The Mother City

To read more from Leah, please visit her blog at: leahintheworld.wordpress.com

It’s hard to believe I am more than halfway finished with this program. It seems like just yesterday I met all of these people, who have become my community, for the very first time.

Something I would like to acknowledge before I begin this blog post is the idea of storytelling, which is something we have been talking about a lot here. We’ve been thinking critically about which stories are told and which are not, and who tells those stories. So I would just like to recognize that everything I say on this blog is very subjective. These are my experiences, my viewpoints, and my ideas, all of which have been influenced by my background and lived experiences. The ways I describe what I have seen here cannot do justice to the real horrors and struggles people live through every day, and I do not claim to be able to exemplify those things. This is just one perspective, and I hope you will read it as such.

Cape Town has been amazing. It’s such a beautiful city, framed by the mountains and the sea. Yesterday I hiked Table Mountain for the first time and the views were stunning!

We are living in a neighborhood called Salt River, which is a predominately Muslim “colored” neighborhood. To many, the term “colored” here is not offensive (though many also push against it as an oppressive term), it is just a way of categorizing people. During Apartheid, there were four main categories into which people were separated: Black, White, Colored, and Asian (which really just meant Indian). Different rules and regulations applied to people from different categories, and people of different races were forced to live in different areas. Colored, essentially, means people of mixed racial backgrounds.

Race relations have been very interesting to learn about here. Though Apartheid is obviously an extreme example of codified racism, racial tensions and oppression existed long before Apartheid was written into law and still exist today. South Africa has a long colonial history, as well as a slave trade history across the Indian Ocean. Though Apartheid ended in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was elected into office, people of different races in South Africa are still awarded very different privileges. As in the United States, there is much institutionalized racism here. Actually, the more I learn about South Africa, the more I feel our two countries are not so different after all. They too are currently struggling with their president’s inability to address the needs of the country’s poorest citizens, and have recently had a number of protests demanding he be removed from office.

I wish I had written earlier, since there is so much I could say about this place and my experiences here, but honestly, I have been having too much fun and have been too busy. The days here are packed, and I’m constantly exhausted. I am learning so much every day, and sometimes I don’t even realize until I take a moment to stop and reflect.

My host family is very loving and welcoming. I have two host parents and a host sister who is the same age as me, which has been great because her and her boyfriend often show us around on the weekend. My host parents are always very excited to show my roommate and me new places in the city, and often take us out to see the sunset or walk around somewhere after dinner, which doesn’t always leave very much time for homework. Most nights I am up till about two in the morning, after we have all sat around talking for a long time. People in Salt River can really talk! It’s been really nice, and a big change from our host family in Vietnam, who spoke very little English and never took us anywhere. Not having a language barrier has been really nice in South Africa, and, unlike in Vietnam, I can usually blend in just walking down the street. But the minute I open my mouth, I expose myself as American. The accent in South Africa is so interesting. Really, it sounds like a combination of many different accents from around the world. Oh, also, our host parents got us onesie pajamas– mine have hearts on them!

Since we live in a Muslim neighborhood, we hear the call to prayer from the local mosque five times a day. It’s so beautiful, and I’ve liked learning a few Arabic phrases; it’s such a lovely language. Everyone here greets each other by saying ‘salam,’ which means peace.

Islam was introduced to South Africa through slaves who came from countries surrounding the Indian Ocean, mainly India and Malaysia. It is a small religion in South Africa as a whole, but fairly popular in the Western Cape, the province that Cape Town is in. This is evidenced by the many restaurants in the area that have halaal menus. Much of the food I ate in Salt River had Indian influence, including one Cape Town specialty known as Bunny Chow, which is essentially a bread bowl filled with curry!

A couple of weeks ago, we visited the Claremont Main Road Mosque, which is a mosque in the area, that is known for being somewhat political after being very outspoken against Apartheid. They are also one of the only mosques in the area that allows men and women to pray in the same space, as most other mosques have women separated, usually on a balcony on the floor above the men. We all wore head scarves and got to witness the afternoon prayer. I think it is good to learn about Islam in the current political climate of the United States, and to get to know people who may at first seem very different than me. I have tried to be a good representative of America, and show some of the people here that not all Americans are as Islamophobic as our current president makes us out to be.

I am writing this blog post from a small fishing village called Arniston, about 3 hours east along the coast from Cape Town. It’s part of the municipality known as Cape Agulhas, which is the southern most tip of Africa. My group and I are staying in homestays here, in the neighborhood called Kassiesbaai. Kassiesbaai is a heritage site, meaning it is safe from encroaching development, and all of the houses here must maintain their historic façade, each displaying thatched roofs and white-washed brick. This neighborhood is a parcel of land that was given to colored fishermen by white farmers after the fishermen were forced off their land. Now, only those who were born here, or have at least one parent who was born here can own land here. Or at least that’s the way it is supposed to be. Nearby, in the next neighborhood over, there is a hotel that has stood for over 70 years. The owner has changed hands several times, but over the years, it has maintained the tradition of exploiting labor from Kassiesbaai, which is entrenched in poverty, as well as the refugee population. Many people who work there are never given any sort of permanent job status or employment benefits. The hotel is also the only place in Arniston that has wi-fi, so this post will have to wait to be put online until I return to Cape Town at the end of the week. So far, I have loved being in Arniston. In the mornings, I get up just before dawn and go for a run along the beach. Our days our quiet, and my roommates and I enjoy calm evenings at our homestay, occasionally venturing out to stargaze on the sand. Yesterday, we explored some nearby sand dunes. I’ve never seen any so big, they were gorgeous, and I really channeled my inner Muad’Dib. Apologies to all you non-science fiction nerds who will not get this reference.

Another big problem that Arniston faces is the Denel Overberg Test Range, which is located very close by. It is a facility for testing missiles, and throughout the day you can hear high-speed planes zooming past and even see them flying low over the beaches, emitting sparks and smoke. The forces of the blasts have actually caused some of the bases of the homes in Kassiesbaai to crack. Residents attempt to fix these cracks using black tar, which causes them to break heritage sight regulations, putting them at risk of losing this status. Additionally, on days when missiles are being tested, fishermen cannot go out to sea, causing them to lose much-needed money. I think it is important to talk about spaces like Arniston, make their existence known to the rest of the world, and have conversations about what can be done to make a change and help them fight the injustices being committed by large corporations like Denel.

When I return to Cape Town on Monday, it will be our Spring Break, which is much needed by all of us. This program is intense. I know it may seem like a lovely beach vacation by my pictures, but we do have class most days from roughly 8:30 to 5, and being in new environments, constantly having to be aware of how to function properly in unfamiliar cultural contexts, and processing some of the devastating acts of oppression we see on a daily basis is exhausting. I feel like, in a way, I’m almost becoming numb to certain things. Every single day is this crazy new experience, and I think I may be losing my ability to be shocked. This thought crossed my mind as we drove past an informal settlement the other day, and I nearly started to cry. Whether or not I continue to be shocked by it, the conditions that many people live in on a daily basis are unbelievable. So many people live in unsanitary, unsafe conditions every day, and it is so deeply unjust. The Apartheid system, as well as the ingrained racism in South Africa before and after has led to deeply unequal living conditions for the people here. There are areas known as townships, where many black South Africans were forced to live during Apartheid. In the end, 90% of South Africa’s population ended up living on 10% of the land. They live far distances from the city center, where most of the jobs are. They live packed together into shacks made from shipping containers, do not have access to proper plumbing, or fresh foods. We visited Kahyelitsha last week, one of South Africa’s largest townships. We talked to members of the community there, and they expressed how hardworking many of their citizens were, but how scarce were opportunities for employment. One of the men there had started a vegetable and fruit garden at the local primary school, promoting it with the slogan “Making gardening cool.” He expressed the need for people in community to understand where their food comes from, and the negative impact processed foods can have on their health. Members of the community have even started growing some of their own vegetables at their homes, and it was uplifting to see a grassroots effort having a positive impact on the township.

I don’t really know what can be done about the inequity here, but I am glad to be exposed to it. I am never going to stop thinking about it, and working to help people empower their communities. Because that is what you have to do with your privilege: travel, talk to people, learn, and figure out how to create solutions that are appropriate for the community you wish to serve. There is no band-aid that can fix the whole world, and no intervention can work for every place or every group of people. It’s not going to be easy to better our world, and it shouldn’t be. It takes time to get to know a community, what they need, what they want, and what would be a solution appropriate to their culture, their politics, their economics, their social relations. I know that many situations need urgent attention, but unless we are patient in creating well-thought-out plans of action, we are going to fail again and again. One part of this program that I have really enjoyed is learning about medical anthropology, a field I had never really heard about, or considered before. Medical anthropologists are seriously underutilized in medical interventions, and, I believe, are of great benefit when they are consulted before attempting to stage any sort of intervention of this kind. I think people, including me, sometimes forget that individuals, and not just whole populations, are important to consider too, and human suffering is real. As an example, people who have multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which is quite common in South Africa, particularly in the townships and informal settlements, have to take a huge number of pills on a daily basis, as well as receiving injections. People often say they must “eat their pills” for that day, since, without exaggeration, they have a handful of pills they must consume. Some of these pills cause drowsiness, nausea, forgetfulness, and some of them even cause people to have a certain chemical smell, that other people in the community know to be a mark of TB. These side effects cause people to be ostracized and contribute to the stigma surrounding tuberculosis. One of my professors on this program, who is a medical anthropologist, suggested to one organization that they should change the flavor of one of their pills to make it easier to stomach. She was quickly shut down and told that people should just take their pills. And people wonder why there is such a problem with adherence to tuberculosis treatment.

Something we talked about in class is the growing “projectified landscape of care.” This is what happens when NGOs and other organizations come into an area and create say HIV clinics, Tb clinics, or family planning services. These facilities may be state of the art, and often, much better than the local clinics that serve every other basic need of a community. When someone gets sick in this communities, say has a co-infection with HIV and TB, which is unfortunately very common in South Africa, they must access a number of different services to get the care they need. A lack of integration of all of these services makes it difficult for people to know how to get the care they need, and makes them less likely to adhere to the treatment they are finally given.

I know I’ve begun to sort of ramble here, and I probably should have written sooner to express everything that has been going on, but I’ve been so busy. The days are long, and I am constantly sleep-deprived. But it is all worth it. I learn so much every day, and usually are days are not only lectures, but site visits, panels, interviews. It is so amazing to learn from so many different community members, hear their points-of-view, get information straight from the source. I love learning this way, and I feel like it’s going to be very difficult returning to rigid university life. It’s made me think a lot about what sort of career I would like, and I’ve realized that I never want to stop hearing from people directly. I like talking to people, listening to them, learning from them. Back in Berkeley, I am waiting to hear back on a job I applied for, interviewing residents of West Oakland concerning their perspectives on gentrification and the potential effects it has on their health. I will also be returning to my volunteer work at the Information and Referral Department of the Women’s Cancer Resource Center of Oakland. I am figuring myself out. I am never going to stop learning, seeking out knowledge, and gaining different perspectives. I am happy. And I miss you all dearly. I’ll post again eventually! Leah

#SouthAfrica