“Never confuse the description of a thing
with the thing itself”
The word
township is preempted with so many meanings and connotations. Most of them
being negative. I was reading my non-fiction assignment for class when I
stumbled upon this quote, “As Italo Calvino reminds us in his novel Invisible Cities, one should never
confuse the description of a thing with the thing itself. That is to say, one
should never take the standard description of townships as poor to mean that
township life was poor”. (This was taken from Native Nostalgia, by Jacob Dlamini). So I am not going to spend
this blog post harping on what I didn’t have or what I thought I wouldn’t have
but actually did. Instead I am going to talk about how township life is. How it
simply is.
We arrived
Thursday evening, exhausted from class and the long bus ride and nervous to
meet our homestay families. Tina and I, naturally, roommates again, were
excited when we found out that the family hosting the huge dinner for all of us
was our family. Auntie Bernie, Uncle Ivan, Aimee and Robin. Immediately Auntie
Bernie gave us a quick hug and then returned to cooking dinner. The rest of the
family was no one to be seen. After we had eaten till our buttons popped, our
security blankets, the rest of our peers, began to get picked up by their host
families. That is when it got real. We were alone with Auntie Bernie and the
fam.
We focused
on Aimee, the sassiest 8 year old I have ever met. We sat with her while she
ate the left-over food and asked her the standard questions, “how old are you”,
“what grade are you in”, “what’s your favorite question”. What was so amazing
about Aimee was how quickly we got past the childish remarks and moved on to
truly being sisters. Aimee was a great hairstylist and while I would not let
her get near my hair, I do have to say Tina’s hair looked pretty amazing that
whole weekend.
 |
| Tina with her hair styled |
After
determining Robin, the 14 year old soccer star brother who wanted nothing to do
with the two American girls staying in his bedroom, a lost cause, we began to
bond with Auntie Bernie over food, with Uncle Ivan over apartheid and politics
and with Aimee over basically everything else.
Our Friday
(Valentine’s Day) was spent chasing after four-year olds from a local crèche
(pre-school). I was responsible for two kids. One of them wouldn’t speak a
word to me, which was very frustrating because I love kids. The other lost his
original “Auntie-for-the-day” and came to me. He was trouble and loved running
off and wouldn’t stop talking. So I had one kid dragging behind me and the
other one pulling me forward. We sang songs, ate a delicious cheese and butter
sandwich on a tasteful stale roll (always interesting seeing the vegetarian
options people come up with on the fly), visited a petting zoo that consisted
of ducks, chickens, guinea pigs and a bunny all in one cage, and colored in
valentines day cards.
When we got
back from the crèche, completely drained, we decided to go to the beach. Ken and
Johnny’s host family was bringing them so we decided to tag along. It was
interesting how quickly Auntie Bernie just let us take Aimee to the beach, we
had just met her! We boarded the minibus taxi in Ocean View and got off at Fish
Hoek. I forgot to bring my bathing suit, but of course I ended up in the water
anyways. Aimee and I splashed around while Tina took a quick nap. Then Aimee
and I shared a medium sized portion of chips, tomato sauce, and Appletizer
(French fries, ketchup, and sparkling apple juice) while discussing the
different names for French fries. Overall, I would have to say it was a very
romantic day.
The next
day was a lovely 36 degrees Celsius (absolutely not lovely in any way), I started
sweating before I woke and I don’t think I ever stopped. We were headed to an all
day colored Birthday party for one of Aimee’s cousins. Our mode of
transportation was the bakkie which is what we would call a pick-up truck.
Tina, Aimee, Emily K., Jen and I were all sitting in the bed of bakkie. For an
hour. It was great fun, singing Katy Perry and drinking Jive, for the first
five minutes, but then my butt became numb. Finally we got to the smurf themed
three-year-old birthday party around noon. We spent our time mingling as best
we could with the other party-goers. We met some very talented sixth graders
and an interesting couple who raved about their trip to Pennsylvania. We didn’t
end up getting home until 11:00pm that night. After another hour in the bakkie.
Sunday.
Church Day. We woke up early and the whole family went to church. I kind of
spaced out a little bit. The preacher was a bit preachy. Then Auntie Bernie
whipped us up the best lunch I have had here. Homemade mac and cheese, with
extra cheese. Yummy salad. Delicious butternut squash. Potato wedges and tomato
sauce. Then for dessert, chocolate pudding. We ate quickly and ravenously after
our long morning in church then got ready to say goodbye. We took a family
photo, hugged, were invited back, and promised to stay in touch all before we
were bused away from this family, this community, this life.
I will no
longer judge a place based on the description. You can only truly know it by
living there and experiencing it. I am not saying that because I stayed with
one family in one house in Ocean View for one weekend I know how it is to live
in a township. Quite the opposite. I am just starting to understand how complex
these communities are and I am thankful to have met the people I did. I will
certainly keep in touch with the family that was gracious enough to let me stay
in their home.
 |
| View from our porch |
No comments:
Post a Comment