It is going to be pretty impossible to articulate this weekend’s activities but I will give it a shot. The homestay in Ocean View was unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. The then seemingly small apartments that I’ve made my home during Shabbatons and homestays in Israel now seem like I was living in the lap of luxury. My house in Boston now, too, feels like the Buckingham Palace. And I assure you, many of you would have paid good money to have seen me roughing it in Ocean View.
We departed from Rondebosch (the suburb we live in outside of Cape Town) on Friday night, promptly on “Africa time” aka Jewish time aka late. The three busses hauled all of us out to Ocean View, a township southeast of Cape Town. Forty-five minutes later, we arrived at the Ocean View high school, greeted by about 60 families all anxiously awaiting our arrival. There were speeches given by Nan (the woman organizing the homestay) and another woman who gave us a brief history of Ocean View. From what I understood, Ocean View was erected in the 1960s or 70s during apartheid as a coloured township. This meant that all of the residents were forcibly removed/evicted from their homes, which were mainly in Simon’s Town (a beautiful town on the water about 15 minutes away from Ocean View), and had to live in Ocean View. Most of the community is made up of houses, but then there is a small area with subsidized apartments for people who are unemployed and can’t afford a house. After the speeches, we ate a dinner of rice and some meat concoction (sidenote: everything in Africa is “meat”…not steak, pork, sausage, etc…just “meat”) cooked by many of the residents. While we ate, the youth arts group performed dance and singing number for us. Our host mom thoroughly enjoyed this and was laughing and clapping louder than anyone else in the crowd. Some students on our program sang (one even tap danced!), and then we walked home with Shaiida (our host mom).
We arrived at Shaiida’s house with her niece Amira and Amira’s friend Tammy. As the weekend went on, we began to question if Amira and Tammy were somewhat of and item but that’s not important now. When we arrived, I think both Lindsey (another girl on the program who goes to Tulane) and I were curious as to where we were going to sleep since it was only a one-bedroom apartment. Shaiida quickly explained to us that we were going to be sleeping in her bed and she was going to be sleeping on the couch. That evening we listened to her tell us about her life: three divorces, one son, unemployment, four sisters (one adopted), her views on black people, her views on men, her sexual frustrations, life in the township, etc. It was interesting to say the least, but by 11 o’clock we were exhausted. We bid Shaiida, Tammy, Amira, and the two cats goodnight and went to brush our teeth….
The bathroom was an adventure in its own right. Not only was it lacking a light, but it also didn’t have a sink. Lindsey and I were unsure where hand-washing and tooth-brushing was to take place, but when we asked Shaiida where to conduct these sanitary activities, she didn’t understand why we were asking. From this point on, I felt it was safe to assume that sinks are not a necessity in Ocean View. Please note that for the rest of the weekend, Tammy, Amira, and Shaiida never closed the door while going to the bathroom. One would presume that this was a result of the lack of illumination in the bathroom, but they also did not close the door during the day when light flooded into the “toilet”…With clean teeth, we went to sleep in Shaiida’s bed, springs poking into our backs and cats creepily looming around the room.
At 8 am the next morning, Shaiida came into our room to wake us up since apparently Amira, Tammy, and the rest of her family wanted to start the fun early. Lindsey had a cup of coffee, though not without a lengthy discussion with Shaiida as to why she likes black coffee, and I had a huge class of water and a few puffs of my inhaler since my lungs were unhappy with the cat hair situation. Lindsey and I read a history of South Africa book and South African Elle as Shaiida took a substantive amount of time to get ready. Around 10 we made our way down to Shaiida’s mother’s house a three-minute walk away.
It was at the point that we arrived at the house that we began to learn more about the inner workings of Shaiida’s family. Essentially, her mother, Fatima, was married to her father for 42 years. He died seven years ago of a massive heart attack but left behind their three-bedroom house, as well as the house in the backyard, which has an additionally two bedrooms. Fatima currently lives in the main house with her adopted daughter who is 35, and Shaiida’s sister lives in the back house with Amira and her sister, Warda. There are two more sisters who have “career jobs” and are married. In total, Fatima has eight grandchildren: the youngest is 12 and the oldest (Shaiida’s son) is 25. Much of the weekend was spent discussing Shaiida’s child rearing methods. Waheed, her son, got married two months ago to an Indian girl from a suburb nearby. The family is Muslim and very observant. I showed Fatima pictures on my phone from visits to Israel. She loved hearing about Jerusalem and seeing pictures of the Al-Aqsa mosque. She said if she could go anywhere in the world, it would be to Al-Aqsa because their religion says they must go.
After a lengthy stay at the house, Lindsey and I were instructed to go with Tammy to the local grocery store. You must understand that in retrospect there are ellipses in the day. The family knew exactly what we were doing and where we were going. They were all coordinated on times, schedules, and locations but we were very much in the dark and it appeared serendipitous that everything was so perfectly orchestrated. The most logical explanation to this, though, was that they were probably organizing all of the activities in Afrikaans and we didn’t understand. While at the grocery store, Tammy bought cigarettes. When we left, Shaiida, Warda, and Amira were outside with another woman who we hadn’t seen before. She took the change and cigarettes from Tammy and the rest of us walked towards the taxi coordinator – a man in a Michigan hat. I forced him to take a picture with me before getting into the taxi. Taxi, by the way, does not mean yellow cab. A taxi in Africa is a mini bus that should fit 12 people but usually about 18 – 20 squish in. This taxi was no different, and Lindsey and I were shoved between Warda and Amira like sardines in the very back of the taxi, right besides the sign that read “Open the Windows, Stop the Spread of TB.”
We arrived at our destination, the mall, and exited the taxi. Apparently Tammy lived by the mall and needed to go home so we went to her house where her father showed us his backyard and plant collection. Again, ellipses, and we left the apartment without Tammy and Amira, somehow found Warda in the parking lot, and went on toward the mall. Lindsey and I informed Shaiida that we were starving, and she lead us to the McDonald’s where we treated her and Warda to some good old American fast-food for lunch. Let me tell you, a quarter-pounder with cheese is delicious no matter what continent you find yourself on.
We then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at the mall where Shaiida seemed to run into someone she knew about every three steps. In some ways, though, she reminded me of my Granny Nette, as she proceeded to speak to everyone who appeared remotely interested in talking to her. When she wasn’t talking to strangers or greeting friends, she was trying to force Lindsey to buy sweaters and other assorted articles of clothing. I left the mall with an eight-dollar top and headband, and to Shaiida’s dismay, Lindsey left empty handed.
We got into another taxi (at this point Michigan-hat-man was now conducting business at the mall) and headed back to the Ocean View area where Lindsey and I wanted to visit the farm across the street – a location that despite its proximity to Ocean View, it did not seem like Shaiida or her nieces or Tammy visited often. There were lots of animals and cute shops and camels to ride. I found myself in the food store trying all the dips and cheeses and tasting wine. Warda had, by this point, figured out my obsession with food so she stuck back with my and I bought us brownies, got us special samples of dips, and accidentally stole two candies.
As we left the farm, everyone was complaining about their feet hurting and Lindsey and I were exhausted since, don’t forget, we had been up since eight. We dropped Warda off at home, and the rest of us continued on to Shaiida’s apartment. Lindsey and I passed out, and the rest of them cooked us dinner. We woke up, ate delicious pasta, and then Shaiida insisted we go get some “drinks” so that we would dance with her later on. While we were walking to go get the “bottles” as Tammy referred to them, I noticed many men outside of Shaiida’s building appearing to breath into milk bags (think: Israeli shocko b’sakit). I was so confused as to what they were all doing, but decided to let it go. The place to buy the alcohol was outside Ocean View in an even sketchier area. Shaiida insisted on staying in the street since Muslims aren’t allowed to drink and she didn’t want anyone in her family or community to see her there (even though she was the one that insisted we go get alcohol…). Once we finished this, Lindsey and I asked if we could stop at the store and get some chocolate, assuming that this store would be the same place we went earlier on in the day to get the cigarettes for Fatima. But as we walked, that store came and went, and the place where Tammy led us to buy chocolate was someone’s living room. The “shop” had what we wanted, though, so there were no complaints from us.
We returned to the apartment area, and the people breathing into the bags were still there, but the number of them had multiplied. At this point, Tammy explained that they were huffing glue, that the guys around the corner were smoking “dagga” (marijuana mixed with some unknown “tablet”), that we had passed a drug deal about ten steps earlier, and that the men about 10 yards away from us were drinking “moonshine.” As she recounted the various illicit activities occurring within a 15 yard radius, the fervor with which I briskly ran towards the house was similar to me seeing a rodent in my vicinity.
Shaiida, at this point, turned on the music loud enough so that we could not hear ourselves talk. She told us, in a volume louder than the music, that she could get through anything in her life with music: her three divorces, abuse, rape, raising her son alone, etc…Things were getting heavy and Lindsey and I were at a loss for words. I think it was at this point that we awkwardly looked at each other, at a loss for words, shoved more chocolate into our mouths, and began dancing with Shaiida. Lindsey was clearly her favorite dancer, so I moved off to the side and cheered them on…my white, Jewish genes gave my a lot of good qualities but an ass to shake and rhythm to know how to move are not two of those qualities. As the night went on, Shaiida performed many a dance number alone, not without telling a story or two about an ex husband or boyfriend. Let us not forget the explanation that she wears purple because she is sexually frustrated and according to Shaiida, purple is the color for sexual frustration.
As Shaiida’s energy waned, she brought out her jewelry box and jewelry making tools and made us earrings with beads of lions and zebras that we had bought earlier that day in the mall. We assumed that this would be all the jewelry she was going to make for us. At this point, you would think that the assumptions would stop since every assumption we had made was dispelled and alas this situation was no different. Shaiida spent the rest of the night making us bracelets and earrings. Mine were all finished by the time we went to sleep, but we were too tired to wait up for Lindsey’s. A little while before we went to sleep, a toothless man came in to get empty beer bottles, and returned a while later with them filled. He eerily resembled some of our glue huffing pals from outside... We eventually retired to our bedroom, lying there fearing that the glue huffers would get in, recounting the days absurd activities, and all I could picture was my dad being so unbelievably pissed about the danger we had unknowingly put ourselves in. We drifted off to sleep, Tammy, Amira, and Shaiida laughing in the next room while the music continued pumping long after we fell asleep.
I woke up this morning to the sound of Shaiida peeing in the connecting bathroom, but was so worn out from the day before that I pretended to sleep for another solid hour. My toes were freezing but I could not find my socks, only to find out later that the cats had some how gotten them out of our bed and were playing with them in the bathroom. Lindsey needed to wash her hair, so that provided us with a good laugh as she washed her hair in the tubsink with only one water temperature setting: freezing. After getting dressed and packing up our things, we went out to the den and ate a delicious lunch of chicken curry, two different types of rice, and what we could only understand to be “mince,” what tasted like very well spiced hamburger sliders. Lindsey and I ate with forks, but the others ate with their hands, which is apparently a Muslim custom. Shaiida was convinced that the Jews do this to but I told her my mother and grandparents would most likely cut my hands off if I used them as utensils.
As we left the apartment, Shaiida presented Lindsey with her completed bracelet. She explained that it was purple because she knew that Lindsey was sexually frustrated since her boyfriend was all the way in the States. We arrived at Fatima’s house and the entire family was there…aunts, uncles, cousins, Shaiida’s son and daughter in law, their apparently mute cleaning lady, and three cats. More food was served, of course to be eaten with their hands, and many questions were asked about where we are from, our families, schooling, impressions of South Africa, etc. We were asked to come back many times, but not before the end of Ramadaan, which starts tomorrow. As the festivities drew to a close, I insisted we take a picture in front of the house with the entire family because, of course, I am my grandmother’s descendent. We gave hugs all around and promised to return, grabbed our things, and headed for the high school where we boarded the bus and headed back to Rondebosch.
The weekend was absurd, but it was so nice the way that the family welcomed us into their home. Some things I have left out include the many conversations about “stupid coloured people” who remove their four front teeth for increased pleasure during oral sex and their sincere disdain for black African people living in South Africa. Before we left, the director of our program said that we would never forget this weekend and I now understand what he meant. The only explanation for it all, as it always seems to be is: TIA – This, Is, Africa.
Ramadaan mubarak, my loyal followers-
Talia
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