Walking off of the plane down the stairs to the tarmac, it began to hit me. Visa advertisements left over from the World Cup were still splayed over the outside of the airport and inside, a wash of ads for Vodacom and other foreign companies assaulted my senses. It's funny that the advertisements that are the least familiar to you will stick out to you because you are so desensitized to the ones at home. We purchased cellular phones (cheap Nokia ones with pre-paid Vodacom service. My number is +27-82-269-6816. Call, text, whatever. I think it's alright. Also, I think that is my number. I have it saved in my phone and I have to keep looking it up.)
The ride to Cape Town was bumpy and uncomfortable. We sat in the back row of the aircraft and the seats did not recline (I don't normally bother with that, but this time, our knees were touching the seats in front of us) and neither of us could get to sleep comfortably. While drifting in and out, I heard Mike talking to the woman on my right, who told him she'd lived all over the world and married an American, but that she loved Cape Town the best.
We immediately found all of our luggage and headed toward Denver Flowers, the driver for Projects Abroad. He was a very nice man, talkative enough to put our frayed nerves at rest. We drove through the city, directly to each of our host families.
I live with a woman called Priscilla. She is quite a character, but very lovely. She is nearing fifty, entering menopause (between the palpitations - her word - and the hot flashes, she's quite busy) and a grandmother. When I arrived, the oldest, Ayden Leigh was sick upstairs in bed. She is the one who spends the most time with Priscilla, whom they call Ma. The youngest, Emily Rose, is two and the other one, Ayden's sister, spends most of her time with their mother.
I live in a narrow room painted pink with Hello Kitty curtains covering the barred window. Through the room is a small bathroom with a polka-dotted shower curtain and cold, green tile. To have a hot shower, you must turn on the geyser (pronounced geezer) at least an hour beforehand to give it time to warm up. Every time you use any bit of electricity, you must switch off the plug at the wall in order to conserve energy.
While attempting not to complain, I must inform you all of the gravity of my sock-less situation. I hate socks, most of you know this. I refuse to wear them if I don't have to. I only brought two pairs: my CTA socks (obviously) and then wool socks to go in my hiking boots. I am cold. It is winter here, with temperatures dropping into the humid 40s at night. I am sock-less and thus unable to get warm. However, my bed does have no less than four blankets on it and so I am warm during the night as soon as I am able to heat up my nest. (I am also grateful for bringing my green paisley comforter, it has been, well, comforting. If only I had remembered the damn squishy pillow.)
Mike lives not far from me, with Priscilla's sister Philly. She is married to Derek and they have a daughter Tammy. He lives with an odd English kid named Nick and a new German boy and Gry from Denmark. She's the lone girl in the house as soon as the other female roommate leaves.
My roommate Svenja leaves on the 17th and after she is gone, I will be alone in my house on Powell Rd until the middle of November. While this might be nice, it also might prove to be a bit lonely. Perhaps I shall be able to get some reading done. It's been nice to have her around, she's quite talkative and opinionated about everything.
Yesterday after our orientation with the Projects Abroad people (which consisted of lunch, a quick tour of the area around the office, an introduction to the mall, etc.), Mike, a new girl from the Netherlands named Marlis and I bunked off of an escort home to meet up with Gry, whom Mike calls "roomie" because our American English prohibits us from being able to correctly pronounce the "uu" sound in her name, and the four of us took the train to the beach at Muizenberg.
The beach took my breath away. I so very much love water, it has this strange pull over me I'll never understand. The ocean is obviously something I've grown to love immensely. Standing there, with icy waves crashing against my ankles, looking out into the southern half of the world, surrounded by mountains and people and sand, I felt so minuscule yet so alive. That sublime feeling is the one I've come to love the most; it's the feeling I get standing on a crowded street corner at rush hour in the middle of the city or the feeling I get when I'm jumping into the icy water of a quiet lake or the feeling I get laying in dark grass looking at the stars.
It is the purest form of love.
(this is not my photo, I don't have my camera memory stick with me at the Internet cafe that I am at, it's borrowed from the internet, but it's a picture of Muizenberg beach and the changing houses)
The train to meet Gry was interesting. Instead of getting on the first class cars (connoted by the "plus" written after Metro), we ended up on a third class car (there is no second class, a bit ironic) where a man was preaching the word of God. It was very reminiscent of my time in Chicago, and I feel as though much of my comparison of this city to things familiar will fall into my years spent in Chicago. Graffiti, crime, race issues, poverty: all things seem most applicable to the larger urban setting rather than the experience that is Denver, which as of yet, I have not been able to categorize. It is neither sprawling and urban nor rural, it is neither rich nor poor, it seems to be a middle place of all things, but a community divided nonetheless.
But back to Cape Town: The man stood in the middle of the packed car, seats filled with people lining both sides, and spoke so intently that sweat began to pour down the sides of his face. He spoke of repentance and material gain for those who followed the way of God and of salvation, and in that moment, it struck me that the human condition is marked by the quest for the other side, for salvation, for truth in another life rather than truth or salvation in this one. Is it because there is no hope of changing certain conditions within this existence?
Even today, my boss Cheryl at Etafeni spoke about the inability to change anything as one person. It seems a recurring theme here, perhaps a recurring theme everywhere.
At the conclusion of his fervent speech, which took the better part of twenty minutes, he asked the passengers for money. In Chicago, no one gives and the speaker just moves on to another car. But people gave. They slowly, silently dug into their pockets and the bags that they were clutching to grab a handful of coins to give. And he took them and marked off their contributions on a piece of paper bearing the name of his church. It struck me that these people who live teetering on the sharpest edge between poverty and pure destitution would be so willing to give.
Today, I started work. A minibus, arranged by Projects Abroad because it is unsafe to take the public ones into the Vrygrond - Free ground, essentially, picked both my roommate and me up around half past eight this morning. (You'll notice I'm attempting to sound more like the people around here. I'm only half-hearted in my efforts, but I hope it pays off. I've been taken for an American at every turn and I wish that it might stop. Thank god that the Midwestern accent has nearly faded or I'd really be in for it.) We picked up Mike and Gry and then some others and were driven in.
It's shocking, really. You take it in and you realize that you're the only white people for miles around. It is this way even where we are staying. The starkness of the contrast is surprisingly visceral. Today, I had to wait in the shelter of the Vrygrond Community Center until the car came to get me because of the danger posed to me standing out alone. We drove through the neighborhood, if you could call it that, and out to the main road. Shacks, houses made of odd materials, piles of trash, naked children, people in the backs of trucks, all along the rutted dirt road. We drove through and they all stared at us even as I was staring at them. It was my first time in the Vrgrond and I will be spending the daylight hours there for the next three months and I am already a humbled person.
Newly added to my list of things I'd like to change about myself is the way in which I consume. I would very much like to learn to eat leftovers (I'll keep you posted on the food situation at home, but seriously, please send fiber bars and fruit bars, I'm going to need them). Priscilla hates to waste food and looking into her refrigerator makes me think of Emily and I moving out of Chicago and all of the wasted food (even the jar of pickles).
I'd like to learn to use things differently. Today, in the Vrygrond I saw a house that had plastic bottles filled with colored water set upside down into the cement to form a pathway reminiscent of the lights used to line sidewalks and driveways. While I'm not sure I'll ever subscribe to this form of decorating, I'd like to be able to consolidate my patterns of consumption, whether they are in my eating habits or in my wearing of clothes or my use of gas to drive around. (For the record, I still have not seen a car as cluttered as Simon, no matter the age of the vehicle.)
I have to be home every night at 6 for dinner, which yesterday was spaghetti and meat, followed by a strange serving of liquid custard from a container. I've been carrying my Nalgene around everywhere with me, trying to stay hydrated. It is an uphill battle though, and I don't think I'm quite there yet. On the bright side of the food department is the tea. There is tea everywhere. I think I'm in love with this country's love of tea.
Tonight we are possibly headed to Long Street to begin culturing ourselves. And by culturing, I mean discovering what it means to be intoxicated in the Western Cape. And we will take a Projects Abroad-approved taxi home and you shouldn't worry yourselves at all. (I will worry enough for all of you.)
And it shall be an adventure and life shall continue. We are going on a wine tour tomorrow organized by another of the volunteers, a girl named Carlotta who is from Italy and is a human rights or journalism volunteer. (I get the impression they're the ones who do all the partying. I met some of them on Wednesday night at the weekly social, and they seemed so young to me. Like eighteen year olds who want nothing more than to drink and smoke pot. I felt old, then, for wanting sleep and wishing that they had their priorities straight. I don't know...we'll get more on this later, I'm sure. I love to drink, and I most certainly love to be merry, but I feel as though that can't be the only focus in life, especially not when we are such a place as this. It is safe and it is fun and it will be everything we've ever dreamed, but it's also not safe and one wrong move could get us killed. It is a gentle reminder that there is more important work to be done.)
My feet have been cold all day and Harriet, a woman who oversees the Income Generation project at my work, is convinced that I'm coming down with the flu. She gave me a pamphlet about TB and told me to read it and she was firm in reminding me that I should keep my windows open at all times, except at night so muggers don't come in. I thought at first that she was saying "maggots" and I got stressed out. But here's hoping that no one has managed to get me sick yet, even my roommate, who struggles with a surfing-induced cold. Gry is finally getting sick and she told me it's been two weeks coming, so I am hoping that it shouldn't be too horrible when it does come. However, it was nice to know that I can find a mother even in someone I've hardly met. I appreciated her concern for my well being.
I've posted the Denver Broncos schedule for the year on the refrigerator at Priscilla's house. She teases me constantly about not wearing socks but has yielded to my American football needs. She seems very genuine and very direct, two things I think I'm going to enjoy very much about my stay with her.
Work. Oh my, well, I've been typing for awhile now and I'm not sure how much more time I'm going to have before we must leave for dinner, but I will tell you that I've got quite the challenge ahead of me. I am going to be focused on job placement for people who have completed high school and then also gone through a six-week course at Etafeni called "Fit for Life/Fit for Work." Today I spent time researching the job market around the Vrygrond and am realizing that this is going to be a difficult task for me.
Monday, I will get to the task of trying to connect with businesses that might potentially need employees, but part of me worries that I might be over my head. Or at least, in the dark at the moment. I have no idea what I'm doing, but at the same time, I don't get the impression that they do either. They're a model based off of a running organization in Nyanga, which was based off an NGO in India. And thus, they have two years to be entirely self-sufficient. My task is to keep the placement numbers above 80%. They are currently sitting at around 60%, maybe a bit worse. I've yet to actually see their figures.
They also need help with marketing. A man named Abraham Lincoln Taylor, who's just called Abe Taylor, is the head of that department there and he oversees all of that. They've told me that while my primary focus will be job placement, they will try to use me wherever they can in order to make the most of my placement with them. I think that this might be rewarding but also challenging, which is exactly what I wanted and so with this I am happy. Overwhelmed at the moment, but quite pleased. Abe Taylor gave me a chapter from a book he is reading about building social business, and so for the weekend, I shall content myself to delve into his area of expertise.
Since Elton John was there for the opening of the first wing of the building, they expect the second opening to be just as grand (it is a sorely needed community center in an area literally blighted by poverty and actually insurmountable odds). They hope to do this while I am an intern and the prospects for fundraising are wild but also looking bright, hopefully.
More on this job situation as the job situation itself develops and I find time to breathe.
For now, love and more love. And will someone please email me Broncos updates? I'll be on my Gmail quite a bit at work and I'd love to hear from you all. (katherine.barry3@gmail.com)
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