Complex Simplicity

Me: " Im just thinking about how simple we always try and make ourselves in order to connect with other people. If we and others embraced how complex we all are, how would that be?"

You: " Every interaction would be infinitely more intimate and we would be necessarily much more vulnerable and open... potentially much less ego?"

What are you thinking?

Home sweet home

The other day, a South African asked where home was for me. I replied, " My home is in XXXX village, in the Northwest Province, in South Africa." I realized in that moment that this really does feel like home, not just a place that I'm passing through for two years. I needed to say it out loud, to hear myself say it. I didn't expect to feel this way about being in South Africa, especially after being here for only six months...and it's a splendidly precious feeling.

Much love from my humble abode,
Bontle

Bontle's first Holiday in RSA, Part IV

Our first night in Cape Town we couch surfed at an amazing gay couple's house. It was all of our first time couch surfing, and their first time hosting couch surfers, so we were all a bit nervous and wanted to make it a good time for them. They were incredible hosts! They made us dinner, we drank good wine, and had great conversation. We of course told stories of village life, and they told us stories about growing up in South Africa during Apartheid as non-racist Afrikaners. One of them had been 17 when he was drafted into the army; it was mandatory at that point, and if you did not go into the army after finishing Matric (the national exam given at the end of grade 12), you were imprisoned. Because our host spoke Xhosa, a black South African language ( very few white people, especially during Apartheid spoke a black language) he was assigned to intelligence to 'decode' messages intercepted from the ANC, the leading anti-apartheid political party at the time, and still the leading political party in RSA today. He grew up on a farm and played with the worker's children, who were black, so he was never a racist. He did not want to translate the messages because he knew that if he did, many innocent people would be murdered, for no other reason than the color of their skin. During the height of the anti-Apartheid struggle, he refused to translate the messages, and he was charged with treason. By the time his court case came around, Apartheid had ended so he was not sent to prison.

The choice that he and other whites made to stand on the side of justice was not a simple one. White South Africans who stood on the side of the blacks put themselves at risk of charges of treason and imprisonment. They put themselves and those close to them at risk of murder and hate crimes perpetrated against them by racists white South Africans. Many of them were disowned by their families and friends. Because of all the atrocities against them, many black South Africans would not trust a white South African, so often times they were not accepted by the blacks either.The amount of strength, courage, and character it took for white South Africans during Apartheid to rise up against their upbringing and risk loosing everything in the name of justice and humanity is incredibly honorable, and something I think more people should be aware of.

After a wonderful stay with the couch surfers, we spent our last day with the car on a wine tour, which was of course delicious! That evening we checked into the Penthouse Backpackers on Long street, where we stayed for the remained of our time in Cape Town. I highly recommend anyone who visits Cape Town to stay there. The staff is amazingly nice and I feel like they are my extended family now. Our first night there I decided to have a good wrastle with David ( like any proper Texas gal who grew up with a twin brother will do). I jumped on his back, and before i could get him in the sleeper hold, he through me off onto the ground... and onto Chris's metal water bottle. I was immobile almost instantly, and was in incredible pain, but somehow I managed to walk to the Mexican food restaurant that night ( crying all the way, of course, but there was no way in hell I was going to miss out on Mexican food! I couldn't walk for the rest of the trip, so I just kicked it at the hostel, still having an amazing time because the staff and people staying there were so incredible. Turns out I fractured my 12th rib... oops. But do you think that will stop me from a good wrastle? No ways! Ive only got to figure out a way to maneuver the sleeper hold with more speed and agility. My next holiday in RSA, I'm looking to come away with more broken bones, new insights, and powerful connections with other people, with this country, and with this planet.

Bontle's first Holiday in RSA, Part III

In the early afternoon, we arrived in Hogsback, a town that J.R. Tolkien supposedly lived in and based 'The Hobbit' off of the forests there. We went on a wonderful hike in the forest and at the top found some stunning waterfalls. That night we hung out at the bar and met some fellow travellers. The next day we headed out for the National Arts Festival in Grahmstown. It was a beautiful drive and the terrain was becoming a bit more tropical. Now our beautiful Chico had done such an amazing job of taking us so far, and had put up with a lot of our bullshit. Finally, she just couldn't take it anymore and we blew two tires... at once. Luckily, we were only 15Km outside of Grahmstown, and since EVERYONE in South Africa drives a Chico, we found someone with the spirit of Ubuntu to let us borrow his spare tire until we reached Grahmstown. Once at the tire store, we discovered a nail in a third tire, so (Go Us!) we replaced all three tires at once. We made our way to the National Arts Festival, and of course I spent way too much money buying gifts for people at home... and for myself.

Our next stop was Jeffery's bay, known as one of the best surf spots in the world, and stayed at this great hostel called 'Ubuntu' for two nights. Aside from a trip to the Lion Sanctuary, where we played with lion cubs, we mostly just hung out at the hostel with folk there. It seemed as though many of the travellers we met were South Africans travelling around their own country, on part of some longer journey. We all swapped stories of places we had been, people we had met, things we had learned. Many of them had travelled to many other African countries, to Indonesia, and Northern Africa. They had stayed with locals in small villages where most of the people in the village were living in poverty, much like the villages here in South Africa... yet none of them had been to a village or township in their own country, or knew anything at all about the culture in the villages and townships. They were all so intrigued by our stories of village life. I was surprised by all of this... the fact that they didn't mind ' village life' in other cultures and could handle pooping in pit toilets, bucket baths, no running water, etc., but had never considered visiting any of the villages in their own country, or thought about what those people's lives might be like...

After J-Bay we made our way along the Garden Route to Wilderness, another beautiful town along the coast of South Africa. We stayed at a beautiful hostel that was at the top of the mountain, overlooking the ocean. We went hiking the next morning and once again found some beautiful waterfalls. Our road trip was coming to an end, as we headed towards Cape Town for the last leg of our journey...

Bontle's first Holiday in RSA, Part II

The first night we stayed in Clarens, a little Afrikaner town along the Lesotho border. It was incredibly beautiful- an artist community- and very quaint. We ran into some other PCVs from Lesotho staying at the hostel and we took the opportunity to swap stories about our respective PCV experiences and set the record straight about PC South Africa. Let me explain...
For the Sub-Saharan Africa region, South Africa is the 'medical hub' for PCVs with health issues that cannot be resolved in their country of service, because South Africa has excellent hospitals and medical facilities that many African countries don't have. So when PCVs from other African countries come to South Africa, what they see are the big cities, the shopping malls, the McDonald's, people driving BMWs and Mercedes... they stay in nice hotels, particularly if they are sick, and enjoy many of the luxuries that we once enjoyed in our previous lives in the The States. They see that the cities have Internet access, electricity, running water, cell phones, etc., and we have heard that many PCVs in the Sub-Saharan Africa region refer to PC SA as 'Posh Corps' because these things are available in the country that we serve in.... but this could not be farther from the truth... we live in villages just like them, with often have many problems with electricity, Internet, and running water. We deal with many of the same cultural and linguistic barriers that they face. In addition, we deal with the scars of racism that are still fresh- on all sides- resulting from Apartheid and decades of the systematic oppression of over 70 percent of the country's population. We are dealing with one of the world's worst HIV/AIDS crisis, some of the highest incidences of sexual assault and violent crimes, some of the highest unemployment rates, and one of the highest indexes of inequality. ... none of this seems very posh to any of us volunteering here, so its a bit upsetting to hear that fellow PCVs in neighboring countries perceive our experience as such. The Lesotho PCVs, however, were wonderful and we had a lovely time chatting with them and hearing about Lesotho.

The next day we had the longest drive of our trip ahead of us, so we woke up early and headed towards Hogsback, our next destination. We were up before dawn so we decided to stop at the top of a hill along the way to eat breakfast and watch the sunrise. With PB & J in hand and beautiful Lesotho mountains in the distance, we watched the sun rise out of the ground and paint the sky various shades of yellow, red and orange... it was so peaceful.

With Chris in the driver's seat and our trusty former Boy Scout, David, giving directions, we stuck to the dirt roads and took the more scenic route to Hogsback. From time to time there would be a village or two, or a shanty town, with an Afrikaner community directly across the dirt road... its easy to tell where the black South Africans live and where the white South Africans live. One side of the dirt road- where the black South Africans live- there are shacks made of corrugated tin, stacked close together. You can see chickens, cows, goats, donkeys, and various domesticated animals roaming the streets, and pillars of smoke from the burning of trash rise from people's yards. On the other side of the road- where the white South Africans live- tar roads weave in andout and are lined by brick houses, some two stories tall. You see tall, beautiful church steeples in the distance, a pool or two in some back yards.... one side on the dirt road has constantly running electricity and water, one doesn't. One side of the road has well-functioning schools with qualified teachers, the other side doesn't. On one side of the road, the people have access to health care and can visit a doctor and obtain the medicine they need, whenever they want. The other side of the road is devastated by unemployment, HIV/AIDS, and TB. On one side of the road, the children have parents who are still alive and caring for them.On the other side of the road, the 15 year old girl drops out of school to take care of her two younger siblings because both of her parents have died of AIDS... these fellow countrymen's lives and realities are separated by only twenty feel of dirt.

Sometimes we would drive along the divide, and other times there would be nothing but open spaces on either side of the dirt road. On one such stretch, we saw a couple of cars stopped and one or two people standing on the side of the road. We had been the only car on the road for a while at this point so we were a bit surprised to find a couple of cars and people just sitting there. As we got closer we saw a police car slowly driving up. We looked over and there was a little black girl, maybe around 12 or so, lying in the street. She was dead. No one was doing anything. The police car came upon the scene with no sense of urgency.. no sirens.. no flashing lights.. as if he had came upon the girl on accident, like we had. She was lying face down, arms spread out. She must have been hit by a car, her leg was twisted in a funny position and blood was everywhere. The four of us in the car never talked about what we saw...

Bontle's first Holiday in RSA, Part I

I'm back in the village now after an amazing ten day holiday, my first here in South Africa... and I'm not really sure how to describe my experience. How can you sum up ten days of amazingness? But then again, do we ever really recount our life experiences ' accurately', or in such a way that does what we've seen and learned justice?...

Like any good trek across South Africa, it started with a rented bright red Volkswagen Chico, an amazing little bitch of a car that we all grew very fond of and even cried over when she left us to haul around another group of obnoxious American travellers (obnoxious American travellers who probably never even came close to loving her like we did). Ah, the good ol' times with Chico.... Being obnoxious American travellers, we ( David, Laura, Christopher, and myself) are quite unfamiliar with the crazy rest of the world's way of driving manual. Since the boys had each driven manual once, they volunteered to do the driving while Laura and I chewed on Zanex tablets in the back to calm our nerves ( That, of course, is a joke...) So we spent about the first twenty minutes after renting Chico trying to pull out of the rental store's driveway... amazingly, right as the rental car employees came clawing at the doors to kick us out, and telling us what obnoxious Americans we all were, the boys managed to get the car in first and speed away! Shortly after we sped away, we remembered to drive on the right (that is, the left) side of the road... something we had to remember several times along our road trip :) After a good hour of practice, we finally hit the road and began our epic journey...