wow wow wow!
so much to report!
Thursday - Beth and I took two minibus-taxis out to Heideveld, to interview Gaynor Wasser of the Western Cape Anti-Crime Forum. I would say that she's like a Jewish grandmother, except South Asian :-) We talked to her about youth crime prevention, esp. vis-a-vis gangs, as well as about gender violence, gated communities and perception of crime in South Africa. She was truly inspiring - the first head of an anti-crime association in South Africa - has met Mandela - and I think we got some good material for our documentary. On Monday we're talking to some folks from Gun Free South Africa, a member of WCACP highly recommended by Gaynor. On the way back, we were rapidly identified as Americans by the driver of the minibus-taxi, who urged us, "come, come! sit up here, with me!" minibus-taxis, by the by - 16-passenger vans packed to the gills with folks, they have set routes around the city for less than a dollar and they play hip-hop and Kwito on full blast, often with a little video screen playing music videos. so he's playing some Beyonce, and then he tells us, "Wait! wait! let me put on my jam for you!" Beth and I were pretty psyched - we hear mostly American music around here, and we thought he was going to play some Kwito or something distinctly South African - and so we pop the DVD into the player. It's a karaoke music video for, quite honestly, the WORST white boy band I've ever heard. they were so bad, it wasn't even ironic. at first I thought he was playing it for our benefit, but seeing as he knew all the words, I think it really was his jam. Hilarity ensued. There was also the guy who felt the need to show us his 'Mr. America' tattoo on his abs ... and the inevitable question, "So, you guys are Republicans, right?"
That night I met up with John and his brother Allan - cool guys - John's an artist and very well-traveled, but he was very convinced that meeting up was a date, and that his role was to show this American girl tourist a good time. Ugh. I like HIM a lot, but I don't like being put into the position of being served by someone else. it establishes such an imbalance of power, besides the fact that it denies me having anything to show HIM about the world. we're meeting up again on Monday, and I'm trying to figure out how to communicate all this to him in a way that doesn't seem like rejection. it was a fun night though - we shot pool, and then I went to Green Point (gay bars) with the rest of the Chicago folks. Jess and I collapsed into bed around 4am after trying to down enough water to stave off hangover.
Friday - our group went to the District Six Museum. District Six was a 'colored' area that was redistricted as whites-only in the late 60s ... the museum, built in an old church, was a community-compiled effort to remember life as it was lived there. very bottom-up, very democratic. lots of intriguing details about daily life, too. our tour guide had lived there and shared personal details from his life. post-museum, I came back and caught up on sleep before four of us headed over to the Bush Radio braai (barbecue) at Juanita's house. the braai was GREAT. meeting people outside of the club context is definitely the way to go, and this group of folks is very eclectic, intelligent and fun - we debated, traded jokes, wolfed down an AMAZING South Asian dinner and danced to Kwito music in Juanita's living room before finally checking out at 2am.
today - did some overdue writing this morning about the dimming of my rose-colored glasses here. at some point, when it's more finished, I'll post it up here. I've been thinking a lot about the ways in which reconciliation and forgiveness have not been sufficiently matched with structural change. I also wrote about the 'date' with John a bit. I'm thinking of doing a research project on the Coca-Cola signs here (every small shop has a professionally made sign with a coca-cola logo on it - must be some sort of program - I want to find out how it works) or maybe about the sociological reasons why the drivers are so goddamn aggressive (crossing the street is an extreme sport). afterwards, I took my sign (covered with sketches of Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Thabo Mbeki and the girl from Lost in Translation whose name I can't remember) and went to the Baobab Artists' Mall on Long Street, where I joined Ray, who makes animals out of aluminum cans and wire. he had a sign stand ready for me and everything! I drew two people for money and one for free - a girl named Khanyi who didn't have any money on her, but I wanted to sit and talk with her, so I drew her for free and then she bought me a drink and we got to talk more, which I guess is sort of like payment for the drawing anyway. we traded numbers and we're going to go out dancing sometime this week. Ray's an interesting guy - he's from Zimbabwe and his family is mostly in Europe - he's got some interesting friends too, including one guy, a sculptor, whose passion is making life-sized statues out of chicken wire of black icons - Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali, so far. the deal is, I store my sign at his shop and whenever I come by he'll put it outside and I can sit there and draw people. I'm charging fifteen rand a pop (about $2.50) which is too little, but I mainly just want to practice and to meet people, so I'm not too worried about it.
tonight - meeting up with Cheryl, who I met at Lush two weeks ago, to chill with her and her friends and then off to Lush again with Leah and Renee and possibly Jess.
all right, time to stop wasting my money at internet cafes. here's one quick quote though:
Beth and I, pre-'date'-with John and Allan
Beth - "so when are these skeezy guys supposed to get here?"
me - "you're just calling them skeezy because they're black."
Beth - "you call the hanggliders I met skeezy all the time!!! you don't know what race they are. why are you assuming, huh?"
me - "Beth ... they're *hanggliders*. clearly they're white."
Beth - "oh, all right."
and from this we conclude: only white people are stupid enough to spend that much money doing something so dangerous.
Thursday - Beth and I took two minibus-taxis out to Heideveld, to interview Gaynor Wasser of the Western Cape Anti-Crime Forum. I would say that she's like a Jewish grandmother, except South Asian :-) We talked to her about youth crime prevention, esp. vis-a-vis gangs, as well as about gender violence, gated communities and perception of crime in South Africa. She was truly inspiring - the first head of an anti-crime association in South Africa - has met Mandela - and I think we got some good material for our documentary. On Monday we're talking to some folks from Gun Free South Africa, a member of WCACP highly recommended by Gaynor. On the way back, we were rapidly identified as Americans by the driver of the minibus-taxi, who urged us, "come, come! sit up here, with me!" minibus-taxis, by the by - 16-passenger vans packed to the gills with folks, they have set routes around the city for less than a dollar and they play hip-hop and Kwito on full blast, often with a little video screen playing music videos. so he's playing some Beyonce, and then he tells us, "Wait! wait! let me put on my jam for you!" Beth and I were pretty psyched - we hear mostly American music around here, and we thought he was going to play some Kwito or something distinctly South African - and so we pop the DVD into the player. It's a karaoke music video for, quite honestly, the WORST white boy band I've ever heard. they were so bad, it wasn't even ironic. at first I thought he was playing it for our benefit, but seeing as he knew all the words, I think it really was his jam. Hilarity ensued. There was also the guy who felt the need to show us his 'Mr. America' tattoo on his abs ... and the inevitable question, "So, you guys are Republicans, right?"
That night I met up with John and his brother Allan - cool guys - John's an artist and very well-traveled, but he was very convinced that meeting up was a date, and that his role was to show this American girl tourist a good time. Ugh. I like HIM a lot, but I don't like being put into the position of being served by someone else. it establishes such an imbalance of power, besides the fact that it denies me having anything to show HIM about the world. we're meeting up again on Monday, and I'm trying to figure out how to communicate all this to him in a way that doesn't seem like rejection. it was a fun night though - we shot pool, and then I went to Green Point (gay bars) with the rest of the Chicago folks. Jess and I collapsed into bed around 4am after trying to down enough water to stave off hangover.
Friday - our group went to the District Six Museum. District Six was a 'colored' area that was redistricted as whites-only in the late 60s ... the museum, built in an old church, was a community-compiled effort to remember life as it was lived there. very bottom-up, very democratic. lots of intriguing details about daily life, too. our tour guide had lived there and shared personal details from his life. post-museum, I came back and caught up on sleep before four of us headed over to the Bush Radio braai (barbecue) at Juanita's house. the braai was GREAT. meeting people outside of the club context is definitely the way to go, and this group of folks is very eclectic, intelligent and fun - we debated, traded jokes, wolfed down an AMAZING South Asian dinner and danced to Kwito music in Juanita's living room before finally checking out at 2am.
today - did some overdue writing this morning about the dimming of my rose-colored glasses here. at some point, when it's more finished, I'll post it up here. I've been thinking a lot about the ways in which reconciliation and forgiveness have not been sufficiently matched with structural change. I also wrote about the 'date' with John a bit. I'm thinking of doing a research project on the Coca-Cola signs here (every small shop has a professionally made sign with a coca-cola logo on it - must be some sort of program - I want to find out how it works) or maybe about the sociological reasons why the drivers are so goddamn aggressive (crossing the street is an extreme sport). afterwards, I took my sign (covered with sketches of Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Thabo Mbeki and the girl from Lost in Translation whose name I can't remember) and went to the Baobab Artists' Mall on Long Street, where I joined Ray, who makes animals out of aluminum cans and wire. he had a sign stand ready for me and everything! I drew two people for money and one for free - a girl named Khanyi who didn't have any money on her, but I wanted to sit and talk with her, so I drew her for free and then she bought me a drink and we got to talk more, which I guess is sort of like payment for the drawing anyway. we traded numbers and we're going to go out dancing sometime this week. Ray's an interesting guy - he's from Zimbabwe and his family is mostly in Europe - he's got some interesting friends too, including one guy, a sculptor, whose passion is making life-sized statues out of chicken wire of black icons - Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali, so far. the deal is, I store my sign at his shop and whenever I come by he'll put it outside and I can sit there and draw people. I'm charging fifteen rand a pop (about $2.50) which is too little, but I mainly just want to practice and to meet people, so I'm not too worried about it.
tonight - meeting up with Cheryl, who I met at Lush two weeks ago, to chill with her and her friends and then off to Lush again with Leah and Renee and possibly Jess.
all right, time to stop wasting my money at internet cafes. here's one quick quote though:
Beth and I, pre-'date'-with John and Allan
Beth - "so when are these skeezy guys supposed to get here?"
me - "you're just calling them skeezy because they're black."
Beth - "you call the hanggliders I met skeezy all the time!!! you don't know what race they are. why are you assuming, huh?"
me - "Beth ... they're *hanggliders*. clearly they're white."
Beth - "oh, all right."
and from this we conclude: only white people are stupid enough to spend that much money doing something so dangerous.