Last Friday at 6pm, all 140 CIEE students piled into buses carrying flowers, cookies, and cakes, lugging backpacks stuffed with warm clothes, and heading out to the little township of Oceanview. (As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, coloured South Africans settled in Oceanview during apartheid in the 1970s when they were forced to move out of their homes in Nordoek and Simonstown, two nearby areas that became and still are occupied by whites.) We were each given a nametag with a number, and once we unloaded at the only high school in the township, we scrambled around a large auditorium and looked for table numbers that matched our nametag. As I walked over to table #18, a glowing woman introduced herself to me as “Mama Cindy,” and I met the other CIEE student, Camille, that would be staying with me for the weekend. The three of us sat at a long table with other students and their temporary families, eating large plates of rice and mystery meat/fishy/potato stew and exchanging questions about each other. A couple hours later, we all trekked through the township streets with our moms and dads, hurrying to meet our siblings and see the homes we’d be living in for the next two days.
As we weaved through the neighborhoods under the moonlight, Mama Cindy urged Camille and me to stay close and not walk in the middle of the road because “drunk drivers, gangs, and criminals are just now coming out, so it is not safe to be outside.” I took a deep breath and continued to plunge forward in the darkness as cars blasting rap music screeched past us. We finally arrived at 75 Comet Rd, and we were greeted by Papa Thomas, brother Lee (17 years old), and sister Lynn (15 years old). Thomas works in the South African Navy, and Cindy is a hairdresser. Cindy’s sister Natalie lives just up the road, and she had two CIEE students staying with her as well, and so our two families and four CIEE students hung out that night and most of the weekend. After drinking several cups of tea and sugar and conversing about the USA, out of the blue, Thomas asked, “So who of you drinks and smokes?” Taken aback and confused, the four of us blankly stared at him as if to say, “Are you serious right now haha?” Nevertheless, his brother-and-law brought out a hookah bong and mixed in some “daha” (marijuana), and while the men in the family gathered around the bong, the women pulled out cigarettes, and our conversations continued as if nothing had changed. Around midnight, Mama Cindy showed Camille and me our rooms, and I realized later that we were sleeping in Lee and Lynn’s rooms…and that the family of four slept in one full size bed during the weekend.
Saturday
During the night, I was stirred by sirens, yelling in Afrikaans, blasting car stereos, infuriated guard dogs…shivering in my bed from the cold—and maybe a little bit of fear. At 10:30am in the morning, I awoke to soft chattering from outside my window, and so I slipped on my shoes and walked outside. There was a line of people by the house, pouring from a little shack in the yard. I walked in to find Mama Cindy diligently at work, cutting and washing her customers’ hair. “Emily! Come, come, come! You must eat!” She ushered me back into the house where Papa Thomas was cooking up a sizzling concoction in the kitchen, and while he muttered and sweared to himself by the stove, I snuck back outside to the line of people waiting for their haircut. I spent most my time talking to Michelle, Veronica, and Shevon. Michelle was in her late 60s, and she was one part of the initial group of coloureds that was removed from Simonstown and dumped in Oceanview township nearly 40 years earlier. With soft eyes that glistened with both hurt and hope, she retold stories of her family’s struggles in the township, of the pain she feels when she sees how beautiful Simonstown is now and wonders about the life she could have had, the overwhelming obstacles that the township residents have bravely faced in the past several years, and her thoughts on what the future might hold. She told me that Shevon, the 6-year-old boy that was quietly holding onto to the side of her wheelchair, had been living with her for the past 5 years…though his mother lives across the street, her addictions to alcohol and drugs overpowered her ability to raise a child, and she dropped Shevon on her neighbor’s doorstep when he was less than a year old. Michelle took him in, and she uses the little money she has to feed, clothe, and educate him...as well as provide for the other 7 people living in her small home. She told me of the homeless children that beg at her door and sleep in the streets, the prevalence of violence and crime, the alcohol and drugs that permeate and destroy households throughout Oceanview. She told me to spend time in the Psalms everyday, and she told me her dreams of seeing more parks and secure spaces for children to enjoy, more safe places for them to play. She looked up at me from her rickety wheelchair, piercing my heart with her wise eyes, and revealed her motto in life: “Believe and hope. Someone Else is Higher…and that Someone is in control.”
Thomas yelled that my breakfast was ready, so I thanked Michelle for sharing her precious stories with me, and scurried inside the house to find a plate with partially cooked eggs, bread that was questionably splotchy and coated in butter, and a bright pink—like HOT pink—sausage/meat/hot dog-looking-thing. I thanked him for preparing such a nice breakfast while mentally preparing my tongue and my stomach to digest the meal. Gotta eat every bite to be polite.
After breakfast, Mama Cindy and Lynn walked Camille and me around the township. We went to the local grocery, the fruit and veggie market, and store for spices and such…passing large groups of people, that I noticed were almost entirely made up of men and boys, on the side of the road—some palming bottles of beer, others huffing bags of glue, more smoking “daha”, most listening to rap music. And we most definitely found ourselves in the midst of a drag race on our way home, people screaming and shaking their fists/beer bottles in the air as engines revved and cars swerved through the street. It was an enlightening walk to say the least.
Back at home, I spent time talking with Natalie, Cindy’s sister, and playing with her little boy and girl, Cordai and Kiwana. Her children are sooooo cute and quite funny, and they gave all of us some good laughs! During our conversation, Natalie’s most pressing concern about Oceanview was the safety of her children, and her frustration with keeping them inside all of the time because of the danger of the streets. Her face tensed as she told me about kidnappings, hit-and-runs, and children being run over by cars in the roads. She told me of one 3-year-old girl that disappeared just over a year ago, and that her body was found, tortured and raped. A three-year-old baby girl. She told me of problems with teenage pregnancies—girls in Oceanview usually having babies between 12 and 14 years of age, which has resulted in children being abandoned.
The rest of the afternoon was full of meeting family and neighbors, Cindy washing and cutting and even coloring some customers’ hair, watching rugby games on TV, helping make more mystery meat stew in a pot over a fire outside, watching Michael Jackson music videos, hearing of Thomas’ obsession with chick-flicks and more. Thomas— he is a 50 year old man in the Navy—informed us that his favorite movie is Legally Blonde. Yep—the one with Reese Witherspoon haha, and his favorite singer is Mariah Carey. He also spent a large portion of the night trying to convince Camille and me to dance to Beyonce’s “Run the World” song in front of neighbors that came over for dinner, one of them being the priest of his catholic church. Questionable haha.
On Sunday, we went to church and spent more time with the family, and then parted ways in the early afternoon. SO much more happened during the weekend, while it is all too much to chronicle online, the overarching theme of the weekend was one of learning and laughing and loving and listening. I LOVED my family there, and I can't wait to introduce them to my real family some day. (Yes Mom and Dad and Sterrett and Allie, start planning and packing your bags haha! :). I promised Mama Cindy that I would be back a few more times during the semester, and she made me write down specific dates I would return, my phone number, my email address, my address in Cape Town, and told me she would pick me up on the dates I gave her. So the adventures in Oceanview are SURE to continue…
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