Zuluñol, PJ Harvey, and European Style Surfaces
1 October 2011
Glenwood, Durban
It’s been a busy first full week here in South Africa; or at the very least, I’ve kept my self semi-occupied as I began to try to slowly build a routine, gain confidence in my surroundings, and feel more comfortable where I am. I’ve been on the internet entirely too much for any one human being to justify, and I’ve imbibed more than my fair share of coffee at the Corner Café (seriously, they’re really patient with my just camping out there…so far). It’s still a bit disorienting to make my way in a space where I feel I have a very strange reason for existing. Ever since I first moved away from home at seventeen, I’ve lived in a new place either for school or for work (the previous two months in Los Angeles were perhaps the only other exception, and they were disorienting, of course, in their own fashion). Now, I’m somewhere in between, in a nebulous wedge of knowledge production. I’m not a student (although I’m in process of getting my visiting scholar ID/internet privileges, and will be ‘working’ to an extent at the Howard College campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal), and I’m not really ‘working’ (which is not to say that dissertation research is easy-it’s not-it’s just not as easily identifiable as say, high school teaching, TA-ing, or working as that schmuck who glazes your pottery at Color-Me-Mine™, all jobs I’ve had, by the way).
Everyone tells me that this has been unseasonably cool and wet weather for Durban this time of year. It was in the mid to high 60’s every day last week (Californians can understand how this is cooler weather), and it rained at least in part every day from Tuesday to Friday. Thursday had a decent lightning storm, which caused Steven to call me and insist that I not walk home from Corner Café yet as I’d be both wet and at risk for a shock (I gladly used another hour and a half of wireless while I waited). The rain means that I haven’t yet done laundry, although I should have enough clothes to last me through most of the week before I start to feel anxious. If you’re wondering how the two ideas-weather and clothes-washing-are connected, I possess both a decent sized bucket and handwashing laundry soap while Joe has a clothes line in his backyard. I feel it is only a matter of time until I make a hilarious mistake somehow, or that my clothes dry at the most ridiculously akimbo angle or I end up leaving the clothes on the line, forgetting that a storm is coming. Stay tuned.
I’ve been making friends slowly, for apparently I am gregarious or something. While sitting at Corner Café one day this week, I heard the nasal vowel arrangements that sound so similar to my own and unlike anyone else in this city. I looked up to see a friendly, smiling white woman about my age chatting animatedly with another guy. I interrupted and inquired after the nasal vowels openly, only to find that her name was Liz and she was a graduate student from Toronto doing her research in economics. We chatted for about an hour, and then later in the week she called me to go see a standup comedy show. Thinking that was far more exciting than going to bed at 9pm after two cups of tea and listening to a PJ Harvey album (my life is very exciting), I said yes, and she drove to my little laager on Laurel Street to pick me up. We ended up having a great time watching standup, and something inside me ached a little, as standup is always something I’ve wanted to do, and I think I’d be pretty decent at. After a set of four different comedians (all pretty good), the night broke up and we had drinks with the performers on a balcony overlooking the wide boulevard. I told some of my more ridiculous childhood stories (learning to play the accordion, growing up and being confused as Latino by abuelas in the neighborhood, etc) and they went over well. I don’t’ know, part of me wonders if I should just get this PhD and then go on the road with Eddie Izzard and do stand-up history. Meh, I’ll keep my day job for now, whatever that is, exactly.
In addition to Liz, I’ve made friends with the history department staff and some undergrads; one of the administrative assistants is a Zulu guy my age named Khayo. He has a penchant for cardigans and quietly sardonic sentences; his closest friend is a flamboyant, animated, and incredibly sincere guy named Londi who sports oversized black eyeglasses and an obsession with fashion on twitter. The three of us met up for drinks this week at Cubaña, the Durban location of a chain of South African Cuban restaurants (and yes, the combination of Latin America in South Africa makes my head hurt and want to speak Zuluñol). I had a caiparinha and we chatted animatedly about race, gender, masculinity, the future of South Africa, and the general state of the world. Again, no offense to PJ Harvey, but I think I had a superior evening.
The passing of a first week has also brought about the beginning of a bit of domestic order in my apartment. I’m getting used to what groceries I need and how much I’ll eat. In my excitement to buy breakfast goods last week, I neglected to buy proper cookware, however. Joe had stocked the apartment with two sturdy pots and no pans, something I realized only after having cracked the eggs and put them in a bowl. Hungry and of limited imagination, I ended up cooking my eggs in a pot, which wasn’t as bad as one might imagine, although a bit odd. Wanting to avoid such a repeat incident, I bought a small pan this week. I pulled off the packaging, which strangely enough had a smiling white girl, a basket of eggs, and a small breakfast scene all competing for space. As I got ready to wash the pan, my eyes were drawn back to the packaging:
“20 CM/8” NON STICK FRY PAN” it declared.
“Stylish European Surface * Comfortable handle * Dishwasher safe”
Stylish European surface? My brow wrinkled in mild confusion as I attempted to understand what could be so stylish or European about a simple black pan. On many levels, this is what my South Africa experience feels like in general-a series of small moments that don’t make immediate sense to my cultural and theoretical frameworks. I could be cheeky and talk about the ways in which a small black object aspires to European style seems to hold particular relevance for my dissertation, but that just seems excessively cutesy at this point. Nonetheless…. ;)
Speaking of the dissertation, I gave in and went to the archives for the first time on Friday. I took a cab (which is too expensive to make a habit, but it was pouring rain) to the Killie Campbell Africana Library, a massive collection of South African historical documents and manuscripts that I must go through to get sources for this PhD thing I’m writing. KCAL is stored within part of the original sprawling home formerly owned by the Campbell family, leading Durban society members in the early twentieth century. Ms. Campbell herself accumulated a sizable private collection that she bequeathed to UKZN along with her home, which is restored and available for tours, if one is interested in that sort of thing (having given tours in a restored Victorian mansion for the better part of my teens, I’ve already visited and it’s worth it.)
The staff at KCAL are friendly, welcoming, and very warm, and I busied myself with the task of going through miles upon miles of paper for the next few months. It was then that I realized (with the help of the fantastic head librarian) that one of the premiere South African historians, Jeff Guy, was a table away. We eventually struck up conversation, and had a fascinating discussion of settler colonialism, history writing, and South Africa in general-and I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I was a moron, which is a plus (also I was neurotically terrified of such an event coming to pass). We’re going to lunch soon, I hope.
Archive work is an arduous, lengthy process. Nerdy excitement gets you through a lot of the slow going and getting a rhythm of reading through, taking notes on, and photographing manuscripts makes it easier. Yesterday I looked through quite a few settler diaries, letters, and personal papers (but barely scratched the surface). History allows you the strange experience of standing outside the timeline of someone’s life and to observe it from a distance. Instantly, I could see how the fears and anxieties of a man arrived in 1850 changed or were justified over twenty-fives, a luxury none of us have in our regular day-to-day experiences. The hardest part of yesterday’s research trip was reading through the adventure diary of a Mr. Ablett, who went from Mozambique to Durban, travelling through Swaziland and the then independent Zulu kingdom in 1871. Hearing him tell of roughing it and his excitement to meet new peoples was tempered by his referring casually every three sentences or so to his native servants as ‘niggers.’ It hurt after twenty minutes of reading about exciting or lovely landscapes and new experiences, only to hear “The niggers have got to feed now, so we’re stopping,” or the like. The universal role of white supremacy of the nineteenth century sprang to mind, as well as the difficulty of being a mixed American man reading the thoughts of a white English settler striding through spaces he was working to bend to only put within the reach of his colour and class. To see the violences so easily woven in his written text was jolting, and it was hard to focus on some parts as the words continued to crash endlessly across the page, like a roiling, racial surf.
Far more interesting than this English settler turned sugar planter turned backcountry invader was his brother, Arthur Ablett, a quiet, unassuming man, who remained a bachelor all his life and worked in the major bank in Pietermaritzburg. He left no papers behind in the archive, only an enigmatic picture of a man with a slight half-smile, a bit too macho of a posture, and a sense of loneliness (it is far too easy to add personality to yoru archival subjects where none may exist). I want to know who this older brother Arthur was, and if he was as bluff and arrogant as his younger brother. Why didn’t he marry? Did he want to? What did he think, serving a commercial banking interest that underwrote the entire society that he inhabited? Did he sleep well at night knowing what he was doing? Did he notice the people he was attempting to displace just by going to work every day in central Pietermaritzburg? These are small questions that come to mind as I flip pages in the archive, looking through letters, diaries, lists, and the like.
Today Is the first brilliantly sunny day we’ve had in nearly a week. And I wonder if I should get a book and go to the beach for a bit. I think I might try.
Thanks for reading.
--Teej
Glenwood, Durban
It’s been a busy first full week here in South Africa; or at the very least, I’ve kept my self semi-occupied as I began to try to slowly build a routine, gain confidence in my surroundings, and feel more comfortable where I am. I’ve been on the internet entirely too much for any one human being to justify, and I’ve imbibed more than my fair share of coffee at the Corner Café (seriously, they’re really patient with my just camping out there…so far). It’s still a bit disorienting to make my way in a space where I feel I have a very strange reason for existing. Ever since I first moved away from home at seventeen, I’ve lived in a new place either for school or for work (the previous two months in Los Angeles were perhaps the only other exception, and they were disorienting, of course, in their own fashion). Now, I’m somewhere in between, in a nebulous wedge of knowledge production. I’m not a student (although I’m in process of getting my visiting scholar ID/internet privileges, and will be ‘working’ to an extent at the Howard College campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal), and I’m not really ‘working’ (which is not to say that dissertation research is easy-it’s not-it’s just not as easily identifiable as say, high school teaching, TA-ing, or working as that schmuck who glazes your pottery at Color-Me-Mine™, all jobs I’ve had, by the way).
Everyone tells me that this has been unseasonably cool and wet weather for Durban this time of year. It was in the mid to high 60’s every day last week (Californians can understand how this is cooler weather), and it rained at least in part every day from Tuesday to Friday. Thursday had a decent lightning storm, which caused Steven to call me and insist that I not walk home from Corner Café yet as I’d be both wet and at risk for a shock (I gladly used another hour and a half of wireless while I waited). The rain means that I haven’t yet done laundry, although I should have enough clothes to last me through most of the week before I start to feel anxious. If you’re wondering how the two ideas-weather and clothes-washing-are connected, I possess both a decent sized bucket and handwashing laundry soap while Joe has a clothes line in his backyard. I feel it is only a matter of time until I make a hilarious mistake somehow, or that my clothes dry at the most ridiculously akimbo angle or I end up leaving the clothes on the line, forgetting that a storm is coming. Stay tuned.
I’ve been making friends slowly, for apparently I am gregarious or something. While sitting at Corner Café one day this week, I heard the nasal vowel arrangements that sound so similar to my own and unlike anyone else in this city. I looked up to see a friendly, smiling white woman about my age chatting animatedly with another guy. I interrupted and inquired after the nasal vowels openly, only to find that her name was Liz and she was a graduate student from Toronto doing her research in economics. We chatted for about an hour, and then later in the week she called me to go see a standup comedy show. Thinking that was far more exciting than going to bed at 9pm after two cups of tea and listening to a PJ Harvey album (my life is very exciting), I said yes, and she drove to my little laager on Laurel Street to pick me up. We ended up having a great time watching standup, and something inside me ached a little, as standup is always something I’ve wanted to do, and I think I’d be pretty decent at. After a set of four different comedians (all pretty good), the night broke up and we had drinks with the performers on a balcony overlooking the wide boulevard. I told some of my more ridiculous childhood stories (learning to play the accordion, growing up and being confused as Latino by abuelas in the neighborhood, etc) and they went over well. I don’t’ know, part of me wonders if I should just get this PhD and then go on the road with Eddie Izzard and do stand-up history. Meh, I’ll keep my day job for now, whatever that is, exactly.
In addition to Liz, I’ve made friends with the history department staff and some undergrads; one of the administrative assistants is a Zulu guy my age named Khayo. He has a penchant for cardigans and quietly sardonic sentences; his closest friend is a flamboyant, animated, and incredibly sincere guy named Londi who sports oversized black eyeglasses and an obsession with fashion on twitter. The three of us met up for drinks this week at Cubaña, the Durban location of a chain of South African Cuban restaurants (and yes, the combination of Latin America in South Africa makes my head hurt and want to speak Zuluñol). I had a caiparinha and we chatted animatedly about race, gender, masculinity, the future of South Africa, and the general state of the world. Again, no offense to PJ Harvey, but I think I had a superior evening.
The passing of a first week has also brought about the beginning of a bit of domestic order in my apartment. I’m getting used to what groceries I need and how much I’ll eat. In my excitement to buy breakfast goods last week, I neglected to buy proper cookware, however. Joe had stocked the apartment with two sturdy pots and no pans, something I realized only after having cracked the eggs and put them in a bowl. Hungry and of limited imagination, I ended up cooking my eggs in a pot, which wasn’t as bad as one might imagine, although a bit odd. Wanting to avoid such a repeat incident, I bought a small pan this week. I pulled off the packaging, which strangely enough had a smiling white girl, a basket of eggs, and a small breakfast scene all competing for space. As I got ready to wash the pan, my eyes were drawn back to the packaging:
“20 CM/8” NON STICK FRY PAN” it declared.
“Stylish European Surface * Comfortable handle * Dishwasher safe”
Stylish European surface? My brow wrinkled in mild confusion as I attempted to understand what could be so stylish or European about a simple black pan. On many levels, this is what my South Africa experience feels like in general-a series of small moments that don’t make immediate sense to my cultural and theoretical frameworks. I could be cheeky and talk about the ways in which a small black object aspires to European style seems to hold particular relevance for my dissertation, but that just seems excessively cutesy at this point. Nonetheless…. ;)
Speaking of the dissertation, I gave in and went to the archives for the first time on Friday. I took a cab (which is too expensive to make a habit, but it was pouring rain) to the Killie Campbell Africana Library, a massive collection of South African historical documents and manuscripts that I must go through to get sources for this PhD thing I’m writing. KCAL is stored within part of the original sprawling home formerly owned by the Campbell family, leading Durban society members in the early twentieth century. Ms. Campbell herself accumulated a sizable private collection that she bequeathed to UKZN along with her home, which is restored and available for tours, if one is interested in that sort of thing (having given tours in a restored Victorian mansion for the better part of my teens, I’ve already visited and it’s worth it.)
The staff at KCAL are friendly, welcoming, and very warm, and I busied myself with the task of going through miles upon miles of paper for the next few months. It was then that I realized (with the help of the fantastic head librarian) that one of the premiere South African historians, Jeff Guy, was a table away. We eventually struck up conversation, and had a fascinating discussion of settler colonialism, history writing, and South Africa in general-and I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I was a moron, which is a plus (also I was neurotically terrified of such an event coming to pass). We’re going to lunch soon, I hope.
Archive work is an arduous, lengthy process. Nerdy excitement gets you through a lot of the slow going and getting a rhythm of reading through, taking notes on, and photographing manuscripts makes it easier. Yesterday I looked through quite a few settler diaries, letters, and personal papers (but barely scratched the surface). History allows you the strange experience of standing outside the timeline of someone’s life and to observe it from a distance. Instantly, I could see how the fears and anxieties of a man arrived in 1850 changed or were justified over twenty-fives, a luxury none of us have in our regular day-to-day experiences. The hardest part of yesterday’s research trip was reading through the adventure diary of a Mr. Ablett, who went from Mozambique to Durban, travelling through Swaziland and the then independent Zulu kingdom in 1871. Hearing him tell of roughing it and his excitement to meet new peoples was tempered by his referring casually every three sentences or so to his native servants as ‘niggers.’ It hurt after twenty minutes of reading about exciting or lovely landscapes and new experiences, only to hear “The niggers have got to feed now, so we’re stopping,” or the like. The universal role of white supremacy of the nineteenth century sprang to mind, as well as the difficulty of being a mixed American man reading the thoughts of a white English settler striding through spaces he was working to bend to only put within the reach of his colour and class. To see the violences so easily woven in his written text was jolting, and it was hard to focus on some parts as the words continued to crash endlessly across the page, like a roiling, racial surf.
Far more interesting than this English settler turned sugar planter turned backcountry invader was his brother, Arthur Ablett, a quiet, unassuming man, who remained a bachelor all his life and worked in the major bank in Pietermaritzburg. He left no papers behind in the archive, only an enigmatic picture of a man with a slight half-smile, a bit too macho of a posture, and a sense of loneliness (it is far too easy to add personality to yoru archival subjects where none may exist). I want to know who this older brother Arthur was, and if he was as bluff and arrogant as his younger brother. Why didn’t he marry? Did he want to? What did he think, serving a commercial banking interest that underwrote the entire society that he inhabited? Did he sleep well at night knowing what he was doing? Did he notice the people he was attempting to displace just by going to work every day in central Pietermaritzburg? These are small questions that come to mind as I flip pages in the archive, looking through letters, diaries, lists, and the like.
Today Is the first brilliantly sunny day we’ve had in nearly a week. And I wonder if I should get a book and go to the beach for a bit. I think I might try.
Thanks for reading.
--Teej