Dankie!: One Blood

Being here in Stellenbosch for two months now, I’ve been able to learn a little bit more about the culture, social traditions and norms both within the university and in the surrounding communities, like Lynedoch.

South Africa (and Stellenbosch in particular) is rooted in the legacy of the apartheid era and I’ve had many conversations and class discussions regarding the topic of race. Interestingly, people here in South Africa classify themselves not only as “black” and “white” but also include the category of “colored,” which is essentially a mix between the two (and doesn’t hold the negative connotation that it does in the states). Lynedoch Primary where I teach is predominantly a colored, Afrikaans school and most of the children come from surrounding farms, while some live in the nearby township of Khayamandi. South Africa also gets its nickname “the rainbow nation” from the fact that there are ELEVEN national languages spoken here. isiZulu is most widely spoken, followed by isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Sesotho sa Leboa, Setswana, and English. isiNdebele, Sesotho, siSwati, Tshivenda and Xitsonga are also included in the official languages.

My professor of the LSCE program, Grant Demas, is colored and because he grew up in the middle of the apartheid conflict, he has told us incredible stories about treatment of both himself and his siblings. Growing up, colored and blacks were not able to walk in groups bigger than two, for it was believed that (even if they were young children), these people could be conspirators against the system. Even today, Grant said, he has experienced discrimination despite his position and level of education.

While I cannot say enough great things about being here in South Africa, one side note I must add is the very conservative nature of Stellenbosch. Even venturing just as far as Cape Town, there is an extreme difference in the mixing of races and cultures; Stellenbosch on the other hand is definitely more conservative. It’s interesting to see people’s reactions when I tell them that I do work at Lynedoch and take the train twice a week to get there. Ninety-five percent of the students I speak to don’t know where Lynedoch is, even though it is literally 12 minutes away –right in their backyard! Their other reaction to the train is usually, “but is it safe?!” There are the usual characters that we’ve found on the train during our travels back and forth from Lynedoch (but then again, think about the subway system in NYC…) but I’ve also had some of the most interesting conversations with the other commuters on the train and wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything.

As I was sitting in the university gardens studying Tuesday afternoon, I was approached by a man dressed in work clothes asking for money. Usually these situations make me very uncomfortable (we’ve all been advised not to hand out money) and this happen often here in South Africa. He introduced himself as Simon and told me that he was very hungry and had to take his pills but had no food or money to buy food with. I took out my sandwich and offered to share it with him for lunch and we spent the next 20 minutes in lively conversation. Something Simon repeated over and over again was, “we are all one blood –even though we have different skins, I’m your brother, you’re my sister.” It was as simple as that.

On Wednesday a few of us made the trek back to Lynedoch during our day off to visit some of the families living on a farm down the street from the school. There we met with Cathleen, the grandmother of Ashrick, the young man Grant provides foster support for. Although she only knew a little English, her 8-year old granddaughter, Andrea, stepped in to translate and soon was energetically offering guided tours of the land, her cousins’ house and her personal garden! Hanging out with Andrea’s cousins, we noticed that they had very little of the material “stuff” compared to kids their age back home, yet found joy and entertainment in the same things –namely laughing and marveling at these foreign strangers in their home. They exhausted all of us as we planted flowers in homemade pots from empty ice cream canisters and ran around playing tag in the front lawn (even here in South Africa they use “eeny, meeny, miney, mo” to figure out who’s ‘it!’). I also so grateful the opportunity I have to engage with members of the community here at Lynedoch and experience yet another South Africa story.

Next blog post to come after traveling on the Garden Route…ostriches, monkeys, elephants, and world’s largest bungee jump bridge…hmmm…