South African Homes

While some of my best interactions with Mozambicans were on the streets, my best encounters with South Africans were in their homes. I got to do three different home stays, including two in all-black townships. All my hosts were very generous and attentive, and I was excited to talk to them about South African history and to hear their thoughts on "The New South Africa." Here are the homes and the people I met, in reverse chronological order:
SOWETO, outside of Johannesburg

Host: A grandma named Makeke and her 2-year-old grand-nephew
Connection: A locally run tour group arranges stays with her in an effort to get people into the township. I stayed with her my very last night in South Africa, my one night between Mozambique and going home. (The second picture is not Makeke's home, but it is a home in the neighborhood.)
Best moment: After dinner, Makeke and I sat under a blanket together and watched South African soap operas. The actors switched seamlessly between English and various African languages.
Food: Fried chicken, french fries and a special veggie sauce for dinner. Fried eggs, avocado and toast for breakfast.
Interesting fact: Makeke was born and raised in the culturally and racially diverse town of Sophiatown until its destruction by the Apartheid government. Her family was forcefully removed into the all black township of Soweto in 1955.
What I learned: Soweto has a population of approximately 1.5 million. It was at the heart of the anti-Apartheid movement. It was also where one of my favorite movies, Tsotsi, was filmed, and I got to walk around the "set."


LANGA, outside of Cape Town

Host: Ma Neo (far right in picture)
Connection: The local tour company that took me through the township dropped me off at her house. It is where I spent my first night after Seth left.
Best moment: Her 19-year-old grandson took me out into the neighborhood after dark to go mix some tunes with his DJ friend. When we got there, the DJ and a handful of other guys were cramped up in a smoke-filled room watching the animated movie Ice Age, so we left.
Food: I was pleasantly surprised when Ma Neo (far right) and her daughter (middle) sat and ate dinner with me. We had chicken and pap, a mashed potato-like substance made from maize. They also ate breakfast with me.
Interesting fact: Ma Neo is a retired nurse, and now she takes care of people in her community with HIV/AIDS, like the woman in the far left of this picture who comes over for food every day
What I learned: People are welcoming and grateful to white people who want to see and understand township life, but they wish that whites from their own country - not just foreign tourists - would come too.

DURBAN

Host: 25-year-old Nicole and her mom, dad and brother, Rowan
Connection: One of my best friends met one of Nicole's best friends in the Netherlands, and they put us in contact. Seth and I stayed with them for three nights, and Nicole took us all over the town.
Best moment: Seth, Nicole, Rowan and I spent an entire Sunday night playing an intense game of Risk. I was the first out; I blame my disdain for colonialism.
Food: Nicole took us to eat "bunny chow," a local Indian specialty that is a loaf of bread full of curry. Her mom made us many other delicious meals with tender South African meat.
Interesting fact: The D'Almaines have been "burgled" (burglarized) four times, twice while they were in the house. They have a fence and three dogs.
What I learned: Things are difficult for White South Africans now. They feel less safe, it is harder to get jobs because of affirmative action, they feel that the police are corrupt and that health care is worse. They have very little hope in government. But they flew their flag for the World Cup.

Portraits of Mozambique

Some of the best moments of my trip so far were seeing peoples' surprise and excitement when I handed them pictures of themselves. I have felt conflicted about taking and sharing pictures of random people because I think that it can be objectifying - it turns people into tourist attractions, into sites.

On the other hand, talking with random people on the street is my favorite thing about traveling. I think that it is one of the most authentic ways to experience a place and a culture. I want pictures to capture some of those moments and personalities.

For the last five days that I have been Maputo, Mozambique, whenever I have taken pictures of people, I have told them - when I thought it was possible - that I would bring them a copy of the picture. I don't think that they believed me because they were shocked when I showed up today with the prints. It was so fun.

It has been easier chatting it up with strangers here than in South Africa because I feel less self-conscious being White. Mozambique does not have the same recent history of racial oppression. While the Portuguese were brutal colonial rulers, they all left over night in 1975 when Mozambique declared its independence.

Being able to speak the language of the people has also helped me to connect. I have been so happy speaking Portuguese! The accent here is really different than in Brazil, so I often have to ask people to repeat themselves, but those glorious Portuguese words are the same.

This is Dona Teresa. She has worked at the Central Market selling prawns and sardines most of her life. She said that she is going to give this picture of herself to her grandchildren.


This is Dona Mikaela. She has worked next to Dona Teresa for more than 20 years.

This is Joao. He is 28-years-old and sells shoes and phone calls on the main street in town. His friends went into hysterics when he struck this pose. When I came back with the picture, they were all jostling to look at it.

When this woman saw me taking a picture of Joao, she said that she wanted one too, and she struck a pose for me right there in the middle of the sidewalk. The guys who work on the sidewalk in that area said that they do not know her name, but they always see her walking by and they promised to give her the picture.

This is Dona Christina. She and all of her five grown children help her sell fruits and vegetables at the market. I bought a pinha from her, which is a pine fruit that I used to eat in Brazil.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to give these boys their picture because I met them on a day-trip to an island that is about two hours from Maputo. When I saw them sitting around, I walked up to them and asked them what they were doing. They said they had just finished playing soccer. I told them I was a teacher, and I started quizzing them on their multiplication facts. I had a bag of cookies in my bag, and I gave a cookie to whoever shouted out the correct answer first. The kid in the front in the plaid shirt got so many cookies that I had to encourage him to share his winnings with others.

This is Vicky. I met her at church on Sunday, and then we spent the entire afternoon together. She is 23, has been a member of the church for three years and is getting ready to go on a mission. Her father was a member of the FRELIMO party during the civil war and was assassinated in his car a few months before she was born. A few years ago, her mom died of cancer, and Vicky now lives with her three older siblings. She works as a telephone operator and goes to school to study business. She is smart and feisty, and we had an amazing day together talking about boys, our faith and our plans for the future. She is on facebook, so we will be sharing pictures that way.

The White man in this picture is an Englishman named Jerry, and these are his English students (from left to right): Maria, Tome, Isabel and Junalsa. I received Jerry's contact info from a friend of a friend, and he took me with him to his class this morning which is in a township-like/favella-like/slum-like neighborhood called Mafalala. Through a program in their community, Maria and Junalsa are training to be Mafalala tour guides. After English class, they took me around the narrow streets and corrugated houses of the town. Jerry, the teacher, lives really close to my hostel, so tonight I gave copies of the pictures to him to pass onto the students.

This is Jane, Jerry's wife. She is also English, and the two of them have lived in Maputo for fours years and have no intention of leaving. Jane gives architectural tours of the city and spent the entire afternoon showing me the abundant Art Deco designs as well as buildings by the quirky and prolific Portuguese architect Pancho Guedes. She is spry, curious and bold, and would make her way into buildings with only limited Portuguese and a smile. She is working with the city on an architectural preservation project. Before the tour, the city felt dirty and slightly decrepit to me - the sidewalks are in pieces, many buildings are burnt-out - but she helped me see the structural beauty that exists.

A Conversion Story

My cabin and my Colombian cabin-mate.
He gave me the best allergy drugs!

Our trail protection: rangers and guns

Trekking through the bush on the animal look-out.

Just stumbled across some wild buffalo. No big deal.

Water hole, hippos and sunset

Hello Mr. Rhino!

The vehicle that got us 60 km out to our camp.

Oh, hey!

Flora instruction

On a scale from 0 to 10, zero being "Animals are as boring as a monotone lecture" and 10 being "I want to be the next Jane Goodall," before this trip, I was a 3. I have always been way more intrigued by the human experience: the emotions, the relationships, the art. I would pick a museum over a zoo, a book over a pet.

But after four days in Kruger National Park, my scale rating is now a 6, maybe a 7. The change was almost instantaneous: within 20 minutes of entry into the park, I had already seen zebra, elephants and giraffes just hanging out on the side of the road. It was completely natural! Organic! Un-artificial! There was no human intervention to put on a good show, and Kruger is about the size of a small country.

In Kruger, you can't get out of your car or safari vehicle unless you are on a ranger-led walking tour sponsored by the park. I went on this three-day "Wilderness Trail" with seven other people: an English couple, a South African couple, an Australian father and son, and a Colombian dude. We spent three nights in rustic cabins in the middle of the bush. All the food, bedding and hiking supplies were provided; we even had our own cook.

I did not reveal to anyone in my group my semi-disinterest in animals. However, I suspect they picked up on it when I had to keep asking, "What was that we just saw again? A buffalo or a rhino? And which one was the wildebeest? And are there bison here?" I did however try to talk to them a lot about international politics so that they would not think that I was a completely idiotic American. Furthermore, I made a conscious effort not to spontaneously burst into songs from The Lion King although it was tempting - especially when we saw warthog!

For our first sunset, we sat at the edge of a huge watering hole that was full of giant hippos and crocociles. Around the water's edge were baboons, Egyptian geese (so I was told) and giraffes. There we all were, sharing different sections of the same waterfront. The only thing separating us from the animals was our rangers' guns. As we shared the sacred spaced and watched the sunset, people sipped beers and wine, or in my case, the most delicious grapefruit juice in the world.

Earlier that morning, on our first walk, we came within a few yards of elephants and rhinos and bison. The walks were thrilling because after long quiet stretches of empty land, we were suddenly face-to-face with a herd of wild animals. The ranger would take a strategic stance between us and the animals and then motion for us to silently file past. Even when we walked for long stretches without seeing any animals, it was thrilling to just be in their space: to step through their poo, to see where they had rolled around in the mud and where they had rubbed up against a tree.

One night as we sat around the campfire, we heard lions roaring from three different directions. Then our rangers told us stories about Mozambicans who were trying to cross the border and became lion meat. When we were driving out of the camp site this morning, we saw two lions sleeping on the side of the road.

My favorite animals were the graceful giraffe, the brightly colored birds and the amusing warthogs. Generally, animals strike me now as whimsical and entertaining. They are also so varied and random - the round body of an ostrich, the unique stripe pattern on zebra, the grace of a herd of running kudu.

Altogether on this trip I have seen: leopard, lion, python, zebra, elephant, wildebeest, penguin, shark, whale, seal, ostrich, water buffalo, heron, rhino, warthog, monitor lizard, mongoose, kudu, impala, millipede, giraffe, hippo, baboon, franklin, turtle, and crocodile.

I still think too many animal pictures are pretty boring, so I tried to include ones here that also feature the human experience.

I also want to clarify that this change of heart does not imply anything like a change in career from social worker to veterinarian. But when I go home, I think I might get a bird feeder.

South Africa currently has a lot of:

1. Vuvuzelas

Reports from the States indicate frustration and annoyance at these little musical instruments, but I will defend them as both fun and festive. I hear them in the background at all times of day: the joyous sounds of the World Cup. The only time I wanted to break one in half was on the 20-minute shuttle ride between Durban stadium and our car when five local teenage boys seemed intent on deafening everyone in the bus.

2. Men
Yes, men are stereotypically more into sports than women, but I've never been at a sporting even where I have been so obviously outnumbered. At the Apartheid museum in Joburg, tons of men. At Cape Point, tons of men. On my township tour, I was the only woman. Every restaurant and hostel is full of men. But I'm not complaining: last night I watched the Ghana game with a suave Argentine who bought me dinner.

3. Seattle-ites
Almost every other American I meet here is from Seattle. No joke. On my first day, I spotted a guy with a Sounders scarf, and it turns out that he is from the neighborhood next to mine. There were 8 Americans - including me and Seth - watching the USA vs. Algeria game on a small TV in our hostel owner's personal bedroom. (The hostel bar with the big screen was showing the England vs. Slovenia game.) FOUR of us - 50% - were from Seattle. Yesterday I met a guy who teaches first grade in a Seattle suburb. We watched the Brazil match together at the Cape Town Fan Fest park (see #7). I love my city!

4. Kentucky Fried Chickens

There are surprisingly few American chains here. No Starbucks. No Wal-Marts. But tons of KFC's. Every small rural Black township we drove through had one. The city is littered with them.

5. International Flags

While the Vancouver Olympics were dominated by the maple leaf, South Africa is decorated with the 32 flags of all competing nations. It's easy to feel welcome here.

6. Flat Screen TV's

Every restaurant, bar, store and shopping center has a TV showing the World Cup matches. Between these TV's and the car radio, I have seen or heard probably 90% of the games. The two days that there were not any games, I hardly knew what to do with myself.

7. FIFA Fan Fest Parks

For people who do not have match tickets but who want to have a match-like experience, FIFA installed huge screens all over the country. Even the small rural towns have them (see second photo). To enter the area, you have to go through a security check point, and they sell all sorts of stadium-like food and beverages in there. It's a blast to watch and cheer with so many people - locals and tourists - out in the open air.

8. Gloating Dutch Fans

They annoy me now. They threw cups of beer up in the air all over the fan park every time they scored against Brazil. And they celebrated in the streets all night long. I got heckled the rest of the night for wearing my Brazil jersey. I took this picture before Brazil lost.