TIA

Wow, I’ve got a lot to catch up on. It always amazes me how I can go two days without blogging and I feel as though I have pages of events and realizations to write about. Each day has been so incredibly wonderful, it’s difficult to do justice to it through a word processor…but I will try.

I’ve just returned home from my free day excursion. I decided to live on the edge a bit and go shark diving. Our morning started at 5:30 am as the bus driver came to pick us up at our residences. We drove to a site about two hours out of Cape Town, had breakfast and were briefed by the guides. Following our safety talk, we took a boat out into the ocean for about 45 minutes. The area we anchored in is close to Shark Island, where the majority of shark documentaries are filmed. This area is full of sharks, but is most famously known for its population of Great Whites. 

Though it is the dead of winter here, the weather was still fairly warm (in the low 60s) and the water is about the same. We are put into 8mm wetsuits and goggles and lowered into a cage that is tied to the boat. The top of the cage extends about a foot above the surface of the water so that we have room to breathe and when a shark gets close to the cage, members of the crew will yell at us to get down and tell us which direction the shark is coming from. 

The site of a 15-foot Great White Shark was really quite the rush. One swam right up against our cage and tapped its nose again the cage inches from my feet…unbelievable. A group that went later had the shark actually attack the cage and bite onto the cage! No one was hurt or scared, just incredibly excited. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a lot of extreme sort of things in my life but shark diving tops my list without a doubt.

Yesterday was also a day for more “touristy” stuff. South Africa is known for its wide variety of wines mostly because of the optimal weather for growing grapes. We began our tour by going to a smaller vineyard where we had a tour of the vines (because we’re in the dead of winter, the grape vines are harvested and dead) and then learned about the process of crushing the grapes and aging the wine. An interesting fact I learned while touring the vines was about how they spot disease in their vines. At the end of each row of the vines is a rose bush. Roses are plants that respond quickly to disease, so the farmers put a rose bush at the end of each row of grapes so that they can detect disease quickly and solve the problem before it gets too serious. 

South African wine has a much higher alcohol content that wines from other areas of the world, mostly because of the hot summers. Having a hot summer allows the grapes to get much sweeter which makes them not need to sit in the brewer as long and lose their alcohol content. Following the tour of the vines, we went for a tasting where we learned the three components of a good wine: color, smell, and taste. Personally, I enjoyed the white wines better than the reds, but ended up purchasing both. 

While I thoroughly enjoyed my time returning into tourist mode, there is something very ironic about traveling to the various venues. In order to leave Cape Town in pursuit of breathtaking views and world famous vineyards, we drive the N17, an interstate begins in central Cape Town and winds through the mountains and beaches. However, this road also cuts through the heart of the townships. Bordering the interstate are shacks lined inches apart from another. You can see the signs of civilization with clothes hanging on a clothesline, blowing the in the wind and a random African running across the interstate because there are no bridges linking the townships that straddle the busy highway. It’s almost as if the city is reminding me of the realities of this place and that the excursion I’m about to go on is not necessary. In fact, for a person living in one of these 10 by 10 shacks, the idea of even entering within Cape Town city limits (which is about 2 or 3 kilometers away) is unthinkable. 

After experiencing last week and having a better understanding of what it is to truly be in a state of need, I can’t help but feel guilty for everything I have been given. I credit a great deal of who I am and the opportunities I have been given to being raised in a privileged household – privileged not necessarily in the sense of having a family who easily puts food on the table and clothes on my back, but I grew up in loving family where I wasn’t ever put in a situation that I couldn’t handle or denied the basic human needs that many in the townships do not receive. But even these luxuries are the icing on the cake. By pure luck, I was born into a country where neighbors don’t fight neighbors and where I can feel (mostly) safe roaming the streets at night. Though Americans are often quick to complain about the current political situation in our country, we still have dodged a corrupt political and governmental system where we can trust that the police will keep us safe and our government will be informed of the happenings of our country. 

Politically, the hottest topic in South Africa is the recent of Xenophobic (fear of foreigners) attacks. Currently, Zimbabwe is at a state of civil war which has greatly affected the poorest of the poor of that country. Thousands have lost their lives as two parties struggle for power of the country. Their current president has been in power for 27 years and has been come excessively wealthy as the rest of the country is overwhelmingly poor. Because of the current warlike state, thousands upon thousands have fled to South Africa in search of refuge over the years. As more and more people flee to South Africa and become residents of the country and enjoy the rights that everyone receives, the “natives” of the townships have become restless. 

Due to a lingering economy and more “jobs for South Africans being taken by Zimbanweans,”, violent attacks have happened in townships outside of Johannesburg and Cape Town have been top news. Hundreds have died in these attacks, including a man who was burned alive in the middle of a township outside of Cape Town. The attacks are incredibly violent and disgusting. We were fortunately enough to visit a church last week in a suburb of Cape Town who is housing refugees. They have never done anything like this in the past, but as many churches have filled up of people seeking refuge in their own country (some people who have been victims of violence have lived in South Africa for 10+ years) the church knew they needed to help out. We visited with a group of refugees. One man, Sign, told about how his wife and children were still in war-torn Zimbabwe where they had just ran out of food and inflation has made it impossible to purchase anything (350,000 Zimbabwe dollars is worth about .5 Rand or about 6 American cents – a loaf of bread costs millions of Zimbabwe dollars, can you imagine the amount of notes a person would have to carry around to purchase something as simple as a loaf of bread?).  At this point, he doesn’t know if his wife and children are alive, furthermore, he has no way of knowing how to meet up with them again after the violence ceases. His story was just one of many that were heartbreaking. His final request from us was to purchase him a plane ticket to the US. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been asked to help someone get into the States – it really makes me realize how lucky I am to live in a peaceful place.

As you can imagine, these incidents are on the front burner of conversation in South Africa, but as I watched the news with my home stay family in Guguletu, it was reported that the current president of South Africa was not even aware of the Xenophobic attacks. Obviously there are heavy political undertones to Mekembe’s oversight, but it is so frustrating when the leaders of a country are more concerned about maintaining power than acting in the best interests of their citizens, in fact it’s disgusting. There is a common phrase in Africa that was mentioned in the movie Blood Diamond, TIA or “This is Africa” and it’s in this phrase where I see complacency with the corruption of governments and the overall chaos of the country. Sometimes I feel as though people have given up on demanding for more out of their political leaders and have deemed themselves helpless in the political affairs of their country. 

I promised I would talk more about my home stay experience, while I could write for pages and pages about this experience, I will try to hit on the highlights. I stayed with a grade 5 school teacher named Titi. Titi is 54 years old and has a 22 year old daughter, Mamela. She has never been married and lives in a 3-bedroom home that has all of the modern day conveniences. In Guguletu, this would be considered a wealthy household. For the first time, I saw carpet in a house. The house also had indoor plumbing and running water (which was not true for everyone who participated in the homestay). Titi did not have a shower, but there was a bath tub. I took a bath for the first time since 1997 or so, I’ve forgotten how relaxing they are. 

The beautiful thing about the home stays were the warmth and welcoming nature of our families. We were instantly referred to as our mother’s “babies” … even by “mamas” who weren’t our own. Every night we would gather at a different family’s house and have a group meal together. I was hoping that this would be a trip where I would lose weight, but after the amazing meals I was served in Gugs, I don’t think it’s possible any longer. 

The best part of the night was after we had finished eating and our host families would try to teach us how to dance. It’s a wide known fact that white people don’t know how to dance, and having a few lessons from some of our families definitely improved my skills. Something I’ve grown to love about African culture is how established singing and dancing is in their culture. At any moment, our house mothers would break into song and sing in perfect harmony. It was so beautiful. 

Sometimes I feel as though my entire time in South Africa is one of those “you had to be there” kind of experience. I’ve traveled to many places where I could paint pictures of cathedrals in Europe or show photo photos of the Great Wall of China, but when I try to explain what I’ve experienced here, I find myself resorting to the same TIA phrase I used earlier, only this time it illustrates a kind of love and genuity that I’ve experienced nowhere but here. 

In a lot of ways, living in the home stays was like paying a visit to my grandma, where she is overjoyed to see me and hear about every last detail of my life. But unlike my grandma, I’ve known her for 21 years and by the end of three days in Guguletu tears filled my eyes when I explained what my week-long experience had meant to me. It’s difficult for me to explain in a lot of ways, but I can honestly say that I’m beginning to understand the importance of truly welcoming someone. 

I know this only offers a glimpse of what the home stay was like for me, but there are still a great deal of things I need to reflect on and make sense of in order to give a more thorough analysis of. 

Well, I still have another writing assignment due for tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

*the first picture is of my roommate Sarah (girl from the trip) and Marmela, my homestay sister. the second picture is of Hillary, Erin, me, and Maryam in our matching fleece jackets we purchased to stay warm*