(d)urban(a)

return of (d)urban(a)

I am set to leave Urbana this Friday morning around 7am for Durban.  I should arrive late Saturday evening (SA time, as they are 8 hours ahead of Central time) if everything runs as scheduled.  If you want to receive a postcard from me and you don't think I have your address, please email it to:  [email protected]

Slow Beginnings

I arrived in Durban late Saturday evening (7 February 2009) and spent much of yesterday sleeping because I had absolutely no luck at it on the plane ride over.  Instead I spent a sleepless twenty hours on my flight watching such film gems as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and Hellboy 2 amongst others.  Today I'm on the Howard College campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal for my first "work" day - I'm poaching part of the Kunene Foundation office here for their air-conditioning and Internet connection since I have yet to sort the latter out at the house I am staying.  Other than my clearly American expectation of fast and ubiquitous Internet connection, the house where I am staying at this year is a pleasure because I have three absolutely wonderful roommates:  P, a German expatriate and professional puppeteer; R, my colleague and friend at Create Africa South; and K, a darling 17-month year old girl who loves biting me and brushing my hair (both slightly painful, but absolutely adorable, experiences). 

I am both excited and grateful to be here in South Africa again - thanks in large part to a University of Illinois Graduate College Dissertation Travel Grant.  This will likely be the last trip I will be able to make here for some time and so I feel I am already looking around with a nostalgic eye and feel a burn of urgency to accomplish everything I should and so much more that I can't plan for.

As the ferver of the US elections and inauguration dies down (and sadly appears to be mired down with partisan politics-as-usual so far), South Africa gears up for its national elections in late April.   Political experts here claim this may be the most important election since 1994 - in large part because of the cracks many perceive in the African National Congress Party and in its controversial president, Jacob Zuma.  While he will most likely be elected to the presidency of South Africa in April, he has a trial set this August where he will be tried for corruption connected to a 1999 arms deal.  Readers, then, who continue to check back with (d)urban(a) over the next three months will find my ramblings on the following subjects:

• current South Africa culture (politics, scholarship, food, and crafts in particular)
• perceptions of the United States in South Africa (especially the Obama phenomenon - he even has his own maskandi - Zulu style - song that plays on the radio here)
• my ongoing research and work with Create Africa South and the Zamukuziphilisa Sewing Cooperative (including developing a new online museum database project for the "Voices of Women" quilt program)
• travels and experiences in Durban, Cape Town, and Amsterdam (yes, there is a connection)

I look forward to hearing from you and welcome any questions or possible topics you may have interest in knowing more about.

Best,
Mar

Yapping About HIV/AIDS

An online article published in the past year suggested that with a healthful lifestyle and current anti-retroviral treatment (ARV), a person with HIV can come close to living a full life span.  This average person – where average means possessing access to ARVs and the means for healthful food and lifestyle choices - would only lose about thirteen years from his or her life expectancy.  This news seems to do more work to diminish the specter of AIDS and bring its consideration to the level of other serious, but manageable, health problems.  Somehow, though, practical medical assurances, countless NGOs devoted to HIV/AIDs issues, and constant reference to it in the South African media has done little to diminish the stigma of HIV/AIDS. 

 As many scholars have recognized (Susan Sontag and Paula Triechler in particular), the symbolic capital of AIDS and its “epidemic of significations” has bestowed the disease with metaphorical powers strong enough to overpower any one article that may suggest its manageability.  AIDS in South Africa has always been considered a heterosexual disease here – this was one of the key differences from a Western conception of AIDS then-President Thabo Mbeki emphasized in several speeches he gave over the course of 2000.  However, instead of highlighting its transmission through heterosexual sex, Mbeki insisted it was a cluster of illnesses caused primarily by poverty.  This obfuscation turned out to be statistically incorrect, but rhetorically in line with his position on economic and political development for the nation.  As Deborah Posel argues, “In [Mbeki’s] discourse on the epidemic, the meaning of AIDS was inseparable from the meaning and fate of the country’s newfound freedom.  AIDS threatened to extinguish the hope that had inspired the liberation struggle and that had animated the birth of the fledgling democracy.” 

But if that is a snapshot of the broad political sense of the epidemic, then what do glimmers on the ground look like?  Yesterday I accompanied R to Umlazi High School (a public school in the township of Umlazi outside of Durban), one of many schools in the area who she is approaching about participating in the YAP (Young and Positive) Program.  Organized by Create Africa South (the NGO I have been researching for my dissertation), this program asks students to “yap” about HIV/AIDs so that “learners themselves come up with a language that speaks to them when it comes to pertinent issues.”  In the future, YAP groups at school may organize and produce grassroots media about other issues, such as climate change, literacy, unemployment, etc.  I’m interested in the idea of encouraging students to create their own language, but I still wonder how much it can do to remove the stigma that continues to attach itself to the disease.

 Transmitting HIV remains a recurring theme on the “soapies” produced here, with the most common story being that of a trusting (generally female) partner who comes to discover her lover or husband has broken the commitment of monogamy in their relationship when she tests positive.  The devastation is a double one, then, and the management of HIV (through ARVs and lifestyle changes) remains a constant reminder of a reality that has failed to live up to the expectation and promise originally agreed to.  It is perhaps these associations – with their pain and heartbreak - that continue to feed the specter of AIDS here.

 This post has been a clumsy and ridiculously academic way of honoring someone who dared to have faith in someone else, only to be let down.  With love and respect for you…

Picture of the Day: YAPping About Role Models

Today R and I were in Kwa Mashu visiting a secondary school participating in the YAP (Young and Positive) program.  Mxolisi (on the left) was really intent on meeting me to let me know that in the past year Barack Obama has been an incredible role model for him.  He wanted to me to take a pic of him and his best friend Siyabonga (on the right) to share with my friends in the States.  We talked about Valentine's Day (a REALLY big event in South Africa) and the pressures of relationships, responsibility, and sex that confront young folks.  Mxolisi is one of the best dancers in his class (year 9), so he is going to lead a YAP committee to create a dance number about AIDS/HIV issues.

My Body is a Cage

Much like last year, a week into my trip and it seems as though my body is adjusting to being here in fits and starts.  If I was convinced by Friday I was completely adapted, then waking up today with flexural excema on the inside of my elbow joints and taking a six hour nap five hours after waking has convinced me otherwise.  I suspect most bodies, while incredibly adaptable, revolt in small to larger ways to new environments that world travel places it in.  I always wondered how people could go on those one-day/one-city whirlwind world tours and not completely collapse, their insides disintegrating outward by the fifth day...  Okay, a bit dramatic, but the body takes a beating when exposed to geographically new or specific "nunoos" (a colloquial term here for all the tiny bugs and bacteria). 

For example, this year I prepared for my trip by beginning a probiotic course a month before departure and continue to take a formula that prominently features Saccharomyces boulardii, the probiotic most associated with combatting salmonella and e.coli (the two meanest bacteria most commonly intestinally encountered).  While my insides have been happily holding up (and fingers crossed there is no repeat of my Mahushu dirty water incident of '08), the rest of my body has clearly reacted to the trip.  This time, primarily in manifesting fatigue, an acute reaction to three spider bites (on my thighs and butt man!), excema on my elbow joints, and also some rash on my neck that is definitely heat-related as well. As the days continue (and thankfully the temperature goes down a bit, as it did today), the symptoms disappear as I acclimate.

Things have been awfully quiet on here this year, so please share your body/travel stories if you dare.  At the very least to cheer me up.  That is, if I'm not to sleepy too read them.

The International Language of Kentucky Fried Chicken

So I've been absolutely taken by a KFC commercial that has been running on the four SABC stations here - it takes place in a rural township where a young boy who has a bald head ("BICing it" to a shine is a popular style here for both men and women) is literally treated like a napkin by his male elders.  Every time they finish a meal, the older men call the boy over to rub his head, proclaiming upon rubbing it that he will possess many cows in the future.  In other words, they try to hide their use of him as a napkin under the guise of phrenologically examining his head to tell him of his future wealth.  Here the practice of examining the head and the form of wealth they portend for him (through livestock) references relatively traditional conceptions of understanding and affluence.

Soon the boy is hiding from these male elders to keep them from rubbing their greasy hands on his head.  Finally he sees a billboard (unseen to the viewer) and marches off with a purpose.  He returns with two "Streetwise Combos" from the local KFC for himself and his grandfather.  Just as the grandfather is about to rub the boy's head, he jams a finger in his mouth.  Cut to a black screen which proclaims, "finger licking good."

I think what I marvel most about this commercial is how a trademarked expression that has reached cliche status in the United States can connect to this markedly different cultural interaction.  There is something very particular and interesting about the combination of the "traditional" and globalizing market forces that happens here in South Africa.  If you walk down the rows of stalls in the informal markets in downtown Durban (especially as you near the African market, a place where my presence is most definitely not welcome) you will see a stand hawking designer imposter purses next to one carrying small packets and re-used bottles filled with mutis, a word that refers to various kinds of traditional, spiritual materials used for a variety of physical and social problems.

I can't help but laugh every time I see that commercial - mostly out of the boy's performance of torture and finally joy at his ability to outsmart his elders.  I'm thinking it's time for fried chicken for dinner...

Why I'm Here: Rebecca's Cloth

Sometime in the middle of last week between spider bites and heat rash, I received translations from the Parliamentary Millennium Programme of the compositions that thirty women wrote who participated in the Mpumalanga Province workshop on "What Democracy Means to Me."  Nearly a year after the workshop we all attended, I am finally fusing written and cloth composition together to start thinking about the connection between the two (outside of the workshop environment I participated in).  I would love to share one with you.  A photo of the cloth is followed by a transcription of the original writing and then the PMP's translation.  Rebecca Makhubo, the cloth's composer, wrote in isiZulu, one of the several languages employed by the women at the workshop.  It is both exciting and disheartening to read these translations.  Many of the written compositions ask for direct and immediate assistance - the sense of immediacy almost stings in reading these documents because of the amount of time that has passed.  Part of the reason I am here is to reconnect and reinterview workshop participants to understand their perceptions of the workshop and their interaction with Parliament at this point in time.

Isho Ukuthini Intando Yeningi Kimina

 Ngingumama ohlala epulazini ePlat-Rand. Angikayiboni lentando yeningi okukhulunywa ngayo. Kule pulazi esihlala kulo, sashiywa umlungu esasimsebenzela. Kwangena omunye, yena akafunanga ukuthi simsebenzele. Okukhulu nje uyasihlukumeza. Indlela asihlukumeza ngayo, uvale amanzi ngisho namadlelo ezinkomo. Size silethelwa yinqola yakwamasipala amanzi kanye ngeviki. Asinawo nogesi ngisho nezindlu zangasese imbala. Thina sisakhanyisa ngamakhandlela lapha. Loku ukuthi uhulumeni ulethela abantu izidingonqangi, yiphupho kithina.

Angisakhulumi-ke ngendlala, yona siyazi ngamehlo ngoba idolobha likude kakhulu. Isinkwa sisidla mhla kwayiwa edolobheni. Ngakho siyacela lapha emakhaya ukuthi nathi nisilekelele. Yebo, umtholampilo ongumahambangendlwana wona ukhona kanti nosonhlalakahle bakhona kodwa umsebenzi wabo asiwazi ngoba bagcina le emalokishini; lapha emakhaya asinakwa.

 Iyaphela.

 What Does Democracy Mean To Me

I am a woman living in a farm at a Plat-Rand. I have not yet seen the most talked about democracy. The farmer that we were working for left us in this farm. The other one who took over  didnt  want us to work for him. The main thing is that, he is harassing us; he is doing it to an extent that he disconnected water and cordoned off the grazing fields. The municipal truck brings us water at least once a week. We neither have electricity nor toilets. We are still using candles here. The fact that government brings basic services to the people is still a dream to us.

 Let alone hunger, it is a reality to us because the town is too far. We only eat bread whenever someone had been to town. We are therefore requesting you to cater for us because even us here in rural areas need your help. Yes, we do have the mobile clinic as well as the social workers, but we do not know what they are doing because they only work as far as the townships. No one cares about us here in rural areas.

 The end.

Putting the Cloth in Context

It was too hot to think much today, so I'll borrow on someone else's thinking to start putting some context around Rebecca's cloth that I shared yesterday.  Early in the entry for "gender" in New South African Keywords (Shepherd & Robins, eds), Helen Moffett reminds readers that from 1999 forward South Africa "has the most enviable rate of female political representation in the world.  At the same time, it has the worst rates of violence, particularly sexual violence, against women anywhere in the world not at war" (104).

How do we come to understand the correlation between these two social categories - political representation and violence?  As Moffett herself acknowledges in the article - not all female politicians are necessarily feminist, nor prioritize women's rights (cough cough Palin), but the juxtaposition of these two figures does make for some head-scratching.  Her explanation for this strange contrast:

"I have pointed to the inevitable clash between South Africa's heritage of overlapping patriarchies (colonial, apartheid, Calvinist, missionary, traditional African) and the post-democratic, rights-based Constitution (which guarantees political equality for all groups, including women).  This clash has widened the split between the public and private spheres, creating a devil's bargain in which women are accepted equal in the former as long as they remain subordinate in the latter, with sexual violence enforcing this shift from equality in public realms back to submission within domestic and intimate spaces" (112).

In the days to come, I will turn my attention to The African Women's Protocol, a study commissioned by Oxfam GB Southern African Region to get a sense of whether Moffett's claims manifest "on the ground."  My ethnographic research remains restricted to asking women about their cloth-making activities and beliefs about their government.  I refrain from raising specific questions about gender identity or relations (although often information is offered or comes out through the cloths), primarily because of my position as an outsider and a recognition of the limited interaction time with my research participants.

Chicago Meats: "Vors't" Idea Ever

We read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle during my junior year of high school and as much as I can still recall my empathic frustration over Jurgis and his 100-dollar bill, the grim and horrific descriptions of the stock yards and the meat processing were pretty much lost on me (something about people being in the sausage?  nothing's ringing a bell).  I can't say I have ever been picky about the cleanliness of my food:  in fact, that same year in high school, my best friend and I would cruise campus during lunch time looking for discarded school-issued meals to eat from when we were low on lunch money but too lazy to pack lunches from home.  We had standards about what we scavenged and swore off of it completely when Subway had their 99-cent meatball sub special (I think I was up to three a day at one point).  Although this all took place in Los Angeles, my moving near Chicago to go to graduate school certainly reminded me of The Jungle, although I was more anxious to try my first genuine Chicago Dog than research the labor or hygeine history of its own Vienna Beef (on an important side note:  I will always be a fan of Nathan's first and foremost). 

All of this is lead-up to explain why I have been absent from my blog for a while.  Last Saturday my roommate R and I planned a braai (South African term for bbq) and were on Pine Street in downtown Durban stopping off at an errand when we saw the giant sign for CHICAGO MEATS bearing down at us from across the street.  R suggested we see what they had for the braai and I thought it was a perfect choice, if only for a nostalgic connection to my recent residence in Illinois.  Most of the cuts of meat were... unfamiliar to me, so we settled on a kilogram of boervors, or "farmer's sausage."  Leave it to me to be done in by the local version of a hot dog.  I suppose I should have wondered at the quality of such a meat since I got a kilo of it for the equivalent of about $3 US.  I suppose I should have questioned its quality when it began to spit and hiss into the fire, creating an amount of smoke we feared would summon the fire department.  I suppose I should haven't eaten so much with gusto when I poked it off the braai, gnarled, oversized, and resembling a questionable Slim Jim (I suppose my close friends would know semblance to a Slim Jim is hardly a deterrent for me). 

The moral of the story?  My American intestinal flora (despite the probiotics I have been taking since a month prior to my departure) was no match for that mighty boervors.  Cut to me, three days later, outside of a bank with J and M narfing hot cross bun and Sprite all over the pavement.  I tried to deny it for a day or two, but that vors got the best of me.  Or maybe the vorst.

Daydreaming about Spring Break

I've been doing offline, "academic writing" today but my mind has been wandering for a spring break trip I have planned that begins March 15th.  I'm looking forward to taking a lot of pictures, sampling a lot of South African wine and beer (because local is lekker), and being a tourist.  It's one of those packaged deals where everything has been planned out and there are a lot of additional options - help me decide on a few things!  It beats thinking about the gigantic cockroaches that occasionally fly into my room after dusk.

Sunday: 
From Cape Town we drive over scenic route 44, passing Gordon's Bay and False Bay to the town of Hermanus.  After sampling beer at the Birkenhead Brewery, we visit Cape Agulhas National Park:  the southernmost tip of Africa.  We stay overnight along "Die Plaat," the longest beach in the Southern Hemisphere.  Apparently Cape Agulhas is the place of superlatives.

Monday:
We drive north inland to the Langeberg Mountains and the semi-desert environment of the Little Karoo.  We stop for lunch and a swim at Warmwaterberg Spa and its 43-degree natural hot springs.  That's Celsius people.  In the afternoon we drive to the capital of the Little Karoo, Oudsthoorn:  the ostrich capital of the world!  The choose my own adventure begins here in Oudsthoorn; do I:

1. View and ride one of these prehistoric birds on a working ostrich farm. Or:
2. Go on a guided tour of the Cango Endangered Wildlife Ranch for an opportunity to pet cheetah and cage dive with crocodiles while viewing many rare and endangered animal species?
3. Do nothing and marvel that, yes, it does say cage dive with crocodiles above.  $25.  No joke.

Tuesday:
We start the day with a tour of world heritage site Cango Caves, a veritible wonderland of stalactite and stalagmite formations that are millions of years old, and yet still confused for one another to this day.  We head back to the coast and SA's Garden Route for Knysna, where we will walk to the lagoon and explore the Knysna Heads.  In the afternoon we drive to Bloukans Bridge, the highest road bridge in Africa where I can choose to:

1. Bungi jump from the bridge, freefalling over 216 meters from the site of the highest bungi jump in the world.
2. Take a bridge walking tour and jump up and down a few times to imagine what 1. would feel like without forking over $70 or potentially alienating myself from the group for the string of religious epithets and explitives that I would likely yell while jumping.

Wednesday:
We start out with breakfast and a zip-line over three waterfalls and then drive into the Eastern Cape to head for the beaches of Jeffrey's Bay.  We will view the "supertubes," alleged to be one of the best surfing waves on the planet, and then we will explore the surf wear factory shops after lunch (is No Fear still around?).  Imagine Huntington Beach, but in Africa.  We head inland to the banks of the Sundays River, where we will explore the river by canoe.  Then a campfire at night. 

Thursday:
We enter Addo Elephant National Park early in the morning for a safari.  The park extends all the way to the Indian Ocean and houses the densest African elephant population on earth.  It is also famous for being the only park with the "Big 7":  elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, leopard, Southern Right Whale, and Great White Shark.  I imagine the Big 8 would include the Durban Flying Cockroach.  Seriously, they're so tough - you think you've killed one - and it's gone the next morning.  We eat lunch in the park and then drive down to the coast to spend the rest of the day in Port Elizabeth, the "Friendly City."

Friday:
We start back for Cape Town today, stopping at the Crags Orphaned Elephant Sanctuary.  While there, I have the option to:

1. Walk and feed an elephant.
2. Walk, feed, and ride an elephant. 
3. Stand around and hope one of the elephants sniffs out the peanuts in my pocket so I get a free feel.

We end up in the Wilderness Lakes region where we explore the lakes by canoe, have a campfire, and pat ourselves on the back for a great week.

Saturday:
We visit an aloe factor in Albertinia (perhaps for those suffering from elephant chafing?) and then haul it back via Sir Lowry's Pass to Cape Town, reaching it by the afternoon.