I am enrolled in classes and just started today, actually.
- I met with the Center on AIDS development and I am formulating my thesis proposal, which I am very excited about
- I walked over to a school that is run for street children here in Grahamstown this afternoon. I am planning on volunteering there 1 day a week and hopefully teaching a class.
- My Rotary community here is wonderful - they are very, very active in the community and welcomed me with open arms. I look forward to working with them this year.
- The other Rotary scholars in my town are fabulous! They have helped make the transition here so smooth. It is nice to go through this with someone else. They are also AMAZING people with amazing stories and passions.
