I officially take back whatever I said about Ingwavuma and eManyeseni being 'the sticks' now that I've been to Ethluhlene...the true rurals. Forget running water, there was no water there period when we arrived. The people were waiting for it to rain, and all up and down the gravel roads were spigots and bore holes leering up from the dry earth, between bristly bullrushy weeds, dry as dust. They carted water in from the surrounds, slung around donkeys' necks, to be transferred to pails and garrafons and placed outside peoples' rooms for cooking and bathing.
I was doing some mental calculations with Fana the other day about the whole water issue, and discovering how it really oppresses people. Let's say that in Canada it takes 10 minutes for a shower, 5 minutes to run the dishwasher, 5 minutes to load the washing machine and one minute to turn on the tap...that's twenty minutes. In rural South Africa, it takes me 20 minutes to fill the garrafon from the JoJo tank, 15 minutes to haul it up the mountain, 5 minutes to pour and heat water to wash dishes (and then another 15 to wash them), 5 minutes to pour and heat water for the basin (sponge bath), 15 minutes to bathe, another 5 minutes to heat and pour water to do the laundry basins, and a good 30 minutes to wash, rinse, and hang to dry. And God Forbid you want to wash your hair or shave your legs...forget about it. So that's almost 2 hours. Six times as long. No wonder people have no time for anything else, like studying or reading. And with no electricity, your day is done by six pm. It's time to go to bed. Ish! I was reading a book (by candlelight! Trying not to set myself on fire!) that talked about how Apartheid ended only to be replaced by a type of economic Apartheid. I completely agree with that. It's one thing to say Whites and Blacks can ride the transport together, but what transport!? All the white people have 4 x 4's and the rest are left to their own devices.
When Fana and I were coming back to Ing from Durbs, we had to wait in the combi for it to fill, because that's the system here. When the bus is full, the bus goes. Do you know how long it takes a combi to fill with people who want to go to Ingwavuma? I'll tell you -- three and a half hours! Then, trying to get back from Richard's Bay, I got stuck at the Chicken Licken' (which closed at 6!) outside this petrol station in Empangeni where the transport guys were telling me to 'hike' (hitchhike) with all my bags along the side of the road, because the transport here finishes at six. Everything bloody well packs in at six. Thank God I knew Gama's friend Kanganipo who swung by to pick me up and book me into an overpriced B&B for the night. It did have about 300 cable stations though. Exciting!
The more time I spend here the more conscious I become of the huge disparities in wealth. For example, I know a guy here who is multi-lingual, has experience in a range of careers, possesses fantastic technological acumen and shows initiative and leadership in his job, yet his direct supervisor is getting paid eight times his salary. Professionals here live with no running water, and outhouses. They are spending a quarter of their salaries to live in one-room cement houses. It's absolutely ludicrous. The other thing making my blood boil these days is the whole lobola (bride price) issue. One of our team members isn't allowed to come to the schools anymore because she is pregnant out of wedlock and it's considered hypocritical to be preaching about safe sex, when in her condition she obviously didn't practise it. I find the whole thing to be a hypocritical crock. She's an adult in a committed relationship and just to give you an idea of how lobola works...it's about eleven or twelve cows for lobola here. At 5000 rand a cow, that's about 60 000 rand. Let's say a person here makes about 2000 rand a month. Take away rent (400), transport (350), and food (800), and the person is left with 450 rand of disposable income per month. That's not including trips out of Ing, airtime, clothing or entertainment. Even if the person saved every rand of that 450 rand, it would take them 11 years to raise that kind of capital. And that's assuming they even have a job. And you're telling people they should get married before having kids? These poor Ehluhlenian teenagers; they have no electricity and no books. No disco. No movie theatre. Is it any wonder there's so much HIV and teen pregnancy? It's funny how your connotations of things change. When I used to see people with wedding rings in Canada, the word that sprang to mind was 'traditional'. When I see people with wedding bands here, the word that springs to mind is 'rich'.
A sidenote about the aforesaid airtime: Airtime here is the greatest industry. Everyone here is pretty much using pay-as-you-go, and SMSing here is an adrenaline-sport. On 'Dancing with the Stars South Africa' they have to constantly remind people of the 20-text maximum, and all the soapies and life insurance commercials tell you to SMS them your favorite character or life insurance concerns. Airtime is sucked up so fast you have to get right to the point when you call people, and there is no time for pleasantries like 'hello' and 'goodbye'. They do have this night shift promotion whereby you can earn points to talk free from Vodacom to Vodacom from midnight to five a.m. so whenever Fana and I want to talk to each other, we have to stay up or set the alarm for midnight and sometimes the network is so busy you can't even get through. So talking on the phone here is pretty much a bust. But let me tell you, airtime is inelastic demand. People with no shoes all have vodacom vouchers and Nokias.
But getting off my rants and back to Ethluhlene, I think that place has been the most eye-opening so far. Most of the children don't speak English, so I tried to communicate by showing them the Zulu childrens' book I was reading, or skipping with them. They would crowd around me in huge throngs. I felt like a rock star, but I also felt responsible to say good morning to each and every one of them when doing my morning runs, as I didn't want anyone to feel slighted or left out. They come to school along kilometres of dusty mountain roads between the donkeys, carrying sticks to make firewood and old Coke bottles filled with water. Once when I was running, a young girl offered me a Heinekin bottle. I was really confused until I realized it was only housing water. The children here are completely poor, often without shoes, and they tie dusty bits of rags together to make skipping ropes.
I was doing the workshops with Cebi in a Grade Seven classroom and had the idea that, like in Canada, they'd be mainly 11 and 12 year olds, but because many of them start late, or 'abscond from classes' as the South Africans say, the students span from 11 to teenagers. There was even a twenty-one year old in the class! I was trying to explain how it's different in Canada, but I think they didn't understand the whole IEP thing, and just thought Canadian students are wildly successful, so in the magic circle at the end of the day, this twenty year old made a fervent promise to me that by the time I returned, he WOULD be in high school. God bless that boy (man?) for even showing up to class!
One cool thing we got started in Ehluhlene was a Spoken Word competition. Nonhlanhla and I had seen a Poetry Slam in Jo'burg, and were inspired, so I did a mini workshop on Spoken Word and made my own Spoken Word poem (about water) as an example. We decided to have a little competition with the team, so I rounded up some judges (the Fakuda brothers Mpo and Mlu, and MGomezulu), got some prizes and refreshments, and a hall for us to perform. I wasn't sure what to expect, as this was really new for the Drama Team, but they really blew me away. Cebi and Sifiso did their poetry in English, Cebi about lovers and liars, and Sifiso about grout! (he lays tiles as a second job.) Nonhlanhla, Mbali and Muzi did theirs in Zulu on Tradition, AIDS and love, respectively. They got costumes and props and the delivery was really passionate. I was so impressed. Mbali's seemed really fascinating and I asked her what it was about. She said, "Ai, Jenny, you didn't understand it?" I have tried to explain to Mbali that unless it involves cows, goats, danger, or running, I pretty much don't understand Zulu, but she continues to show me elaborate SMS messages she receives on her phone and asks for my interpretation.
Anyway, after Ehluhlene, we went on a road trip straight to Durban for the Drama for Life Conference, which was really inspiring: Verbatim Theatre, Playback Theatre, performance art and installations, and we ended up meeting this student Dumelo, who got us into a Poetry Slam event with her student card. These slammers were incredibly good, and the lecture hall was filled. The MC was tickled pink to have guests from "Ingwa...where are you guys from again?" and insisted we go up. I was trying to convince Mbali to go up, and Fana, who is able to make up these lucid and rythmic hiphop rhymes on-the-spot, I've discovered, but they refused unless I went up first to do a rap in Zulu. I'd made up this Zulu rap as a kind of in-joke amongst the team, so they dared me to go on the stage and do it. So I did, and even though it was short and silly, the Zulus are always so flattered to have you try to speak their language, so they were really supportive. Mbali and Fana both went up afterwards and I was so touched because I could tell how nervous and overwhelmed they were by all these funky, worldy city-slicker scholars, but they did it. This whole experience is making me realize how powerful poetry, and in particular Spoken Word, is and makes me think that something like this could fuel frustrated teens in remote places like Ehluhlene. It's entertaining, potentially 'lucrative' (if you award prize money) and it's a potent outlet for political and cultural expression. Not to mention the sense of community it fosters through oracy and word play.
Speaking of words and writing, back in eMan, I got it into my head that it might be a good idea to write an article (not that anyone's commissioned me or anything), so started interviewing the staff and students. When I was interviewing the Deputy Principal, a small child came in to pull on Mrs. Mantenjwa's sleeve and remind her that she was expected in a meeting just then. The Deputy responded by pulling the child aside, and whispering conspiratorially, "Tell them I am with a WHITE LADY, and that I am very busy!" I asked for a couple of 'well-spoken' students to interview and ended up interviewing two shy 'yes, ma'am' students (suspiciously both with the surname Matenjwa, though let's be honest, 50% of eMan. have this surname), so I pulled Nonhlanhla, the classroom teacher, aside and said, "Listen Nonhlanhla, those were good interviews (I was lying), but I'm wondering if you don't have some naughty students I could interview, just to get a different kind of outlook." [It cracks me up the way South Africans use the term 'naughty'. I picture a boy stealing cookies from the cookie jar, or someone dressed as a seductive nurse. Here they mean hardened juvenile delinquents stealing their deceased father's shotguns, and scoffing money from their sleeping gogo's.] Nonhlanhla sighed at my request and said, "Ai, Jenny, you are too late. They took five naughty learners to the jail yesterday. They must appear before the magistrate on Monday."
Nonetheless, Nonhlanhla did manage to procure me one naughty boy who had managed to escape arrest. Of course, being a naughty learner, he wasn't much of a studier, so his English left a little to be desired, as evidenced by his answer to my question: How do you think theatre gets learners talking and thinking about issues?
Response: If a girls gets raped to the bush, they must drain the sperm.
We eventually got on track, though I think he was worried I was trying to out him at first. He kept saying, "No, not I. I am not to do these bad things!"
I said, "No, no, of course not. Not you. Others! What are 'the others' doing?"
Then I hit paydirt and heard all about the absconding from classes to go swimming in the dam, smoking in the toilets, spinning for money, stealing from the gogo's...
In my spare time, I continued the s'more tradition and hanging out with my GQ chicken-slaying friend, Dieudonne. I was trying to crazy-glue my sunglasses one day, and I think after reading the warning label, Dieudonne was seriously considering crazy gluing his eyelids as an entertainment option. He is getting cabin-fever, I think, and wants to go live in Canada. Dieudonne always reminds me of a gay French designer, but he is none of the above. Ironic.
In other news (izindaba)...Mbali got a disturbing phone call at 4 a.m. one night while we were camped out in our erstwhile slumber party 'cottage' at Ehluhleni. One of her neighbors murdered his wife by stabbing her to death, seemingly over i.d....but I think something may have got lost in the translation there. In other local violence, one day at Zisize the boys were playing soccer on the grounds, when a dispute broke out and one youth came after the other with a machete. (Personal view: too many people have machetes here.) They eventually calmed him down and escorted him home, but when they held the town meeting outside the Tuck shop the next day with the Induna, they decided that as penance he would have to pay the victimized boy one goat and that would settle the score.
On the running front, I am developing the hamstrings of a mountain goat and even ended up running all the way to Mtabayengwe with Gama one evening, which it turns out is 24km! (my new high score). Two months ago, I was only running 5-8km.
Okay, I am wrapping this up, because along with inelastic demand airtime, the inelastic demand internet time is killing me. I think I've accidentally deleted this log about five times.
Sale kahle!
Jenn
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