A bit of African culture

This weekend was fun. It was a long weekend too, which was nice. The whole weekend wasn't ayoba though, and I'm warning you now that I'm going to get into some pretty offensive stuff in this post.

Just in case you missed that...

****THIS IS PROBABLY GOING TO OFFEND YOU! STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVE DELICATE SENSIBILITIES!****

The weekend didn't start out so nice, though, since Saturday morning Vivian and I went to a funeral. Theo's uncle died, and unlike most places around here, the college didn't really tell anyone or make any kind of plans to attend services. Apparently in many workplaces, the company will arrange transport for staff to go to anybody's funeral who's remotely related to the company. Also, I've been told it reflects poorly on family members who are employed if nobody from their work shows up. Plus, I like Theo, she's nice, and I figured she wouldn't mind the extra company. So, Vivian and I went to the funeral. The burial itself was too early in the morning for us to find transport for, but we showed up at the house afterwards to just greet the family and give our condolences. There were a ton of people there, and also a ton of food. Vivian and I didn't eat much and we didn't stay long. We waited until Theo showed up with the rest of the family and we greeted her and met her aunt and some of her cousins, said our condolences, spent a bit of time chatting with Theo, and left. One thing that they do here that I was surprised by is collect money. Family/friends who show up are expected to contribute something to the deceased, presumably to help pay for the funeral and what-have-you, and some unlucky family member has to spend the funeral gathering money and writing down who gave what in a ledger. I guess it makes sense, but it's just something I'd never seen before. The only thing that bothered me about the whole funeral was how the people who didn't know me acted around me. Specifically, the drunk guy (drunk before noon) hitting on me (a complete stranger), at a flippin' funeral, who had to be told by a family member of the deceased that he was acting like an ass before he left me the fuck alone.

As usual, whenever I go anywhere outside the college, I'm the only white person, and people stare at me. I've gotten used to it at this point. I don't really mind it when the little kids do it, because they don't really know any better, but when adults don't even try to be discreet about it, I get kind of annoyed. The other thing I've gotten used to is black guys hitting on me. It seems every black guy here wants to score a white chick and because I'm actually showing up someplace that's predominantly black instead of hiding myself away in a fenced and guarded community, it must mean that's automatically what I'm looking for. And of course, these guys don't take "no" for an answer the first time. Or the second. Or the third. Or even the fourth or fifth sometimes. I can't politely decline, I can't decline and tell them I have a boyfriend, I can't even just ignore them. No. I have to be rude and tell them to piss off and then glare at them, or physically get up and walk away for them to get the hint. I've even slapped a guy's arm away when he tried to reach out and touch me. This is going to make me sound like a racist, but I completely understand why 90% of the white population is afraid of, or at the very least, uncomfortable with, 90% of the black population here. If this is how you treat someone whose skin is a different color, like some kind of commodity and/or a freak-show, you can't very well blame them for disliking you. And this was not an isolated incident. Any time I've gone somewhere, even just to the super-market, I get stares and comments and whistles and cat-calls. Even in the places I go where there are mixed races, the black guys are the ones being rude to me. It doesn't help matters that even in the middle of the day, half the black guys I encounter on the street or wherever are drunk or well on their way.

Now, clearly not all black people are like this. And also, clearly, there are white people and Asians and Indians and Latinos and whoever-elses who also behave badly. I also realize that there are a number of historical and socio-economic factors that contribute to a culture of people who find it acceptable to behave in such a manner. But, shit, man, just stop. If you want white people to stop treating you like dogs, stop freaking acting like them.

I know that I sound like a racist right now. And I really don't care. Because I know I'm not a racist. I don't judge people by their skin color. But when the vast majority of people who do things to piss me off happen to be of the same skin color, it's hard not to notice.

Now, clearly this is not the entirety of the black population down here, nor anywhere in the world for that matter, but when the vast majority of my experiences involving black people that I don't personally know have been negative in this country, I completely understand why racism still exists. I completely understand why most white people wouldn't go to a black person's funeral, or to a super-market where mostly black people shop, or out to a black-dominated bar or restaurant or wherever, or live in a black neighborhood.

What's actually rather funny is that I've made these types of observations to some of my friends here, who are also black, and they completely agree with me! They're just as annoyed at this type of behavior as I am. And they haven't failed to notice that there seems to be a trend. Shit, even my boyfriend tells me that most black African men are dogs, and he is a black African man! The difference, though, is that he treats me like a human being, not a status symbol. Not a freak. Not an object. I'm not a trophy or a toy to him. I'm a person. I've got a brain and feelings and desires and dreams. And when a woman is clearly not interested in him, he knows enough to respect her wishes. Is it any coincidence that he's also educated? That he's got ambitions in life? That he's got better things to do with his time and money than to get drunk and hit on women who clearly want nothing to do with him? I think not.

Imagine that; the person who treats me like a real person and doesn't try to force himself on me is the one who actually gets my attention. What a concept!

Anyway, enough about evil black people for now. Here's the rest of my weekend.

After the funeral, I went to the store with Vivian to pick up a few things, where there were also ill-mannered black folk, but I'm not talking about that right now. After that, we came home, and since we'd both gotten up at 6 AM on a Saturday, we decided a nap was in order. When I woke up from my nap, I felt worse than when I went to sleep. I had planned on going to the village to hang out with Thabang and his family later that day, but I just felt sick to my stomach and had a huge headache, and so I just went back to bed.

I was fine in the morning, and I spent almost all of Sunday in Welverdiend. Vivian was going there anyway to visit some friends that day, and I was hanging out with Thabang's family that day, so we walked together to the village. We managed to hitch a ride to the bus stop, where we split off. She went off and did her thing, and I waited for Thabang to come pick me up there, because I didn't remember exactly how to get to his house. While I was waiting, these two kids, a boy and a girl, somewhere between 7 and 10 years old, were sitting, playing some kind of game in the dirt. They asked me to come play with them, so I did. I don't know the name of the game, but it was very similar to this board game I used to play back home called Mancala. They dug holes in the ground in two rows per player, and in each hole there were four small stones. We each picked a hole to draw a circle around, and I'm pretty sure the object of the game was to get all our stones into the circle first. You play by picking a hole and taking the stones out of it and placing them one in each hole consecutively counter-clockwise along the board. If your last stone falls in a hole that has stones in it, you pick them up and re-distribute them the same way, and if it lands in an empty hole, your turn is over. After that we played this other game, I think it was called Marababa, involving drawing a square with a plus sign in the middle in the dirt and putting stones at the intersections, taking turns, trying to get three in a row, which allows you to capture one of your opponent's pieces. Whoever takes all the other person's pieces first wins. After that Thabang showed up and we went and visited his family.

I met a few more of his cousins and siblings and aunts and uncles, who all live in the same big family complex in Welverdiend. I also met his grandparents. His grandmother taught me how to make marula beer, which was quite fun.

Later, his aunt braided my hair. Having such long hair, this took the better part of an afternoon. His cousins came over at this time as well and it was fun watching the little ones play this game involving string and patterns of jumping. One of his cousins helped with my hair for a bit, and she and his aunt were chattering back and forth in Sotho the whole time.

My Sotho isn't great, so Thabang did a little bit of translating and I did a lot of zoning out. It's really hard not knowing the languages here. At work, everyone speaks English to me, and either Afrikaans or Shangaan to each other, depending on their skin color. I can greet everyone in their native languages here, but I haven't gotten far beyond that. I started learning Shangaan, and then I started dating a Sotho guy, so then I had to start learning Sotho to try and greet his family properly, and a lot of times they mix languages here and throw in some other ones too, so even if I did know one language fluently, it'd be hard to follow them. But I'm so far from fluent that it all sounds like gibberish to me. Most of the time I just zone out when people start having conversations around me, because I don't know what they're saying anyway, and then when they do talk to me again, they have to repeat themselves to get me to respond, because I'm not actually listening; I'm somewhere else. It's getting really frustrating going anywhere or talking to anyone outside of work, because if I'm with more than one person, the other two people will start talking to each other in Sotho or Shangaan or Afrikaans, and I can't understand it. The people here must think I'm really boring, because I don't talk much when there's a group. Ah, language barriers.

Anyway, I like how my hair came out, and later, back at the college, Vivian taught me how to care for braids. First rule: keep them the fuck away from water. Second rule: wrap/tie them up when you sleep at night. Third rule: use spray-in shampoo on a daily basis. Fourth rule: Re-braid as necessary. Here are a few pictures:

So, after that, Thabang came back to the college with me and slept over until Monday. That day he actually spent helping me clean house, which was a pleasant surprise. However, there was an event leading to an unpleasant interaction at work on Tuesday.

Let's get back to race, shall we? On the other side of things, I work with some pretty two-faced bigoted white people. Case in point:

This weekend, Monday, Thabang and I were waiting for transport to take him back to the gate, and we were sitting on the steps outside of reception together. Monday was a holiday, so nobody had to be at work. However, somebody was. This person, who shall remain nameless, happened to see Thabang and I together, and *gasp* saw us kissing!

That day we got nothing more than a dirty look, but the next day at tea-time, before anyone else got there, this person pulled me aside and felt the need to tell me that my "interactions with [my] comrade there were unbecoming" and against the school's code of conduct. Now, this is complete and utter bullshit. Firstly, I was never given any kind of rule-book when I signed on here. I was made to sign a waiver and an affirmation that I'd read the grievance procedure (which I had to seek out on the server by myself, I might add). Secondly, back when we first started dating, Thabang was still working here, and I'd see him at lunch-time still for my Tsonga lessons, at which I may or may not have kissed him once or twice in public, I looked up whether we even had a code of conduct (which we don't) and whether anything I was doing was against it (which it can't be). Somewhere on the server I found a document detailing all the things a person could be disciplined for, and what actions merited what disciplinary measures and so on. And guess what? There is absolutely NOTHING against public displays of affection ANYWHERE in that document, nor in any document anywhere on the server.

So, beyond there being no actual rules in place, and even if there were, me not being properly made aware of any such rules, if I'm to go by example, I'm still not doing anything wrong. Half the people who work in the offices here are married couples, and as such, there is a certain amount of kissing and nuzzling that go on in the offices, during work hours, on a regular basis. Now, nobody says anything at all whatsoever about that. However, I kiss my boyfriend on my own time, not even in the office, and an administrator who's not even in my department feels the need to suddenly inform me that there are rules against that. What's the freaking difference!? I do realize that dating and married are two different things, but seriously, when it comes to simple kissing, I wasn't doing anything I'd be ashamed of doing in front of my own parents, but somehow it's "unbecoming" and against the rules? But it's okay for other office couples to smooch and cuddle and whatever so much so that it has actually nauseated me, and nobody says anything?

Can anybody tell me why the double standard? What's that boys and girls? Oh, yes, my boyfriend is black. And me kissing my BLACK boyfriend personally offends some people who work here, so people make things up about me breaking some rule that doesn't even exist. I'm willing to bet that if I'd been seen kissing a white guy, nobody would give a damn. Am I jumping to conclusions? Possibly. However, I think it's more likely that racism is still strong in South Africa and the mixing of races is still considered "immoral" to some people. Race is just a color. It doesn't mean anything. It's the person underneath the skin that matters. Good people, and bad people, come in every color, shape, and size. And as soon as people everywhere realize that and stop acting like skin color makes a damn bit of difference, the world will be a better place. At least they had the balls to say it to my face, though. For that I must give them credit. I'm sure more people are talking about me than to me. And it's stupid to think like that anyway, but at least someone finally said something to my face.