An African Weekend. In Africa.

This past weekend was probably the best weekend I’ve had since in South Africa. The weekend we spent in Durban three weeks ago is a close second.

The plan for the weekend was to go to Swaziland to participate in and see the celebrations taking place for the King’s wedding to his 14^th wife. The plan. But what are plans when you’re in Africa? On Friday morning, Madison and I took a minibus to Budget car rental downtown at 8:30 and left the parking lot around 9:45. First just let me say how nice it was to be in a car with a friend going down the roads in Pretoria, free as a bird: it was nice; I was absolutely giddy. Madison, Brooke, Carmen and I left Tuksdorp at around 10:30 and headed south to Johannesburg on the N1 where we would connect with the N17 which heads east and leads right into Swaziland. Again, that was the plan. We got lost in Joburg attempting to navigate the interstates for about an hour until we finally found the N17 in the direction of eMbalenhle (there are no N, S, E, W directions on highway signs, only which major towns the highways go through – this proved difficult, as we had to scramble to find what towns were where in our atlas before taking a ramp). After a five hour drive on the N17 through towns and over mountains and plains, we ended up in the town of Hartebeeskop which is about seven km (4.3 miles) from the port of entry into Swaziland of Oshoek. For miles outside of Hartebeeskop we saw signs that read “Domestic animals, no fences.” It was true. There were cows and goats wondering the roads just grazing like nothing was going on. We were in Africa. When we arrived at Oshoek, it was about 4:45 PM (it gets dark here around 5:30) and there was a line of cars about half a mile long waiting to get in. It only went downhill from here (literally and figuratively – see pictures to follow). We waited on the road in the car for about four hours. During those four hours we walked around the road, witnessed a bar fight on the hill, got snacks at a convenience store before the border, listened to our iPods, and laughed at the situation we found ourselves in. But mostly we witnessed lots of people jumping the line, oftentimes driving on the wrong side of the road to get ahead. There was bribing, too, but not to the extent that there was just outright cutting. When we arrived there were about 60 cars in front of us but with the cutting it may have gotten all the way up to 150. Eventually we got passed the fence border cop and into a parking lot where we had to get out of our car that contained all of our belongings and get in another line with just people. That was at about 8:30 PM. We stood in line (this time no cutting) here for about an hour and a half. This is where we started to lose it. The man behind Brooke and I apparently had not heard of the magic of bathing. He was rank. I almost gagged. Several times. We covered our noses with our sweatshirts and mostly laughed about that half of the time we were in line. At some point we learned that there was only one immigration official working for the thousands who were in line both in person and in cars that by then extended about a mile and a half down the road. The border would close at 10 PM. People in line (more like people in mob, but whatever) were shouting and pushing, demanding to be let in or for someone else to come and stamp passports. All the cops were doing was laughing and further pissing people off. It was getting serious. It was suggested further back in line by Brooke and I to leave. “It would be funny,” we said. And in our delirium, it was funny. We left. We were over Swaziland by then. While attempting to leave the direction we came, we almost had to run people over in line to get out. The pedestrian line had gotten longer, the mob of cars in the front was thicker, and the line in the back was longer by about half a mile. We laughed for quite awhile on the road about how we had gone to the Swaziland and waited in line 5.5 hours only to turn back virtually at the window. It was worth it. We witnessed the occasional inefficiency of African government first hand. That was Africa. It was the African experience. And we loved it.

After getting home around 2 AM and sleeping until about noon, the plan for Saturday was to go to the Lion and Rhino Reserve outside of Pretoria. Carmen, Madison and I (Brooke, who is allergic to gluten, had something on the way home the previous night that didn’t agree with her) headed out and after some searching the countryside for signs that didn’t exist, finally found the reserve. We wound around the reserve’s main road for about a kilometer (half-mile) and came to a stopped vehicle ahead of us. They were looking at a warthog. At which point so were we. Pumbaa (Lion King reference, anyone?) was grazing on some grass and looked oh-so-shappy and content just being alive and munching away. We continued driving and stumbled upon a feeding area with more warthogs, ostriches, antelope, zebras, water buffalo, wildebeest, and other animals I don’t know the names for (see Facebook pictures for visual). We also drove by some rhinoceros and ostriches before entering the predators’ enclosures. We had to agree to a waiver that we wouldn’t exit our car and would leave our windows up 66%, among other stipulations in this area. We drove by vultures feeding on a carcass and hyenas wondering around the road. Once we entered the lions’ area, we saw they were all feeding on a carcass (presumably dumped for them by the reserve). A lioness and some juveniles walked by the car once they got bored with dinner. We continued to the cheetah enclosure where once we arrived where all the cheetahs were lounging, had one walk right passed the car within about three feet. I could have petted a cheetah if I had stretched far enough and didn’t want to risk losing my arm. After this, we drove to the nursery of sorts where they keep the baby and juvenile lions until they can be released to be with the rest of the pride. There was also a zoo of sorts for other animals like tigers and leopards, but because of my opinion of zoos, I’ll leave this depressing scene out. All over the area there were signs not to touch, mock, or feed the animals. There was also a sign that read “Lion petting R30.” Okay, I’ll pet a lion for $4 even though you’re telling me not to. And we did. Madison, Carmen and I petted (I’m starting to realize how much I don’t like the word ‘petted.’ I would prefer the past tense of ‘pet’ be ‘pet’. Petting as present participle is obviously still okay.) baby lions. They were adorable. Remember the scene in The Lion King where Simba trys to imitate his father Mufasa’s roar? They did that. They were adorable. They wrestled with each other and wrestled with us to the extent that they could. They were adorable. Did I mention that they were adorable? Because they were. I want a baby lion. Kthanks. Over all, the day was really great. We had our African drive-thru safari, although the drive-thru safari in Grapeland, Texas will always hold a special place in my heart. That night we went out to eat and had a great (and entertaining/awkward/funny) time dancing in the club down the street till about 2 in the morning: a typical 20-something end to an otherwise out of the ordinary day.

Sunday we all slept till around noon and left for a reserve just on the outskirts of Pretoria at about 1 PM. We hiked around for about an hour before our 3 PM appointment to go horseback riding (notice my American preoccupation with time? Yeah, that’s proved difficult meeting Africans in the past several weeks. Note to self: eventually write a post on the concept of time and how Africans keep time, because it’s true what they say.). All the horses’ shoulders came up to about my shoulders and had English saddles. Western saddles, I learned, are bigger and much more comfortable and practical. I realized that I like Western saddles better. We all chose our horses and took off. We walked at first but because we all had experience on horses before (Madison and Carmen even have their own at home), we soon started trotting, and then cantering (this term I also learned on the day – a canter is the pace at which only one foot is one the ground at a time whereas a full out gallop is when all fours are off the ground a lot of the time. In a walk, only one foot is off the ground, and a trot is where it’s two on and two off.). I liked walking, cantering, and galloping. Trotting was painful. Whether that was due to my lack of experience or that the saddle and stirrups were uncomfortable is unknown to me. I like to think it was a combination of the two and not solely my fault. We soon came upon a couple of giraffes walking around the plain. There we were: on horseback staring down the mother of all horses and the tallest living animal. We snapped some pictures and continued only a few hundred meters where we came across a herd of zebras. Okay, maybe not a herd, but there were about eight of them. Yet again, horse and rider meet another African horse. We didn’t see much after that, but it didn’t matter to us. We all absolutely loved being on horseback riding through the African nature reserve. After an hour, we returned, dismounted, and walked, awkwardly and bowlegged, back to the car. We were all sore, in pain, bruised from the saddles, and sweaty but had huge smiles on our faces.

Again, this was probably the best weekend I’ve had since I’ve been here. Nothing went according to plan and it was all improvised, but I loved every minute of it. It was truly a weekend in Africa. I look forward to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls in a week and a half, and Spring Break in four. I’ll keep you updated. Have a great week and love your life! Every day is an adventure.

The plusses and minuses - so far.

Here are some of the bad and the good differences I’ve found in South Africa compared to the United States, so far (cultural, social, legal). Please forgive the seemingly ethnocentric statements contained in the following paragraphs. I’ve saved the good for last, though. I can’t leave my readers on a bad note.

I think my biggest complaint so far would be the education system. I don’t really need to go to class here, even though I do. Slides are just read out loud in class and you really only need to read the book. There’s no such thing as critical and independent thinking. One teacher I have a problem with specifically is our new Diplomacy teacher. Before and after our first test, she kept emphasizing that we need to repeat what the text says. “Pay close attention to the text,” “Make sure you know your text.” Nothing on read and then develop your own opinion. Basically, the test was how well do you know the book and what the author thinks. And this is an international relations test. Not a biology 101 class. There is room for leeway in the answers. One would think politics are relative and would vary as much as peoples’ various ideologies, but apparently not. Another problem I have with school here is that students are just outright rude. They talk during lectures, ask mocking questions, and get up and leave five minutes before class is over. Segueing instantly, I am at my next topic: students’ education. Last year, half of the University of Pretoria students in the Humanities Department failed. Half. In one class, with the exception of the Americans, the class voted to hear a lecture explaining what an abstract, introduction, and conclusion are. Those are things I learned in junior high. Another class gave examples of bakeries, churches, and butcheries when asked what public buildings were. The list goes on. But I will not. You get the idea.

My only other huge complaint is the traffic laws. Or lack thereof. Namely the fact that pedestrians absolutely do not have the right of way. It seems crazy to me but this is Africa, I guess. On my way to class about a week ago, a car was stopped across (diagonally) from me at an intersection. I began to cross, and when I was in the middle of the street, the car floored it and proceeded to honk as I ran out of the way and on to the sidewalk. I smiled and waved sarcastically, though somewhat startled and annoyed. Friday I made eye contact with a car stopped behind another at a four way stop, thinking it was my turn. The second car tailgated the one in front of it through the stop sign so that it didn’t have to wait on me to cross the street. A local, Ruben, told me that you never assume a car will stop for you as a pedestrian. Assume they will run you over first. Because oftentimes, they do.

People walk at the speed of glaciers here. And I’m not talking about the melting ones of today’s time. Slower. Seriously, there are times where I want to push people out of my way to get where I need to be. We did not evolve bipedalism so that people can walk at the speed of the now extinct South American Giant Ground Sloth. If we were living 10,000 years ago, a predator would have eaten some of these people first simply due to the complete lack of urgency they have in their steps. It was nice being on African time on our mini-vacation in Durban, but now that it’s back to school, I have somewhere to be, thank you.

I’m on the fence about this one, so I’m putting it in the middle: Unions aren’t as restricted or as controversial here as they are in the US. For the past two Wednesdays, a few of my international friends here at Tuksdorp and I were supposed to go to an elementary school in the Mamelodi Township to tutor kids in reading and writing English. The problem here is that for the past few weeks, there have been mass public sector strikes going on in South Africa. The main demand of the workers is, of course, wage increase. The teachers specifically want 8% and have been offered 6% (as of a week ago). While I support the rights of workers to organize and protect their rights, the kids are suffering at the same time. Teachers are undervalued in almost every country and the same is true in South Africa. But with teachers striking, children suffer as well. They don’t get the education they are supposed to be getting and in the case of Mamelodi, sometimes they aren’t getting good food or attention needed. Mamelodi is still very much a township and as a result, school can potentially be safer, more comforting, and have better food than home. There have been tutoring programs set up in lieu of the striking teachers’ absences, but I’m sure the quality is not the same. I remain neutral on this issue. Mainly (maybe selfishly) I want the strike to end so that I can get my bit of tutoring and interaction in with the kids too.

Now to the positives: they are mainly legal and not cultural, unfortunately.

Marriage equality and adoption are legal nationwide in South Africa. I know there’s a push for marriage equality currently going on at home in the US via California’s Prop 8 going through our justice system. And with the exception of religious reasons (which, if actually thoroughly investigated, would be found in favor of equality and acceptance – contact me for reading material on this matter), there is no legitimate reason the LGBT community should not have equal rights in any country that claims to be a liberal (traditional, not ideological) democracy (see the Perry v. Schwarzenegger decision – read the first ten pages, if not the whole thing.). While equal rights are legal, the South African public is still deeply divided. Regardless, the Constitution protects the rights of all people residing in South Africa.

Another provision of the South African Constitution is that “the National Assembly… results, in general, in proportional representation.” (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa No. 108 of 1996, Chapter 4, section 46d) This ensures that, as has been the case in US up until recently, it isn’t only straight Christian rich white men running the country. Which is actually how it was under segregation and apartheid. Muslims, blacks, whites, Christians, gays, tribal ethnicities, women, or any combination of these are, theoretically, represented in the National Assembly and Judiciary. There are also “State Institutions Supporting Constitutional Democracy,” that protect the people, such as The Public Protector, The South African Human Rights Commission, The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, The Commission for Gender Equality, The Auditor General, and The Electoral Commission (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa No. 108 of 1996, Chapter 9). My political science class partially covers the South African government, if you can’t tell.

So, there you have it. The complaints. The praises. I won’t make this any longer than it already is and leave it here. Once again, my political and philosophical views have spilled out onto the blogosphere. Next time I’ll try to keep it event centered for ya’ll.

English: the Language Within the Language

Over the past month (it’s hard to believe I’ve been here that long – it sure doesn’t feel like it), I’ve come to really appreciate the English language. I live with three guys from the Netherlands, and one from Rwanda. One of the guys upstairs comes from the US, one from Germany, two from the Netherlands, and one from France. Then there are the girls, who come from the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, Singapore, China, Austria, and the Czech Republic. We all speak English, though in slightly varying forms. The Dutch students are all American-influenced English speakers because of Holland’s American cultural influence via music and film. The Mexicans and the girl from Singapore are also more American-English sounding simply based on listening to them. The rest are all hybrids of their respective home languages and English. The South Africans here, however, are all British-English speakers. South Africa was at one point colonized by England, and as a result, language is one influence of that.

Examples of British-English are the obvious ones: French fries are chips, potato chips are crisps, the bathroom is the toilet, etc. Then there are the ones I wasn’t expecting: a traffic light is a robot, a syllabus is a study guide, “Pleasure” instead of “You’re welcome” or “No problem”, and people drive and walk on the left side of the street/sidewalk (not language but still derived from British influence). I know there are more good examples, I just can’t think of any right now. But now I can talk about the accents: the main source of struggle for me.

I knew Afrikaner (Afrikaans speaking South Africans with heritage dating back to the 17^th Century) English speakers had really thick accents, but had heard some in person before and could understand them. Since here, I’ve met a few as well and they’re intelligible for the most part. There are also the folks who grew up speaking English who are mostly understandable. Then there are people who speak their native languages growing up and learn English in school. These are the one’s I’ve had the most trouble with. Checkout at the grocery store, ordering at a restaurant and asking for directions can be difficult. And I don’t believe this is any problem with learning English later in life (if elementary school is considered late) – it’s simply an accent difficulty. I’m all for keeping heritage and languages alive. It’s part of what makes our world great. Want to speak Spanish or some other language in the US? Please, do. You have that freedom. I would love to be fluent in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, and possibly Hindi and Swahili. Maybe in time. Anyway, what I’m getting at here is that language is a very fluid thing. Accents at home include Southern, Northern, Bostonian, Chicagoan, Valley Girl, New Yorker… you get the idea. We’re all speaking the same language, just with different twangs and unique characteristics. The same is true in South Africa.

Real-life example:

This past weekend a few of my friends and I went to the port city of Durban on the eastern coast. On the way back from dinner on the beach on Sunday night, we got a minibus (taxi) to the Workshop, an area of Durban where most minibuses stop to make exchanges of passengers to other busses. We got off our beach shuttle and started looking for a minibus that was going to Ridge Road, a main artery where our hostel was located. Finally we found a driver who said, yes (after we asked several times to make sure), he was going to Ridge Road. We hopped in with a few locals and were on our way. Jamie and I took note at one point that we were getting on the highway but thought nothing of it, as the driver was local and knew what he was doing. I wasn’t paying attention at the time but eventually we found out that we were not in fact going to Ridge Road, but rather Ridgeway, a suburb of Durban. After some intense and stressful arguing between a couple of the guys in our group with the driver, we were turned around heading in the right direction (the girls and I sat calm and entertained, believing hostility usually gets you nowhere faster than patience and a smile does). Eventually we made it around Ridge Road and were let off near an Italian restaurant and pub we had eaten at earlier in the week. Which was nice, because we all needed a drink after the ordeal. Believe me when I say it was a lot more frustrating and stressful at the time than it sounds en blog.

Back to language: because of our American accents (yes, Americans have accents to the rest of the world), our driver mistook “Ridge Road” for “Ridgeway”. Language is a funny thing: it can unite people to do great things like organizing for a cause or spreading worthy ideas (see Invisible Children), or it can divide and even cause death (see war). And, sometimes, it can get a bunch of foreigners lost in the South African port city of Durban.

Is It You, Africa?

Hi, everyone! I apologize for the amount of time that has passed since my last post. For my excuse(s), I’m going with classes starting and just being in South Africa. I’m currently taking a comparative politics class, international relations and diplomacy, segregation and apartheid, globalization, and cultural history of the Cape colonies. I would also like to apologize for the length of this post. Now for what I came to write about: the past week.

In the past week I have gone to classes, painted a classroom and played with children in the Mamelodi Township, and other things like gone to movies and the mall. Or in other terms, what OU sent me here to do, what I came to do, and what I could have done at home. Prepare for a little length, as I would like to describe each of these events for you and add a little of myself at the same time. Note: adding a little of myself involves some worldview opinions as well as emotional issues and opinions.

Classes have been going for two weeks now, and I love all of my courses. There was a little confusion in the beginning as to what I was supposed to be taking and how often I was to go to class, but that’s all cleared up now. In each of the first few days of my classes the United States took a subtle stab from each of my professors (with the exception of history of the Cape). Now, some of you reading this might think the US is always defendable, but from the talking I’ve done with my new international friends and heard from my instructors, there’s usually a well-founded reason for these criticisms. I won’t go any further with this so as not to piss some of you off, but let’s just say we all have our own reasons for our own beliefs and nobody is ever 100% correct. Moving on. This past Thursday, the subject of how the US is allowed to occupy Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a country we have virtually no diplomatic relations with, came up. Our professor knew there were American students in the room and asked us if we knew. I gave a quick answer I knew was incorrect and she asked if we could report about it in detail the next day. (I won’t go into detail about this for you, a quick Wikipedia search on Guantanamo Bay and the Cuban-American Treaty will reveal the answer. It’s really quite interesting; I’d recommend you do it if you have a few minutes.) Suffice it to say I felt completely ignorant of my own country not knowing the answer. But I quickly realized there was no reason to feel shame. The United States has been the world superpower for the past 200 years, far outreaching any empire before it by all means. There are state histories, a national history, histories of international relations with the world’s 150+ countries, scientific and technological histories, and historical figures… You get the idea. It is literally impossible to know everything about a country as vast in every facet as our own. Some would say this is a cause for national pride, others not. My main point is that there are billions of people all over the world with perhaps as many well-founded opinions of an entire nation vis-à-vis their country. Wouldn’t it be great if they just looked at our nation and ignored the actions of our country? That is one thing I’m trying to do here.

On Wednesday the 28th, my friends Brooke, Carmen, Daniela, and I went to a school in the Mamelodi Township with the purpose of painting a schoolroom that was in disrepair. As we drove through the part of the township in which people were living in structures that looked less livable than the shed in my backyard, I was filled with sympathy and memories of Haiti from my trip there in December 2007. The school we arrived at was for grades K-8 (I assumed from looking around at the kids). Because there was another group of international students that went and worked the day before, we only painted for about an hour. After that we were free to interact with the 7^th graders whose classroom we were painting. They loved being on the computers, se we did that for a while and I taught one boy, Leon, to play Solitaire. At lunch we had a plate of pap (a rice-grits kind of combo) and spicy noodles from which we ate with our hands like the students. However, soon Mr. T. (yes, that’s really his name), the vice principal, brought us KFC. On one hand, we felt guilty having such a nice lunch in front of the kids in the schoolyard, but on the other hand it would have been fundamentally rude not to eat it. So we ate it, occasionally sharing with the kids. We played various games with the children the rest of the time. Obviously they don’t know any different, but it was so emotionally moving to see these kids have such joy in their hearts despite living in the monetary poverty that they do. Every time I get to play with kids, I think how much I’d love to be a father some day. To me, I just see a child as a huge bundle of joy (I get the phrase now). Not now, but after I graduate and find a proper home in a city and state I love, I wouldn’t mind finding someone who shares the same values and beliefs and would want to adopt children. I used to tell others and myself that it wasn’t for me, but that was just fighting what I’ve known I’ve wanted for a long time. In some ways, settling down for me could be one of the bravest things I do with another person (I don’t think being brave means you’re not scared. It means that if you are scared, you do the thing you’re afraid of anyway). I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I loved being at that school with the kids and being surrounded by pure joy. And that’s what I want someday.

On Friday, I presented (stood up where I was seated and spoke loudly; no PowerPoint presentation or anything) about Guantanamo in our international relations class. It went better than expected given the fact that I am a horrible public speaker. But I think I’m getting better at it. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll present something about human rights to the UN and Friday was a prelude to that. After classes were over for the day, I stayed home and read for a while and then went to see Inception with nine of the other international students (Two weeks after it was released in the US, it was released in South Africa, so I had heard it being raved about for just as long. Also, movies cost R20 or about $2.75 here. A big win.). If you haven’t seen that movie, go do it. Saturday I went to the big mall here with Carmen, Madison, and Jamie. We shopped a little bit in the most crowded mall I had ever been in in my life. It reminded me of the streets of China. The reason I am telling you these boring activities in this paragraph that could have been as easily accomplished at home is because I want you to know that the world is Westernizing. According to Noam Chomsky, and I agree, globalization in theory is the idea that groups of people should come together and learn and grow from their various cultures, values, and beliefs. In practice, it is the expansion of global corporations to the developing world in hopes of growing profits. With the exception of one, all the movies in this South African theater were American (the same is true in the Netherlands, Germany, and Mexico according to my new friends) and all the stores in the mall were comparable to stores at home. On the way to the mall, there was a man standing on the side of the road holding a large cardboard sign that read, “I would rather die hungry than starve to death. Please help.” I keep being reminded that along with the improving quality of life for South Africans after the end of apartheid, for some it has stagnated. And I’m still struggling with how to deal with that.

So, the past week has involved thoughts on how I and my nation and country are viewed by the world, what I want for myself out of life, and how to deal with poverty in a growingly Western world. I apologize if at any point in this post you were offended, confused, or lost by my words. I am a work in progress.

Your continued thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.

Until next time,

Matthew