Roaming Africa: History Lesson

Hello All,

Another week here in Port Elizabeth and another week of experiences. I will start out by mentioning the weight room here which I have been using to stay in shape in the off-season. There are some definite differences between the weight room here at NMMU and a weight room back in the States. The size is smaller than that of St. John’s and there are fewer benches. There is also one squat rack that I have yet to see a non-American use for squats. I also noticed that apparently short-shorts never went out of style. I have been going with Matt and Isaak and we stick out (like everywhere here) because we wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt or cut-off. There are also quite a bit of jump suit pants. I have no idea how someone can wear them while working out in a hot room with no air conditioning. The body types are quite different as well. There are no “lineman” type bodies and all the work outs are very top heavy. This is due to rugby. Unlike football where you can have a 180 pound cornerback all the way up to a 325 pound tackle on the field at the same time, the range is much smaller. The rugby players all seem to be in the linebacker range. The athletic ones would be on the outside while the larger ones are more on the inside. Just interesting I thought.

On Monday while lifting, Matt asked a guy working out when it isn’t busy because it is typically packed when we go. He said it is always busy and that, “all these kaffirs just mess around.” That is the equivalent to the n-word in America. It was an abrupt moment. Since we have been here, we have seen some separation between white and black; but not any tension like this. It was a matter of time as I am sure there is more of it around. I will be on the look for more of this.

I will give some quick background information on what South Africa has dealt with just to make sure all readers are informed. The Dutch first settled in Cape Town in the Western Cape as a halfway point between India for trading in the 1650’s. They have become known as the Afrikaners. The British later settled on the Eastern Cape where I am living. Those two groups had all the power (guns) and money. They were in the South African War (the neutral term for what many call the Anglo-Boer War named by the victorious British) in the turn of the 20^th Century which the British won. The British were interested in the natural resources and colonizing the area. The ideal British South Africa in that time was a “white run society with a justly treated black work force.” The Afrikaners believed they were somehow chosen to be there.

Apartheid did not officially start until 1948, but the ideas were in place before that. The Land Act of 1913 is in my opinion the most detrimental act that was created... and 35 years before Apartheid. This Act was the first of the land shuffling. It took 87% of the land and gave it to the vastly minority whites while about 90% of the population was pushed to the remaining 13%. This was increased during Apartheid with the Group Areas Act where each race was designated a “homeland.” The non-whites were used as cheap labor and therefore could not be too far away which is why the townships are like suburbs to the city. The whites did not want the non-whites, but needed their cheap labor. Obviously everyone can tell that is both inhumane and how contradicting that is. I don’t think I need to mention too much about the conflicts that ensue as tension rises as many of my readers were alive during this time period.

The reason I think thus far in my research that the Land Act is the worst act for South Africa is because it was the beginning of creating the townships. When driving through the city and area, there are clear lines still today of where you cross from one neighborhood to another. That creates unnecessary distances for people to travel. Unlike the States where most of the poverty is in the inner city because of proximity to everything, the poverty is spread across a large area. Many people need to travel into the city to work and therefore spend money that is not in their budget. There are no “projects” or large apartment complexes. This means that when driving through the townships, there thousands of people walking long distances. Obviously large issues to solve and not an easy fix as the government is doing what it can.

Another week of volunteering and I can tell that I will become very attached with the students in my class. I am learning some of the names such as Zuko, Ayabonga, and Busiso. I am much more of a face person and their Xhosa names don’t make it easy. I mainly work on math with them, and we are working on adding large numbers right now. I am getting better at using actions to speak because although they speak English my accent and is tough for them to understand. I feel my biggest asset to them will be in the projects I work on outside the classroom however. There is a bottle program that we are working at implementing along with fixing up the library and getting them to use that.

Classes this week were interesting as usual. A lot of history which I gave you just a taste of in this post (which has made it longer than usual, I commend those still reading). One thing that we are starting to work on is the Nobel Peace Prize forum which is being held in Minneapolis. I believe at Augsburg. The focus this year is on South Africa and the four Laureates (Chief Albert Luthuli-1960, Archbishop Desmond Tutu-1984, President Nelson Mandela-1993, President F.W. deKlerk-1993) that have come from here. Our study abroad program will be working with a group of honors students from NMMU to act as ambassadors for the forum. We will be blogging and interviewing for the forum that will be used from the forum in North America to Europe to Asia. We get to work with more students from here which is great as a flaw of this program is that we don’t get to interact with NMMU student greatly with our adjusted classes.

Tomorrow we head to Addo Elephant Park outside of PE for a safari. I am really looking forward to this as a safari is on many people’s bucket list with myself being one of those people. I will be able to see the mythical Africa that has inspired so many to travel, write, and dream about this continent.

I thank you all for making this far in this long post. Cheers!

Bobby

A few pictures from campus today for your enjoyment.