Howdy

Hi Everyone,
Sorry for not updating in the past month. Time is flying here. I leave on Thursday. Things are coming to a close, yesterday we had a final braai and slideshow night. Quite a good time. We also saw an Indian Premeir Leauge Cricket match. That was a ton of fun, it was like Bollywood on the cricket pitch. Otherwise I am studying for finals and trying to wrap my head around what this trip has meant. I'm going to cop out of an original blogpost and post an essay I wrote for literature. The prompt was basically to reflect on South Africa through the themes we learned in class. I wrote about Disgrace, a novel by South African author J.M. Coetezee. It was about a college prof who has an affair with a student and then moves in with his daughter on her farm in the eastern cape. The crux of the story happens when they are robbed one evening on their farm. It's quite a deep book and I would highly reccomend it.

South Africa has provided the 2009 CSB/SJU study abroad group with countless new experiences, questions and memories. We have all taken something different from them and we will all have a new aspect to our lives back home. However, each of us has had a unique angle in which to view these experiences. We may view some of the social things we see on a regular basis as unjust, unfair or just plain wrong. However, that is the way the culture has been here for hundreds of years and it natural here. The beauty we see may be ugly; the truths we see may be lies, or maybe the hate we think we see is truly love. The question I pose to the class is: Can we cast judgment the true nature of this country through our own limited experience?

This question was perhaps best posed in the book Disgrace. On Page 160 of the book, J.M. Coetzee writes about how the protagonist David Laurie is trying to come to terms with his daughter’s rape, “You don’t understand, you weren’t there, says Bev Shaw. Well, she is mistaken. Lucy’s intuition is right after all: he does understand; he can, if he concentrates, if he loses himself, be there, be the men, inabit them, full them with the ghost of himself. The question is, does he have it in him to be the woman?” While Laurie can come to grips with his own personal disgraces, he believes he can understand his daughter’s experience as well. Fortunately, our South African experience has had nowhere near as traumatic an event. However, many of us have tried to do the same thing as Laurie. For example, many of us have seen or personally experienced the underlying tension that still remains between the racial groups here in South Africa. Being from an ‘enlightened’ and educated background we thought we could immediately denigrate those who still carried on racist mindsets in the post-Apartheid South Africa. When we arrived here many of us were upset and confused by how race plays a role in nearly every issue here in the country. Even though many of us were extremely upset by these mindsets, few of us openly criticized those who we perceived as racist. We also unknowingly immediately placed ourselves into the socio-economic system that is still seeped with Apartheid undertones. We allowed ourselves to be picked up after by black maids and we gave food to black children begging in the streets. Coming to South Africa many of us believed that we would be able to understand and be impervious to the racist stereotypes that still allude this country, but as J.M. Coetzee so described in Disgrace, we are ultimately unable to really understand those experiences that we are unable to fully take part in.

The lens in which we view South Africa is shaped by our own personal experiences. During his hearing about an affair with a student, Laurie merely pleads his guilt without remorse. As a professor who has little to hide, he thought that a mere admittance of guilt would be acceptable to the committee. On page 48, he pleads for the committee to just accept his guilt and move on, “I am sure the members of this committee have better things to do with their time than rehash a story over which there will be no dispute. I plead guilty to both charges. Pass sentence, and let us get on with our lives.” As I have learned, nothing in South Africa is ever that simple. Sometimes our intentions are misconstrued by what we do or what we do not do. In the US we are not used to tipping except for at restaurants. In this country you are expected to give a little extra something to anyone who gives you the tiniest bit of help.

Even though we may make cultural mistakes, sometimes our actions may cut deeper. The other weekend I was volunteering at a high school, helping tutor some students in the area of geography. Another student my age also helped out. We only had one student in our first session and I started to take over the teaching because I have a bit of a background in the subject. I was able to incorporate some hands on learning into the teaching by using the water in my mug. After the first session we both talked and he said that he liked my experiment. I asked him if he wanted to do more talking during the next session, but he encouraged me to continue during this lecture. We had to move classrooms and I wanted to get started, so I asked him if he could fill up my coffee mug with water so we could use it in the experiment again. He gave me a nasty look, but then got up and did it. I did not realize the racial implications of what I had perceived as a mere favor until after he excused himself halfway through the session. I viewed my college as an equal and I thought nothing of asking for a favor to help get the class going. However, my ignorance had a much greater effect then I would like to think about.

With our inability to perceive the true South African experience and the still prevalent gaps in our cultural awareness, how can we do justice in describing and analyzing our own views on South Africa? Do we continue to seek out and learn what we can about the contradictions and confusion of this country, or do we go the way of David Laurie and metaphorically ‘give up’ the dog that we have become attached to? For me, this contradiction is shown in the election of Jacob Zuma. Before I came here I thought of Zuma as a violent populist who was on par with Robert Mugabe. We would not be safe, nor would we be accepted here. My views began to change after we attended the ANC rally in Uitenhage. People came up to us and told us about how happy they were to see us and how the ANC needed more white people. I asked people questions about Zuma and some said he was ‘our Obama’. I didn’t quite understand the comparison until I learned more about him. He is an uneducated man who rose up out of poverty to become president. He may not be the most intelligent man to ever run a country, but his rapport with the people of this country is inspiring. He may not be the most ethical or trustworthy man, but you cannot deny his love for South Africa and its people. There are problems, but there is hope

So now I stand at a crossroads. I have grown a love and a passion for the beauty and inspiration of this country, but I have been disgusted by the hate and anger that still pervades this country. My experience is not the perfect vehicle in which to judge South Africa, but it has planted a seed in which I can grow into a better and more understanding person. However, I will not be able to see this until many years down the road. Just like in Disgrace, Laurie will not be able to see the fruits of his labor with his play until many years down the road.
“He sighs. It would have been nice to be returned triumphant to society as the author of an eccentric little chamber opera. But that will not be. He hopes must be more temperate: that somewhere from amidst the welter of sound there will dart up, like a bird, a single authentic note of immortal longing. As for recognizing it, he will leave that to the scholars of the future.”
Only time will tell on how South Africa has truly affected me and how I will grow from it in the future.


I'll be writing my last post on the plane ride home...it will take me a while to say all that I want to say.