Hello faithful readers! Sorry for the delay in
posts… I've had four big assignments due in the last two weeks
including my research proposal for my independent study project! Ah! I have two
more papers due next week but after spending all Easter weekend on my proposal,
I think I can allow myself a night or two off to catch you all up on my latest
adventures!
We arrived back in Cape Town from the Eastern
Cape around 6 am on Sunday, March 17th aka St. Patrick’s Day
(and Sarah’s 21st birthday)! My friends and I spent the day
catching up on emails, blogs, etc. at our classroom in Rondebosch in the
morning before returning to the backpackers’ lodge where we were staying to
shower and explore the city. That night for dinner the two Irish pubs were
overflowing with people, so our whole group of 27 ended up eating out at two
different Ethiopian restaurants instead. Talk about starting a new St. Patty’s
Day tradition! As much as I would have loved to go out on the town afterwards to
celebrate my Irish heritage, I went back to the lodge instead to rest my tired
legs and get a good night’s sleep in a real bed!
The next morning we moved out of the
backpacker’s and went to our classroom to re-pack our bags for our next
homestay in Stellenbosch, a small university town about 45 minutes to an hour
outside of Cape Town. For this homestay we were going to be living with white
Afrikaans-speaking families – quite a change from our black Xhosa-speaking
families in Langa and Tshabo! After packing, we were given a one hour Afrikaans
instruction to learn how to say greetings and basic titles and then shipped off
in the vans to Stellenbosch to meet our parents.
Stewart had mentioned that we would be having a
briefing with the Stellenbosch homestay coordinator before we went to our
respective houses. What he forgot to mention, or didn’t know himself, was that
our briefing was being held at the botanical gardens at a classy restaurant
with finger foods and local wine! Actually, there was no briefing, just
munching and drinking while we waited for our parents to pick us up. Not going
to lie, I went back for seconds… and thirds. Living in Tshabo with our
four-five full meals a day had really expanded my stomach! Plus the food was
delicious and who in their right mind would pass up on gourmet finger food?
After we had finished munching, Lara’s parents
packed Lara, Allie, and I in to their car to bring us to Somerset West, the
neighboring town where the three of us and four other girls from our program
were living. All three of our initial responses were, “Wow it’s been so long
since we’ve been in a car!”, soon followed by a whispered conference debating
whether or not to buckle our seat belts (In Langa most our families had cars
but no one buckled their seatbelts, typically because there were usually six or
seven people squished into a four-five person car). We decided to observe
Lara’s parents and follow their lead (our research method of choice here being
participant observation – wow, you can tell I’ve been writing a lot of research
methods and ethics papers!). Both simultaneously reached for their belts and
buckled, so we followed their lead. The drive from Stellenbosch to Somerset
West was pretty short, about 20 minutes. The three of us were living in the same
suburb of large gated homes built on hill overlooking Somerset West and False
Bay. When Lara’s parents pulled up to our house, we were immediately greeted by
a large yellow lab named Sally and a long-haired dachshund named Java. Sanene,
our host mom’s friend and tenant, met us on the porch in her wheelchair and
after chatting with Lara’s parents for a few minutes, brought us into the house
and showed us to our room - a large bedroom with a connecting full bath, queen
size bed, and closet space! After living out of suitcases for ten days and not
having a bathroom for 7 of those days, you can only imagine how elated we were.
We dropped off our bags in our new room and then took a tour of the house and
neighborhood with Sanene and the pups. Afterwards we came home and helped
Sanene prepare dinner: oven-roasted vegetables and salad with greens freshly
picked from the garden by Allie and I! As much as I’ve enjoyed trying new food,
I was happy to have a healthy dinner that resembled something my mom would make
for dinner at home. Just as finished, my host mom, Annie, walked in the door
fresh from her late meeting. We introduced ourselves, thank her for welcoming
us into her home, and exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before sitting
down at the table to eat and get to know each other. Annie is a widower with
two grown sons who lived on her own with her two dogs and two cats, sisters
named Biltong and Biscuit, until two years ago when Sanene joined her. She is
also the head of a small NGO dedicated to helping families with disabled
children and she told us a little about her business over food. My past two
houses had been female-dominated so it was cool to be able to continue the
trend with two sweet, hard-working women. When we finished dinner, Allie and I
helped clear the table and then headed off to our room to unpack and hit the
sack early – moving into a new home and meeting a new family is tiring
business!
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| Sally! |
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| Java! |
During our week in Stellenbosch we met on
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for lectures at Stellenbosch University, an
Afrikaans university and one of four higher education institutions in the
Western Cape (there are only 23 universities in all of SA!). We met in the
cinema each day for two lectures, one from 9:00-10:30 and the second from
11:00-12:30, and our lectures focused on university life and Afrikaans culture
and identity. After a ten day “spring break”, I was eager to get back to
classes and learn about another group that makes up this multicultural society.
I was also excited to be on a college campus again! Don’t get me wrong, I love
our small classroom in Rondebosch and consider it to be my home-base here in
SA, but I miss being around people my own age and campus life in general. Plus
we were allowed to use the university’s library which was a nice change from
doing my homework on whatever bed I was staying that week (though if truth be
told, I only went the library one afternoon and did all three of my assignments
on my bed…).
Although I was happy to be back “on campus”
again, I had to constantly remind myself that I wasn't back on my campus again. Stellenbosch
constantly played tricks on my mind. For the first time since leaving the
United States I was living with a middle class family in a predominantly white
area and attending a predominantly white university; on the surface it seemed
like a carbon copy of my life in the United States. Once I dove beneath the
surface however, I realized that I was still very far away from home. Although
the students and my host family resembled my friends and family at home, there
were subtle differences. First, most people’s primary language was Afrikaans so
their English was accented. Second, the Afrikaans culture was dominant in their
lives. As a minority, this group of people is very focused on preserving their
culture and language in the face of a changing South Africa. For example, many
nights for dinner my mom prepared traditional food as a way to teach us about
her culture. While sharing cultural foods is not unique to my homestay
experience thus far, there was a lot more conversation about why these foods
were unique to Afrikaans culture and stories about my host mom and Sanene’s
childhood homes. We had many stimulating conversations about my mom and
Sanene’s childhood homes, their lives during Apartheid, and life in South
Africa. These conversations were different than conversations with friends and
family at home because there were often racist undertones to some of things my
mom would say. I tried to engage her in conversation about some of the things
she would say, but those chats were often difficult for me to navigate. I know
from talking to my peers that I was not alone in hearing ignorant comments and
struggling with how to respond.
Another issue I struggled with in Stellenbosch
was privilege and social inequalities. I had just spent a week in a four room
house with no running water and limited electricity and now here I was in a
four bedroom house with three full baths, an in-ground pool, and wireless
internet. It seemed unfair to me that my family in Tshabo had so little while
my Stellenbosch family had so much! Then I realized that one of the reasons I
was so upset and uncomfortable was because this house and my family’s lifestyle
reminded me a lot of my life in the United States. I immediately felt guilty
and unsure of how to navigate my feelings. In an attempt to reconcile these feelings,
I talked to my host mom about her privilege. She explained that while she feels
guilty for having a large home and nice things, her wealth and role as the head
of an NGO put her in a position to create jobs and give back to the community. The
talk made me feel a little bit better knowing that my host mom was conscious of
her privilege in South African society, but I still felt conflicted about my own
privilege. It’s something I've been grappling with since my Social Inequalities
class fall semester 2011 and something I think I’ll still be struggling with for
a long time.
Although I had my struggles and some
homesickness, I still enjoyed my time in Stellenbosch! I love being in a home
with dogs and on a college campus again, plus going on a wine tasting was a
really fun experience. Though I did find out when I got home the night after
our wine tasting that you're not supposed to drink every glass of wine, just
taste it then spit it out... oops. No regrets though!
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| Lara and I at our group wine tasting at Solms Delta Winery |
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| view from our front porch of False Bay |
