adjusting and cultural differences

Jan 31, 2009

Friday night we went out to Claremont, which is an area in the southern suburbs (aka one of the nicer, safer parts of town where lots of UCT kids go). The first bar we went to was called Cubana, they were playing cool African music and there was a deck outside and people were smoking hooka. We stayed there for a bit and then went to another bar called Tin Roof. It was an interesting distinction between the two bars because Cubana was mostly black and coloured South Africans (which is more the norm because they account for the majority of the population) whereas Tin Roof was almost completely full of white people. Personally I didn't like Tin Roof because the music sucked. It was a good night overall though.
Saturday was slightly painful because we had all been up so late and had to get up early
to go do a walking tour of the city with our RAs (Ruby and Lyle, they are dating and they're awesome). We came back after and Ruby cooked curry and we hung out at the house cause we were all exhausted and had to get up early this morning to go to Cape Point. We went all around Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope (they are really just right next to each other, the southernwest most point of the African continent, and there is an entire national park surrounding it). We also got to go past the Waterfront on the way and a bunch of the beaches. The Cape Point was the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. Pictures do not capture its beauty. We were able to climb to the highest point around the Cape Point at a lighthouse and
get a 360 degree view of the Cape Point area and then the Cape of Good Hope etc and the surrounding Atlantic ocean which points mostly south from that point (as it is the southernwest most point of the African continent).
The past few nights we have hung out in the backyard with a bunch of the Church st kids and Heine, one of the security guards who works at our house and the other houses, has been hanging out with us. He is a colored man from Cape Town, I think he lives like 40 minutes away from here. He has been awesome to hang out with and we have talked with him about a lot of the cultural differences that are present, specifically between us as Americans and him, etc as the
South Africans. He said something about how the SAs think of our accent as a deeper roll of the Rs, and it came up how accents are so relative, i.e. when I think of Americans, I think that we don't have an accent, whereas everyone else does... and according to Heine, we have the accent, and everything sounds flat and straight to him. I thought that was so interesting.
The racial differences here are so interesting, and it is also interesting to think of them as analogous to the US. For example, Heine was asking us what the race classification would be for him in the US... he is colored here, but he would be considered black in the States. But the
interesting thing that we were discussing was how, because his accent is South African and thus somewhat British/Dutch ie quite European, people would like him more for it in the States. But if he were a Spanish speaker (Hispanic/Latino), or if he had a more Asian accent, he would be looked at in a less positive light, although hopefully/most likely that would be unconscious
for those who felt that way.
Overall, Heine said that our group on Church st is much more polite, honest, good, etc
foreigners than the majority here, specifically in relation to how we are viewed here by the locals around here. Basically, especially for those who do not think as open mindedly as the younger crowds I guess, when they see foreigners they essentially just think of them as rich, someone that could potentially be taken advantage of especially because they have so much wealth.
The other recent thing is that Ruby, the female RA on Church St sat all of the girls down last night to talk to us about the sexual harassment and standards around here. I guess that the more traditional culture here finds anything that is short on the legs to be extremely sexually promiscuous and taboo. The more interesting part is that it doesn't matter at all what you wear on top; this won't cause inappropriate attention. However, if you wear shorts or short skirts in certain areas, I guess it is almost like asking to be harassed. We have been traveling in groups entirely and many of us have agreed that we will walk with each other everywhere even if it means waiting around on campus/at the house for class and such. It is certainly a change from home where I am so independent, but this is a reality here. The fact is that there is crime here,
and while it is not that much worse than the majority of big cities in "developing countries", because I/we are American it puts us in the spotlight to be victims of such crimes because they think/know that they cant take advantage of us because we don't know what we are doing. According to Ruby and Lyle, all of the orientation that we have been doing thus far is in order to
take off the 'tourist polish' that is present on us thus far, making us more susceptible to such things.
Overall its so great here, everyone in my program gets along so well and we all also want to make friends with more South Africans, although we already have been hanging out with our RAs and their friends as well as some of our security guards. Classes don't start for two weeks but I'm sure I'll get a chance to meet more South Africans then as well.