Notes on the first week
A little behind myself, but here are some notes from my first few days (hope it's not too long, but I have to catch you up!):
Having a lunch of curried eggplant, rice and dalh at Athe’s kitchen table. Athe (a title of respect for my eldest aunt), a tiny woman, about 75, who always wears a pale coloured sari and her black hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, is preparing yet another curry. She is interrupted twice on this hot day by tall skinny black men in woollen caps who have come to ask for food. She prepares leftovers and sandwiches and men like these, or sometimes children, know to knock on this door. When they do, she peeks out at them from behind the lace curtain of the window, then unbolts the door and passes the food through the locked metal grate without conversation.
When I ask her if she thinks things are changing, she say yes. But then, unprompted, tells me there is corruption and a sense of entitlement amongst the newly powerful. She explains, in her gently voiced but unassailable way, that Indians still do well here because "they have always worked very hard for what they get and are not lazy". Some people, she says, think they shouldn’t have to work for what they get. I hear this often. The word: complacent. “They think they deserve things they don’t work for.” It is difficult to unpack this heavy thing. Although I I am far from convinced by this reasoning - given the historical absence of any opportunity to achieve the things their daily labour should have made easily accessible, it is hard for me to be either surprised or condemning of any sense of entitlement that may (or may not) exist amongst black South Africans.
From “Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books” by Azar Nafisi (a highly recommended read): “The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality...”
It's an interesting moment when I realize that here, amongst my family and walking the streets of Rylands (an Indian area as designated by the Apartheid era Group Areas Act and still all 'brown', where Athe lives), I am white. My family laughs when I tell them this is not entirely true in Canada. "Here", they say, and point at their own arms, "it is the colour of your skin. It doesn't matter what you look like."
So apparently simple, and yet race is more complicated here, I think, than anywhere else in the world.
In the mornings, for breakfast, I have tea and bread that is toasted on one side only. The other side is soft and damp with condensation, with one faint pink depression in each slice where Athe’s prayer-inked fingers have marked them. As I eat, I become accustomed to the sound of rice and bangles in water as the grains for the day’s curries are washed and put to boil.
A left-over thought on heaven from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which I just finished reading (and would also recommend to anyone who has not yet read it).
“Listen: being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different, though. You could say the view is larger.”
I have been here now about ten days. There is much to see, do, talk about and think about. People are very proud of their shopping malls and increasing economic opportunities. But there is a smog that hangs over the city and traffic on every street and I think would be happier to see different choices being made.
But still there are wonderful things. Most especially the water, the mountains, the wine, the beaches, and the people.
And here are some pictures to prove it:
Table Mountain from the beach
A view of Robbin Island, from Table Mountain (Robbin Island is where Mandela and so many other political prisioners were held)
And finally, me, in front of Athe's house, with Table Mountain in the background
Love to you all,
s.
Having a lunch of curried eggplant, rice and dalh at Athe’s kitchen table. Athe (a title of respect for my eldest aunt), a tiny woman, about 75, who always wears a pale coloured sari and her black hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, is preparing yet another curry. She is interrupted twice on this hot day by tall skinny black men in woollen caps who have come to ask for food. She prepares leftovers and sandwiches and men like these, or sometimes children, know to knock on this door. When they do, she peeks out at them from behind the lace curtain of the window, then unbolts the door and passes the food through the locked metal grate without conversation.
When I ask her if she thinks things are changing, she say yes. But then, unprompted, tells me there is corruption and a sense of entitlement amongst the newly powerful. She explains, in her gently voiced but unassailable way, that Indians still do well here because "they have always worked very hard for what they get and are not lazy". Some people, she says, think they shouldn’t have to work for what they get. I hear this often. The word: complacent. “They think they deserve things they don’t work for.” It is difficult to unpack this heavy thing. Although I I am far from convinced by this reasoning - given the historical absence of any opportunity to achieve the things their daily labour should have made easily accessible, it is hard for me to be either surprised or condemning of any sense of entitlement that may (or may not) exist amongst black South Africans.
From “Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books” by Azar Nafisi (a highly recommended read): “The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality...”
It's an interesting moment when I realize that here, amongst my family and walking the streets of Rylands (an Indian area as designated by the Apartheid era Group Areas Act and still all 'brown', where Athe lives), I am white. My family laughs when I tell them this is not entirely true in Canada. "Here", they say, and point at their own arms, "it is the colour of your skin. It doesn't matter what you look like."
So apparently simple, and yet race is more complicated here, I think, than anywhere else in the world.
In the mornings, for breakfast, I have tea and bread that is toasted on one side only. The other side is soft and damp with condensation, with one faint pink depression in each slice where Athe’s prayer-inked fingers have marked them. As I eat, I become accustomed to the sound of rice and bangles in water as the grains for the day’s curries are washed and put to boil.
A left-over thought on heaven from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which I just finished reading (and would also recommend to anyone who has not yet read it).
“Listen: being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different, though. You could say the view is larger.”
I have been here now about ten days. There is much to see, do, talk about and think about. People are very proud of their shopping malls and increasing economic opportunities. But there is a smog that hangs over the city and traffic on every street and I think would be happier to see different choices being made.
But still there are wonderful things. Most especially the water, the mountains, the wine, the beaches, and the people.
And here are some pictures to prove it:
Table Mountain from the beach
A view of Robbin Island, from Table Mountain (Robbin Island is where Mandela and so many other political prisioners were held)
And finally, me, in front of Athe's house, with Table Mountain in the background
Love to you all,
s.
posted by The Finding Princess at 9:31 p.m.
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