Taking a deep breath

Finally, I have a down day after some craziness. The weather here is really just like San Fran. It can be sunny and perfect one day and cold and wet the next. The people respond accordingly. Nice and cheery one day, sullen and cross the next. Tomorrow we have our first weekly meeting with the students and so far I think things are going great. There are really no problem kids in this group of twenty students this month. Even the quiet and reserved ones are starting to come around. I like to think that this has something to do with me being here and being available to them to help with problems, miscommunications, etc. For example, one student wanted to do an extra Emergency Med shift yesterday and although Marion had already spoken with her, I was able to supplement some background about the politics of the hospital we were dealing with and how we would try to get her the extra shift, but if it didn’t happen she shouldn’t be too disappointed.

Apparently, something as simple as setting and resetting expectations for people can be a really useful thing. Translation: I like my job here

Oppression sucks man

I finally finished reading the history section of my tour book last night. It seems that much of the roots of what happened here with Apartheid can be traced back to the Anglo-boer war (boer is the word they use here to refer to Europeans) when the British used scorched earth tactics and concentration camps to subjugate the colonials in SA and reassert their dominance in the country. This shock led to the Afrikaner broederbond (brotherhood) movement in which Afrikaners (originally poor white working class) began to imagine an independent, all Afrikaner country. This sort of paranoid nationalism emerges and later becomes fully devoloped in part due to the influence fascist ideas from Germany during the 1940s. Perhaps in some way, the paranoia of the white governing class during apartheid can be traced back to this struggle?

Its interesting that the same cycle of colonial history repeats itself everywhere. Group A by force of arms subjugates Group B and divides it into Group B and C by class/race. Group B is allowed to become better off both to create a buffer between A and C as well as to justify that Group A’s colonial policies are “helping the people”. Eventually, it becomes economically and militarily possible for Group B to replace Group A at the top and they buy Group C’s allegiance with the promise of a better life. Group B replaces Group A under a banner of independence. Meanwhile Group C finds out that their new leaders are no better than the old leaders but they are unable to do anything about it.

“Democratic” South Africa – some observations

In spite of the democratic ideals by which the current government, the ANC or African National Congress, won the 1994 election is awash with corruption at all levels. From talking to former taxi drivers, the various homestay families, residents in the community and from reading the press, corruption here extends all the way from the bottom to the top. At the top, the ANC leaders are definitely not setting a good example for the rest of the country. Recently, the news has been all about a story in which the Deputy President Zuma accepted bribes to help a local businessman secure a government arms contract. Both the businessman and Zuma’s roles in this shady deal have been uncovered and Zuma and other government officials are now under pressure to resign.

From the bottom, we took a tour of the African (Black) townships on Sunday. Many of these shanty towns are constructed from corrugated iron and lack basic services like food and water. We also saw a series of tents in place of one square block of these shanty towns. Apparently, a fire had destroyed this area of townships and the government had used emergency monies to provide tents and food to the people here and then transition them to public housing. However, upon further inquiry it seems that residents of other townships often will set up a shack in the shanty towns and then burn it all down so that they can get a new house from the government plus food and services then sell it for a profit. My host dad tells me of other schemes in which people acting as local government promise the poor a subsidized house, take their deposits and disappear, fake doctors sell prescriptions to people, people steal electricity from street lights on homemade wires and sell it to the poor. I have been to a local pub in Langha where I talked to someone who passed himself off as a government official by giving me some false information about the poverty and lack of housing in the area and suggesting that we should “arrange a meeting” if I wanted to help the local residents.

In short, corruption is rampant here and goes from the top to the bottom. Many of the elected representatives use their political privilege as a cash card and young adults and teenagers roam the streets of the poor townships working up schemes to trick the rich and the poor out of their money. The attitude really is one of “why work when I can just take money from people with a clever scheme?”