I still remember it like it was yesterday. It must have been about 6 in the evening but already quite dark. It felt like midnight. My heart was fluttering in my chest as we stood waiting to have our passports checked at OR Tambo. I was filled with some strange and very strong sensation—some conglomeration of excitement, uncertainty and sheer dread. I had no clue what I was getting myself into—no clue even about who exactly would be waiting for myself and the others on the opposite side of the glass wall. Up to that point the Peace Corps staff had been no more than names printed in black ink on the bottom of endless numbers letters id received over the 2 years course of the my application process. It was all quite surreal. Yet there we were—after 3 days orientation and 22 hours of flying or feet were finally gracing South African soil. In the lobby we were greeted by numerous Peace Corps staff and the then Country Director McGrath Jean Thomas…all of whom were indistinguishable amidst the throng of locals. The disorientation of my jet lagged and emotionally heightened state did not help my ability to sort through the crowd as I emerged from customs. I had first envisioned—given the name—that the country director was a white male. As it turned out she was neither white nor male and I had no need to bother search. As soon as parked my suitcases in the lobby long enough to glance around, some staff were already headed my direction. There were 57 of us in those first days…a number that would thin a bit in the months to come. I remember they lead us out in a great throng to the bus stop. I remember thinking that it could have just as easily been New York’s JFK airport or Frankfurt International. The lights, the noise, the glistening façade of the Airport and the skyline of Johannesburg filled my view. Had we even left the US? Some two hours later, however, we got off the bus in what—by American standards—would classify as the middle of nowhere to the sound of rich Tswana voices raised in song and I knew for sure—we were in AFRICA! It was my first encounter with South African culture and I was mesmerized. I knew from that very moment that this was bound to be the adventure of a lifetime.
So here I am one year later. Never in my wildest dreams
could have imagined the types of adventures and challenges I have experienced
in this past year of life in South Africa. This blog doesn’t even begin to
capture the hundreds of beautiful moments nor the ways the challenges have
grown me. I pause a moment to take stock of everything I’ve learned and gained
along this journey and savor the things I have loved most:
The Natural Beauty
As I write this entry, I am sitting in Vryburg in the living
room of one of my dearest friends in South Africa, just having returned from a
few weeks tour of the gorgeous country side of northern Limpopo. It has been by
far my favorite trip since arriving in South Africa. The journey up to Venda
from the Kalahari was a two day affair: 8 hours’ drive from my village to
Pretoria and almost equally as many from Pretoria to Thohoyando by bus…yet it
was time well spent. There is nothing more calming and awe-inspiring to me than
being able to sit back and soak in the sheer awesomeness of the South African
landscapes filling my view as we pass. I would trade these road trips for
anything in the world. In South Africa it truly pays to take the scenic route.
The road from Pretoria to Thohoyando was particularly beautiful. The concrete
and noise of the capital was peeled back to reveal flat uncultivated lands
stretching on for what seemed like forever. As we travelled north the horizon was
increasingly broken by distant hills and interspersed across the plain, sharp
peaks jutting out of the grasslands that made them seem quite out of place. North of Polokwane—the capital of Limpopo—these
jagged elevations gave way to tall hills consisting of collections of enormous
boulders. It looked very much as if some titan had brought a bag of rock to the
middle of field and dumped them out any old place he liked. They were by far
the most unusual geological formations I have ever seen. As we finally began to
enter the territory of the Venda people in the far north the land rose into
undulating hills clothed in fields of banana, mango and avocado trees. It was
almost like arriving on another planet, so abrupt was the shift from flat dry
land to these fertile hills with their deep red soil. The red soil is something
specific to South/Southern Africa locals told me. It was such a contrast from
the deep pale sands and flat, open “Veld” of my home on the border of the
Kalahari. I spent my days their hiking through the Soutpansberg Mountains and
visited the sacred lake Funduzi, which is hidden among the hills around
Thohoyando—the waters of which are believed to have healing powers. It is just
one of many irreplaceable experiences during my time here in South Africa.
I’ve always had a reverence for nature and love for wide
open spaces. It has always been something that has the power to calm, energize,
or inspire me. I can hide out in the open and have relished the unique and diverse
beauty of this place… These days I have spent in Venda, my days hiking through
the Blyde River Canyon in Mpumalanga; my evening walks through the Veld of the
Kalahari, or wading in the salty tide at Durban are things I—even a few years
ago—could never have imagined that I’d be doing. What can ever compare with
viewing Elephants and Zebra grazing in the wild? Or watching the black clouds
of a summer storm gather on the distant horizon, feeling the electricity of the
flashes of lightning raise the hairs on the back of your neck, and listening to
the sound of the down pour on the tin roof? Not to mention laying under a blanket
of stars unlike anything one can dream of seeing on the East Coast of the US
and seeing more breath-taking sunsets in one week than in two years of my life
in DC?
The Diversity
Not only has South Africa offered the most awe inspiring
displays of natural beauty, but it has all the best of the Western World as
well with sprawling shopping malls and luxurious hotels, juxtaposed with
traditional open markets and shanty towns. This contrast of life is at once
challenging and unique. As a volunteer one may ease the strain of rural life
with a short visit to the urban center where one may enjoy a small taste of
home. It is something both comforting and disturbing at once, the obvious and
blatant inequality in living conditions between rich and poor. It troubled me a
lot at first, but after some time living amongst some of the poorest in South
Africa in conditions hardly different from theirs, I have learned this: There
is a certain level of acceptance of this way of life and somehow they make it
work every day. Many I have met are mostly content with their status quo it
would seem and go about their days, and seem to hardly give the inferiority of
their situation a second thought. If it troubles them it does not necessarily trouble
them enough to motivate them to action. What they know is the here and the now—and
that they make the most of. I find there
is a strange kind of beauty in the contrast. Some South Africans seem to move seamlessly
between the simplicity of the rural life and modern developed life in the urban
centers. They mold themselves, they adapt. I believe this contrast gives South
Africans a more complete understanding of the complexities of this life and
this world with its inequalities than any who live in a predominately rich or
overwhelmingly poor society. This understanding has value in and of itself.
"Diverse" is perhaps the one word that describes South Africa
best….in landscape, in ways of life, and in culture. The fact that it has 11
official languages says a lot by the depth of that diversity. It is quite
different from the “out of many, one” type of diversity we have in the US. Each
people group has its own unique heritage and culture stretching back hundreds
if not thousands of years. As for me I live in the North West Province, home to
the Tswana people. It is also with these people that I made first contact with
one of South Africa’s traditional cultures. I remember the first time I saw Tswana
traditional dance. It was at our going away celebration at the end of our
Pre-Service Training in September. We and the families who had hosted us for
those first 3 months and all gathered at the college where we had spent most of
our time. We had gone through all the obligatory speeches and “votes of thanks” as
they call them, when suddenly the dance group entered the auditorium from the
right singing a chorus in the “call and response” style typical of many African
cultures. The troupe was about 30 strong. They were all dressed in traditional
skins, boys in loin cloth and girls in fringed skirts. Their ankles were wound
about with long strings of small plastic pouches filled with beans that rattled
with each footfall. As they mounted the stage the group began to clap out the
rhythm of the dance. Their voices were strong and in perfect harmony. The group
echoed the chants of the song leader. One by one, small groups of four to six
dancers would emerge from the group and dance for a few measures as the others
sang. Their rhythmic stomps—enhanced by the shakers around their ankles echoed
through the auditorium. It was electrifying. They moved their muscular legs
with such speed and skill I was enraptured. It remains to this day one of the
most beautiful things I have ever seen. I have seen other dance performances
since then, but none have surpassed the power of that first dance.
