Not "Xhosa" with a "K"

South Africa has 11 official languages. English is the language spoken predominantly in professional and commercial settings, whites of Dutch decent and most colored populations (South African colored, not American “colored people”) generally speak Afrikaans, and Zulu is the predominant indigenous language. However, in the Western Cape province where I live in Cape Town, Xhosa is the predominant indigenous language and can be overheard quite a lot on a daily basis.

Xhosa is distinguishable by its clicks of which there are three (originally, there were five clicks but two were washed out through the processes of colonization – the dominance and control of colonization results in the mother tongue being stolen out of the mouths of the colonized). Some of the other “official” South African languages incorporate some amount of popping and clicking, but Nava is taking a Xhosa class at the moment and is teaching me, so it’s the one I know the most about. (on a side note, most African Studies PhD programs in the states require that their students know an indigenous African language so I’m scouting languages in preparation - kind of).

The first most difficult thing about Xhosa is actually learning how to say “Xhosa” correctly. The majority of non-Xhosa speaking people pronounce Xhosa the lazy way (the way I’ve been saying it for years), which is to say it like “Kho-sa”, however, most X’s in Xhosa are pronounced with a click as follows:

 X = sucking the side of the tongue to the side teeth and palate and pulling it away quickly

       “Xhosa”

 C = This click is produced by pressing the front of the tongue where the front palate and the front teeth meet and pulling away 

        “Cela” (to ask for)

 Q = sucking the front of the tongue to the front of the palate and pulling it away rapidly to produce a popping sound

          “Qala” (start)

the Law Ball and others

Because I loaded the pictures to blogspot incorrectly, this blog entry should actually be viewed from the bottom to the top (if you're interested in getting an accurate chronology of events).

Text I got from Tabs around 8pm: "Ppl r friendly i'm trying to be elegant very drunk"

"Elegant" was her mantra for the night and I think she pulled it off.

Tabs kept calling us her "moms" because we wouldn't let her get out the door before posing for pictures.

Because this is Tabitha's last year of law, her law class hosted a "law ball". Tabs is unconventional by every means of the word, so in this picture, Nava is using her Indian expertise to dress Tabs in this beautiful sari. The Sunday night before, Nava drew henna on my feet and Tab's hands to match her Indian look. 

Also, it must be mentioned that at one point Nava had forgotten a step in the sari application, so we referred to an episode of The Office called "Diwali" to refresh her memory. This may have been the only instance in my life when my favorite TV show has been of practical use :)

This is my friend Bongani, he's also in my masters program. 

UCT sponsored an Earth Week and on this night there was a bar offering half-price admission to patrons wearing green. We thought this green flower might work for him, but Bongani ultimately did not agree to wear this thing in public. He did however wear Nava's green bracelet and got in half-price. I should probably tell him that I have a blog, and that he's made an appearance...

Brett Murray's white African art

Brett Murray is this Cape Town artist that my roommate introduced me to awhile back. He's a white South African who addresses the difficult question of "white Africaness" in most of his work. He likes to juxtapose ideas and play with pop culture icons as you shall see. I wrote a paper about his work last semester for my Public Culture in Africa class and thought I'd share some of his work.

"send my regards to your tribal elders"

"could all of you who are white and think you are African... stand to one side please"

This is Murray dressed up as a Zulu warrior at age 8. Murray says "the comic and the tragic walk hand in hand in this sad and hilarious country" - this picture helps me understand what he means when he says this.


"I must learn to speak Xhosa"

a marvel outside my window

Tabitha: "we live in a bubble"
me: "yep"

Spring time in SA

September 1st is "spring day" in South Africa. I'm still confused as to whether this marks a national holiday, or the actual beginning of spring. I was under the impression that spring would begin in the Southern Hemisphere at the same time that fall begins in the Northern Hemisphere. Either way, the first 8 days of "spring" have proven to be as equally cold and wet as "winter." To this effect, I am spending my spring break week cooped up in the library research commons researching the first installation of my dissertation - so it really doesn't matter what's going on outside.

In other news...
This school year I've been working as a mentor with a UCT student-run organization called Inkanyezi. The program is in its second year and is premised on the idea of encouraging and providing local 11th and 12th graders with the resources to research and apply to post-high school programs of study or work training (in a country where the unemployment rate sits at 40% this area of work is pertinent). There are about 150 student volunteers and three times a week, groups of mentors take "information centers" i.e. lap tops, mobile internet modems and printers into low-income or township high schools around Cape Town. In addition to the information center, mentors are assigned approx. 8 learners to provide them with direct guidance and support.

Last Monday was my last meeting with my group of 11th grade learners at a high school in the township of Phillipe. The school year is not over yet but the learners will be going into a series of intense examinations over the next couple of months so we cut the program a little short. By working with the learners directly, I learned a lot about a lot of stuff - which I will not go into here - but mostly about the limitations of the South African education system to supply poor schools with the staff and educational resources that they need. However, I wanted to share this in order to relay a victory I've had this year:
I started this program being very cautious of the demographics of the organization. I knew we'd be going into predominantly black schools and I did not want to be part of a group that was comprised of white middle-class people showing the poor blacks how things were done in the capitalising, "real world" (South Africa and Africa in general is FULL of these organizations). That said, I found Inkanyezi to be a very diverse program comprised of international students, South African students who understand the challenges in post-Apartheid schooling and students who have come from "disadvantaged" backgrounds and want to help others get out of those situations. Despite all of this concern for diversity, I still found myself, a white middle-class girl going into the township school trying to encourage the youths. If you know me, then you know that this reality is almost painful for me - and it stiffened me like a board on my first day. I had 8 11th grade girls sitting around a table staring at me and I had completely forgotten what it was like to be an 11th grade girl. Instead, I let the disparity of economic and life differences get between us and I flailed - at least I thought I'd flailed. The next couple of meetings the same girls kept coming back. Despite the fact that there was the same painful silences in our conversations/me talking and posing questions, they continued to come back.
As other learners dropped out of the program, and our Monday group went from 60 learners to 12 on the last day of meeting last week, I can proudly proclaim that my group remained fully intact to the end. Other mentors came and went and switched around learners, but I showed up every week and so did my group. Why? it's still a mystery to me. As far as I could tell by their silence, they were bored stiff by me, but their persistence might prove that maybe they did get something out of it. I certainly learned that the youths today just need some consistency. I think they knew that I'd be there for them and that counted for something - I know it counted to me to see their faces every week.

who's interested in travelling to Africa this fall?

I've mentioned him in previous posts, but my mentor Prexy Nesbitt, will be bringing a group of people to parts of Southern Africa this November. As a past participant of his trips, I fully recommend them. This particular trip sounds like it would be a good experience for mothers and daughters to take together.
A benefit of traveling with Prexy, is that you get to meet his important and famous friends. Anyone's who has traveled with him before, knows what I mean by this. After 40 years of work on the continent Prexy's list of colleagues is quite extensive and impressive. For instance, members of this journey will have a meeting with Graca Machel. In addition to being a wonderful advocate for children's rights, and the chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Grace is also married to Nelson Mandela - cool!
So far I know that the trip is from November 19- December 1, traveling to South Africa and Mozambique, possibly Swaziland

If you have further questions, or would like the write up of this trip, Steve is helping Prexy organize and can be emailed at: Kaya41083@gmail.com

settings...

Hi everyone,

I changed a setting on my "comments" section that I think will allow all users to comment on my blogs. Please try it out and see if it works. Otherwise, the blogspot.com authorities will be receiving a rigidly worded email from me about their service. I have a way with words...