graceliaw's b l o g

by Rian Malan

[[ This book was recommended to me by Pastor Sharkey & his wife, before we left for South Africa. I managed to read half of it before I left, and have FINALLY finished the book now. Took a while, but it was worth it. Not an easy read, necessarily, but it sheds much light on the darkness of South Africa. ]]

p. 68
“I was always relieved to leave Soweto, to see the lights of white Johannesburg looming up ahead — always. Once I was back in the world of light, the fear would dissipate, and I’d be ashamed of myself, to think that my own psyche was riddled with irrational racist phantasms. And yet, whenever I returned to Soweto the fear fell in behind me, and dogged me like a shadow. I loved blacks, and yet I was scared of them. I was scared of them, yet I loved them. It was a most paradoxical condition. One minute, you’d be harrowed with guilt and bleeding internally for your suffering black brethren. The next, you’d recoil in horror from the things they did, and from the savage latencies that seemed to lie buried in their hearts. You yawed between extremes. Sometimes, you completed the round trip in just fifteen minutes.”

p.168
“But Simon was a black in a white-ruled South Africa, and his life proceeded along its inexorable course. Fate threw him up against a white man who tore his pass to pieces. “In this world,” Simon said, “sometimes the little things change to a big thing.” That white man’s act, such an ordinary act of white cruelty and contempt, set off a chain of events that grew very big indeed. Four whites died beneath Simon’s hammer, three others were seriously injured, and finally, Simon himself was taken to the Central Prison in distant Pretoria, where he was given a cell on death row, and a scribe to take down his last letters. And finally the moment came. He was borne through the night by the hymns of doomed brothers, and when the sun rose he was taken to the gallows and hanged from his neck until dead.

The date was November 20, 1985, and Simon’s death was just one among many. It coincided with a massive upsurge in political carngage and merited only a few paragraphs on the inside pages of the newspapers. Still, it struck me as a remarkable parable of life in a country where blacks were being kept down lest they leap up and slit white throats. This was Dawid Malan’s law, and it fulfilled its own grim prophecy: If you treat a black man that way, he will indeed leap up and drive a hammer into your brain. That seemed to be Simon’s message. I heard no hatred or despair in his last words, just clarity, which he seemed to be offering as a man offers a gift — a gift of understanding, I thought, and a warning. It seemed a rare offering, and so, some months after Simon’s execution, I went to Empangeni to receive it.

The first sight that greeted my eyes as I drove into town was a giant black fist, huge as a train, smashing through the price barrier on a billboard. It was just an ad for Power Stores, but in that time, in that place, it was easy to see it as a symbol for rising black rage. Indeed, it was very easy for me to see Simon himself. He was right there in my mind’s eye, a black man barely six years older than me. His life had surely been shaped by forces I knew and understood — by D.F. Malans’ apartheid, by Verwoerd’s Bantu Education Policies, and by Vorster’s barbaric prisons, I presumed to know exactly what Simon meant when he spoke of a world without fairness. I presumed to know exactly what that billboard symbolized. As it turned out, I presumed a great deal.”

p.226
“We always seemed to miss each other in the murk of our mutually baffling cultures and our mutually blinding fears.”

p.276
“The time had come to make choices, but there were no rational choices at all.

But that was politics. Beyond politics, there was mythology, and rival myths to live and die by: for some whites, the myth of white supremacy, and for others, the myth of brave and noble Africans in heroic struggle against unspeakable evil. If you were white, you had to embrace one of those two myths, and let it guide your way. If you believed in neither, the paradox fractured your skull and buried its poisonous claws in your brain.

I’m sorry to use such lurid language, my friend, but South Africe calls for strong and sickening words. It has a way of making your brain seethe and your blood boil. South Africans develop antibodies to the poison, they grow numb and blind, but if you leave long enough to detoxify and come back with clear eyes, your skull gets fractured. You see too much, and it makes you sick. God knows what it’s like for blacks, but all the white exiles i know fell prey to a disease similar to mine when they returned.”

p.318
“Toward the end, Neil and Creina’s life became what life must be for the overwhelming majority of people on this sad continent. They lived from day to day, season to season, with little hope of salvation and no certainties save the certainty of death. …. And yet, to hear Creina tell it, it was often a life of unbearable ecstasy. She did not dwell on the despair and defeat. Instead she spoke of the hot dust between her toes, and the water of the river cool against her skin. She spoke of men who greeted trees as they walked through the bush, and children who ducked away from the face in the glass because they had never seen themselves in a mirror. She spoke of the nobility and courage of Zulu warriors, and the strength of their widows. She spoke of Christmas Eve, when the migrants came home from the cities and the valley rang with the sound of bugles and hooters and the joyful cries of children who had not seen their fathers in a full year.

And she told me about the time their hut burned down. She and Neil lost what little they had in that fire. As word of their misfortunes spread, Zulus started converging on Mdukatshani from miles around. Some were old, some were total strangers, and all were desperately poor, and yet they came to help the white man. Some offered gifts of cash, and those who had nothing offered their muscles, to help with the rebuilding. One ancient man tried to press a tattered banknote into Neil’s hand. He must have been hoarding it for decades, and now he was offering it to a white man.

Afterward, if anyone asked Neil why he stayed even though it meant dying, he mentioned that day — the day when the poorest black people dug up their buried treasure and offered it to him. He and Creina yearned all their lives to belong in Africa, and it seemed that Africa had finally accepted them, and returned their embrace. “

At the end of reading this book, and also spending a short two weeks in South Africa, the realization is this. The little that I think I know or understand about South Africa… is still far from anything remotely significant. I know nothing.”

Mr. Malan’s quote, “As it turned out, I presumed a great deal,” encapsulates where I am in my understanding of other cultures and lands. Just reading a book or two, watching a movie or talking to people, will never qualify me as an expert of any other culture.  And that’s okay now, because I now accept this fact.

did you know that there is a limit to our capacity to feel?

if only my heart were this pretty

Perhaps not everyone, but I think I have a limit to how much I can feel.  If my heart were a glass, it’s a small one that cannot hold much. Once the limit is reached, I cannot remain in control.

By the fourth day of our visits to Swayimane, I was weakening.  For 3 days, our team was visiting families, cooking, cleaning, chatting, meeting, watching, learning.  For the 3 days, we saw smiles, pain, suffering, strength, will, destitution, more smiles… we saw and felt a RANGE of things.

By the fourth day, I was spent.

We had one more home visit to do.  Home visit = a few of us on the team, along with other women in the community, going to a specific home to drop off a food parcel, spend time chatting with the family and finally, we pray for them.  The last home visit we did was to a family consisting of a grandmother, grandfather and two children.  The older child was about 12 years old, and in a wheelchair.  He supposedly had stroke, and is now paralyzed from the waist down. The grandmother sat on a worn-out mattress on the ground and seemed relatively immobile.

It was when Dan led us prayer for the family, that I had reached my breaking point.  DID NOT see it coming at all!  A flood of emotion swept through me.  “why are my children healthy & well-off,  while this child has to be stuck in a crappy wheelchair, with raggedy clothes, a dirty face and flies all around him?”  “why do you, God, have to keep showing these things to me?” On the other hand, that prayer was one of the most lovely things you’d experience — the Zulu women were praying with us in their own language. It was layer upon layer of prayer lifted up at the same time!

Ready to burst, I felt like someone knocked me over and my heart just got beat up. The mixture of sadness, compassion, frustration, helplessness in understanding how the world works, amazement at other people’s compassion… and humility. It was a bit much for me, and I felt like I was done.

I just had to start walking away from everyone, because I was no longer composed. And truth be told, I didn’t want to see anymore of anything. Done. Get me out of here, please.

Thankfully, God’s capacity to feel is limitless. And it is only through Him that you and I can take what we see and properly place it into our hearts without feeling overwhelmed.  Through Him, we can grow our capacity to feel, and I suppose my cup can go up a size.  =P

My concept of poverty was never well-defined.  With what little contact and knowledge of ‘poor’ people, I’ve mentally thrown them into one broad category.  Poor people just simply had much less than I do.  And the federal poverty line in the U.S. is somewhere around $19,000/year for a family.  For the most part, poverty has been something I’ve chosen to ignore/pass by/overlook/brush off.

While in South Africa, I discovered that there are more than one kind of poverty.

Take, for example, Informal Settlements.  (also called squatter camps or shanty towns)

You'll find clusters of IS's in and around big cities

My team and I stayed in the city of Pietersmaritzburg, and often drove past Informal Settlements like the picture above.  From a distance, it looked like hundreds of cardboard boxes shoved together, with an occasional trace of smoke rising out of them.

To my understanding, these IS’s are full of folks who have come from far away to find work in the cities, only to find themselves living in sub-standard conditions, fighting for survival.  These are the urban poor of South Africa.  More likely than not, there is limited or no running water or electricity.  You can imagine the living conditions being cramped, noisy….contaminated.  Add crime and violence, and there you have it… rock bottom living.

Then, there is the valley of Swayimane, which is about an hour outside of Pietersmaritzburg.

Taking in some of the fresh air

You can see how vast this valley is, and through this picture, you can almost smell the clean air.  This is where the rural poor live.  While they don’t have much, these folks in Swayimane still have some semblance of a normal life.  The families we visited – many of them had to fetch water each day, lived with several people in one hut/room, or had no form of transportation except their own two feet.  Even with such setbacks, the valley of Swayimane still possessed a sense of dignity and hope.  Hope, I think, is the major difference between the two kinds of poor — urban and rural.

in Swayimane

At the heart of hope in Swayimane…. are the Zulu women.  Zimele goes out of its way to work with the women of Swayimane, because it is a more stable environment than that of the cities.  And, the women are teachable, willing and believe in Zimele’s programs.  Through things like Savings Groups, the ultimate goal is to preserve hope and build a future for the next generation in Swayimane…. starting with these ladies.

Zulu ladies of Swayimane (and Cristina)

Poverty without hope is a desperate way to live.  Poverty with hope has a future to look forward to.

“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God, and counter-claimed by Satan.” 

~C.S. Lewis

Let’s talk about real spiritual warfare.  Some folks have never experienced spiritual attack, while others have an ultra sensitive spiritual radar for things unseen.  I am unsure whether some folks are gifted with sensitivity, or that other  folks are just very oblivious to the spiritual world.

On our first ‘field work’ day in South Africa, our team visited the home of a go-go (grandmother), who was caring for a gentlemen named Filamon.  Our tasks were to cook for and bathe Filamon.  Filamon was EXTREMELY ill with HIV and TB, and literally dying.  I’ve never visited anyone on their deathbeds, so seeing Filamon was an experience I did not know how to handle.   The wretched sight and smell of disease was magnified 10 times, because we knew that Filamon was dying alone & impoverished.  He was like a leper that no one wanted to go near.

Our did team the best we could to be a light to Filamon’s darkness. 

That night, it was difficult to sleep peacefully.  My thoughts were engrossed in the sight and smell of Filamon, as I kept replaying the day in my head.  I fought hard to think about easy things like celebrity gossip or what we ate for dinner, but to no avail.  My head was completely on edge, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest.  On top of that, my soul felt completely rocked out of its normal state.  There was an overwhelming sense of darkness, heaviness, fear and a crying out from the land the we were visiting.  It’s like we landed in the middle of a huge spiritual battle!

Outside, the two dogs were barking and running around the perimeter of the house.  For probably 2 hours.  Normally, the dogs like to bark at the animals out in the bushes – porcupines, wild pigs, monkeys, etc.  It’s just their normal routine.  But tonight, the two dogs barked for MUCH longer than usual and they were barking all the way around the perimeter of the house, as if chasing something out.

Bobby

Now, call me whatever you want, but as I laid there in bed listening to the dogs bark incessantly, I was scared.  Not only was the noise of the barking ringing loudly in my ears, but I kept feeling like there was something out there.  Or, even in the house, in our room.  You know, it’s been said that dogs and even babies are able to see things that we cannot.  Well, if that is the case, then Tissa and Bobby saw or sensed something that night.  Spirits, demons, who knows…

I jarred Cristina awake and we both prayed.. hard… and then read Psalm 91.   There was nothing else that could ease my heart, except to remember that my God is way bigger than anything evil out there.  I did not need to be afraid.

After that, I felt more settlled and was finally able to sleep peacefully.  Oh, and the dogs finally stopped barking.  =)

bulletin board

About 25 students have class in here

Pre-school Classroom in Swayimane — There is little here, except the chalkboard, a couch, and a few snacks. Whenever we visited this creche, we saw the children playing outside.  On two occasions, I spotted kids heading to the outhouse/toilet holding a crumpled piece of newspaper in their hands.  No, it’s not for reading.. it’s for wiping!  That image is completely cute and sad, all in one.

preschool students

The creche was born out of the efforts & saving of one SHG ( self help group).  The SHG comprised of women from one community, who pooled their resources together to pay for a teacher.

You may see this picture and think that it represents despair and poverty.  I challenge you to re-formulate that thought, and see that these children have a chance to learn in a safe environment.  This creche is a GOOD THING, even if it is minimally equipped.  And, as any teacher should know…. good teaching has nothing to do with the kind of classroom you have.

There is something to be said for simplicity.

Somewhere in the last 10 years of marriage & family, I sensed the need to simplify as many departments of my life as possible.  (literally throwing things out, cancelling credit cards, eating out less often, etc)   Between the ages of 25-35, I was chasing after the things I wanted FOR me, while trying to care for my family.  Needless to say, I got a little tired.  A little rundown.  The only answer to this frenzied life we have made for ourselves is to make life simpler.

Pastor Sharkey talked about our consumerism mentality.  We who live the suburban/urban life of the NY Metro area, certainly have it good.  We have access to not only EVERYTHING, but to everything in its highest quality and form.  How can we not be of a consumer mentality?  Well, with such access & consumerism, we are also inevitably going to clutter our lives with … stuff.

Stuff in our faces, stuff in and out of our ears, stuff coming out from under our beds, covering our desks, piled up in our cupboards, stacked in our wall units, … just stuff everywhere.  It’s disgusting how much stuff we have.

Exhibit Contrast:

Small groups of huts/homes called a kraal

Talk about simple!  In Swayimane, the homes are peppered all over an enormous expanse of hilly, lush land.  Lots of space in between the homes.  Inside the homes, you will only find the most basic of living arrangements.  They MIGHT have one or two pots in good condition.  There are often no beds.  When you walk into a hut, the only light is the sunlight through the window or doorway.  Don’t even talk about running water, because there is none.

Pause for a moment where you are right now and listen.  You’ll hear noises in the background at all times.   A refrigerator hum, passing cars, drippy faucet, the tapping of our keys on your keyboard, footsteps of folks upstairs, colleagues chatting down the corridor, and so on.  There is ALWAYS something going on where we live, something making noise, something stirring.

In Swayimane, if you listen hard, you probably will only hear…. birds chirping, rustling of tall grass, the sound of your own footsteps in the dirt, and maybe the crackle of an open fire.  That’s it, and it is lovely.

I’m going to continue to simplify things in my life (from age 37 onward), even if life fights to complicate itself.   Don’t you think if we can rise out of the noise of our crazy life, we might be able to hear and see things with greater clarity?

The thought of using ANYTHING less than a clean, porcelain throne for a toilet, leaves in me a sense of dread.  I’ve used my share of crappy crappers — from Port-a-Johns to campsite outhouses (very scary at night) to buses w/impossibly tiny toilets to Chinatown restrooms… to the bushes.

It all works out in the end, but still, everyone loves a nice, stress-free toilet experience.

I knew that on this trip to S. Africa, we’d be faced with using squatties or possibly doing some #1’s in the bushes.  Worse, I imagined myself getting bitten by a spider or frog while doing my business.  *shudder* Anyway, here are a few  bathroom experiences during our two-week trip.

* Factoid:  toilets in S. Africa (and I guess maybe Europe) have two flush levers – one is a half-flush (#1), and one is a full-flush (#2).

* My first unpleasant toilet experience was out in the valley of Swayimane, where folks did their business in an outhouse.  Cristina and I were escorted to a rusty outhouse, and we both went into “ok let’s get this over with” mode.   As we each did our thing as quickly as humanly possible, the other person would stand guard outside, and also offer moral support.  “Oh my gosh, I think I saw a spider”  “Ew, oh my gosh, do you have any tissue?” “Oh man, can you imagine if someone falls in there?”

* Gross….   we all went to a drinking establishment one evening, waaaaayyyy out in the sticks.  Seriously, we were so far out in the dark bush, I think the bar was smack in the middle of a herd of cattle.  It sure smelled like it!  No matter how hard we ladies avoided it, we eventually had to use the toilet.  Of course, it was not in the building, but around back, in the dark.  According to the owner of the shabine, this is how we had to wash our hands.  I honestly thought he was joking when he told us… but here is proof…

this is how we had to wash hands.

* DIY toilet.   One of our projects was to assist in building a new outhouse for a day-care facility.  The existing toilet was already nearly full, and not properly housed. To ‘build’ a toilet, the first thing done is a huge, rectangular pit is dug.  Then, (and this is where we tried to help), about 20 thin logs are chopped/sawed down and lined up side-by-side across the pit opening.  Next, old rusty tin is laid on top of the layer of logs, as a second layer of flooring.

The crap hole is 6-feet deep!

After the toilet box is placed, we mixed & poured cement all over the tin sheets, to create the final layer of flooring for the toilet.

The outhouse was not completed at the time of our last visit, because the community needed more building materials.  To us, this outhouse doesn’t look like much, but compared to the original outhouse, this one is MUCH better.

* Once, I used a toilet that did not flush at all.  I had to run around, find a bucket, fill it up with water, run back and dump the water into the toilet for a manual flush.

The moral of the story is — be thankful for your toilets at home.

~grace

Zera the cheetah, lives in a cat rehab center in St. Lucia (not the island).

Testing out my new WordPress blog, which for now, will just be used for reflecting on my trip to South Africa, little by little.

Rather than dump everything into one post, I’ll write a blog each day for as many days as it will take to cover my entire experience.  So… stay tuned for (hopefully) daily posts from me.  I’ll throw in a picture or two to break up the monotony.

TO THOSE WHO supported Zimele financially — this blog is as much for you as it is for me.  My hope is for you to feel that you did not just toss money over to South Africa, but that your dollars have tremendous value in the lives of people.  It is complex, our link to the lives of other people… but I assure you, it’s there.

Stay tuned – I’ll be posting soon!