Home Stay - Part II: Ocean View

Part II

Uncle, his brother, and I navigated the streets in his neat blue SUV, cruising, in no particular rush. He pointed out the window at a large building that housed a butcher shop. “That used to be a bottle shop. They converted it some years back.”

“Bottle shop?”

Uncle curved his hand into a “C” and tiled it toward his mouth.

“Ah. Where I'm from, we call them 'package stores' or 'packies'.

Uncle raised an eyebrow, confused. “Why?”

We came to rest at a stop sign and I shrugged. “I have no idea.” Uncle nodded and proceeded through the stop sign.

“The residents here, many of them are poor because of home loans or high rent.” We pass a sturdy white house with a grey stone wall. A woman stands in the yard hanging sheets on a clothes line. Uncle waves. She smiles and returns the gesture. “Everything is rent,” he says. “Everything is debt.”

We pause at another stop sign. An old yellow dogs pads across the street in front of the car, his mouth hanging open. Uncle remains still long enough to let him pass. The dog takes his time, finally settling on his haunches under a palm tree on the other side of the road. A strong breeze blows down the road, rattling the leaves of the palm tree and the dog flops over on his side and closes his eyes. Uncle puts the car in gear and we coast slowly past the stop sign.

The streets in this part of town were named after astronomical whatnots – Neptune Road, Venus Street, Pluto Drive. A mountain lay like a protective arm around most of the town, only allowing an open view directly to the ocean. “Sometimes the mountain boys come down and raid the place,” Uncle said. I raised my eyebrows.

Uncle's brother piped up from the back seat. “Baboons,” he said.

I thought it was a joke and smiled. Both of them stared out the window, suddenly pensive. “You can always tell when they're hear. The children are screaming, the dogs are barking.” Uncle started to continue and did not, and, ass curious as I was for more story, I let it end there.

We climbed a large hill to reach the highest point in Ocean View, stopping occasionally for Uncle and his brother to greet friends along the way. We were in no rush. The top held a spectacular view of the ocean, all frothing waves and hypnotic undulations, white sands and blue skies. “It's beautiful,” I said.

And then I heard, “Lock your door.”

I pulled myself away from the ocean view and paid attenion.

“Lock your door, man,” Uncle said again. I locked my door. Uncle seemed to relax and turned his attention toward the ocean. I joined him. “It's beautiful,” he said.

I nooded, but I don't think he saw me. 

Home Stay - Part I: Homecoming

As part of the UConn study abroad program, we've been scheduled to spend the weekend with various families in Ocean View, Cape Town. Ocean View was established in 1968 as a township for coloured people who had been forcibly removed from so called "white areas" by the former apartheid government under the Group Areas Act. It was first called Slangkop and the first resident moved in 1 August 1968. It was ironically named Ocean View, with residents being removed from their previous sea-side homes and views. As a result, its history is thoroughly embedded in apartheid.

We got off the bus in the parking lot of a casually posh food and wine shop which was abutted by an antique shop, a used book shop, a small restaurant, and various other tourist traps with wares clearly priced beyond the reach of locals. Just beyond the parking lot, there were horses and white camels to ride, and a small farm where children could view and pet animals. An ocean breeze kicked up the red dust of the parking lot, and I raised my hand to shield my eyes. “Maybe we're just making a pit stop,” I thought. The wind kicked up more fiercely this time and my hand was not enough. I turned my back against the dust, swiped at my eyes with a handkerchief, and opened them.

Across the road from where we were, a multitude of colored building in varying states of disrepair lay scattered across the hills at the foot of the mountain. Some of the buildings were little more that shacks, planks of wood and piles of bricks and stones settled under a corrugated tin roof. Behind them, the mountains loomed, sketching a permanent and unforgiving horizon. Bushes and trees lay strewn about and between stones of dreary grey and brilliant white. The wind blew once again and I shivered.

We were led across the road toward a grassy park fringed with palm trees. The grass was different somehow, a tougher kind than I'd known at home. A swing set and monkey bars sat on the far side of the park, brightly colored, empty. We cut across the park in silence, bags in tow, toward the building.

On the other side of the park, short home sat stacked directly beside one another, shoulder to shoulder, yet set apart from one another by chest-high stone walls or fences topped with cruel pointed ends. Here and there, people lingered in and around the street, on their front porch, behind windows, watching us. The staring was nothing new. By now, we learned that it was simply blatant curiosity and nothing more. We waved and flashed smiles. “Hello!” The curiously faces brightened, cheeks upturned, lips parting on beautiful teeth. “Hello!” they returned.

The wind tossed bits of trash here and there, tumbling in and out of the road, onto lawns (such as they were), mingling with the dust in the air. A filthy dog sidled up to our caravan and began smelling my hand. “Hello!” I said. It seemed the right thing to do. He sniffed me a time or two more before sitting back on his haunches and laying down in the road, a bright pink tongue lolling out of his open mouth. I reached down to pet him and was told “We don't touch the dogs here.” There was no further explanation and nothing more was said on the matter.

We trudged under a labourer's sun, sweated, buffeted by dusty wind, winding through the streets of an unknown town. Endless rows of eyes watched us as we trekked through the streets and past the homes. Soon, we came upon a large building, easily the largest in town, that marked Ocean View's center, housing a few shops and a dentist's office. Here, I noticed more dogs, some as filthy and nature-worn as the first, some domesticated and well groomed, all of them friendly, curious, each padding toward us to investigate for themselves. We crossed a dirt and grass square and started up another unfamiliar street.

Halfway down this new road, we were ushered into the garage of one of the homes – a quaint mustard colored building with a neat yard and various flowers and plants on display. The garage was deep enough for three cars but none were parked here. Instead, the space had been converted into a “Crèche” – what we'd call a kindergarten in the States. In place of a bare concrete floor and walls lined with tools, the floor was carpeted and the walls decorated with educational posters. A bank of cubbies stood near the front of the room,, each marked with a child's name. In the rear was a small bookcase with a few books resting on top of it. Behind that, a small basket of toys lay just out of sight. Colorful plastic child-sized tables and chairs were stacked neatly against one wall. We filed in and sat on the floor.

The people that introduced themselves and welcomed us to town were wonderfully upbeat, bright, friendly, passionate. We were told that we would be volunteering with children the following morning though the following afternoon and, though I had already heard this before, I cringed. I do not do well with children.

After a few more introductions and prayer, we were sent off in pairs to various homes in town to meet and settle in with the families we'd be staying with. I'm marched off with someone else to a small home on the opposite side of the town center. It, too, is modest, outfitted with a small neat fence and carefully tiled patio. We walk inside, eager to rest but expecting another task. Thankfully, we are shown to our rooms straight away and allowed to unburden ourselves.

The house was not what I expected, or, rather, what I was told to expect.

“This will be nothing like America. Don't go looking for anything like America because it is not there. You will not find it.”

We were not told what we would find, only that it would be foreign, unfamiliar. Walking through the home toward my room, I struggled to reconcile the expectations with my reality. This was a lovely home, cleverly arranged and well appointed, very much like what I could find in the US. I started to think that maybe I had missed out on the irony of our pre-visit meeting. Everything was new, but everything was familiar. I felt at home immediately.

Bags down and shoes off, I emerged from my new room and joined my new “parents” on the couch. Here, instead of ma'am and sir, respected elders are called “Auntie” and “Uncle”. It was unusual but not out of my comfort zone.

“Would you like a beer?”Uncle asked.

“Sure!” I said, hoping I didn't sound as enthusiastic as I felt, hoping more so that it would not be just one beer. “I also brought a bottle of wine as a gift,” I said, standing and crossing the room to get it for them.

“Do you want to open that now?” Uncle asked.

“I... well that's for you and Auntie,” I said, slightly unsure if my subtle declination constituted a breech of etiquette. Quickly, I added, “Am I still getting a beer?”

Uncle flashed an impish grin and handed me a beer. I liked him instantly. 

You Don't Say

I lay covered in sores and bug-bites yet to become sores, choking on a cloud of useless repellent, sneezing, coughing, my back trembling and contorting, a mute horror show. I have not spoken to my family or friends in weeks. I have not had time to make time for myself. I am told to wait. I am told to appreciate the distance. I am told that so many have it much worse, that complaining is empty and meaningless. I am selfish, spoiled, fussy American. I am in truth, not pain. Live it. Suffer. You have earned it.

That I would calls these woes is evidence of my privilage. That I would speak of them as awful and uncommon is evidence of my privilage. That I would expect these things to be addressed with more than a shrug is evidence of my privilage. This isn't about me. I am unimportant. I am not genuine, but a receptacle for authentic experiences. I am ungrateful. So many people would kill for the chance to “suffer” as I do. My privilage hinders me from thinking of them first. That I would want to stop itching and bleeding, that i would want not to be covered in sores, stinging as sweat runs into them, itching constantly, marauded by insects – that is my privilege, nothing more.

I would not feel so if only I'd change my perspective. I choose to hurt. I choose to suffer. It is an illusion.

I am lost to myself, a stranger in my own skin. 

Much of this trip is performed on the rails. It feels like an adventure, but it is farce, a carnival ride. We are going in the only direction we are allowed to go. Because it is “safe”. Because they've done this before and we haven't. Because shut up and let us dazzle you with wonder and splendor! Let us do our jobs! And we are told:

• Look here!
• Don't look there!
• This is what this means!
• This is how you should feel!
• This is how you talk!
• This is their way!
• See how much better this is than yours?
• See how awful your home is?
• Don't you wish you were more like they are?

We are rendered cold and mundane, by contrast less beautiful, less storied, less cultured, less genuine. We, the fat and faceless consumer clan descend with empty open hearts and learn to love anew, to see beyond the price tags and buffets, to experience authentic meaning, not like back home, not like back there.

And we, the obedient children from the Land of Plenty, deign to tell them how moved and touched and shaken and stirred we are by all we see and hear. And aren't we so grateful? Aren't we so very profoundly blessed by this experience?

And they, immune to the majesty yet held fast by the same, struggle against their splendid nets and ask what New York is like. They ask about our cars, our food, our neighborhoods.

And we, newly disabused of our love and pride, cast our eyes aside saying only, “It's not like THIS,” our eyes wide, glistening like sinister peaches.

These are the things we don't say, you don't say, I don't say; too much, too fast, too long, too strange, too uncomfortable, too unusual, too awkward, too hot, too offensive, to demanding, too far – the tacit agreement being that critique and complaint are tantamount to intolerance and ingratitude. So we swallow our soft daggers and call it tolerance, beautiful, open-mindedness. We surrender to the schedule, the rigid definitions and expectations laid out before us like roads and bridges, delivering us to rare and exquisite truths. 

*eye roll*

In many ways, expectations are the enemy of enlightenment. I find myself living out other people's expectations, other people's dreams and experiences. Everything is filtered. Everything is preempted. Everything comes with caveats and instructions:

DO/DO NOT

• Find this beautiful
• Find this delicious
• Do this because it's fun
• Marvel at this
• Wonder at that
• Go here
• Dream this dream
• Pray this prayer
• Want this
• Need this
• Love this
• Experience THIS like THIS

It is a checklist void of humanity yet feigning the same, a vivisected corpse of someone else's South African love affair, insisting itself to life, bloodless, nameless, desperate for breath.

There is no reason, only a feeling, a compulsion to act within certain boarders and boundaries. It is as rote and moot as parents attempting to describe to their children what love is like. Despite their good intentions, missing from their telling is the crucial admission that their story is theirs and theirs alone, that their love is unique to them, a magic that can only be conjured by them that only they will ever share and experience.

It is that rarity that makes love worth repeating, even after heartbreak, because it is never the same song twice. It is why falling in love matters at all. An that truth is the key to finding your own love in your own way.

But they leave this out, consciously or unconsciously, determined to guide their children toward experiences like their own – different, to be sure, grander maybe, but similar, an exaggerated, elaborated version of the lives their parents have lived.

And this is how it is, only instead of love stories, we have the story of a nation, of hundreds of millions over several generations, paths weaving into, onto, around, and through one another, a marvelously ancient and complex quilt, impossible to behold all at once.

The country breathes all around me, a living thing. I lay my hand to the earth and breathe with it, the sand and the sea made poetry by the setting sun, the hem of of the Atlantic lapping at my ankles and toes. I am looking toward home and cannot fathom the distance. 

I want to know the way but cannot say. 

South Africa: Sight

The dust is beginning to settle. What was once a fantastically unfamiliar place is becoming familiar. I know this street, that shop. I recognize that building. And I know how to get there from here. Twice now I've corrected taxi drivers who seemed determined to take the longest route. Both times, the driver laughed nervously and said, “Oh yes, yes, you're right. I'm sorry.”

I feel much more able and capable. Resistant fears and anxieties are giving way to curiosity and adventure. I am not entirely comfortable, but I am no longer lost. I'm beginning to find my way.

I am learning that there is something to be gained in relinquishing need or want control and giving in to abandon. Indeed, there are things that can only be known by letting go and letting the land have her way with you. The fixed becomes flexible and movable – notions, beliefs, inhibitions, etc, and the world begins revealing itself in a different way. I can notice and appreciate, wonder and investigate in earnest now. It is a pleasant free fall, not unlike falling in love. My mouth is dry and my hands are shaking but that's OK. That is normal. That is the way this goes.

I've moved my focus to what's happening around me rather than in me and am finding my energy better spent this way. Perhaps spurred by this newness, I decided to walk to my internship at Bush Radio instead of taking a mini-bus taxi.

On foot, the city feels more tangible, deliberate, intentional. The concrete has a certain smell, the buildings a particular look. I lay my fingertips against the bricks and steel and concrete feeling for a pulse. The sights and sounds compete for my attention and I've time to pay attention to them all.

School children in identical uniforms congregate at bus stops, some wide-eyed and chatting, some sleepy and uninterested. A young school girl in a group of three walks toward me, talking with her friends. Her voice shoots out of her mouth, a giggling trumpet, her hands flapping like agitated birds. I've seen her before but am just noticing her now. She and her friends walk past me as if I'm not there, as if I'm invisible.

It occurs to me moments later that that was the first time I had gone unnoticed since I'd arrived. Aware of this, I cast a glance about me and notice how very unnoticed I am. Buses and taxis compete with other commuters and mini-bus taxis, the latter hooting and zip-speeding through traffic. This is no longer surprising. I am no longer surprising.

We are becoming familiar to one another, Cape Town and I.

South Africa: Disorientation

“I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,To stop in company with rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough…”

W. Whitman, American Poet

It began with a 15 hour plane flight, followed by a baffling customs encounter, followed by a two hour plane flight, followed by something like sleep. “Jet lag” is woefully inefficient. This is obliteration, a scrambling of all things familiar, devastation of righteous and wholesome thinking. I am only an animal now. I stalk the streets with naked feet, eating as I go. I snort and growl. The sky is unfamiliar. I wait for the moon and greet it with a lonesome howl.

The itinerary is incomprehensibly dense, defying all but the vaguest of appreciations, obscuring everything with a hasty whipping fog of discoveries and revelations. It is a rushed meal where tasting (let alone savoring) is impossible. One can only chew, swallow, and repeat, struggling against the suffocation of the next inevitable bite, nodding, smiling, “Yes, this is delicious, thank you”, teary-eyed with desperation and vague understanding. 

Our guides repeatedly ask if there are any questions. We are lousy with questions but it does not matter. There is so much more to do. And we are late.

Day 1: Arrive, depart, logistics, pick-up, dinner. It is a carnival. We are performing without knowing, singed and suffering under the stage lights. I try and hold all these new things at arms length, eager to examine and investigate but, alas, there is no time. We are late. I snap some photographs and try not to fall asleep.

Day 2: Pick-up, welcome, depart, lunch, shopping, return, leave, football, dinner, sleep. It is an elaborate dance and we do not know the steps. We gyrate like idiots, feigning enjoyment and awareness. Everything is new and beautiful – we would be fools not to smile, to arch our backs, to grin with wetted lips and pretend to belong. It is polite, after all. We are but guests here. And we must keep up. We are late. I pry my eyes open and snap more photographs.

Day 3: Depart, briefing, lunch, depart, return, leave, dinner, return. The sun looms, a grinning oppressor seeking out our hopes and smothering them with kindness, patrolling the flat sapphire sky. I pause to drop anchor and consider this gift but it is impossible. There is so much more to see and do. And we must hurry. We are late, you see.

Day 4: Depart, tour, lunch, leave, walk, return, pick-up, briefing, leave, dinner, sleep. My tongue is a disobedient interloper, swollen, ignorant, helpless. I am stifled, buried in an ocean of newness. I should get this. I should understand. I should be grateful. But time is short. Wonder and beauty are streaked, ruined, unrecognizably smeared in my memory. I cannot tell. I cannot say. It doesn't matter. There is so much left to do. I snap more photographs so I can remember, and then off we go. We are late.

Day 5: I am become dust, obscured and rendered irrelevant by the whirlwind of this, my “life changing experience”. It is a rushed cold burn. It is a hectic staccato poem. I mingle and am lost to the schedule, the meetings, the seeings, the informings, the once-in-a-lifetime-opportunities. I am perpetual and perpendicular and perpetually perpendicular. I am wide asleep. I don't know where I am or what is happening, but isn't this beautiful? Isn't this incredible? I snap more photographs and try not to fall awake.

The days carry on like this: always coming, always going, always eyes wide open. We are run about, bombarded with beauty and horror and hope and destitution and destiny and love. And then we rest, but only just enough to be able to do it all again. 

It is this again and again and again. The days' names are dissolved and washed away by this waterfall of rituals. I do not know what day it is because it does not matter. We are worshiping at the alter of the Church of Routine. It is necessary and taxing. It is exhausting.

This is exploring and discovering South Africa.

This is the real Cape Town.

This is almost more than I can bear.

I have become numb to wonder, immune to grandeur. I am steeped in them, buried and drowning at once. They are everywhere and everything, commonplace. I find myself longing for the mundane, the ordinary. I yearn for boredom.

This is ennui by way of over-stimulation.

I fear my dreams will soon turn against me and I'll only see Cape Town in my sleep. Each night, I lay in a stranger's bed, lost in another man's country, gripping my pillow to my chest as if the effort might stop the world from spinning long enough for me to get my bearings. 

I strain my ears for familiar sounds, praying that maybe the faintest echo of the sounds of my home still linger in the cup of my ear. I squint and it's almost as if I'm home again, as if I've only turned a corner and had a look at things from a different angle, as if I only need double back and I'll be home again.

This is not true, but I will it to be so, against hope, against reason.

Day X: Routine and ritual call me to board the bus. I am powerless to resist. I have lost my way. I have surrendered. I have closed my eyes. And then, ever so ordinarily, our bus crests a hill, and to our left, the mountain greets us, broad-shouldered and regal, the sun a glowing pendant resting on it's chest. I have no choice but to open my eyes and see this.

“The anchor is your burden” it says. “Let go.”

And though my heart cries out like a starving child, though my hands and feet feel useless and unfamiliar here, though I want nothing more than to fight, to resist, to overcome the newness, I loose my grip in spite of my fear, contrary to my instincts. I obey and let go.

And everything is beautiful again.