It has recently dawned on me that since starting my blog I’ve only written entries that paint this completely ideal and utopian image of my trip. While I am having a wonderful time, I don’t want anyone to get the picture that I’m on vacation or that I’m not learning new things and being challenged in this place every day. For that reason, I’ve decided to split this entry into two sections: the first will be a brief recap on the poetry lounge I visited and Women’s Day and the second (and probably dominant) section of this entry will discuss some of the things I’ve been dealing with internally since I’ve been here.

Tagore’s

Tagore’s is a hole-in-the-wall poetry lounge located in Observatory (a town next door to mine). It is named after the first non-white who won a Nobel Prize, and quite appropriately so. Every Monday at 10 PM, an open mic session takes place where poets from the community come and perform their poetry. For my Penn Stater’s it is very similar to The Stoop that the PRCC puts on once every semester. One guy I met said that he has “never felt so home in South Africa as [he] did in Tagore’s” and I couldn’t agree more. I sat on a decrative floor pillow for two hours and was completely blown away by the talent that was in the room with me. To say the least, I will definitely be frequenting Tagore’s.

Women’s Day

Here in South Africa, Women’s Day is a national holiday (as it should be all over the world). The objective of the day is to celebrate women and their rights within the country. The actual history behind the day is quite interesting and I would encourage everyone to look it up at some point. As you all know, my plans were to go to the gardens on Women’s Day, but that’s not quite how it happened. My housemate, Jaycee, my RA, Moyo, and myself sat around the house and pigged out (not in the typical sense of the phrase) while we studied for the entire day. It all started when Moyo made muffins. Jaycee decided to make pita chips, and then I made calamari salad. At the end of the day, we were joined by two more of my roommates (both of whom were also of the female persuasion) and went for dessert in the Cavendish mall. It was a great day.

The hard stuff

Since I’ve gotten here, everything hasn’t exactly been lilies and roses. As a Black American, there are things that I’ve been dealing with here that I thought were unique to the US, but that I’m finding out are not, and I’m encountering some things that I’ve never had to deal with before. Although there have been many instances of such things, there are two particular instances that happened today and have provoked me to write about this.

The first happened in my seminar on African American women poets. As most of you know, I’m an English major and I LOVE poetry. Because of the particular territory it falls into, it’s fair to make the assumption that I’ve studied a fair amount of African American poetry in general. Today in class as we were reading a few of Phyllis Wheatley’s poems, a “colored” South African student said (in summary) that he completely disagreed with everything Wheatley said in her poems (in case you are curious, the particular poems we were looking at were To The University of Cambridge in New England and On Being Brought from Africa to America). Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that everyone is entited to their opinion, but in order to have an opinion, you have to know the facts. Of course, as an African American, I raised my hand to take my stance on the topic and explain that he had to understand the history of slavery and that slaves were not allowed to do and say certain things, so poems and songs were often in code. I told him how the story of Moses was often a metaphor for the freedom of slaves and that speaking of Africa as a “pagan” land didn’t necessarily mean that that’s how she felt, but that she realized who her audience was going to be and therefore may not have been able to write how she actually felt. He just couldn’t get it, and I just couldn’t understand why. I walked out of class feeling frustrated that he would never understand our stories.

Later, I walked into my race, class, and gender class. For the record, I must say I don’t particularly care for the class in general. I don’t like the professor much because she makes blanketed and stereotypical statements about America quite often, but I digress.  Today, however, I went in class with an optimistic attitude, as we were to discuss the reading that had been assigned for the day (Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like, Chapter 14). Class and the discussion seemed to be going well until the professor said something along the lines of “I’m glad the international students (aka Americans) are holding their comments.” To some of you, this may not seem like that big of a deal, but after about three weeks of hearing this woman rag on Americans, I’ve had it. To some extent, I consider myself to be an opinionated person and I don’t like not having a voice. During the break, I looked at my friend, Camille, who was sitting next to me and I told her I thought we should go talk to the professor. I wanted to tell her that as much as I understand not wanting some of the Americans to get into localism (where in America you are from and how you do things there), I don’t think it’s right to silence us because of a few people. In fact, I think that because America and South Africa have such similar histories, I think we can learn from one another. In addition, I think to tell a group of people from a specific country that they cannot speak is counterproductive in a class on race, class, and gender. Finally, I don’t remember exactly how, but somehow it came up that if I were to say something, it would be like speaking on behalf of Americans. To me, this was an interesting concept because at home I’m often the only Black student in my classes and when I speak in class, I feel like people think I’m speaking on behalf of my race (if you don’t know what I’m saying, watch Freedom Writers. There’s a scene in that movie that explains it to a tee). Somehow, when came abroad, I went from speaking on behalf of my race, to speaking on behalf of my country. I am absolutely baffled by the power of overgeneralizations and stereotypes. Camille said she didn’t think it would be the best idea, but I’m still bothered by it.

These are just two brief instances of times I’ve dealt with issues such as these. Actually, the topic of race comes up every day…multiple times a day. Each day I’m here I’m faced with the issue of “identity” and how one identifies oneself. My friends (who are of all different races) and I receive strange looks on campus when we walk around campus together because people don’t do that here. I’m challenged to think about whether I’m “black,” “colored,” or “African American.” To some, I am somehow morally wrong because I am a firm supporter of Affirmative action and a strong believer in the fact that I am a direct beneficiary of it. There are so many things that I am forced to deal with on a daily basis that I never thought I would have to grapple with before.

This final paragraph has two purposes: 1. To acknowledge and celebrate my wonderful dad whose birthday it is today and 2. to try and make sense of some of the aforementioned thoughts. When I arrived in Cape Town, I opened my suitcase to find a card from my dad. The front of that card read, “God blesses people with a special gift – they see things from a different point of view, Imagining tomorrow as it could be, envisioning the good that they can do.”  Of course upon first opening the card, I was extremely emotional, but after being here for a month (it was a month on Tuesday), it has a different effect.  Perhaps being able to see things differently is both a blessing and a curse. I totally and completely appreciate the experiences I’m getting here, even the ones that challenge me. They’re pushing my limits and forcing me to deal with things that are totally new to me. In the end I know they’re going to make me a better person.  In addition, these experiences have helped me to see that although America has its challenges, we are definitely progressive and, to some extent, getting better. The curse part comes in when I’m forced to constantly think about how I can change things; how I can make things different or maybe even better. It affects me when I start to see things that no one else sees and I feel like I have no one to talk to about it. It’s challenging when I’m the only one who understands where I’m coming from. I know that in four months I’m not going to change the way every single person here thinks; I don’t intend to, and quite honestly, I don’t need to (like in every country, the narrow-minded people are a small minority), but what I hope is that in my short amount of time here, I can get just one person to see things a little differently; one person not to turn their nose up when they see a black student and a white student walking together on campus, one person to go a single day without snubbing differences. That might sound idealistic to some, but these are just the internal grapplings of me.

I’d be interested to know what others think. Feel free to leave comments below. 

Location: Rondebosch, South Africa