I both am & will never be Zulu
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Last weekend the community was amazed that I went to Bonisiwe's funeral. "You are different," they kept telling me, shaking their heads, impressed I thought to wear a long skirt and black top. "Valer, you are the only white to come to our funeral. And your dress is right." It was a long (9-2) and very lovely ritual. First we paid respects in the house. I'm rarely invited inside houses, as mostly people are embarassed to show me how they live. Usually they 
bring chairs (or if they're really poor, sagging wooden benches), and no one sits until I do. I'm not sure how much is my being white or in a position of authority. When I do go inside like on Saturday, while everyone else kneeled on mats on the floor (a richer home, instead of a mud floor it was covered with patches of three different kinds of linoleum), I was instructed to sit on one green plastic chair. I felt like I was on a throne above everyone, but when I protest such special treatment, they insist and I don't want to be rude. Then all of us women sat on plastic chairs under a tent. The coffin was brought out and people took turns speaking and leading songs. The pastors interrupted with prayers, while outside the men all dug a huge hole in the yard and piled the rocky soil neatly with planks of wood on top. Once one of our volunteers spoke, we rose and laid a newly bought blanket over the coffin, then folded and handed it to Bonisiwe's mother. We then carried the coffin to the burial site, and the men took over. They lowered the coffin in and covered it with perfectly-cut wood, then ripped a mat and put the mat in, and poured a bag of what I presume were some small things from Bonisiwe's four-year-old daughter inside. While men shoveled, the children Bonisiwe taught in the pre-school symbolically buried her by throwing small fistfuls of soil into the grave. All the while the women sang spirituals, and when we finished we all washed our hands and sat down for a delicious feast of chicken curry, pumpkin mash, yellow rice, baked desserts, roasted beetroot, cole slaw and a host of other food that had been carefully cooking all morning to feed about a hundred people. We paid the family Bonisiwe's salary and each donated some money on top, which may have just covered that food. Funerals cost families small fortunes they don't have. We presented a quote for a group funeral plan, and the ladies opted for the most expensive package, nearly 1/6 of their salary. Sadly, it makes sense: death is damn expensive and way too common. (Photo: you can't see the mountains for the fog)
Sunday I was invited to another Z
ulu church service. I have mixed feelings about the churches: they are a morally positive force, and they also bleed the community of more money they don't have. I present what we're doing, that I'm a volunteer, and then open for questions, and they always ask me to do X, Y, and Z, when (1) I'm not Christian, (2) I'm here for the kids, not the churches, (3) white ≠ money, and (4) I'm overworked as is and giving up a Sunday to be with them without taking up even more causes. Also, religious services in an unintelligible language despite lovely singing, are rather wearing. Which is why we are all SO looking forward to tomorrow. A lovely friend who runs a soccer league offered to pay for petrol for me to drive the ladies down to the Fan Zone in Durban for the Brazil-Portugal match. "Unbelievable!" and cheers of excitement were among the sentiment. In the afternoon, one of the ladies ran down the road to tell a reserve employee how thrilled she is, even to be bumping along in the back of the buggy for the 2.5+ hour drive down. Crossing fingers we aren't deafened by vuvuzelas. (Photo: cheap Coca-Cola vuvuzelas for sale)
Have I mentioned recently how much I love my job? Today I taught the ladies bingo, as a potential fundraiser to go along with our new popcorn machine. They loved it. "That game is right! Number one!" So we're doing our first community bingo afternoon on Sunday, without even a bingo game set, just printed pieces of paper in a bag. If I've learned anything living outside the US, it doesn't have to look nice or even make much sense so long as it functions.
In closing as a homage to the stupidity of McChrystal, I bring you some South African political humor, including the popular quote, "Don't Touch me on my Studio!" And the most hilarious gift against the cold I've ever received. (Photo: even the spiders are frozen!)
Posted byValerie at 7:34 PM 1 comments
A Bit of Buddha in South Africa
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
In need of a little zen, I went to the Buddhist retreat centre last weekend for a mini yoga and meditation vacation. As suspected it was a mostly-female retreat for the kickoff of the World Cup. But we knew South Africa didn’t lose with the vuvuzelas bellowing from the valley below. Which was easy to hear since the lodge where I stayed was 24/7 Noble Silence and the entire Centre was nobly silent from 9 pm to 9 am. One would think that would be calming, but I get plenty of silence every evening on my own, so when I go out I prefer some conversation. So I skipped evening meditation Saturday night to make some phone calls, and got sad news.
One of the ladies passed away on Saturday. She was thirty-three, had a four-year-old and was taking care of her elderly mother since her brother had been murdered last year. She didn’t take a day off from working with the kids. One of the ladies visited her just Thursday to finish putting together portfolios to complete pre-school teacher certification training and found her hunched over her binder in pain unable to walk. She went to clinic Friday, was transferred directly to hospital. Tomorrow morning we’re going together to visit the family. We decided to pay 
her entire month’s salary, pitch some more money in ourselves, and buy her family a warm blanket. Snow’s set into the mountains, and firewood is scarce (or if you’re me, firewood is useless with a half-built fireplace). I feel truly spoiled at twenty-seven that this is my first winter without climate control. When I was easing the buggy up the mountain on Sunday I was reminded of Red Velvet and how maybe someday I’ll drive a car that I doesn’t slow to 40 kilometers per hour huffing up an incline. Then I thought nah, I’m lucky to have a car to drive at all. Money can be better spent than on an fancier car. People live so day-to-day I’m loaning each the $4 (R 30) we’re donating. (Photo: evening retreat view)
This is why last week I decided to monetarily empower them. This is a community project, and the community should decide how to spend the money. There’s too much drama about money on the reserve, so to stop it from spilling into our work, my translator and I walked an hour from the office to meet the ladies at the Resource Centre and had a money meeting. I wrote on the chalkboard how much we started with, what we have now, and the expenses so far. After we talked about ways to cut costs and make money, they voted themselves a very reasonable raise. Information is so empowering. There’s so much potential waiting to be tapped. That’s really why people here are so excited about World Cup: the chance to Get Out. Out of poverty, out of the same small community and culture they’ve only and always known, out of Africa… (Photo: sunbird)
So many people I work with are so bright, talented, and eager for opportunity. They’ve been oppressed, first in the Zulu culture by following an induna much like an American Indian chief, then by the apartheid system, and now by the current corrupt government and some employers. We need to ease into increased responsibility. Do something once, walk someone through it once, and let go, remaining on stand by. Last Thursday when a government agency didn’t show to speak about how to get grants. I smsed to see how it went and was told they were all still waiting 1½ hours later. No one called the agency to confirm or find out what happened. The instinct was to 
blame, not take responsibility. Things like this make whites frustrated that blacks don’t take charge or seemingly appreciate opportunities. There’s also frustration people make decisions they’re not prepared for. If you don’t know what you don’t know (and are rather isolated), you don’t know that you need more information, much less how to get it.
I don’t know why Bonisiwe left us. I don’t know what I’ll say to the family tomorrow. I do know she worked harder and smiled through more than I’ll ever experience. (Photo: retreat dam view)
Namaste.
Posted byValerie at 9:07 PM 0 comments
Green Eggs, No Ham
Monday, June 7, 2010
From a chicken’s head to an emu egg, for dinner last night I baked an emu frittata. Rewind: Saturday I was driven 45 km, dropped off and walked 6 km to pick up my bike from the shop, rode 25 km and the pedal fell off from the crank. Not what one hopes after picking it up from the shop. Top-notch customer service: owner drove out to fetch me, took me back to the shop and fixed the bike, then to his house for lunch with his wife and kids and sent me home with two emu eggs from his farm. The friendliness of rural people is heartwarming: I wasn’t even hitching and three cars stopped while I walked my bike. And someone sold me an avocado. (Photo: emu eggs & peace-sign of a feather)
Seventy-five people turned out to watch Up for movie night number two. The sound still hasn’t been sorted. They prefer to have a quiet movie now to a perfect one later, and don't understand much English anyway.
Family in crisis update: teenage mother had baby a few weeks ago, a sweet little boy. Her mother, who had a grant, moved in to help. Then sadly, she died a week later. Seems like the teenage mom is slowly stepping up. Lately when we visit there’s talk in Zulu with little translation. I'm glad to be less necessary as they sort it out.
New family in crisis: five orphans, two women on one gogo’s old age grant. Mix in TB and a five-year-old who holds up his head with his hand due to a neck injury, with a pained ache of a face and big hungry belly. I asked if they have enough food, and they said yes. We left and they called us back, and said actually there is just half a bag of mealie meal for the lot of them. And the list-of-needs floodgate opened. We offered to help them get an emergency grant and apologized we can’t afford school uniforms for the kids. One of my ladies shook her head and said, “We offer them a hand and they ask for an arm.” I smiled. “Yes, and if they grab our arm when we reach out a hand we’ll all fall over.”
Whites are guilty and also resentful their help doesn’t seem to be appreciated and feel imposed upon to do more and more. Blacks are resentful and angry for lesser education, opportunity, income and feeling of 
self-worth and feel entitled to massive improvement in circumstance. The effects of apartheid fester. Wonder if this was what it felt like when Jim Crow ended in the South. (Photos: flowering winter grass & perched oriole that brings sunshine to the cold office with his song.)
Helping is important and fraught. Jealousy so rampant. I’m having a meeting to explain why I’m scared if we give too much of a raise we’ll finish the money and all be out of work. Scant consolation for people who struggle to buy food. Growling bellies are understandably less patient. Empowering people to do for themselves is a slower and more stable & sustainable solution. There’s resistance to change yet resentment of the status quo. My translator is getting such threats from coworkers he took out a huge loan to pay a sangoma to put a safety spell on his house. (One threatener was thrown into jail last week, accused of murder for stabbing a man in a bar who was stealing his friend’s wallet.) No one should have to live with such a feeling of desperation.
I aspire to dwell on positive sentiment and am thankful for the friendly ears I’ve been bending lately. I admire so many people I encounter. Like the government lady who helped the new family in crisis. She’s not only on the ball, she’s throwing passes and running as she’s tackled from all angles. Example: she gets hot chocolate donated for people waiting on cold mornings, and someone else donates condoms. Local paper headline: government encouraging sex. Superiors say stop all innovation. Or: schizophrenic is given an R500 loan from an R250 grant. Not surprisingly, he couldn’t pay. The loan officer illegally seized his grant card as collate
ral. She went to the loan office and yelled that this poor schitzo man wouldn’t remember he got the loan even if he could pay it back. The loan officer opened his drawer to reveal 1000s of seized cards. Each card costs R65. She started thinking of all the grants people could’ve gotten if the government wasn’t busy paying to remake those cards, so she called the police. The police officer was friends with the loan officer, and arrested her. She got a restraining order. She can’t enter an entire block of a very small town, cutting her off from the Old Navy-like clothing shop, Mr. Price, until July. In July she’s going back to call the police again. Here's hoping a different officer comes. (Photo: world cup fever in Shoprite)
Posted byValerie at 11:27 AM 0 comments
Calm, cool and collected. Who, me?
Friday, May 28, 2010
No news on my coat, and the following week a couple coworkers bought me some pepper spray. It's the third time I've been given pepper spray, and I think I shall actually practice using it once and carry it around this time. I got some wonderful birthday wishes, and on top of it, two of my favorite people said they want to buy me a new coat as a belated birthday present! Thanks for all the <3. href="http://www.daltoneducationtrust.com/newsletter-advert-may.htm">newsletter!(Photo: rhino dad and mom & baby very suspicious of me. By the way, rhinos are nearly blind. So did they see or smell me behind an electric fence?. Other photo: winter sunrise)
My conflict work and "crazy outsider" status has turned me into a bit of an ombuds-woman, and I have a lot less to lose by trying to implement change than the other workers here. I also think that if one continues to work within a fraught framework without working within to implement positive change, that one becomes complicit and has responsibility for one's inaction. Something interesting came up in conflict class this week, too: why do we think other people say or do things to purposely hurt/annoy/degrade/etc us, yet we don't do/say /think with those intentions. Why do we think others do? Let's assume the best! Also, I've started conflict work with schools and teaching about the peaceable classroom model in exchange for donations to the project. Peaceable communities, workplaces, classrooms, ole!
Speaking of peaceable, I had a such a difficult visitor last weekend I have been apologizing and de-compressing from it all week. From refusing the dinner I made because it has potatoes and
then eating potato chips, to when my boss was kind enough to invite us to dinner dictating what would be cooked and how, to putting files on and burning music from my computer without asking (computers are personal and it took me 2 weeks to get blank cd's out here), to leaving half-eaten sandwiches and dishes all over my house knowing my gluten allergy, to making kids ride in the back of a buggy on a cold night while he sat inside...it was horrifying. Twenty-five going on five. Driving to the community movie I visualized a healthy, calm, cool and collected aura with white energy bursting from the top of my head so his murky stormy aura wouldn't penetrate me. One apology for bringing him round to a friend entails volunteering for a school survivor-style fundraiser this weekend. Building a raft from sticks and mud, eating a mouse or a raw egg--I think I have signed up for Crazy. (Photo: another winter sunrise)
This week's motto: be zen.
Posted byValerie at 6:27 PM 0 comments
Please Press 1 if this is an Emergency. Then Hold.
Monday, May 17, 2010
“Valerie, call the police! There’s a man with a knife outside the window!” I ran for my phone and dialed the emergency number. I had to listen to a recording and press 1 that This Was An Emergency, then I was put on hold, then had to explain to a switchboard operator, presumably in Jo’burg, where I was so she could connect me to the closest police station. She did not understand my accent, nor was she familiar with my location. As I repeated myself in frustration, my friend found her phone and called the local station directly.
To rewind just a bit: at about 2:30 AM my friend and I realized we’d been chatting by the fire, exchanging music and enjoying her delicious raw cuisine and spice tea with no regard to time, and that I had better stay the night. She lives in a small town about 40 minutes from the reserve. She walked over to shut the music and turned 
around to the lit guest room to make up my bed, where she saw a man with a knife standing outside the window, on the lit porch, peering at her. She screamed to me, then turned to scream at him: “Go away! Get out of here! We’re calling the police!” He waved his knife at her. My first thought as I dashed for the phone was her three kids asleep in the bedroom. I felt completely powerless. (Photo: another bathtub with a view from a tea spot in town.)
She got through to the local police before I made it through the switchboard. “Hi, there’s an intruder on my property with a knife. There’s just women and children here. Please send someone quickly.” Not sure which direction the man ran, we roused the kids in case he’d gone around the back. The eldest, a boy, was content to keep sleeping. The middle girl came in quite scared and sat next to me by the fire. She drank my tea, I stroked her hair, and she said, “I wish we didn’t have money. We should go back to swapping things.” Trying to distract her, I asked how many carrots one would swap for a haircut. We chatted and waited, and the youngest girl joined us. We were all a bit shaky. There’s something incredibly brazen, illogical and especially scary about a man--without even any facial covering--coming to a lit house with music playing, in which people are clearly awake, and trying to break in. After waiting over half an hour (the station is about an 8 minute drive away, tops), my friend phoned back to see if someone was coming. The officers were lost. She repeated her directions. Then, “No, I will NOT come outside to meet them—did you not hear me that there’s a man with a knife outside my house?!” The middle child cringed and lay her head on my lap.
A few minutes later the police arrived and did a perimeter search. They found nothing. I walked outside to check my vehicle. In that cold weather with a choke the robber would’ve made a faster getaway by foot than trying to steal my buggy. While my boss sorted out the strike and tension on the reserve, I met a friend and spent the morning playing with poo (rhino, zebra, and buffalo), working on our new product, biopots and cute manure-made instantly-plantable indigenous seed discs, so the back of the buggy was full of manure and a bag of kids’ shorts from our psychomotor training. He’d peered inside and passed on those. In the front I had some papers, a Tupperware, my black straw hat and a new white winter coat I’d treated myself to on my trip to Jo’burg. The passenger door was unlocked, and the coat was missing. I wondered if my hat should be offended. (Photo: malfunctioning fountain in the Jo'burg botanic gardens that seems appropriate here)
The police came in to take down a report for my stolen coat. There were two, one in training, who mimicked the constable he was working with, down to when he lifted his pen or sipped his tea. They worked through their forms, asking questions and filling boxes. “What is your date of birth?” I suddenly realized. “It’s today, actually.” They didn’t flinch. “Year?” The girls and my friend all chorused an oh shame, happy birthday, sorry about the coat! More so than the coat, even though I didn’t see him, I’ve got an image in my mind of a middle aged man brandishing a knife glinting in the light, and the cockiness of his attempted armed robbery. My friend has lived in that house for about 2 years, and this is her 4th break-in. The 2nd time, a year ago, she was home and at 3 am heard a noise. She and her dog walked into the kitchen and saw a man at the window. She screamed and ran for her phone, and he stayed there and kept banging as if to break the glass. She was alone. Then he went around to the front door and banged and rattled around as if to try and enter from there. She locked herself and her dog in the bathroom and talked on the phone to a friend until the police arrived, over 30 minutes later. Then the officer proceeded to hit on her and tried to force a kiss when he left.
The officers thanked my friend for the coffee (she'd made them tea). After a couple hours of sleep, we four women in one room, I head to toe on a twin mattress on the floor with the middle girl, I led my friend in a little yoga and we sipped smoothies. The kids’ dad arrived, and after hearing our encounter told us his friend’s girlfriend in
What I needed was some sleep and a long walk. I hadn’t been in a proper humid forest since camping with a friend in 
es they’d made. My parents phoned to say happy birthday, and my house smelled from the lovely roses a coworker left on my table with my mail. I opened cards and a few packages (hooray for my new Opex watch!) and was treated to a yummy farm-fresh dinner at my boss’s house, and had a long chat with a coworker friend. The next day I redecorated my walls with the cards & wrapping paper & a new lovely screen print, and another coworker brought over a present. I readied the next batch of cards & quills and watched Strictly Ballroom, missing dancing and mostly thankful I was safe on the reserve. I locked my doors for the first time in a long time. The cats will have to sleep with their owners for a while. (Photo: view from home)
Posted byValerie at 11:00 AM 1 comments
Rhino-conomics
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
As I walked into work this morning I watched a rhino slowly ambling up a mountainside and a pair of cranes building a nest above a pond. One crane flew to gather a branch or some grass, flew back and gave it to the other who put it in place. I’m told the crane couple builds their nest every year and they have yet to have babies. Both struck me as metaphors for progress: collaboration, positivity, patience, perseverance…pretty much the opposite of the environment here now. I feel like I’ve been transported to 1903 and the worker’s rights’ movement: high ideals of what a union can do with little legal and practical understanding, no trust for The Man (aka management).
On the other hand, my workers are happy and working well. Our coordinator spent all day last Friday assembling a database in Excel of the kids we serve—and it was her first time using a computer! And Saturday a group of us finished our community food garden: 3 beds of winter veggies (beets, cabbage, spinach, beans) & 8 fruit trees (fig, lemon, apple, peach, orange) to start our orchard. (Photo: helping in the garden. So sweet.)
Now tha
t the communities are coming together and our everyday is running smoother, I’m shifting into building a business so we have a steady source of income and can employ more locals. The idea of producing biodegradable stuffs is forcing me to brush up on my chemistry. Today I made milk plastic. It’s not that hard now, but it hardens over time (that’s what she said). I emailed a couple engineer friends for advice, and one said, "You know the question you're asking...is basically how to restart society with nothing...it's gonna be hard to just use the same supplies and compete in the market since people have been using those supplies forever."Ouch, it’s not that dire. A friend & collaborator has suggested that what we need is a Thneed (according to Dr. Suess, A Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need). What’s the point of having a supposedly $200,000 brain if I can’t develop a thneed? (Photo: an ancient fern tree of the ilk that dinos used to chomp on)
The new business (ad)venture, along with some Sunday-poker-in-the-pub friends (horse-breeder friend: “It’s my one year one ear anniversary!”) and my first actual Scrabble game since I left the US are pleasantly rounding out my life like a rhino’s bum. Speaking of rhinos, they’re so fat that in the last month two had babies, and we thought one still had months of pregnancy left. I’ve caught glimpses of the babies, but mostly the parents hover around to protect them so I just get a peek of some extra small tubby chubby legs. Since the gestation period is ??? so they can only have one baby every ??? years, they gotta protect their offspring. Especially when a stupid neighbor farmer starts a fire and leaves the country so we can watch it with worry and chant a stayawayfromourdrygrass mantra. Which is about as effective as a plane full of rabbis praying to prevent swine flu.
Right now it’s the opposite of monsoon season. I’ve taken to pouring puddles around my bedroom before I sleep so thety evaporate and wet the air. (I must just be careful not to pour too near my bed to avoid another mid-night knee wham.)
Yesterday I was asked whether I can sprint (with probing, I find out this means that if I run into Pogenpoel, the lone, angry male buffalo who’s been kicked out of the herd they want to think I can sprint to my escape). The two most popular Zulu questions: (1) Do you have kids, Valer?, and (2) What do you do on weekends [since you don’t have kids or animals]? This weekend I know what I’m planning: inaugural community outdoor movie night! Without electricity. Requested feature film: Mr. Bones. Those 2 
½ years of engineering sure are coming in handy. (Might be postponed due to worker strike safety concerns. Shame.)
Speaking of weekends, I’ve been watching Flight of the Conchords (or rather rewatching the first season it's all I have), and driving home one night hunched over my steering wheel squinting down a dark, dirt country road a little ditty popped into my head: ‘Like a porcupine, you’ve stuck your quill in my spine and I can’t get you out of my mind’. Bret & Germaine could definitely work with that. And the Zulu worry what I do in my free time. (Photo: if only we all had the view of this bathtub at a friend's former house)
Posted byValerie at 11:10 AM 0 comments
A Quote Collage
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Heard & said in the last week:
She ate her hearing aid!
The car’s fine, you won’t have a problem, it just needs new brake pads so try not to brake much, and if it breaks down nearby, here’s my number.
You’re leaking petrol--you can’t drive, you have to stay here!
If you don’t know what you’re doing, you will get carjacked.
Aren’t we targets sitting here waiting for the gate to open?
The gate closes at 6, but you’ll want to be gone by 4:30 at the latest.
Whenever I see the police I shit myself and think please don’t commit a crime while I’m around.
Yeah, but you sell yourself to help kids, and he just sells himself.
The first night I was here I cooked vegetables in the meat pot.
Not to be racist, but Jews are known for guilt.
She survived the Holocaust and now she won’t leave
They lied about my being an Israeli citizen for 22 years, but
When she house-sat for us, she drank 22 bottles in 21 days, at R300 a bottle!
R4300 to
I wasn’t even informed I’d be flying out of a different airport.
Is this picture really recent? (Photos: rose & Jo'burg botanic gardens)
It’s my Mary Poppins skirt.
Wow, I’ve never heard German with an American accent before.
I can't believe I just heard an American say banana [in South African accent].
I got a golf scholarship to
They called and said if you want a visa, come right away, so I don’t dare say my travel plans changed.
Learning is like feeding a baby, best to eat a little at a time more often.
If we're good at our job, it's like we're a brick and they cement us in place and we get stuck in that job.
I can feel it [through the phone], you’re processing.
He was either married, or worse, a politician.
Here, look at the bra straps my daughter is wearing.
I could cut your hair, but then it would be shorter.
I think I’m allergic to my washing powder.
Are you sure this is gluten-free pizza?
I’m just in shock someone ordered tea.
I’ve never seen someone without a pupil before.
Zulu don't eat Zulu food, they want homemade bologna and fetkuchen [donuts].
Do it at the beginning of the month when people have money, maybe the second weekend, when they’re less drunk, and earlier in the evening.
He licked my face at 3 am so I kicked him out.
I feed him moldy goat cheese.
He’s using my driveway as a litter box.
We have a bet whether the cats will be cuddling by August, and the loser has to do 75 favors.
How about a drinkie-poo?
I can play Scrabble not today, but Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday.
You usually do it in 8 hours, but can you do it in 2?
Only someone who hasn’t given birth would say that—I’ve seen it—it’s not that hard.
I have never known a dog that would not hump anybody’s leg.
A
Good news: the federal government gave you $125 for working and being poor!
I thought it was playing Frogger with my life crossing the street in Bombay, but people here cross the freeway when I’m going like 120 km per hour, and all the notice I have is a triangular sign with an ‘!’ that says ‘Pedestrians. No Fencing.’
Can you stop by
Posted byValerie at 11:49 AM 0 comments
