Am I the Only One?

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“I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.” –Lucille Ball

South Africa is a deeply religious country, one where over 80% of the population identifies as a member of the Christian faith, in one variation or another. These branches of the Christian church present themselves in a plethora of forms, from churches like the ZCC (Zed Cee Cee or Zionist Christian Church) which have 8 hour long services, to churches which intersperse traditional African beliefs amongst Christian teachings, to those we are familiar with in the States including the Anglican Church or the Roman Catholic Church. From my house alone, I can see three churches, and can walk to a fourth in no time flat. At school, and in any major function, religion presents itself through prayer before and after meetings, Christian songs and other language.

I grew up as a reform Jew, attended Hebrew School, holidays with family, became a Bat Mitzvah. As a kid, many of my happiest moments stem from Jewish summer camp, an annual event that undoubtedly shaped my character and feelings toward religion. And while I am far from unfamiliar with being the only Jew, there are plenty of days where I don’t wonder if I am the only Jewish person in the whole of the Northwest Province.

In order to deter continual invitations to church, I informed my staff and host family early on of my beliefs, for while South Africans struggle to comprehend Atheism, and the lack of belief in a higher being, they can understand belief in a different religion. But a surface level understanding (“Oh it’s the one with the star, right?”) doesn’t erase the sense of loneliness. For while I’m more likely to be considered a lapsed Jew than anything else while home, I continue to enjoy the company of a Shabbat dinner (not to mention the matzo ball soup).

So in an era where residents of my country are being actively pursued on the basis of their religious choice, I endeavor to share mine and to learn from others, to deepen mutual understanding, and to diminish perceived difference. I follow in the footsteps of my mom by teaching about Judaism in Life Skills classes, I share my beliefs with curious teachers, and I listen with an open mind to all that I hear. And I am constantly impressed by how much more we share in common than not.

Good Enough is not Enough

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“The greatest single challenge facing our globalized world is to combat and eradicate its disparities” – Nelson Mandela 

            With the seemingly unending string of attacks on American institutions taking place at home, it’s hard not to draw parallels to the systems that exist here- particularly when it comes to education. As a proud product of the public education system (kindergarten through bachelors degree), I can attest to the necessity and value of a public education, but I also know I was lucky. I attended school under the best circumstances- parents who pushed me and held me accountable, teachers willing to engage with me and encourage me to pursue my interests, and the opportunity to partake in advanced placement and honors courses.

But here in South Africa, the significance of a public education is driven home. For at least 90% of the almost 900 learners at my school, the absence of a public school would mean no access to education. Due to their socioeconomic situation, the government in almost every way imaginable provides for these learners: free lunches, textbooks, stationary, and even uniforms if need be. But it’s not lost on me that these kids still receive a poor education. With 50 plus learners per class, a dramatic lack of resources, and exhausted teachers it’s little surprise that they struggle.

The brutal truth is that these kids, who have such a zest for life, and already encounter problems beyond my imagination in their daily lives, are shoved in three to a desk in a classroom and expected to master a menagerie of subjects in a language that is completely foreign to them. And yet we wonder why it is that “more than 85% of primary pupils make the transition to lower secondary in most countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America, but in 19 out of 44 African countries, more than half of all children will not complete primary school” (UNESCO Global Education Digest).

And while, providing these children with a safe space to be, where they may learn something is certainly better than nothing, the reality is that “the focus of development should (and must) look forward, beyond universal primary education”. So while people continue to attack the public education system at home, I urge you to consider that increasing barriers to access will not only disproportionately harm minority groups, but that it will in the long run build a society unable to keep up with the social, economic, and technological advances and demands of the globalized world. There is no single greater (or more crucial) investment in the future for, “ Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today” (Malcolm X). And, as I hope we can all agree, the future belongs to every child, and for them, an education that is “good enough” is simply not enough.

Home Sweet Home

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As a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa, our housing has only a few main requirements:

  1. The room has its own entrance that is separate from the main house and cannot be accessed by anyone else.
  2. The room has burglar bars on all the doors and windows.
  3. The school will provide one desk and two chairs.
  4. The department of education will provide a bed and a dresser.

That’s it. Electricity? A lovely perk, but not required. Running water…. only if you are extremely lucky. I love my humble abode; complete with its leaky tin roof that lets in exaggerates any sound upon it. No seriously, the first time it poured and subsequently hailed, I had a minor freak out and turned on Julie Andrews’ “My Favorite Things” and crawled under my blanket until it subsided. So yeah, it’s loud, but a handy-dandy mini speaker does wonders to allow me to continue watching my hard drive even in the noisiest of storms.

My two rooms are just perfect for me though, and luckily came stocked with a few items of furniture to help: a filing cabinet (which I use as a dresser), a small cabinet set which my kitchen sits upon, and an extra table where I rest my pantry and wash my dishes.

Take a peek inside my house, and get a feel of what it is like to live in South Africa!

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My kitchen: 2 plate hot plate, microwave, electric tea kettle, and bucket to catch the rain drops about to arrive

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Kitchen part 2: mini fridge and water filter

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kitchen part 3: my “pantry”, iron, and underneath the table, my dish washing bucket

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My stockpile of water and, yep you guessed it…. my bath

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My desk, where I spend too many hours lesson planning, studying for the GRE, and staring at this beautiful world map

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My cleaning corner, because as a PCV you learn that one broom is never enough…

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My wall of love: cards and pictures from home, and a map of South Africa

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My bed, thankfully wrapped up inside my wonderful mosquito net. Also, see two varieties of Raid, never far from me.

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My PC provided dresser, books, and a backpack

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My filing cabinet dresser, toiletries, yoga mat, etc.

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The entrance to my home

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If you were curious… yes, that is the bathroom…

 

Why I March

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“Power means knowing that you will be heard. Not necessarily obeyed, but knowing that you will be heard, not shouted down.” Tina Fey

I may be half a world away from the inauguration of a new president, but I remain intensely close to the stinging pain inflicted in waves by our nation’s new leader. Though I cannot be physically marching with the thousands of women in Washington D.C. and across the globe, I continue to consider how women “can proceed with dignity in this incredibly misogynistic time”[1]. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in a Let Girls Learn country, I feel particular urgency to utilize my role as a volunteer to encourage and enable girls and women in my village to find their voices and acknowledge and stand up against injustices inflicted upon them.

My contributions may seem small- identifying the capabilities of men to complete simple tasks, inviting girls to play cards and practice speaking English, reminding them that they have the power to say no- and they are small. They are a small step towards engaging the “tens of millions of girls in every corner of the globe who are not in school (and even those who are)—girls who are so bright, hardworking and hungry to learn.”[2].

As a volunteer in my village, I have a certain level of power not granted to most women my age. Encounters with sexual harassment of varying degrees occur daily. These experiences come to be so normalized in our day-to-day lives as women that we brush them off as a coping mechanism- but they continue to diminish our sense of agency and cause us to question our actions and choices (Is this outfit too revealing?, Maybe it would be better if I wouldn’t have said anything. Etc.) In light of these frictional points of give and give on behalf of women, I choose to stand my ground. While I understand the importance of cultural values, the 2nd goal of Peace Corps is to help Host Country Nationals (South Africans) to better understand the United States, and in so doing, I use my voice to question the men in my life here. And it works… most of the time.

So male staff members no longer ask me to make tea for them (regardless of the fact that I never make tea at school), but that doesn’t stop other men from making lewd comments or making passes at myself or fellow volunteers. But I know the value of my voice, I know the power of women and girls, and I know that just as misogyny and sexual harassment are learned behaviors, so can the values of dignity, equality, and respect be sown amongst the children of today.

As I march in spirit today, I recognize that “feeling like you can say no without any negative repercussions is an important kind of power”[3], one too often denied to females and the disenfranchised by the media, men, and on too many occasions, ourselves. Despite the obstacles placed before us, 2017 can and will continue to be a year of change and one that can inspire awareness and awakenings in ways beyond our imagination.

But shrinking in the face of bias, bigotry, and bald-faced lies hinders my ability to reach and motivate others for “I can lose my hard earned freedom if my fear defines my world.”

[1] Tina Fey

[2] Michelle Obama

[3] Tina Fey

In and Out

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No, not In ‘N’ Out, though certainly I wouldn’t turn that down… (animal fries anyone?). On a more relevant note, in and out of the village is a tough place to be. During PST, I cherished our three brief visits to Pretoria and Jozi, an opportunity to eat food outside of the basic staples of pap and meat, pap and veg, pap and pap… Trips to town also provided an opportunity to slow down the immensity of moving to a small village halfway around the world- a way to realize the incredible development that has swept South Africa by storm. And during lockdown, the three-month integration period following PST, I yearned to peace out of my village, go to a city and just enjoy the simple things.

But, flitting in and out of the village, particularly in a country as economically and developmentally divided as South Africa, is a trip. The more that Magogong feels like home, the more difficult it becomes to navigate the so-called first world/third world divide. How can I hold in my head these two seemingly incompatible South Africas that continue to demonstrate the harmful after effects of Apartheid?

The spread of unequal development in this country, though certainly not unique throughout the globe, represents an unparalleled level of inequality yet experienced by me. Starbucks, H&M, Zara, Whole Foods-esque grocery stores and the like dominate the nation’s big cities. For perspective, shopping in my village includes small spaza shops selling goods like bread, ice pops, soda, and soap.

This immense dichotomy extends beyond access to basic goods to housing, jobs, healthcare and more. Slipping between these two worlds is, simply put, jarring.  Increased exposure does not equal greater comfort, but rather the exact opposite. As I weave in and out of the fabric of these communities, I continue to recognize and acknowledge the immensity of my own privilege. Though many learners at my school have never been beyond the confines of the village (even to shop in the two towns 14k away), I float back and forth- traveling to Pretoria, Rustenburg, and the like.

In and Out emphasizes the privilege of mobility and the incredible work that remains to be done as South Africa continues to work to diminish inequality. In and Out emphasizes for me once again, that no matter how hard I work as a PCV, and no matter how much time I spend integrating in my village, I have privilege that enables me to know both South Africas. And even though this time is often spent productively and for the benefit of Peace Corps activities, the fact of the matter is that this is a disconcerting experience and one denied to many citizens of this nation.

None of the Above

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“All of humanity shares an African heritage. We are one, diverse species across the globe with our roots in Africa.”

            Unsurprisingly, given South Africa’s past, race remains both a contentious and divisive issue. For a system of legally entrenched oppression, like Apartheid, to flourish, classifying people in an effort to enforce levels of racial superiority and inferiority is a must. The Apartheid government sought to separate people under four main categories: White, Coloured, Indian, Black. In the Black communities, the divisions became even more explicit, with the regime seeking to separate out language and ethnic groups by creating language divides in order to further consolidate their own power and inhibit the strength and possibility of the seemingly powerless majority rising against them.

Though South Africa sits 22 years out from the fall of Apartheid, its lasting grips on society continue to impress me. Without a doubt, one of the most immediately obvious effects of this system is the need of most South Africans to classify each person that they meet according to the racial categories inflicted upon them during the Apartheid era. This in turn, leads to one of my own greatest dilemmas. For regardless of what my outer appearance may tell you about my racial or ethnic identity, the story beneath is much more complex and not one that can be neatly tied up in a little box checked white.

My parents hail from colorful backgrounds and I find my family’s history to be something to celebrate. My mother grew up in a Jewish family in Minnesota to parents of German and Austrian descent. My father was raised in a deeply impoverished area of Mexico City and although much to his chagrin as a child, his lineage reaches back to Spain and Portugal and not that of the Aztec warriors he so greatly admired. So sure, I do come from a European descent, but that’s not the point. The point is that I’ve never identified that way, when I check boxes on forms it’s always as Hispanic/Latina.

However, in South Africa, Hispanic or Latina are not options. Categorization here is done based on snap judgments determined by looks, inviting such comments as: “I looked for the first European looking person I saw”, “But you don’t want your skin to get too dark,” (upon seeing a photo of me as a baby) “but you had an African nose!”, and the most deeply frustrating; the discussion of hired Black help as “boys and girls” when they are most certainly adults and the usage of the hideous K word. I have been invited and initiated into a club in which I feel no kinship. The club of whiteness that (even when done so “nicely”) denigrates the various races with which they share a country with is no club to which I seek membership.

But the fact remains that based on perception of skin color, regardless of my own personal identity I am ascribed a level of privilege not often granted to others who share the same identity as me. It is this dichotomy that I continue to grapple with, how do I level my privilege to better serve the views that I hold dear? How do I ensure that I am not (without realizing it) advancing myself at the expense of others? How can I use my privilege to call others out on the presence of “nice racism”? How can I check my own inherent racism (because like it or not, I know it is there)? How can I make myself a better ally for other people of color?

The fact of the matter is that the answers to these and other questions won’t magically pop up in my head overnight, but will be things I will struggle with my whole life, and especially here in South Africa. And as I continue to define myself as none of the above, I ask us all to remember this fact: “You are 99.9% the same as any other member of the human species. There is only a 0.1% difference between you and the person standing next to you. “

On the Things We Take for Granted

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As humans, we find ourselves capable of easily adapting to circumstances as need be, flitting between different identities, making do with available resources, picking up new languages, etc. It is for this reason that even when faced with new ways of approaching things that may seem incredibly strange to us we tend to be able to go with the flow. Living in the United States, most of us have access to an immense amount of resources and gadgets designed to facilitate our lives both easily and smoothly. In much of the rest of the world, including here in South Africa, that is not always the case.

On water: In a drought-ridden world, access to water remains a dire necessity and one which those who can simply turn on a tap and have water pour out take for granted. In South Africa, many families have boreholes, which pull water out of the ground, but for those of us without, access can be an immense struggle. My host family uses the municipal water, which since October has been off approximately 90% of the time. To get water, my host mom often wakes up at 3 AM to fill jerry cans and buckets to store up for the coming days where they may not be any water. At school, water is stored in giant jojo tanks, but there are many days where there is no water, meaning learners frequently pass out from dehydration and heat exhaustion- no water and 100 degree weather make a frightening combination. Many weeks, it is necessary for me to supplement my water supply by purchasing 5-liter jugs of water in town at a local grocery store, a luxury not many people have.

On the “basic” every day tasks: At home, when I finish working out, I hop in the shower and bask in a long hot shower. In the village, bathing means utilizing a bucket. I fill the bucket with water, invariably cold, though if I choose I can boil water in my electric teakettle before bathing. Washing dishes means yet again hauling water inside, and reusing the same now slightly dirty water to clean everything. Laundry, however, is the greatest ordeal. Laundry requires two big buckets full of water, one with soap and one with fabric softener. Clothes soak in the first bucket for about 30 minutes to an hour before being scrubbed and transferred over to the second bucket and finally hung on the line to dry. The length of this process means no slacking and waiting several weeks before taking care of laundry.

Beyond the activities mentioned above, lack of access to resources translates across all spheres of life in the village from food shortages to using pit latrines instead of flushing toilets to getting creative with brushing teeth without running water. Though I am certainly still navigating the complexities of completing day-to-day activities with limited resources, I find myself shocked at the incredible joy I now receive by such simple things as taking a hot shower or bath on a weekend away or the even simpler pleasure of turning on the tap in the yard and finding water sputtering out.