Last
weekend, I lived with a mother and her grown-up daughter in Ocean View, an area
that, despite its name, has no view of the ocean. I’ve been on many home stays
before, but I was particularly nervous about this one because it was my first
home stay where the host family spoke my native language. I couldn’t say “no
entiendo, lo siento” whenever I didn’t want to answer an awkward or
uncomfortable question. Although I was nervous, I was still very excited to see
a new area, live in a different house, and get a glimpse of a different way of
life for a weekend.
On Thursday night
we learned a few ballroom dance steps from the community’s ballroom instructor, a
father who wanted to share his passion for dance with his kids and help them
stay off the streets at night. It was amazing to see how dedicated the kids were
to their craft, and how nice they were to us in not laughing at our attempts to
copy them.
I was a
little nervous about going to the pool with the children on Friday,
because two big parts of my identity are “not a swimmer” and “not a kid
person.” I realize that human beings can’t be “not a kid person” in the way
that they can be “not a dog person,” but I mean to say that even though I’ve
worked with kids for over a quarter of my life, interacting with them usually
stresses me out. Still, it was nice to see them lose their minds as soon as
they saw the kiddie pool in Muizenberg. Since most of them had never been to a
pool before, they didn’t have bathing suits and instead just wore underwear,
which was weirdly culture-shocking for me as I grew up in a very anti-naked
family. It was cool to see them having fun with the resources that they did
have.
On Saturday,
my house mom Auntie Netta’s daughter took my roommate Mary and I to Fish Hoek
by minibus taxi. Auntie Netta was born in Fish Hoek and was forced to leave
because of the Group Areas Act, and now she can only go on weekends. After we walked
in and out of a few stores and saw the beach, we headed back to the apartment
in Ocean View before the organizer, Chantel, took us to see Simon’s Town,
another area that people were forced out of due to their race and is now a
popular and classy-seeming destination for tourists. Later that night, we
watched soapies with Auntie Netta and her daughter. It wasn’t my most thrilling Saturday night
ever, but I did learn a little bit. For instance, Telemundo’s telenovelas
dubbed in English are just as popular as American soap operas here. The South
African soapies can include up to three languages, and are almost always
subtitled in English. Nigeria has a fairly productive film industry, and while
I could have done most of their special effects with Powerpoint in seventh
grade, their themes often involve interesting dichotomies like royal traditions
and modernity, or urbanization and rural life.
Auntie
Netta was very eager to share personal stories and give life advice. I found
myself impulsively internally disagreeing with much of her religious and
familial advice, and tried to force my mind open as she spoke about family and
God being more important than money and individual success. The more time I
spend here and the more older people I speak with, the more I realize just how
American I am. My idea of helping my family is making a lot of money when I’m
older so that I can pay back my parents for everything that they’ve given me,
and help those people in my family who can’t necessarily help themselves. I don’t
feel like I compromise my own major life opportunities to spend more time with
them, but as I pried my mind open I realized that it’s completely valid and
sensible to put family above work. As an almost-21-year-old, I’ve believed that
my views of life are pretty set-in-stone and it’s dangerous to try to change
them at this point. I’ve built my future up to this point on the goal of having
a successful career and never really factored family into that goal, and my
conversations with Auntie Netta made me realize that I’ve blocked myself off to
views that contradict the vital importance of careers and individual success.
Now that I’m aware of this, I hope I can be more open-minded going forward.
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