Traveling to South Africa for the first time, these are the people I met, their stories, and the lessons I learned along the way.
Lessons from South Africa
PART I
I EAT THE PAP, I GET THE AFRICAN BELLY
One thing I noticed here in Africa is the sense of community and the willingness to help fellow brothers and sisters. Even those who don’t have much themselves are always willing to help in anyway possible, even at their own personal dispense.
Some of my brothers here wanted to show me their favorite food Pap. Pap is good for the belly, way better than KFC or McDonalds, I am told. “If you eat Pap in the morning, you sleep that night with a full belly.”
Here, Pap is a home made meal with a base of rice and an entire fish. Don’t ask me where they get the fish. The meal is usually prepared at home somewhere, but don’t ask me where.
I do know Mama cooks the meal. She does it with love, that’s why they call her Mama. Everyone knows her. When she comes, everyone comes a runnin'. She smiles and talks to everyone. Everyone smiles and talks back. Mama brings the pap in coolers and sets up shop in the shade of the trees. She scoops the Pap out of a plastic bag and serves it to you in a pap container.
You eat the pap with your hands. Those with experience scoop the rice and cup it with their fingers, never dropping a single grain of rice. Those with experience can pull the fragile meat off the fish bones, leaving the fish skeleton entirely intact. No little piece of fish meat is left behind.
I am not experienced.
As you eat, your brothers arrive. They are also hungry but may not have money for Pap. You hand them your Pap and they scoop out a few bites with their fingers. When they are full, they give you the Pap back.
You finish the Pap and you are full, your brothers are full, until the sun rises the next day.
PART II
BECOMING ONE WITH THE BABOON
At Kogelberg Nature Reserve, there was a red flag warning for a tribe of wild Baboons in the area.
There was no way around them and in order to survive, there is only one way:
To become one with the Baboon.
These vicious looking creatures are commonly misconceived to be quite aggressive. And if threatened, they will tear you apart, but are otherwise very social and rarely aggressive towards members of their own family.
PART III
THE FISHERMAN’S LEGACY
This story of Hout Bay is about my first impression of a small, touristy, yet cultural Fishermans village on the coast of South Africa, just outside of Cape Town.
Upon arriving, you are greeted by a sandy beach with beautiful blue waters and the picturesque backdrop of South African coastal mountains. There were fisherman docks with boats in the background, but most obviously at first glance, a big rustic fish and chips restaurant with a wooden boat hanging from the roof called The Mariners Wharf.
There was a hustle and bustle of people, a mixture of tourists and locals. Sunny African music being played by a band, singing and banging on drums and a homemade xylophone.
A group of local children were breakdancing, the teacher walked around with a boombox on his shoulder encouraging the children to keep up the energy. They had an awesome energy, despite it being scorching hot outside.
The fishermen coming home from their boats after a long days work with the fresh catch they earned.
The restaurant with an old rustic wooden boat hanging from the roof reminded me of my favorite restaurant as a child, a franchise in America called Red Lobster, where you could eat King Crab legs by the pound. The place was decorated with old fisherman memorabilia, maps, ropes, crab cages, an old scuba diver suit made of iron. Everywhere you would see photos and figurines of the stereo typical old fisherman with a white beard, smoking a pipe and wearing his fisherman's hat. The stereotypical fisherman you would see in any coastal fisher town in Europe or America. You could buy this fisherman figurine and bring it home or send it to your mother to tell her you had been to Hout Bay. They had hundreds of these figurines everywhere, in all different shapes and sizes, and different colors of jackets.
I did not see one fisherman figurine who had black skin though.
PART IV
QUIET PLEASE! THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOUTH AFRICA
One day, I was looking for a quiet place to work with wifi during load shedding. Down the street, there was a beautiful old building which I was told was the National Library. So I went there with my laptop expecting to get some work done.
At the entrance, I was met by security guards. I told the security guards I was looking for some wifi and heard this was the library. They looked at me comically and insisted that this was not the library. Outside, I clearly saw the sign which said “National Library” so I was very confused. After a long discussion filled with broken English and misunderstandings, from what I could gather was that it was not really a library, but some sort of event space that was only used occasionally.
They still allowed me to go inside and walk around, so I entered through a doorway into a giant magnificent hall. In the the hall there were a hundred empty chairs placed neatly in a circle in the middle of the room. The roof of the building was dome shaped, with windows all around. The light of the sun passed through the windows and shined perfectly down into the center of the room onto the circle of empty chairs.
There was a speaking platform with a lone podium and rows of bookshelves, however no books. I walked around the giant hall and beautiful corridors and other than the security guards, the entire library was completely empty.
After researching more about this building, it turns out it was originally built as part of the University of the Cape of Good Hope back in the turn of the 20th century. Funnily enough, even back in the days it was originally built, it received criticism for “lacking quickening academic life to stir its gloomy depths. Its hollow corridor echoed the foothalls of solitary script laden examiners, symbolic of its academic emptiness.”
This magnificently built library was to become the white elephant for the Cape University’s successor and a reminder of the dangers of investment in property of restricted market value by an institution not certain of permanent occupation and lacking complete freedom of disposal. Against the background of British Imperialism, Afrikaner nationalism, and corruption in contemporary politics there is a dire struggle to reform education in South Africa. And this “National Library” symbolizes it perfectly.
“To build a University Hall before there is an existence of an University worthy of the name is like building a town hall where there is neither town nor resident citizens.”
PART V
WE ARE ALL HUMANS, WE ARE ALL BROTHAS
Throughout my travels, I met some of the most genuine and wise people I have ever met in my life. People who didn't have many material possessions, yet had so much love. Their lives, although full of struggles has given them so much wisdom. They taught me not to see with my eyes but with my heart. Not to judge physical appearance but rather the appearance of the soul. They taught me that no matter where we come from, we are all actually very similar. We are all humans and we are all brothas and sistas.
I took these portraits in tribute to them.
TALL
Tall works as a security guard for the building I was staying in. Every time I'd walk by, Id be greeted by "Aweeeeeh Khaziiii, howzit?" with his bright smile. One night, during loadshedding, he asked me if I could give him a wifi hotspot so he could watch his favorite player Messi play in a football match. We sat there in the dark watching the game from his cellphone screen. He told me he was from a small town called Tsolo in Eastern Cape where they speak Xhosa, the language with the clicks. So we played the song Patta Patta and he taught me some Xhosa. After the match, I went to bed and the next morning when I awoke he was still sitting there behind his desk.
Out of all the people I met, I felt that Tall is truly a brilliant young man. To me, he embodies the common struggle we hear so often in South Africa. He has amazing potential, but had to leave school to work and look after his little sisters. From then on, hes only been working. Six days of the week, he works a 12 hour shift. Somedays, he would cover for other colleagues by doing a 24 hour shift. He told me he's saving up to go back to school and study to become an engineer.
COLIN & MAX
Colin and Max work as baristas for the coffeeshop Deluxe on the Kloofstreet. Every morning, Id get up early to get a coffee or two there before work. I wouldn't even have to order, as they remembered me and already had my coffee ready as I walked through the door. They would shake my hand and put it over their heart, a beautiful gesture I'd never seen before being in Cape Town.
Deluxe has a slogan "Always Grinding" and these two embody that saying entirely. Six days of the week, they'd get up at the break of dawn and make it to work even before the early birds would get there. And they do it with such positivity and passion. After the coffeeshop closes, Colin goes home to study for his degree in IT. Max is an aspiring model. With their hard work ethics and positive mindset, I have no doubt that these two have a bright future ahead of them.
006
This man, who I will call 006 in sake of his anonymity is probably the most wise person I have ever met in my life. Among many things, we had discussions about history, life, morals, and struggle. Originally born in District VI, his family was one of the first to be forcibly removed. Him and his family wound up in a township. When he was younger, he wanted to become a history teacher, but gave up that dream to support his family working for the South African Army during the Angolan War. Although he opened up to me about what he did there, unfortunately I cannot share it here due to its secrecy. As we were talking, he told "these hands have seen life and death." He is a very disciplined man and there is a reason he never once removed his face mask, but it's not because of Corona. He spends his days working his modest job and writing poetry. He is one of those people, who you'd easily overlook and misjudge. But if you can crack open his hard shell, he's a treasure of wisdom.
LONDONI & RODERICK
I met Londoni one day outside of the building I was living in. He's an UberEats driver and the store he would deliver for was just next door. He'd be out there everyday. Londoni is originally from Congo. He told me he left his country because they were trying to recruit him to be a soldier to fight. So he moved out to Cape Town, leaving his family behind. Like him, most of the other UberEats drivers are not actually from South Africa, but mostly from other countries in Africa.
We exchanged numbers and arranged a date to hang out. I told him I was down to do whatever he wanted. So he came and picked me up one day with his friend Roderick who drove a Volkswagen Jetta. Roderick is from Burundi, a neighboring country to Congo. He was really proud of his Jetta, always propping himself up and posing on it. Him and Londoni spoke Swahili and they taught me a couple words. They said theres a common saying in Swahili: "Hakuna Matata", which means no worries.
To be honest, I was expecting to do something that felt more like a cultural African experience, but in the end, I realized Londoni and Roderick, like me, just like to cruise around town with the windows down, check out babes, drink beer, and watch the sunset.
LESSONS FROM SOUTH AFRICA
I went to South Africa with the goal to tell the stories relevant to South Africa's history, people, and culture. There, I experienced so many good things, as well as so many bad. The lightness and the darkness, the Ying and the Yang. I promised to open myself up to whatever comes and take it in as an observer. Originally, I had bigger plans and expectations for my stories, but in the end, the stories I needed to tell were right in front of me. Like the power of attraction, they came to me and I am grateful for the new brothers and sisters I met and the life lessons they taught me.
They will stay with me forever.