09.08.11 Beauty & Suffering

Wow. So many thoughts, emotions, and half-formed impressions are overflowing my heart and mind. It has been a full 48 hours. Yesterday was our walking tour through Langa, followed by a beautiful evening with Gogo – singing Alpha and Omega in harmony as we did dishes. Then today I retaught her Jesus Loves Me (writing down the words so she could learn it by heart to teach the Creche children), she taught me the Xhosa version of There’s No One Like Jesus, and I shared other songs from my itunes with her: Gospel, Natalie Grant, and Christian Rap…
. . . O my heart is full – and I feel it stretching . . . with beauty and suffering. O to put these things into words!

Let’s begin with the Langa tour – I thought we’d be learning about the history of Langa in the struggle as we casually walked about different neighborhoods. Instead our tour guide (born and bred in Langa himself) began with a brief history and then began walking us into some of the more run-down areas. Originally Langa was created for migrant labor – there are barracks left over from that period of the early to mid-1900’s. We walked down the streets – a group of sixteen obvious outsiders, with a few cameras out and flashing, O I was so uncomfortable! Children run around outside all the time here, and throughout tour they came up to pull on our hands, smile, and often ask for money. One little boy came up to another SIT student, smiled, and as she played with him, his hands went in and out of her pockets (luckily she didn’t have anything in them) – and she never noticed until another student told her later. As we walked down the street, past an area where people live in shipping containers (turned into shacks), we turned a corner and started down a dirt alley. I was shocked – was this part of the tour?! We walked within a few feet of men sitting around gambling, smoking, and looking at us. Our tour guide ducked into a shack – without running water or electricity. Turns out it’s a beer-selling “tavern” of sorts. The “African beer” is only 3% alcohol and supposedly has quite an ancient history. (I couldn’t understand our tour guide at all times.) I sat in the shack and I realized it was daytime on a Wednesday – none of the men hanging around outside were working . . . and there had definitely been some weed smoking going on. We moved on with me not being sure of what to think of it all.

Next we walked toward the hostels, buildings of flats where migrant laborers had lived (only men – no women and children were supposed to be there). Today the hostels are government owned and run. I immediately thought of the government housing projects in Church Hill. People had laundry hanging everywhere outside. Folks were outside milling about, some calling out hello to our tour guide, looking at us pass through (what I felt was) their space, children played outside, grandmas looked our their windows above… I was so torn – yes I wanted to be there and see their lived reality but I felt like we were dehumanizing or stripping them of some of their dignity at the same time. We first went in an unrenovated hostel: there was one kitchen/dining room space for 16 rooms. We stood in this kitchen/dining area as our tour guide told us about the use of such building for mine workers and such. As we talked I could see people in some of the rooms, and a man who lived there simply passed through to go outside with his food. We were allowed to look in the rooms. I couldn’t believe we were allowed to – in one a mama and her teenager were just sitting there. One of my fellow SIT students had her camera out – I was mortified. Deep down I wondered, what would I think and feel if I had a group of young white Americans come and look in my small, dirty living conditions? Then we saw the renovated hostels, which were changed into family units of a tiny kitchen space, a bathroom, and a bedroom.

Moving away from the hostels, we walked through the “elite” area of Langa just a few blocks away [where a few SIT students are staying] before coming to the Joe Slovo area, where people are actually living in shacks. We were taken in a shack where the roof is falling in – I could not imagine what happens when it storms… A little two-year old girl followed us in, wearing a cute hat and a tank-top. One of the straps was not on her shoulder. I patted her head and reached to help her get her arm in the strap. She turned around, saw my purse hanging over my body, and immediately tried to stick her hands in my purse. O my heart hurt. This is what you know, dear child? White people coming in your shack and you know to try and get what you can from them. We are coming into your space, your home, and no relationship is happening…only tourism, or observation at best. You have no toilet. Only 20 communal toilets for you and all the shacks around you.

Another SIT student and I discussed as we walked down the street – our conflictions. I just kept thinking would I want us in my shack? My friend said: “yes in a sense, Addie, you want them to see the reality you live. And hope that someone will be motivated to bring about change.” But I couldn’t swallow that – people walk by and go in their shacks on these tours time after time . . . and yet what change has occurred? They still live there. Who’s benefitting here?

When kids came up and asked for money or to hold my hand . . . I spoke to them in Xhosa instead. Molo sisi. Unjani? Ngubani igama yakho? NguSibongile. I told them my Xhosa name and they smiled with questioning in their eyes – you, a white girl, are speaking to me in Xhosa and you have a Xhosa name? Their eyes were priceless. Yes, I’m Sibongile. They just laughed and smiled.

There’s suffering here but there’s also beauty . . . just like in Church Hill . . . just like many many places in the world. People here in Langa understand community: watching out for one another, being a true neighbor, lending a t.v., giving a ride, lending money, watching someone’s child, asking and listening about each other’s well-being, valuing family, respecting elders . . .

I came home from yesterday’s tour and talked to my host mother, Gogo, about my conflictions and discomfort. She nodded and listened and made her typical understanding noises . . . When I talked about going into people’s homes and feeling intrusive, she just replied: It’s really like that. That I could not deny. It was an uncomfortable experience, which raised many ethical questions for me. But it was a look at true, harsh realities for individuals and families here in Langa – in that sense the tour was by no means fabricated or exaggerated.
Maybe I need to ask and reflect more on why I was so conflicted . . . Search me, O GOD, and know my heart. Test me and know my thoughts. Show me my own heart, O God, for I do not know it as You do.