Sawubona! (Hello in Zulu)

(Just so you know, I haven’t had sufficient wifi to post this, so it’s coming a couple days late.)

I flew out of Detroit on Wednesday morning, spent a long layover afternoon in Boston, flew 12 hours to Doha in Qatar, had an 8 hour layover there, and then took one last 8 hour flight to Johannesburg that got in at 10:30 am on Friday. Needless to say, I’m fairly wiped out, but it’s been a great first weekend here in South Africa. We’ve stayed the first couple nights at a game lodge, which is basically an inn with peacocks, ostriches, springboks, and other animals milling about in pastures right in the lawns of the hotel. There are flowered trees, a pool, hammocks, and a front porch space in front of each room. It’s a lot more luxurious than I think anyone from my program was expecting, and is definitely a great place to get adjusted to the time change and get over jet lag.

We jumped right into the first day with a visit to the apartheid museum, Soweto, and Nelson Mandela’s house. The apartheid museum reminded me a lot of the African American history museum in Washington, D.C., just one of many parallels between the South African apartheid struggle and the United States’ history with slavery and the Civil Rights movement. For those of you who do not know, Soweto is a township where black South Africans were forcibly relocated to form an entirely segregated community, and an oppressive military presence enforced black subjugation. Also, it is regarded as a cultural and intellectual hub for black South Africa, given the township’s bold protest history throughout the revolution. Soweto has become a bit of a tourist destination. Even with the tents of souvenirs on the sidewalks close to the Mandela house, given that the police-inflicted violence under apartheid didn’t end until just 25 years ago, the history I was immersed in felt very fresh. I’m really appreciative of SIT’s approach (see my earlier blog post for more information about the program) to learning—experiential and immersive.

Speaking of things I love about my program! My fellow students are wonderful—funny, loud, considerate, informed, and opinionated. We all chose a program themed around social and political transformation for a reason, and it’s going to be refreshing to go through this adjustment with like-minded people who are passionate about the same sort of work I am. This first week has been full of orientation activities to do with cultural competency, introductions, and South African history. We’ve been talking about social norms we are unfamiliar with, and now I’ll dive into some I’ve been thinking about.

Straightforward/ not “politically correct”

South Africans don’t pull many (or any) punches in conversation or social interaction. They’re blunt and honest, and will speak their mind or ask questions without much hesitation. This can be a little off-putting to foreigners, but it isn’t done with an intent to be invasive. While this straightforwardness definitely extends beyond just discussion of politics, I think this is going to be obvious because people ask Americans about their political views and Trump ALL the time. At one point I’d thought how nice it would be to immerse myself in a different country’s new cycle for a change. However, I think I’m really going to have to keep up with our president’s activities in order to have real conversations over here!

Patriarchy

Basically, the patriarchy is alive and well in South Africa. Apartheid relied on the subjugation and relegation of women into household roles, since black men had to travel to and from townships— deliberately segregated and economically unviable districts— for jobs in the city. Today, gender roles are very present in the home. Sexual harassment and assault are very common for women, with rare consequences for men who perpetrate those acts. On the street, men who cat call expect young women to treat them with the unconditional respect and obedience as heads of their respective households. Essentially, they probably don’t expect resistance. While I might usually want to stand up for myself in some way, I’ve been instructed not to respond. Of course, South Africa is not unique in all this, and it’s not entirely new to me based on my experiences as a woman. However, there are things I’ll likely struggle to adjust to as a woman who is passionate about women’s equity issues.

Gender & Sexuality Issues

South Africa has arguably one of the most progressive constitutions in the world (considers water, health care, and shelter to be human rights). However, there is a disconnect between its written law and the country’s culture. For example, even though South Africa legalized gay marriage long before the United States, 60% of the country is homophobic (the only source I have for this stat is my program director). There simply isn’t much knowledge or understanding of queer identities, period. Essentially, if I were to tell someone my pronouns when I met them they wouldn’t know what I was doing, much less have an appreciation for the statement’s purpose. This is interesting to consider given the growing awareness and sensitivity around topics of gender, sexuality, and identity back home, particularly on college campuses and among people my age. It’s a good reminder that the ability to talk about these issues (and, I would say, the very ability to express frustration about intolerance) is itself a privilege.

And now, since 1) It’s become even more important to reflect about my whiteness and American-ness as factors influencing my experiences and 2) I don’t know how to make these pieces flow together naturally… I’ll wrap up this post with a section I’m going to call:

“Times I’ve felt super white and/or super American in South Africa”

Let’s go.

One of the first conversations I had when I landed in Johannesburg was with a waiter at an airport café. He handed me my coffee (I’d been traveling for 2 days and have never needed a cup of coffee more) and asked me if I was from Britain. I told him no, saying I was from the United States, and no, I wasn’t from Miami or New York. Then he said, “What do you think of your president?” I kept it short, hitting some key points about unprofessionalism and racism. He nodded and replied: “Yes, Donald is a bit too much of a racist.” As I sipped my coffee I was pretty struck by our short conversation for this reason: It’s pretty significant if a person from South Africa, a country with quite literally the worst history of racism in the world, acknowledges Trump as a “bit too much of a racist.”

I’ve read about and have been discussing Mandela’s capture that led to his near execution and life-long imprisonment. Previously, I’d been unaware of the United States’ role in this. Turns out, not only did the Reagan administration support and work with the apartheid regime at one point, but it was the CIA’s intelligence that led the government to Nelson Mandela’s location. A former U.S. ambassador to South Africa has admitted this, but the United States has never formally apologized or claimed responsibility. And there we were a few days ago, ten Americans traipsing through Soweto and the house Mandela’s family lived in while he was imprisoned. Additionally, when white people spent time in Soweto during apartheid, they were police perpetrators of violence.

I also had a bizarre experience at a gas station when a white man with his friends, a black couple, had me go in front of them to make my purchase. For some reason, he was jabbing me pretty hard in the side of my ribs to nudge me forward. That was uncomfortable and weird to have a guy I didn’t know doing that to me, but the worst part was when he said to me: “don’t you know? White people go before black people in this country.” He seemed to be joking, his friends didn’t seem to care, and they all paid together, but I was really confused and angry. It seemed SO out of bounds to me, though, and really caught me off guard because I’ve been pretty nervous about the whole white-tourist-imposter-syndrome thing. And then, WHAM. I was confronted with what seemed to be a perverse joke about how I was inherently superior. While processing with one of my program instructors afterwards, I learned that it’s pretty common here to joke like that about race and past, formal discrimination, for both white and black people. That is very strange to me, but it’s part of a new culture I don’t understand yet. So, even though it feels normal for me to be critical, maybe making judgements at this point isn’t really my place.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out to me or leave comments if you’d like to. This week, we are in apartments on the beach in Durban for more orientation until we meet our host families on Friday. (That’s actually tomorrow because I’m posting this a bit belatedly!! Aaaa!) I’m excited to get to know my home for the coming months!

-Isabel