{"id":2422,"date":"2020-07-03T22:07:41","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T22:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/?post_type=chapter&p=2422"},"modified":"2020-08-05T19:17:40","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T19:17:40","slug":"a-south-african-storm","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/chapter\/a-south-african-storm\/","title":{"raw":"A South African Storm","rendered":"A South African Storm"},"content":{"raw":"

by\u00a0Allison Howard<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 Peace Corps Volunteer:<\/span>\u00a0South Africa\u00a0(2003-2005)<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s a Saturday afternoon in January in South Africa. When I begin the 45\u2013minute walk to the shops for groceries, I can hear thunder cracking in the distance up the mountain in Mageobaskloof. But at 4 p.m. the sky is still light and bright and I am sure\u2014famous last words\u2014I will be fine without an umbrella.\r\n\r\nJust the basics: eggs, bread, Diet Coke in a bag slung into the crook of my elbow. Halfway from town, two black South African women\u2014domestic workers in the homes of white Afrikaner families\u2014stop me with wide smiles. They know me; I\u2019m the only white person in town who walks everywhere, as they do. They chatter quickly in northern Sotho: \u201cMissus, you must go fast.\u00a0Pula\u00a0<\/em>e tla na!\u00a0<\/em>The rain, it comes!\u201d They like me, and it feels very important to me that they do.\u201cYebo, yebo, mma,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0I say\u2014Yes, it\u2019s true\u2014and I hurry along in flip-flops, quickening my pace, feeling good about our brief but neighborly conversation. These are Venda women.\r\n\r\nMy black South African friends tell me it\u2019s easy to tell a Venda from a Shangaan from a Xhosa from a Pedi. \u201cThese ones from Venda , they have wide across the nose and high in the cheekbones,\u201d they say. But I don\u2019t see it; I\u2019m years away from being able to distinguish the nuances of ethnicity. Today, I know these women are Vendas simply because of their clothing: bright stripes of green and yellow and black fabric tied at one shoulder and hanging quite like a sack around their bodies. They\u2019ve already extended a kindness to me by speaking in northern Sotho. It\u2019s not their language but they know I don\u2019t speak a word of Afrikaans (though they don\u2019t understand why; Afrikaans is the language of white people). They know I struggle with Sotho and they\u2019re trying to help me learn. So they speak Sotho to me and they\u2019re delighted and amused by my fumbling responses. And I am, quite simply, delighted by their delight.\r\n\r\nThe Venda ladies are right: the rain, it comes. Lightly at first, and by habit I begin trotting to hurry my way home. Just a little rain at first and there are plenty of us out in it. I can see others up ahead on the street and others still just leaving the shops to get back before the real rain begins.\r\n\r\nThe people who are walking along this swath of tar road are black. Black people don\u2019t live in this neighborhood\u2014or in my town at all, for the most part. They work and board here as domestic workers, nannies, gardeners. Their families live in black townships and rural villages\u2014some just outside of my town; others far away, in places like Venda.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nToday, we\u2019re walking together in the rain, and I\u2019m quickening my pace because\u2014after all\u00a0, it\u2019s raining\u00a0<\/em>. That\u2019s what you do in the rain. And even though it\u2019s coming down noticeably harder, it\u2019s 80 degrees and I\u2019m not cold, I\u2019m just wet. My hair is stuck to my forehead and my T-shirt is soaked \u2026 and I\u2019m the only one running for cover. And I think: So what? It\u2019s just water and in the middle of the January summer, it\u2019s warm, refreshing water. Why run? Why do we run from the rain?\r\n\r\nIn my life back in the United States, I might run because I was carrying a leather handbag, or because I wore an outfit that shouldn\u2019t get wet. I would run because rain dishevels and messes things up. Mostly though, we run because we just do; it\u2019s a habit. I\u2019ve done it a hundred times: running to my car or the subway station with a newspaper sheltering my head. I have never not quickened my pace in the rain until today.\r\n\r\nIt took all of my 27 years and a move to Africa , where I don\u2019t have a leather handbag to shelter or a pretty outfit to protect. I\u2019m wearing an old cotton skirt and a T-shirt, and I\u2019m drenched, and I love it. I learn things here in the most ordinary circumstances. And I feel like a smarter, better woman today because I got groceries in the rain.\r\n\r\nBut on the long walk home, positively soaked and smiling like a fool, I notice a car pulling over and a man yelling in Afrikaans to get in, get in. I look in the direction I\u2019ve come from and several meters behind me is a woman with a baby tied to her back and an elderly man carrying bags, leading a young boy by the hand. On the road ahead, a woman about my age carries a parcel wrapped in plastic, balanced precariously on her head. There are maybe 20 people walking with me in my reverie of rain and they are black. And the man in the car is white and he\u2019s gesturing frantically for me to get in. Why me? Why not the others? Because I\u2019m white and it\u2019s about race. Everything is about race here.\r\n\r\nThis man in the car is trying to do something kind and neighborly. He wants to help me and his gesture is right, but his instincts are so wrong. How do you resent someone who is, for no benefit of his own, trying to help? But I do. I resent him and I resent the world he lives in that taught him such selective kindness. This whole event unravels in a few seconds\u2019 time. He\u2019s leaned over and opened the car door, urging me in \u2026 and I get in. And we speed past my fellow walkers and he drops me at my doorstep before I have time to think of anything besides giving him directions.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nIt feels like a mistake because I\u2019m ashamed to think what the Venda women would have felt if he\u2019d ignored them and they had watched me climb into that car. In some ways, the whole episode seems absurd. I\u2019m not going to atone for 400 years of South African history by walking with black people in the rain. If I\u2019d refused his ride, he wouldn\u2019t have thought anything besides the fact that I was certifiably crazy. That\u2019s the thing about being here: I\u2019m not going to\u00a0change <\/em>anything. But I believe it matters in some infinitesimal way that people like the Venda women, and the dozens of people who may walk alongside me on any given day, know that I\u2019m there. In black South African culture it is polite to greet every person you pass. That\u2019s what they do, so I do it, too. On the occasional morning, someone might greet me as\u00a0\u201csesi,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>sister. I have to believe that matters; I know it matters to me.\r\n\r\nI was disappointed in myself for getting into the car because I acted according to the same habit that makes us think rain an inconvenience. Just as we run from the rain, I hopped into that car because I\u2019m\u00a0supposed\u00a0<\/em>to. Conventionally, it makes sense. But convention compels us to do so many things that don\u2019t make any sense at all. Convention\u00a0misinforms\u00a0<\/em>our instincts. And in a larger sense, it is convention that propels Afrikaner culture anachronistically into the future. Ten years after the supposed end of apartheid, I\u2019m living in a world of institutionalized racism. Convention becomes institution\u2014and it\u2019s oppressive and it\u2019s unjust. I know that if I\u2019m going to make it here for two more years, I need to walk in the rain. It\u2019s a small, wasted gesture, but it\u2019s an uncorrupted instinct that makes me feel human.\r\n\r\nSo much about living here feels like that fraction of a second when the Afrikaner man was appealing to my conventional sensibilities and the people on the street were appealing to my human instincts. It may feel unnatural to reject those sensibilities just as, at first, it feels unnatural to walk in the rain. But if I lose a hold on my instincts here, I\u2019ll fail myself and I\u2019ll fail to achieve those tiny things that matter so much. It\u2019s simple and it\u2019s small; and it\u2019s everything. Gandhi said, \u201cBe the change you wish to see in the world.\u201d Indeed. Let it rain.","rendered":"

by\u00a0Allison Howard<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 Peace Corps Volunteer:<\/span>\u00a0South Africa\u00a0(2003-2005)<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Saturday afternoon in January in South Africa. When I begin the 45\u2013minute walk to the shops for groceries, I can hear thunder cracking in the distance up the mountain in Mageobaskloof. But at 4 p.m. the sky is still light and bright and I am sure\u2014famous last words\u2014I will be fine without an umbrella.<\/p>\n

Just the basics: eggs, bread, Diet Coke in a bag slung into the crook of my elbow. Halfway from town, two black South African women\u2014domestic workers in the homes of white Afrikaner families\u2014stop me with wide smiles. They know me; I\u2019m the only white person in town who walks everywhere, as they do. They chatter quickly in northern Sotho: \u201cMissus, you must go fast.\u00a0Pula\u00a0<\/em>e tla na!\u00a0<\/em>The rain, it comes!\u201d They like me, and it feels very important to me that they do.\u201cYebo, yebo, mma,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0I say\u2014Yes, it\u2019s true\u2014and I hurry along in flip-flops, quickening my pace, feeling good about our brief but neighborly conversation. These are Venda women.<\/p>\n

My black South African friends tell me it\u2019s easy to tell a Venda from a Shangaan from a Xhosa from a Pedi. \u201cThese ones from Venda , they have wide across the nose and high in the cheekbones,\u201d they say. But I don\u2019t see it; I\u2019m years away from being able to distinguish the nuances of ethnicity. Today, I know these women are Vendas simply because of their clothing: bright stripes of green and yellow and black fabric tied at one shoulder and hanging quite like a sack around their bodies. They\u2019ve already extended a kindness to me by speaking in northern Sotho. It\u2019s not their language but they know I don\u2019t speak a word of Afrikaans (though they don\u2019t understand why; Afrikaans is the language of white people). They know I struggle with Sotho and they\u2019re trying to help me learn. So they speak Sotho to me and they\u2019re delighted and amused by my fumbling responses. And I am, quite simply, delighted by their delight.<\/p>\n

The Venda ladies are right: the rain, it comes. Lightly at first, and by habit I begin trotting to hurry my way home. Just a little rain at first and there are plenty of us out in it. I can see others up ahead on the street and others still just leaving the shops to get back before the real rain begins.<\/p>\n

The people who are walking along this swath of tar road are black. Black people don\u2019t live in this neighborhood\u2014or in my town at all, for the most part. They work and board here as domestic workers, nannies, gardeners. Their families live in black townships and rural villages\u2014some just outside of my town; others far away, in places like Venda.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Today, we\u2019re walking together in the rain, and I\u2019m quickening my pace because\u2014after all\u00a0, it\u2019s raining\u00a0<\/em>. That\u2019s what you do in the rain. And even though it\u2019s coming down noticeably harder, it\u2019s 80 degrees and I\u2019m not cold, I\u2019m just wet. My hair is stuck to my forehead and my T-shirt is soaked \u2026 and I\u2019m the only one running for cover. And I think: So what? It\u2019s just water and in the middle of the January summer, it\u2019s warm, refreshing water. Why run? Why do we run from the rain?<\/p>\n

In my life back in the United States, I might run because I was carrying a leather handbag, or because I wore an outfit that shouldn\u2019t get wet. I would run because rain dishevels and messes things up. Mostly though, we run because we just do; it\u2019s a habit. I\u2019ve done it a hundred times: running to my car or the subway station with a newspaper sheltering my head. I have never not quickened my pace in the rain until today.<\/p>\n

It took all of my 27 years and a move to Africa , where I don\u2019t have a leather handbag to shelter or a pretty outfit to protect. I\u2019m wearing an old cotton skirt and a T-shirt, and I\u2019m drenched, and I love it. I learn things here in the most ordinary circumstances. And I feel like a smarter, better woman today because I got groceries in the rain.<\/p>\n

But on the long walk home, positively soaked and smiling like a fool, I notice a car pulling over and a man yelling in Afrikaans to get in, get in. I look in the direction I\u2019ve come from and several meters behind me is a woman with a baby tied to her back and an elderly man carrying bags, leading a young boy by the hand. On the road ahead, a woman about my age carries a parcel wrapped in plastic, balanced precariously on her head. There are maybe 20 people walking with me in my reverie of rain and they are black. And the man in the car is white and he\u2019s gesturing frantically for me to get in. Why me? Why not the others? Because I\u2019m white and it\u2019s about race. Everything is about race here.<\/p>\n

This man in the car is trying to do something kind and neighborly. He wants to help me and his gesture is right, but his instincts are so wrong. How do you resent someone who is, for no benefit of his own, trying to help? But I do. I resent him and I resent the world he lives in that taught him such selective kindness. This whole event unravels in a few seconds\u2019 time. He\u2019s leaned over and opened the car door, urging me in \u2026 and I get in. And we speed past my fellow walkers and he drops me at my doorstep before I have time to think of anything besides giving him directions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It feels like a mistake because I\u2019m ashamed to think what the Venda women would have felt if he\u2019d ignored them and they had watched me climb into that car. In some ways, the whole episode seems absurd. I\u2019m not going to atone for 400 years of South African history by walking with black people in the rain. If I\u2019d refused his ride, he wouldn\u2019t have thought anything besides the fact that I was certifiably crazy. That\u2019s the thing about being here: I\u2019m not going to\u00a0change <\/em>anything. But I believe it matters in some infinitesimal way that people like the Venda women, and the dozens of people who may walk alongside me on any given day, know that I\u2019m there. In black South African culture it is polite to greet every person you pass. That\u2019s what they do, so I do it, too. On the occasional morning, someone might greet me as\u00a0\u201csesi,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>sister. I have to believe that matters; I know it matters to me.<\/p>\n

I was disappointed in myself for getting into the car because I acted according to the same habit that makes us think rain an inconvenience. Just as we run from the rain, I hopped into that car because I\u2019m\u00a0supposed\u00a0<\/em>to. Conventionally, it makes sense. But convention compels us to do so many things that don\u2019t make any sense at all. Convention\u00a0misinforms\u00a0<\/em>our instincts. And in a larger sense, it is convention that propels Afrikaner culture anachronistically into the future. Ten years after the supposed end of apartheid, I\u2019m living in a world of institutionalized racism. Convention becomes institution\u2014and it\u2019s oppressive and it\u2019s unjust. I know that if I\u2019m going to make it here for two more years, I need to walk in the rain. It\u2019s a small, wasted gesture, but it\u2019s an uncorrupted instinct that makes me feel human.<\/p>\n

So much about living here feels like that fraction of a second when the Afrikaner man was appealing to my conventional sensibilities and the people on the street were appealing to my human instincts. It may feel unnatural to reject those sensibilities just as, at first, it feels unnatural to walk in the rain. But if I lose a hold on my instincts here, I\u2019ll fail myself and I\u2019ll fail to achieve those tiny things that matter so much. It\u2019s simple and it\u2019s small; and it\u2019s everything. Gandhi said, \u201cBe the change you wish to see in the world.\u201d Indeed. Let it rain.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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