The Boxcar Children Eat Veggie Fish Sticks

To clear the air about my day to day life as of late, I have been doing community service at a township library. This is not the kind of community service you do because a judge bangs a gavel and demands that you give back to the community you committed a crime in, but the kind you do out of the goodness of your heart (and because it is scheduled into your study abroad program). This point will become more important later in the story. So I will set the scene for you all, the library, which is made up of two buildings, faces some gorgeous mountains, and is about seven bajillion miles away from where I am staying. My decision to go there was made in part, by my program director, and in part by me on a visit to the library when I was told that about 100 students come there for tutoring after school every day.
Reality check: there are students who visit the library, and my volunteer time has nothing to do with these students. Instead, I have A) been working on my carpal tunnel, by entering data about books into spreadsheets, and B) pulling books out of boxes and stacking them in piles according to subject in an old boxcar. The data entry is pretty monotonous and slow, and after 2 full days of that work, I hardly made a dent in the stack of source data. The issue I take with this job is simply that the library lady (I hesitate to call her a librarian because I believe that true title requires years of formal training…?) told me that she herself is the only one that can type in the area, and that she types much slower than I do. Now I am obviously the modest, humble type, but I type a good 100 or so words per minute (thank-you 4th grade keyboarding) and if I hardly made a dent in this material, I don’t actually envision it getting done, ever. The boxcar is a whole other story. The convection oven that is created by a dark colored boxcar sitting in the sun all day acts as a makeshift sauna, and provides me with that much needed daily sweat I have been missing with my new room fan. At least I feel I am doing some good in that scene.
The Newlands homestay has come to an end, and I am actually quite relieved about this one. Turns out, my homestay father is an out-of-the-closet racist. This serves to make me both very uncomfortable and homesick for my own father who probably would have something nice to say about a guy who punched him in the face. Seriously though, being around this much explicit racism coupled with patriarchy is infuriating and disempowering. It’s interesting, however, because my homestay mom seems to be only very slightly racist in comparison. There is a degree of racism that I have come to understand stems from years of living in strictly classified races under apartheid with defined roles. The legacy of government-enforced racism cannot easily be forgotten, however good ol’ homestay dad has taken it to the extreme. Sometimes I find myself unable to be in the same room as him because I’m so disgusted by it.
On top of racism, are the veggie patties, schnitzels and fish sticks that were purchased on my behalf by the family. I’m not sure what it is about my choice to become a vegetarian that screams “I miss meat so much I will eat anything and everything that vaguely resembles it,” but both mama and this family seem to think that next-best-thing means imitation meat. It’s one thing to have an actually veggie burger- a patty shaped collection of once vegetables, but it’s another thing all together to have imitation meat in that shape. What is imitation meat, you may be asking yourself, it beats me, but whatever it is, it often triggers my gag reflex. Another question you may have for me is what, in the name of all things eatable, is a schnitzel? Well, let me enlighten you. In veggie form, such things present themselves as football shaped, breaded, imitation meat patties. The real shame is that this actually constitutes part of my learning experience in South Africa (as in, I can now tell you all what schnitzel is). Here’s another fun fact: my homestay partner and fellow vegetarian has decided to keep Passover this year and threw me under the bus by saying that no, she cannot eat any of these things, but Judy can and would love to. Traitor.
Tomorrow is the beginning of Splashy Fen Music Festival which promises to be a great time in the Drakensburg Mountains. The music festival is all weekend and is described as Woodstock-esque, so I guess it’ll be okay. If it sucks, I can always grab my things and walk over to check out Lesotho since it is only 10k away.
Love,
Judy

karate juice, truth serum, PALE

Okay, so all along I’ve been thinking that I have been cultivating a nice tan. It’s waxed and waned at times being better than others when I’ve had more time for the beach, but I honestly can say that my skin is a much healthier complexion than when I first arrived here. Not so, believes my new homestay father, who informed me with no reservations “girl, you look like you could use some color, let’s hope it’s sunny on Sunday and you can lay out on the roof.” So yes, I’m in my new homestay and it’s quite the trip. This homestay is in the Newlands area (Newlands East, for me) and my family is classified racially as coloured (if you’ll remember I explained earlier about the 4 races that exist in SA) although I thought I would be living with an Indian family. I am not disappointed. It’s really hard to be disappointed with a 7 year old brother who talks non-stop about everything and anything (including his 16 year old girlfriend and his 17 year old ex-fiancé). Literally this kid could go for hours, reminds me of a certain sister I had growing up, who would talk because she liked the sound of her own voice.
The homestay is only made better by my 13 year old homestay sister who truly enjoys both my musical and movie tastes. She loves party in the USA and Tic Toc and it makes me feel very at home. Also, she owns the Hannah Montana movie and watched it “probably every day for two straight months.” Ha, a girl of my own tastes. My mother and father are both police officers and have really opened my eyes to at least a microcosm of the state of law enforcement in this country. Turns out, it’s particularly acceptable to keep alcohol confiscated off any suspects if it is small quantities (read: a few bottles) because it’s hardly worth one’s time to write that up. In addition, pirated movies and Durban’s poison (marijuana) are just a casual part of the police lifestyle.
The drinking culture in this family is also something to write home about. When we arrived home from school on Friday, my fellow American student and I were handed cold beers to soothe our tired souls. Shortly after, Whitney Houston was turned on at full volume and our mother (who I think was already drunk) was ready to dance the night away and “relieve stress.” After we finished our first beers, we were encouraged to have another, and obliged, deciding to take part in our mother’s ritualistic distressing plan. The rest of what our mother had in store for us would cause me the next day to conclude that I would rather live with pent up stress than take an apple sours shooter (shots) ever again. Seriously though, whoever thought of making a sour apple hard liqueur should be punished by being forced to have 3 or 4 shots of it while listening to Whitney Houston want to dance with somebody louder than standing next to the speakers at her live concert. I have to conclude however, that apple sours were the drink of choice due to the fact that Vodka is considered “karate juice” in this family, as it makes those who drink it violent, and Gin, “truth serum” for its’ ability to render the consumer a blubbery, truthful mess (this is actually used as an interrogation technique).
Nursing slight hangovers the next morning (read: awful hangovers, how do people live like this?!) we attended a very early (9am) mini world cup at the Durban World Cup stadium. Whereas this would have been loads of fun on a normal day, the bright sunlight, hot temperatures, sweaty crowds and vuvuzelas (loud, horn like instruments that are culturally South African and blown rapidity at any and all soccer games) were not a recipe for hangover cure. Of course the games were running on South African time, and nothing really ended up starting until well after 11am, but I did enjoy marveling at the people who could so easily and with pleasure consume a foot long hotdog/sausage with all the works before noon. When the games finally started, we were treated to an opening ceremony of sorts with some cultural dancing. Naïve, American Judy assumed that the three different styles of dance displayed were supposed to represent an African dance, an Indian (or east-Asian) dance and an America or Western dance, and was shocked and surprised to find out that it was really ¾ of the race classification system represented (Black, Indian and Coloured). When I asked where the white dancers were (then, following the equality idea) I was laughed at and told whites can’t dance (I’ll take sweeping generalizations for 100). We returned home that afternoon, and I remembered how thankful I was that I now have a fan in my room and am no longer stuck making “sweat angels” as one, very accurate, David Sedaris put it.

“judy, fuck, man, raw vegetables?!”

The rest of last week saw the last few days in my Cato Manor homestay. Mama, ever the South African, continued to take offense at my foreign eating habits while I looked on at her corn-meal porridge mixed with a stick of butter, cup of sugar, cup of full cream milk and salt with disgust. We had sufficiently fostered the relationship of an old, married couple and cohabited very nicely. One thing we did agree on when it came to cooking was our mutual affinity for chocolate chunk muffins (they still do not have chocolate chips in this country, I’m getting seriously concerned that no one will discover them before the World Cup, and then what?!). We set aside our food/ taste differences to work together to make chocolate chip muffins one last time on my last evening in the homestay. Mama told me that she will be calling them Judy’s Muffin’s from now on! The muffins came out wonderful, and were a lovely end to my meal of another delicious salad (this time I got to pour my own dressing). Mama still can’t wrap her head around my ability to eat vegetables that crunch, leaving her to make the comment that you see as the headline of this blog entry.
Another notable aspect of last week was our attendance at some of the matches of the Street Children’s World Cup. A South African corporation sponsored a competition between about 8 international teams of street children, held in an indoor soccer stadium in Durban. We went along with the program, to support the team from the Philippines (there was no USA team and one of the students on our program is from the Philippines). It was pretty incredible to watch these children play, and all were between 14 and 16 years of age. What I found most astounding is that when in their soccer uniforms, you really forgot that you were watching a bunch of homeless children who had been through all sorts of drug addictions and rehab at this early point in their lives. All the players were very dignified and respectful of one another, and were thoroughly enjoying their first experiences outside of their country. What an event. Another remarkable thing about the World Cup is that many of the children were sponsored to come play by private donors. Their team uniforms, rather than representing just one corporation, were littered with patches from all over, the way that NASCAR cars sometimes are. Also, and most significantly, in my opinion, each team had at least two female players on the field for the entirety of the game.
Moving out of homestay was met with mixed emotions on my part. On one hand, I am very excited to have more freedom and live on my own (soon enough) but on the other, it’s very hard to just remove yourself from a situation you are so closely invested in. I get the opportunity to just walk away from poverty very fluidly while the family I am leaving behind does not. Today, we are moving into a homestay in Newlands West, which is a mostly Indian neighborhood, about 20 minutes outside the city center. This homestay will be our home for all of 8 days when we will move on to Splashy Fen music festival in the Drakensburg Mountains. That is a weekend-long affair and promises to be a great time (this promise is made partly by the necessity of buying and wearing wellies or rain boots, given the amount of mud that usually forms b/c of dancing and all the people). So I mean yah, I’m excited.
This past weekend, we spent our time in one of the safer, more Western/ European districts in Durban living in a backpackers. We were told upon arriving, that if we were caught using our phones inside the building, they would be taken away because “no one wants to hear us talking to mommy asking how the dog is.” So much for being more free/ treated as an adult. What I have come to realize, however, is that I have yet to really feel like an adult in this country/ be treated as such, so why start now? Florida Road, the main restaurant/bar strip by where we were staying, provided us finally with a chance to experience the Durban nightlife and club scene given that it was walking distance from our hostel. My only complaint here is that the DJ was playing house music only (very popular here) and refused to play Party in the USA, claiming he did not have it. But seriously, what DJ doesn’t have it? You can see the contrast in the area we stayed in this weekend to any of the other pictures because the way that buildings are situated/ streets are laid out is much more western. In this area I actually saw a BMW, Jaguar and Audi all parked right next to each other… looks like I’m not in Kansas anymore. Also, just a note for one of the photos, apparently if you drive a bright red Audi, you can park wherever you want, sidewalk included.

“I Suspect You Bathe with Milk, and Towel Your Face With Slices of Polony”

I cannot and furthermore, will not accept credit for the lovely title of this entry, however I felt it was crucial to share with you all since it is a Zulu saying meaning you are “pure and priceless.” I found it in my book, as I have picked up some South African fiction to add to my cultural enrichment. For those of you (all, I’m sure) who do not know what Polony is, pictured above is me, modeling a package of Polony. It’s essentially slices of boloney spam made out of chicken and colored an attractive, mouth-watering shade of pink. Needless to say, this picture is of my closest encounter with said meat (I use the term very loosely).
Speaking of Zulu, I HAVE FINISHED ZULU CLASS and taken my exams, both written and oral. I managed to make it through both although at one point I was asked something along the lines of what kind of beer my friends and I drink (I had just finished saying that my friends and I like to drink beer) and I misunderstood and answered that yes, I am 21 years old. On another note, South Africa has 11 official languages and I speak two of them… pretty decent ratio, yes? Also in Zulu news, I would like to share one of my favorite mama moments of last week (followed by one of my least favorites). The other day, Mama asked me what I like to eat, and I answered honestly that I enjoy green salads. When I returned home from school, I was greeted by a lovely green salad, made for me by mama, how thoughtful. Here’s the precious moment: mama doesn’t eat much green salad (read: any) and had poured half the bottle of dressing over the salad, sure that once I was finished with my salad, I would drink up the extra dressing, milk-in-cereal style. HA.
Least favorite mama moment: so I got in a little bit of trouble this week (read: mama was furious with me, and it’s a very fortunate thing that Friday-Tuesday were spent in Jo’Burg). My very sweet neighbor had asked mama to send me over to visit her, which I agreed to do after generations (psh, no, I’m not addicted…). Anyway, I walked over at 8:30 with my 15 year old sister, but we ran into two guys she knows and talked to them for 20 or so minutes before heading down to the neighbors. Well of course the neighbor phones mama to figure out where I am, mama says I left 20 minutes previous and gets really scared that I got “hijacked” (kidnapped). Five minutes after arriving at the neighbor’s, mama arrives, whipping stick in toe (thankfully I was spared) and yells at me. I of course, apologized profusely, and then explained that in the US, to be 20 minutes late is in many cases to be on time (maybe even early) but this point was lost on her. I’ve decided that she would always be the awkward kid who shows up too early to the party if she ever came to the USA.
This past weekend was spent in eGoli (Jo’Burg: that’s right, I know Zulu) – SPRING BREAK. Okay, so this was no girls’ gone wild, or Mexican villia vacation with all my closest friends, but we did see the apartheid museum, Soweto township, and the constitutional court, and I’m in South Africa, so I’d say spring break went pretty well. I guess we all just decided to call it spring break because most of our friends from home are pretty close to spring break, so we decided we would have our own version and say we spent spring break 2010 in South Africa (beat that, Colby friends). Speaking of Colby friends, I was challenged by two of my good friends on the program not to speak about Colby or Colby people or Colby things for a whole day. In good spirits, I one upped them and said I’d do it for a whole week, so, um, it’s been two days, and this post doesn’t count b/c they’re not hearing it. The premise of the bet was simply that everyone that each of them (plus others on the program) know that goes to Colby loves it so much, and always talks about it, and it turns out I fit the stereotype (who knew, right?!). I will do it.
eGoli also provided me with some uniquely South African experiences which I will share with you as to appease your curiosity. The city of gold, as Jo’Burg is affectionately called, actually hosts less gold than one would see in the Trump Tower, or at least it does not adorn state buildings, nor apartheid museums nor world cup soccer stadiums (speaking of, I have now seen two more and let me tell you, Durban takes the cake for best design, in my semi-professional, qualified opinion). The thing that the city of gold does have is an amusement park directly adjacent to the apartheid museum, located in such close quarters that one would almost feel compelled to casually split time between both attractions. Also, Fromer’s “big apple” of South Africa certainly doesn’t resemble the “city that never sleeps,” in its’ dining options, seeing as many restaurants close their kitchens after 9pm. Guess no one in this city gets the midnight munchies. In other food-related news: I HAD PAD THAI and IT WAS GOOD. Jo’Burg is more ethnically Asian than any other city in South Africa (although still a significant minority) and we went to a thai restaurant for dinner where I enjoyed a lovely plate of veggie pad thai. Sensing my intense anticipation of this moment, the serving staff naturally forgot my (and only my) order. Also, I found out the embarrassing way (by asking in a naïve manor) that spicyness stars do not exist here. Now you know.
Speaking of politics and volatile situations, yesterday was the beginning of a taxi strike in protest of the new bus system, routes and schedule that was launched the same day. When people strike here, they go big, it turns out, and they play for keeps. Taxis provide much of the transportation for citizens in this country, mostly in the minibus form, a sort of public taxi system. So what happens, is they call a strike, and essentially trap all but those with cars (way fewer people than you would think) from leaving their immediate area. Also, they burn tires outside of township entrances (each township only has a couple exits/ entrances as a legacy of apartheid) so people can’t get out. If a person decides to run his taxi, he runs the risk of being shot, as at least two people were in Soweto. As per South African norm, SIT owns two minibuses which are easily mistaken for taxis, so we were pretty trapped for the day. We shuttled in cars to the constitutional court, and risked (this was actually pretty scary) the 5 minute drive in taxis to china town for lunch, but other than that, stayed in. This morning, we snuck out of the city in our taxis under the cover of darkness because we had to get home (note: this is not actually dramatized, it’s actually quite dangerous).
Xoxo,
judy

"judy on the farm, judy on the farm!"

To mama’s great surprise, I have returned from the rural area unharmed, and only my clothes are a little worse for the wear (and smelly). When I explained the rural area to her last Friday, she simply laughed around the house singing “judy on the farm, judy on the farm,” like I was about to become some kind of reality TV star (although to be quite honest, when we were told that we would be dropped off with 2 rolls of toilet paper, 5 liters of water, 1 candle, 1 box of matches and 1 can of bug spray, I wondered what kind of challenges I would have to incur to earn 12 grains of rice or a jack knife for making shelter). After packing the exact right amount (you all know this to be a boldface lie by now) we drove two hours in a mysterious direction and were dropped off with our new homestay families, graduating to a new level of difficulty with the communication barrier. I have become an expert at phraseology with my limited Zulu vocabulary (the Zulu teacher seems shocked that we are not fluent yet) and supplement the voids with sweeping hand gestures. Ex: where is your +gestures from abdomen to ground with simultaneous dance and painful look on face = where is the bathroom please?
The area was gorgeous, my only complaint was every morning I had to wake up and see the ocean and then eat breakfast while watching the sun finish rising over it. Speaking of breakfast, I HAD MY FIRST BOWL OF CEREAL WITH MILK over the homestay. It was brought to me and like a trooper I drained the cornflakes from the “full cream milk” and ate them. In all 21 years of my life, I have never, ever, had cereal with milk before because of the way milk upsets my stomach. Some of you may be eating fish, face and all, and some may be consuming more pork than the entire country of Israel (jokes) but I conquered the cereal and milk while abroad (only once, mind you). Other than that, food was pretty great, and once we were even give PB&J sandwiches on “brown bread.”
The family lived on a “homestead” as they’re called out here (I know this because I learned, at one point, the Zulu word for homestead) that consisted of a main house, a sleeping house, a cooking hut, a hut for mama to practice traditional healing, a second sleeping hut and a church hut. The huts were round and made of a mud pack with a thatched roof and pretty pastel colors painted on the outside. The two other vegetarians and I were all assigned the same homestay family, and we were given our own hut for the week we stayed there which was such a luxury. Our hut had two double beds, a TV (shocking, because this area only got electricity in the last decade) and one, very dim light bulb. That hut served all of our general purposes, including being the location of our bucket baths. In this scenario, we were given about one liter of warm water to bathe with daily. Needless to say, it was a super clean and hygienic experience and I never, not once, felt dirty. Also, the outhouse situation added to the general feelings of cleanliness as I enjoyed my cockroach friends company while taking care of business.
I taught economics class to 9-12 grade students at the village school, and fought the language barrier by using examples they would find more tangible (if the production of milk in the market increases, what happens to the market for Rama (the gross butter they put on everything, especially peanut butter sandwiches)). The students seemed to enjoy our presence and the opportunity to really practice their English, although the situation seemed somewhat desperate to me. For the most part, the students are educated in Zulu, but they must pass their grade 12 exam in English. Obviously, this poses many problems, and only 35% of the students at the school usually pass (that’s not even factoring the dropout rate, 9th grade was 100 students, 12th was about 25). The few days there culminated with a mini world cup soccer game, South Africa vs. the U.S. during which I had the highly dignified job of playing goalie and allowing the SA team to win (pre planned, duh). Thankfully I had some practice in goal from the days when, as the coaches daughter, I used to be volunteered as goalie.
I will spare you all the details, but the most significant part of the experience was when our 16 year old sister went into labor on our final night. Labor girl, mama, one sister and the three of us set off through the bush (yes, the girl in labor was walking) to the local clinic where we waited an 1:45 for an ambulance to come. Once the EMTs arrived, they continued to rush in this urgent situation by flirting with the American girls in the clinic. I’m not even sure they acknowledged the pregnant girl until Olivia said with some serious annoyance “aren’t you here to take her to the hospital.” To top off the comfort and humanity, no one was allowed to ride in the ambulance with our sister, and there was no other way to get to the hospital at 12:30 at night from the rural area, so naturally she went alone. I’m still not really sure how that situation played out, or whether it’s a girl or boy, because we had to leave early the next morning and no family members had been to or called the hospital yet. Also, every time I have tried to call for the last few days, the language barrier has made it too hard to actually figure out what happened.
We spent this past weekend at a game park, also along the north coast (I eventually figured out where I was) and donned our best safari outfits to spend some face time with wildlife. On safari, we became part of a giraffe migration (one in front, four behind), watched some water buffalo take mud-bathes, waved hi from afar to some elephants, sat five feet from Zebras, and a stone’s throw from a rhino. I also maintain that I saw a lion crouched in the bushes, though no one else did. Pretty standard stuff. Later that day, we took a boat cruise to say howdy to some hippos and catch up with crocodiles. Another day in Africa.

Lots of Love,
Judy