Bringing it All Home

I’ve been back in the states for almost a month now so before I become totally re-assimilated I’d like to say a few final words about this crazy adventure that just went by in the blink of an eye.  To ensure that no one gets the wrong idea, let me preface with my closing sentiment about the whole thing:

SUPREME SATISFACTION!

More on that later.  Let’s get started with these two comparative lists.  I love lists.  And in the true spirit of Peace Corps training (which I did not love, but has certain a nostalgia), I’ve made my list of positives twice as long as my list of negatives.  You win, Peace Corps South Africa: even after two years this volunteer still remembers his training.  Also, I’m told a picture is worth a thousand words, so that puts my positive list around 2000% the size of my negative list.  Now I win.  Anyway…

12 Things I will Miss About South Africa, and the Peace Corps Experience!

(in no particular order)

• High quality meat, fresh fruit and produce.  Available everywhere, all the time, dirt cheap.

• Being “the guru” of computers and technology at school.  People have a lot of confidence in me, and I like it.

• Freedom from daily rants about American politics.  I guess this is kind of an “anti-miss” since it’s something about America that I didn’t miss in South Africa, but whatever.  American politics = barf.  Washington, pull yourself together or I’ll run away to Africa again!

• SA24, each and every one of you guys and gals.  What a great group!

• The exceptional principals and staff I’ve met who care immensely about their schools and strive for improvement, in spite of everything that’s wrong with the education system.  Mr. Murwamila TJ, Mr. Raselabe PI, Mrs. Irene Mhlanga, Mr. Rashamuse TJ and Mr. Selby Tshilimandila (in order of appearance) come to mind immediately.  Many people reading this don’t know these folks, but they’re worth mentioning by name nonetheless.  There are others of course, many whom I didn’t know well enough or meet at all, and South Africa needs more individuals of this caliber.

 

• Too many other fantastic people I’ve met here.  In the interest of brevity and not forgetting anyone I won’t try to list everyone by name.  You know who you are.  If your picture doesn’t appear, it’s because I don’t have a good one of you so be thankful I didn’t post a bad one.

• This……. LANDSCAPE!  Oh Venda, you’re too beautiful for words.

• Listening to people talk about me in Tshivenda, thinking I can’t understand what they’re saying, then chiming into the conversation and watching them react.

(I can’t believe this is the only picture of a confused-looking South African I have.  I should have been less polite/discreet with the camera)

• Cell phone banking.  So convenient.
• The kids.  Who’da thunk it?  I really will miss ‘em though; when they’re not driving me crazy, they’re pretty cute.

• The immense sense of satisfaction of getting something done, and done right, in spite of all the snares and obstacles that make this place so dysfunctional most of the time.

  

Before and after.  You dig?

Special thanks to Hannah Biggie and Irene Mhlanga for organizing the desk restoration, and for taking great photos of the finished project.

• Rhinoceros!  And all the other adorable wildlife SA has to offer.  But mostly rhinoceros!

And for all of you comedians/skeptics out there with quips to the effect of: “that is like sooooooooo obviously photoshopped, Higby…..”  Well I say unto thee:

So there.

And now, dear reader, if you’ve had enough sarcasm I suggest you stop at this point because it’s time for the negative list

Six Things I will Never Miss, Ever

• Harassment.  I do not want to give you money, or my groceries.  Nor do I do not want to marry you, or take care of your children.  And I am so done with being stared at and having to ignore people yelling “white man!” every time I walk anywhere.
• Dismal work ethics, and just lethargy in general.  It’s 8:30 and you won’t get out of your chair because you’re tired, again?  You can’t come to work because you have personal matters that you failed to deal with at the appropriate time?  You need to cram 10 weeks of lesson plans which you never wrote or taught into your portfolio this afternoon before the school term ends?  If you answer “yes, but…” to questions like these then you are incompetent, and contributing to this country’s manifold problems.  Get serious, stop blaming the kids, and do your job PROPERLY.  And no, I don’t want to help you in your frantic, half-assed rush.  I want to fire you and work with someone dependable and responsible.
• Taxi rides.  Ugh.  Never thought I’d say this, but fuel efficiency be damned, I do not approve of this system!  Countless hours of time wasted in extreme discomfort aside, the road hazards and violent territorial confrontations are just awful; there’s gotta be a better way.  Also, the inconsistency of minibus taxis enables people to be even more lethargic, further reducing productivity.  Fail.
• Waiting.  Waiting for a taxi to fill up.  Waiting in a line because there’s one qualified banking clerk for the entire township.  Waiting for a phone call which will never come, because someone who can’t spare R1 airtime for work-related calls will spend R35 to call their girlfriend/boyfriend during work hours.  Waiting for someone, who’s waiting for someone else, who’s waiting for another somebody, who’s waiting for some jackass lying on a couch watching TV, bringing the whole broken system to a grinding halt without a care in the world.
• Intentional non-communication.  South Africans and SA PCVs know what I’m talking about.  Go ahead and call me culturally insensitive, but this one really grinds my gears.  It has nothing to do with the language barrier.  When I talk to someone, I believe in relevant questions and straight answers.  Reasons, explanations and thought processes.  Rarely do I get any of these things in my conversations here and it kills me.  Sometimes it seems like people just get kicks out of being intentionally vague and withholding information for no reason, at critical times even!  So frustrating.
• The cycle of poverty.  Orphans beget orphans.  HIV begets HIV.  Stigma begets stigma, ignorance begets ignorance.  This is a vicious cycle that’s been really painful to live in the midst of.

OK so that’s my list-style reminiscence and ranting.  Thanks for listening!

Ug I have to go now and I’m not done with this final entry.  To be continued, AGAIN.  Did I mention among the things I’ll miss about SA is a massive amount of responsibility-devoid FREE TIME which seems like a distant and inconceivable fiction now that I’m back in USA?  Well there’s that.

Can’t leave on a bad note, so….. Captioned Monkeys!

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Nothing lasts forever.  I say that all the time, but since I’ve lived in South Africa for a year and a half now I can cut the modifier “forever” and just go with “nothing lasts”.  Period/Full Stop.  Let me explain: For starters, most commonplace items here are not exactly, well, durable.  Take the set of four knives I bought last September for example.  They immediately went dull, forget about sharpening (most steel doesn’t hold an edge any better than cardboard) and one sheared off at the handle when I tried to cut……cheese.  Right.  That was all before the end of October.  I wasn’t really upset, I didn’t pay that much for them anyway.  The cost of living in SA is pretty low and one can find cheap products easily.  I’d been making my purchases with the attitude that “it only has to last me two years”, but let me tell you folks, the products one finds here really take “cheapo junk” to a whole new level.  Here are some more examples of really cheap stuff I’ve wasted money on thinking it would last two years (boy was I wrong):

White Collared Shirts – R20 ($3.50) a piece on a clearance sale.  Threadbare and discolored within 6 weeks.  Hand washing definitely expedited their unraveling.

Scissors – R7 ($1.00) Dull Dull Dull….I think I opened a couple packages and cut a few dozen shapes out of a cereal box for my geometry class before getting frustrated and buying a more serious scissor for a whopping R35 (five bucks).

Stick-on Labels – R6 ($0.85) for a pack of 16: No adhesive!  What kind of a sick joke is this???

USB cable – R14 ($2.00) Damn thing shorted out after a month of use.  Of course I hacked it back together and I still use it, but it requires occasional wiggling and coaxing curse words.

Good people, please bear with me here.  I promise this post is not just a huge complaint about the unreliability of Chinese merchandise.  After all, if I wanted only to whine about the poor quality of imported products I could have stayed in the USA.

Another reason that “we can’t have nice things” here in South Africa is that many things just aren’t taken care of very well.  Let me rephrase that; many spaces aren’t taken care of very well.  You see status symbols such as cars, clothes, phones and computers are actually taken care of a bit too much.  They’re treated like the holy grail.  Take my host brother and his BMW for example: every week he pays extravagant amounts to have his car cleaned meticulously, interior and ext, even has the tires polished.  This is typical behavior for South Africans with expensive cars.  I’m like “Man, we basically live in a dustbowl.  Don’t you think this is a losing battle?”  But I digress.  Regarding spaces:  All the buildings at my schools are falling apart.  The windows are busted out, the paint is decades old, the desks are worn down to splinters.  Now I know what some of you are thinking; I thought the same thing at first.  “Of course the place is beat to hell; these poor African schools have no money to fix even the basic necessities!”  OK, deficient funding may be the culprit in some cases, I can tell you the disrepair in my workplace is not due to lack of capital.  It’s due to lack of responsibility.  Nobody is specifically allotted the job of infrastructure maintenance.  The potential is there.  The money is there.  Shoot, the materials are even there.  Both of my schools have a storeroom full of spare parts, tools, old paint and every discarded item dating back to the apartheid era.  The room is a disaster area; it looks like a bomb went off!  Again, this is because no one is responsible for it all.  The reasons are several.  One is this problematic attitude of “let’s compensate for apartheid by not doing any work which could be considered menial or lowdown.  Hooray for democracy!”  Another, related, reason is that people just don’t want to get their hands dirty.  Scuffed shoes or dirty fingernails = instant loss of respect.  Really though, when it comes to the dilapidated state of the built environment, there is one factor that stands out from all the others in my mind.  God bless the little children; they’re almost as adorable as they are destructive!  Classrooms of 30-40 students are frequently left alone and unsupervised.  Also, many of these kids are orphans or live with other kids simply because their parents work through the week in faraway towns.  In modern South Africa the distribution of jobs is grossly unbalanced, much like the distribution of wealth.   So I live in a place which has unmotivated teachers, a great number of single moms trying to support several children, and a certain pandemic which is ironically cruel because it’s spread by the same means which children are created.  The combined effects give the youth ample free time to experiment with all sorts of destructive behavior.

There’s certain tradition here that all my Peace Corps training and research about South Africa never really made clear.  The best way I can describe it is: Whenever a South African adult needs something, they send a child to fetch it.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  It’s like:  “Hey you!  Child!  Take that heavy box of chemistry glassware from the top shelf and bring it to the classroom!  Quickly now!  And don’t forget the hydrochloric acid!”  The student body is like and an ant colony: kids scurry around frantically, carrying loads which exceed their own weight without any reluctance.  If there’s some physical object that you require and it’s not within arms’ reach, that means it’s time to yell for the nearest youngster and send the little tyke scampering off to retrieve whatever it is you need.  Again, doesn’t matter what.  Could be a box of books, could be a case of beer, could be the hickory switch required to give the brat a serious whuppin’.  This is why we have rooms full of haphazardly scattered school supplies that never get distributed properly.  This is why we have children who can’t tie their own shoes buying beer and cigarettes for the unemployed drunkards who hang at the local car wash.  This is why anything which is transported around here inevitably gets dirty, broken, lost and abused.  This is why we can’t….aw, you know the rest.  I’ve been told that this tradition is to instill a sense of respect in the children, letting them know that adults are to be revered and assisted, because you know, they’re busy doing so much important work.  Personally, I think it has more to do with the physical limitations of South African adults.  Many of them carry excessive loads 24/7.  😉

Anyway, before this little quip of mine devolves into a truly tasteless stream of sarcasm, I just want to talk about one more factor contributing to the decrepit state of my current location.  You see, there’s a certain social ailment which continues to plague South African citizens regardless of race, gender, religion or social status.  I’m actually not talking about HIV this time.  What I’m talking about is the pandemic of “paranoia”, “distrust” and “transgression”, along with its’ symptoms “lock”, “key” and “hastily welded steel security bars over every aperture bigger than a human hand”.  Where’s the love, SA?  Where’s the Christian sense of community and “love thy neighbor”, or the African spirit of compassion and Ubuntu which I’ve heard so much about?  OK, I’m sorry.  That’s not fair.  In fairness, being protective of property in SA is perfectly reasonable, and in fact very smart.  There is an uncomfortably high rate of crime in this country.  I’ve heard that some motorists in Johannesburg actually install custom modifications including undercarriage rotary blades and flamethrowers to deal with hijackers.  I’d imagine this is somewhat hazardous to street vendors:  “Take that you punks!  Oh…sorry pal, but you really shouldn’t be peddling stolen goods at this intersection.  Damnit, now I have to wash my car again.”  Of course crime is generally much higher in cities than rural areas, and South Africa is no exception, but the rural attitude towards security here is no less paranoid in spite of this.  Rural areas don’t have bank robberies or hijackings, but there certainly are thieves.  Who are they, you ask?  They’re the naughty boys who couldn’t make it through school (see also: lack of parental guidance).  They’re the victims of unemployment, illiteracy, and discrimination (see also: corruption, greed, apartheid etc.)  They’re the clever but misguided citizens who realized that a stolen 40 inch plasma screen has a higher cash/labor ratio than 3-6 years of expensive schooling and a crummy job, usually by a factor of thousands (see also: glorified crime in popular culture).  Local crooks?  I know them well.  And don’t worry, as per Peace Corps policy I have my very own set of hastily welded steel burglar bars for my humble abode (see also: unsightly fire hazard).

Speaking of fire hazards and overdone security, I think it’s worth mentioning that one of the disorganized storerooms at school contains 21 fully charged fire extinguishers, doubtlessly intended for the 21 classrooms of said school.  It’s clear to everyone at school that the fire extinguishers would be mischievously discharged within a week of their placement into unsupervised classrooms, so into the storeroom they must go!  Let me explain the process of entering this storeroom.  When I need to get in there, it takes me approximately 4 minutes to track down the gatekeeper who has the keys, and another minute or two to fumble through a huge keyring and grapple with the 2 ancient mortise locks between me and the interior.  Now imagine the same scenario with the addition of cackling flames and crowds of overeager, panicky children, all pushing and shoving eachother, trying to get in the door where they’ve been told to fetch the extinguishers…..only once the door opens, they’re doomed to trip over piles of rubbish and be subsequently trampled by the masses pouring in from behind them!  I shudder to think.  That’s a theatrical, exaggerated and somewhat paranoid example, but the point is that having everything under lock and key is a serious pain in the ass!  If one forgets something in their office and needs to retrieve it, it suddenly turns into this whole process of finding the right combination of people and keys.  And there are so many damn keys.  We don’t even know what half of them go to any more, but for god’s sake don’t lose any, because they just might be needed to open something really important.  Keys do get lost though; it’s inevitable.  My neighbor had some burglar bars installed shortly before I did.  Within a month of their installation he was calling the welder to come back and grind out some bars so he could get into his own house.  That’s a true story; draw your own conclusions.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go collect the scattered pieces of a class attendance register which students somehow managed to defenestrate in spite of the obstructive security bars.  You see?  This is why we can’t have nice things.

Lost in Translation

This is a bit about the local language, for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.  The language is called TshiVenda, (pronounced “Chi-Ven-Da” meaning the language of Venda people.  Venda is a region in the Limpopo province of South Africa.  The place has high temperatures, beautiful mountains, delicious fruits and some interesting traditions which I’ll talk about later.  Venda people call themselves “VhaVenda” (plural) or “MuVenda” (Singular), and they call people like me “VhaKhuwa” or “MuKhuwa”.  So the word for English, or any other whitey language like German or Afrikaans is “TshiKhuwa”.  Tshivenda is a somewhat obscure and uncommonly known language.  There are many subtleties in pronunciation and every syllable ends with a vowel.  There are no gender nouns like with romantic languages, no gender specific pronouns even.  In fact, different pronouns confuse the living hell out of Venda students learning English, so they usually just pick one and go with it for everything.  Like “he”, for example: “James, my sister, he have got a problem with car.  He [the car] is not running because battery.  He [battery] is empty, so we must have cables.  Where is he? [the jumper cables].   This is typical, but if you’re laughing keep in mind that my Tshivenda must sound 100 times more messed up than that because I’m constantly missing subtle pronunciation syntax.  Now although the pronouns for “He” and “She” are the same in Tshivenda, men and women have different greetings.  When a man says hi, he says “Ndaa” when a woman says hi she says “Aa”.  There are also different ways of addressing someone, a respectful (formal) way which you should use when speaking to someone older than you, or the casual way which is used between friends of the same age.

Contrary to my severely analytical nature, I have stopped trying to translate Tshivenda literally in an attempt to understand it.  The reasons for this are as follows:  1) For me, it’s usually impossible.  2) The literal translation is usually ridiculous.  Take this basic conversation for example:  The Bold is Tshivenda, the Italics are the literal translation.  At the end I’ve recapped the conversation using non-literal, vernacular translation.

Ndaa, Ndou.

Hello, Elephant.

Ee Ndaa.

Yes hello.

Vho vuwa hani?

How are you waking up today?

Ndo vuwa zwavhudi.  Ndi vhudzisa ngeo?

I woke up nicely.  I am inquiring about you.

Na nne ndo vuwa.  Ndi khou humbela u vhudzisa?

And me I woke up.  I am politely asking to inquire.

Kha vha vhudzise.

You may inquire.

Madi ndi gaee?

Water is where?

Nga car wash [yes, they would actually say car wash with a slight accent]

At the car wash.

O Luga.  Ndo Livhuwa.

Divine.  I have thanked you.

Ndi zwone, tshimbila zwhavhudi.

You’re welcome, walk nicely.

Ndi zwone, re do vhonana.

Goodbye, we will see each other.

So that was really just: “Hello sir.” “Well hello.” “How’s it going?” “Pretty good, and yourself?” “Just fine.  Can I please ask you something?” “Sure, ask away” “Where can I find water?” “There’s some at the car wash” “Great.  Thank you.” “You’re welcome, go well.”  “OK bye, see you later”.

You may have noticed “Ndi Zwone” is a homonym, it means either “You’re welcome” or “Goodbye” depending on context.  It’s also interesting to note that although the literal translation sounds goofy, they were both using the polite and respectful form of addressing each other.  Make no mistake though, the informal is also goofy when translated literally.  And about that “Elephant” thing, men really do say that and it really does mean elephant.  The people of South Africa all have a different animal which designates their “clan” or something like that, and in the case of Venda it happens to be the elephant.  Even the big town in the Venda region, Thohoyandou, is literally Thoho (Head) ya (of) Ndou (Elephant).  So Thoho = head, which brings me to my next point: some words which are spelled the same have different meanings depending on pronunciation.  Thoho = head but if you give the “T” a little bit more of a plosive sound it becomes “monkey”.  Gezz!  Thoho ya mukhuwa hafta khou vhavha (This white man’s head/monkey hurts).

Typical thoughts on a day in my African life

Nov 8^th 2011

Since arrival I’ve been having some recurring thoughts.  At first it was “Now where the hell did I park my car this ti……Oh yeah, that’s right.  Never mind.”  Then I kept thinking “I would do horrible, horrible things for a 30 minute high-pressure shower right now”.  Now the thoughts I keep having are either “……..This is so ridiculous!” or, predictably, “Sweet Jesus, it is hot.”  The former thought usually occurs at school, like whenever I take a moment to think about what’s actually going on.  Kids running around full tilt in and out of classrooms, yelling at full volume, final exams right around the corner, and are we teachers worried?  Not as worried as we are about this scary new policy from the department of education.  Not only do we have to submit assessments in digital form (what the hell is a digital form?) but they must be formatted to the DOE’s PFECA standards (I’m so confused), reviewed by at least 2 other educators (does the American count as an educator?) and they must be in English (Yuck).  Seriously though, the department has this awful habit of sending intentionally longwinded, bureaucratic and trivial instructions around exam time.  It’s like they’re trying to challenge and test the intelligence of the school staff instead of simply being clear in what’s required.  And yes, the teachers are understandably pissed, so what happens is they take time away from class to deal with this headache.  So as I’m on my way from class, dodging uncontrollable high-speed fifth graders whilst trying not to drop my lunch, books and several stacks of boring paperwork, I’m thinking “….This is so ridiculous”.  The other time I end up having this thought is when I need to use the dreaded public taxis.  I mean damn driver, you’ve been honking at that old lady for like 5 minutes.  I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want a lift.  Maybe you’d have better luck if your vehicle wasn’t already stuffed to the gills.  I’m sorry, but I still kind of hate dealing with the transport scene.  One thing is I’ve always had a kind of claustrophobia when it comes to lack of elbow room and whatnot, and these drivers really don’t leave until every seat is taken.  And then of course I get the whole stunned silence, wide-eyed wonder, is-there-really-a-white-guy-in-this-taxi effect, which by this point has really lost its charm.  The final nail in the coffin is that no matter how hot it gets, people don’t open the windows.  This stopped frustrating me quite so much once I figured out the reason:  It’s because of the dust.  Now of course if it were my choice, I’d say “who cares about the damn dust?  It’s hot!” but folks around here see things a little differently.  It’s kind of like a vendetta against the dust or something:  People carry polishing rags so that their shoes are always shined and spotless, they’ll wash their car twice or three times a day if it’s windy, yards (which are pretty much made of dust) are swept constantly and vigorously and nobody opens their car windows unless the vehicle is stationary.  I see it as a kind of vindictive attitude: “I don’t care that we live in one of the hottest and most arid climates on the planet, I’m NOT letting this dust make me or my property dirty”.  It’s actually sort of admirable, when I’m not sweating like a hog while being squashed between two strangers during the first 5 minutes of an hour ride to Thohoyando.

James Higby’s Top Ten Culture Clashes

Paraphrased Quotes + Explanation

10) “Aren’t you Afrikaans?”

The Afrikaans people are South Africa’s white minority, descendents of the Dutch and Portugese colonists.  Since I’m a whitey, I’m usually profiled as an Afrikaaner.  I’ve been getting incredible kicks watching people react when I respond to their Afrikaans greeting by saying “I don’t speak Afrikaans”, not in English, but in their native language.  One guy actually hugged me, it was great!

9) “So, are you from North America or South America?”

Yes, the ambiguity of just saying “America” when one means “the United States OF America” does not fail to confuse South Africans.  We take it for granted that America = USA but let me tell you, it’s not the case over here.  I can usually explain the difference to someone if they have decent English, but I’ve given up on telling people I’m from upstate New York and not the big city.  Another funny thing I was asked, on a similar note, was “So, if I want to visit you in America, which bus should I take?”  I’m guessing geography doesn’t get much attention in the South African schools’ curricula.

8)”My god, your arms are so hairy!  Wouldn’t you like to shave them?”

I’m not kidding, my host sisters were always wondering why I don’t shave my arms.  Arm hair just fascinates the kids here for some reason.

7)”You must learn at least 7 of our 11 national languages while you are here.”

I get this a lot from dyed-in-the-wool old timers.  Ok, so the suggested number isn’t really 7, but still, they tell me things like “English and Tshivenda aren’t languages I like.  Learn Zulu so we can have some deep conversation”.   It’s unbelievable how I’m expected to be a foreign language sponge just because I can say “good morning” to someone in their native tongue.

6) “If you bang the door of my Kombi any harder, I will dismember you.”

Yes, despite how ridiculously chaotic the public transportation is here, Kombi (passenger van) drivers get really steamed if you close the door hard.  This is in sharp contrast to what I learned about vehicle ettiquite in the States: Make sure the door is truly closed, and do it quickly.  Here, it’s better to try several times before getting a solid latch (quietly), thus wasting everyone’s time but saving the driver’s ears and the doors’ hardware.  The fact that half of these sliding van doors are on gummy, uncooperative hinges makes this challenge extra fun.

5) “You want to meet up at 8:00 sharp?   Sounds great, see you at 9:15.”

The notorious “African Time”.  I’d say about 60% of the arrangements one makes here will inevitably be delayed, sometimes by as much as an hour and a half.  Peace Corps training staff described it as “Polychromic Time” as opposed to the western world’s “Monochromic Time”.  The theory is that with monochromic time there is a single set schedule and people operate within it, whereas polychromic time says people are more important than the schedule, there will always be more time.  This means chronic lateness, all day every day.  Here’s how it happens:  You’re walking home, or to work, or to a “big, important meeting” or whatever and you see someone you know.  You must stop, greet each other, and ask “how’s it going?” at the very least.  And if this person actually has something relevant to tell you, take a seat and get on the African timetable!  It’s more important to show that you care about your friends and relations than it is to be punctual.  In fact, I’m writing this at 11:05 while waiting for somebody who said he’d stop by at 11:00, and I know I’ve got at least another 10 minutes.

4)”Honored guest, please eat these honorary poorly washed, half-cooked bovine entrails.  I insist.”

Ok, so this hasn’t actually happened to me yet but I’ve heard about it from some other volunteers.  I have however helped cook this special dish called Mohodu, which consists of cow intestine, lungs and stomachs (cows have 4).   It was washed and cooked properly, and no one was forced to eat it but many of the volunteers chose to do so.  The stomachs are delicious, but I’m not so big on the lungs and intestine.  Next up for exotic food is Mopane Worms.  That’s right, worms.  These adorable little grubs are a popular snack here in Limpopo.

3)”Hi, nice to meet you.  When do we get married?”

This is way more problematic for women than it is for me, although I’ve had a couple of marriage proposals and my host mum wants to set me up with a girl ASAP.  One popular icebreaker question I keep getting is “so how many kids do you have?”   Seriously though, it’s unbelievable how fast some people I encounter will try to marry an American.  This is probably because of a common misconception that all Americans are filthy rich, which brings me to this next cross-cultural instance….

2)”You should give me some money.  Just 50 rand will be fine.”

Sheesh, it’s like I’m walking around with a big sign that says “HUMAN ATM!” or something.  It’s either school kids or drunks and it never fails, they’ll hit you up for anything from pocket change to big bucks and some of them are very persistent.  I have to say, this is the single most irritating occurrence on this list.  The misunderstanding just kills me.  I say that I’m here as a volunteer to help, and I get “If you’ve come to my country to help me, you need to give me some money.”  I’ll usually try to explain the concept of helping by enabling (if the listener isn’t too drunk) but it’s not something they want to hear, they just want the dough.  What blows my mind is how casual the soliciting is, even though I’m told by most adults that it’s definitely considered rude.  Now let me tell you about something that is not considered rude (despite how offensive it seems) which happens to me literally every day:

1)”MUKHUWA!!!”

Mukhuwa of course means “white person”.  Most of the time, I hear it before I even see who’s saying it.  It’s usually little kids, some of whom have never seen a Mukhuwa before, but I get it from adults as well.  It’s a good indicator of when someone’s talking about me in Tshivenda, which most people assume I know zilch.  It’s really funny to watch them react when I respond with a Tshivenda acknowledgment.  Sometimes it can be amusing, like if a friend just jokingly calls me Mukhuwa in casual conversation, but sometimes it’s painfully annoying.  The worst is when little kids start forming a mob and chanting “khu-WA! khu-WA!”, big stadium-style.  The thing is, it’s just innocent fascination so most people don’t understand why it’s offensive.  For example, I asked a teacher at my school how to tell the kids to stop calling me mukhuwa, and he said “it’s OK James, they’re just calling you white”.  Yup, this one takes the cake.  Vocalized racial profiling in South Africa = Totally fine and politically correct.

Well, that’s pretty much the gist of it.  Don’t get me wrong I’m definitely loving it here, just thought these little anecdotes are worth sharing.  I’m officially sworn as a volunteer now and I start work on Thursday; time to try and help over a thousand gradeschool kids, many of whom don’t speak English!  Woo!  I’m going to post some pictures of my humble abode and the cooking of delicious Mohodu as soon as possible.  Peace!