New Shoes

Above are my umnie (beautiful) functional English learners. Basically, we get together each week in their eighth grade classroom to try and make English a little easier to speak and understand.

But recently, especially after meeting with these young ladies, I have had an incredibly difficult time figuring out why I live in a house with running water, and they don’t. Or why I can buy everything I need and things that I want, but they don't get to.

Or why the sky is my limit and the world is my oyster, but to Sangeliswe and Nomzamo, the sky is the roof over their heads some nights, and the world barely exists beyond the barbed wire fences out the window.

And I just can't keep from wondering, why am I not the one in their worn out patent leather shoes?

Jammin.

I walk to the bus stop every day to get to class. But in South Africa, it’s not called a bus, it’s called a jammie. And they are baby blue instead of gray or yellow and they don’t play Coldplay on the radio they play Marvin Gaye turned up really, really loud.

The walk isn’t too far: it’s up Liesbeek Road, left on Main, and right on Chapel and then you are basically there. The moment of truth on this walk is when you start round the curve on Chapel, though, because then you are able to see Tugwell Station: the jammie stop. Its then that you can see just how many people are standing in line for the jammie and approximate how long you are going to have to wait in queue in order to board.

Sometimes, if you plan it right, you will get on the first jammie that stops at Tugwell. But, more likely than not, two or three Marvin Gaye buses are going to pass you by before you ever even get the opportunity to cram your legs, backpack and hair through those jammie doors.
So I was prepared for the jammie struggle this morning. I had on my game face and had walked through a mental prep talk, as was extremely necessary for any jammie related journey. I turned down Chapel Road and there it was: Tugwell in all its glory of cigarettes and iPods, weaves, warm skin and converse. It was going to be a fight today.

But then, as I stood and contemplated my strategy (elbows out for bulk, no smiling, close toed shoes) I was struck into an insightful and pensive mindset. “I wonder,” I thought and lowered my elbows, “who has the greatest need to get on this bus?”

Being human and intermittently narcissistic, I considered my own position first. “If I don’t get on this bus,” I thought, “I won’t be on campus early. That means I won’t be able to check my email before class. Which ultimately results in waiting an extra forty five minutes before I find out if my sister found a homecoming dress or if anyone liked my status about Bob Dylan on facebook, because it was really clever.”

Then, I looked to the girl to the right and tried to determine how badly she needed to get to campus. She held her books tight in front of her, like a shield. It was a good strategy; I had used that technique before. She didn’t look ready for the battle, though, she looked nervous. “If she doesn’t get to class on time, she will have to walk in late. If she walks in late, everyone may stare at her and the professor may even make some sort of rude comment. If he makes that comment she may get embarrassed and drop all those books she is carrying like that and then she will be even more uncomfortable. Ok, this girl gets to get on the jammie before me.” The struggles of a hyperactive imagination.
But my deliberation continued: I determined hypothetical life situations for all these people around me. And you know what? Most people had a better reason to get on the bus before me. After about ten minutes, I was on a roll. I had situations for just about everybody. Except for that boy in front of me. He’s dressed in khaki, black polo shirt and All-Stars. Some people are easier to read than others and he was from the townships, I am fairly certain. His dress, his manner, that’s what told me this. I have held an incredible respect since early on for those who were able to climb up out of those townships and attend the University.

“If he doesn’t get on the jammie, he may miss an exam and fail a class,” I began my game again, “If he fails, then he could lose a scholarship to come to UCT. He loses that scholarship, then he can’t go to school anymore. That happens, and there is no strong career path in his future. He won’t be that doctor he wants to be. He won’t be that scientist like he told his grandma he would be since he was eight years old. And he could have researched cancer cells, HIV, figured out some sort of cure.” I was actually kind of anxious now. This kid needed to get to campus.

A jammie finally rolled up to Tugwell. People pushed and struggled and persuaded their way in the bus line and their next move in life. I hung back, with the sudden decision that my presence on campus maybe wasn’t as dire as my neighbors. Soon, as the rainbow of voices and book bags trickled onto the bus, it became clear that there would be one person who wasn’t going to fit onto this jammie. That they would have to make it on a later bus. Soon there were only two of us left on that sticky cement: me and the boy in black polo; the one I had convinced myself had struggled to get into university and who wanted to be doctor and a scientist. The kid who was the first of his family to go to college and who was trying to help his sisters and his mother out by going to class and learning new things, big things. The man who, I had hypothetically reasoned, needed to be on that jammie and head up to campus more than anyone else in all of Tugwell.
He looked at me and kind of grinned, well aware of the predicament we found ourselves in.

"Go ahead, Sister,” he motioned toward the stairs on the bus, “I’ll catch the next jammie.”

Talk to Me

The tag on my Yogi tea bag this evening gave me some advice.  It said: “the greatest tool you could have is to listen.”  Now I like Yogi tea just fine but the main reason I drink it is 1.) as an attempt to lower my incredible and unrivaled coffee consumption and 2.) for the good advice the tea tags seem to give.  So I have obliged, my less than adequately caffeinated tea bag, I have been listening and jotting notes of things I hear.  The following are a few statements, sentences, quotes if you will that I have encountered while playing the listening game.  Most are from friends, a few from professors, others are acquaintances.  All of their words mean something a little more when placed in context.  Read.  Listen.  Feel.  Learn. 

“I told you.  I am not going to ask how many cows she thinks she’s worth.” G. South Africa.  This was said in response to teasing about a friend’s new girlfriend.  In many African cultures, it is traditional to purchase a set number of cows for the bride’s family before a wedding.  Negotiating the number of livestock is serious business and requires intense bargaining and thorough investigation of what the bride is worth in terms of cattle.  Ten cows if she graduated high school.  Five more if she graduated college.  Maybe seven additional if she is a virgin, and depending on the job she has lined up, this guy could ultimately find himself buying thirty or forty cows for the in laws.

“But what if you go home and you remember that you were born here, but this is not your home any longer?  You come back to that place you were born and you realize that it isn’t ready for your voice quite yet.  That you are standing and living ahead of home.” X.  South Africa. Townships are a difficult place to grow up, and most would assume that they are also a living condition that people are anxious to escape.  However, that’s simply not the case.  Family, history, language and culture all mix and blend in those townships, and once you step outside of that bubble, it is extremely hard to work yourself back in.  Leaving the township life in pursuit of new opportunities is not looked on favorably by township peers.  If you leave the place you were born, then you turn your back on the people. And an open armed welcome home is not what is generally expected.

“No, we knew you were American because of your water bottle.” N.  South Africa.  I always thought it would be my accent that would give me away.  But apparently Nalgene water bottles do a lot of talking on their own.   N. told me once, “There was a point where everyone was convinced that Americans were required to have an obnoxiously large and colorful water bottle before they came to Africa.  Like, they handed you one before you boarded the plane, or something like this.” 

“My dad chose a new last name for my family after the war.  He just came home from work one day, stepped into my grandfather’s house and said, ‘This is our name now.’” F. Zimbabwe.  Civil war raged through Zimbabwe in the seventies.  Rebels, nationalists and those loyal to the racist forms of government were in a constant battle.  When independence was obtained in 1980, people decided they wanted to start anew: no longer hostage to previous political parties and beliefs, they sought new names.  I guess it was just whatever name you felt your family could identify with.  Whatever name you could be proud of. 

“But I was walking to the market and my brother comes along because he wants to buy a monkey brain.  A monkey brain.  For food.  So I am going to do what any normal person does in that situation.  I tell him, “Fine.  But I get to pick out the monkey.”  M. South Africa.  Being fairly adventurous in my taste of food, I have been moderately willing to try most anything that gets offered at dinners.  Ostrich, alligator, warthog: didn’t even phase me.  However, when we got to the point of caterpillars and chicken eyes, I realized that maybe I wasn’t as…open minded as I initially thought.  No monkey brains in my life thus far.

“To us the world happened between a mountain and a sea.  Somehow we were dislodged and we set ourselves free.” R. South Africa.  I saw this poem written on the wall in the District Six Museum in Cape Town.  District Six was a black neighborhood in central Cape Town that inhabitants were forced to evacuate during the apartheid era.  The neighborhood was then demolished for “white use in the future.”  But District Six was never used by anyone ever again: thousands of blacks were displaced and left homeless while whites never found any use for the neighborhood they destroyed.  This poem was written by a woman from District Six who was displaced during apartheid. 

 “Yeah, at least your grandma doesn’t greet you by licking your forehead.” C.  Zimbabwe.  Traditional Shona culture places elders at high esteem.  Children are expected to take their parents in when they are too old to care for themselves, and the elder’s opinion holds considerable weight in decision making.  So, if grandma wants to lick your forehead in order to say hi, then grandma gets to.

“And I was alone in New York with five dollars to my name and all I wanted to do was fill out that job application inside that warm Starbucks.  But my mama didn’t raise me like that: to take things that weren’t mine without paying for them.  So I sat outside of Starbucks on the ground in the snow and I filled out that application.” M. Uganda.  I have incredible respect for the high moral character this Muslim friend upholds, which he credits to his religious upbringing.  He will not let a female walk on the side of the street closest to the cars, never once has asked to borrow or use something that was not his, and one time came over and watched me eat an entire dinner which he politely refused and it was not until the next day did I realize that I had eaten in front of a man who had been intently fasting for the past couple of days.  Unpretentious dedication at its finest.

Yogi tea, your words of wisdom, they serve me well.  Now, please, please give me some academic advice. 

Big Dreamin

In almost all those small, second and third level college classes, there comes a time when the professor will make everyone go around the room and state their aspiration for the future. And there comes a point when everyone is awkwardly giving their answer that you realize that your answer isn’t quite like the other students. Being a dreaded and self proclaimed finance major, I hear a lot of responses that sound something like, “Start my own consulting firm!” or “Get hired by a major accounting company!” And after about ten students have gone, you realize that you probably shouldn’t let tell the class that your main goal for the future is to find a way to live in a tree house.

And the rest of the world likes to call aspirations like that ‘illogical dreams’ because, well, no one actually lives in a treehouse, probably because it is not practical and it’s hard to find a way to get a refrigerator up there and forest fires pose more of a threat then if you lived, say, on the ground. But you know, when I close my eyes at night or the bus ride gets long, its just not my style to daydream of high heels and gray skirts and office jobs. Those corporate job dreamers aren’t wrong. Power to them for being so logically minded. I just hope they aren’t ever too afraid to admit that they want to open a bakery or be an astronaut or a dolphin trainer. Because, I don’t know. Dreams don’t cost a thing. And sometimes, they come true.

Last week I had the opportunity to stay with Tswana people in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. (Pause here for a moment to recall that dreams sometimes do come true and my adventuresome heart had a spring break that could never be duplicated.) Anyways, the delta is a swamp, a freshwater marsh land where the only way to travel is to boat around in a small canoe (makoro) steered by a someone (poler) with a big stick (pole). Stewart was a poler, someone who was paid to take blonde Americans about on the makoros and make sure they got out of the water if there was a hippo sighting. Poling our way through the wetlands of Botswana, this is how nineteen year old Stewart and I met.

Polers quickly become friends. Because when you are in the middle of the delta with no electricity, no buildings and no roads, you need someone to tell you that there was an elephant outside the tent yesterday, so you probably shouldn’t go to the bathroom at night. And when you are in a country you don’t know, with a language and currency that doesn’t make much sense, it feels good when you can sing and dance and talk with someone who has this lifestyle figured out. Or at least more figured out then you do.

So, one night around that rancid smelling fire (unfortunately, elephant dung burns really well,) Stewart and I talked. And I asked him my favorite question: “What is your dream? If you could have or do or be anything in the whole world, what would that look like?”
His answer gave me the same feeling that I get when my fellow classmates back home in Colorado tell me that the craziest aspiration that they can dream up is to be a tax attorney with good insurance.

“I try not to really dream,” Stewart told me, eyes closed, voice low around that sticky fire. “Things like dreams don’t really happen here.”
I urged him on, though. I said, “Well, what if they could? What about… travelling. If you could go any place in the whole world where would you want to be?”

He thought for a few moments, threw some more dung on the fire. “I would go to Northern Botswana. I would be a miner. Miners make a lot of pula. But they die young, young. But that’s ok, I guess. I could send pula home.”
Now I was even more frustrated. He didn’t understand the point of my game, how he was supposed to play. He was supposed to dream big and tell me he wanted to meet Kanye West or buy a house in LA or direct a movie. I didn’t want him to want to be a miner.

“Stewart, I want to live in a treehouse. That’s my dream.” He laughed. Everyone always laughs. Then he asked how I would get a refrigerator up a tree. Everyone always seems to ask that, too.

“Ella!” he said, and he rolled the L’s like the Tswana greeting: Dumela, ma! “You don’t understand. It’s hard to dream. It makes a man sad to wake up in the morning with a want in his heart and know that he will never get that want. I am happy now. I have friends and I am strong and I know how to laugh and I am alive. What more dreams could I want?”

Oh, Stewart, he broke my heart with that speech. Someone without a thing but a boat and a tent wants nothing. Beautifully selfless, and perfectly content. But at the same time, stationary in this world that seems to be travelling a million kilometers per hour.

I felt so guilty then, for making him think about things he could never have, dreams he would never be able to hold. Maybe everyone back home was right, maybe those logical aspirations were the only thing that were going to keep your heart from getting broken. But oh! I had been such a firm believer in the idea of being slightly irrational. That if you wanted something then maybe one day it would happen. I mean I live in Africa! I have ridden an elephant and jumped down a waterfall! Was it so wrong for such farfetched dreams? My right brained self panicked.

There are a lot of stars in that Botswana sky and I went to sleep that night with a few more wishes then I had the night before. I hoped for some of Stewart’s content in my own restless heart. And I couldn’t help but still wishing for my treehouse. But most of all, I prayed that there would never be anything that Stewart would be too afraid to dream.

After a few nights in the Okavango, the time came to head back to main land: to find a road and see a car and buy some much needed food. The journey across the delta in a makoro is a long one, but eventually, mainland was spotted and we piled wet sleeping bags into the overland truck. We hugged polers good bye because now we were brothers and sisters. As I climbed into that truck, Stewart grabbed my arm. He said, "Big dreams don't hurt, right?" I shook my head no, a little confused to where this was going. He smiled really big at me, then laughed, “I want to date Avril Lavigne!”

Wanderings

In typical gypsy girl style, I ventured out into the great African unknown without properly informing the rest of the world that I would be adventuring for awhile with no phone and no computer. However, due to lack of food, lack of clean clothes, and the fact that I traded my sleeping bag for a super rad chess set, I have found myself back in Cape Town, alive and well and full of new stories and a couple unintentional dreds because, well I traded my hairbrush along with that sleeping bag. Unfortunately, school work beckons and gives me anxious looks because of the neglect it has been experiencing these past couple weeks. So, until my papers get written I leave you with a few snapshots of my journey. mambo.

Devils Pool: Victoria Falls, Zambia

Eating (or attempting to eat) the Mompani Worm, more commonly known as huge crunchy caterpillar. Boma, Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls, Highest in the World. Vic Falls, Zimbabwe

Learning to 'pole' a Makoro boat. Okavanga Delta, Botswana