James Butler, a long-term World Vision supporter, is in South Africa right now. Take a look at the first instalment of his blog as he reflects on the joy and challenges of being back there.
We’ve travelled a lot before, so we were ready for the flurry of activity, sorting out injections, travel money and anti-malaria tablets. But this time it is all wrapped up in the excitement of seeing Dieketseng. How will she react to meeting us? How will we react to seeing her and her family? Our packing list was extended – what gifts could we take that would be appropriate for a fifteen year old from a totally different culture?
And then there were the other gifts kindly donated by friends and acquaintances – some used football kit for children in the project, some pens and pencils for the schools, where we know resources are so limited. And perhaps most bizarrely, an advent calendar from our primary school (yes, it is August) because they had come up in correspondence earlier this year with Dieketseng, so we had to take an example to explain. Thank God we convinced BA to give us some extra baggage allowance!
Touching down in Africa
After a long flight, watching the whole continent pass below us on the in-flight map, finally we land at O R Tambo airport and we’re in South Africa. Returning after a few years, we can see the improvements made in infrastructure – the airport buildings are massively improved and all the facilities rival Heathrow. Luckily, this time the baggage handlers are not on strike and we are soon on our way towards Limpopo.
Once clear of the airport and the city outskirts, all those things one forgets about South Africa come flooding back. Everywhere is brown – such a contrast to green and verdant Oxfordshire and an indication of how water is a scarce resource here. Attitudes to personal safety are so very different – one rarely sees pedestrians, or animals, on the M4 at home, but here both are common place. And, most heart-wrenching of all, are the townships – mile after mile of tin shacks, clearly lacking sanitation and providing a desperate environment to raise a family. Such a contrast to our air-conditioned comfort in our rented SUV.
The Sugar Man
Buying gifts for a sponsored child is a moral minefield. We have so much and, materially at least, they do not. What would be a small sum for us would be a significant sum for them. But we want to be sensitive, to not appear ostentatious or patronising. Perhaps that’s our Britishness? Unfailingly worried about being polite, about doing the ‘right thing’.
All of that is a long-winded way of explaining why we ended up at the Sugar Man this afternoon. We had bought some little gifts for Dieketseng, but had learnt from a previous visit that useful household items made good gifts for the family. The Sugar Man is the trading store that sells the sorts of food rural black South Africans eat every day. This was nothing like Tescos or Waitrose. Essentially a warehouse unit, there were no frills and goods were just stacked on racking from floor to ceiling. That air of chaos which permeates much of African commerce was certainly in abundance. But the owner (Afrikaans and a symbol of the economic apartheid that seems to pervade longer than the abandoned political apartheid) was very helpful and was keen to ensure we created a box of provisions that would serve Dieketseng’s family for weeks to come.
And this was post-apartheid South Africa in a nutshell. Theoretically equal, but systemically divided on colour lines. The Afrikaaner shop owner was full of respect for us, probably the first white customers she had had this year. Yet she barked orders at her black staff, physically punched one of them at one point and left us embarrassed and awkward that the poor staff had taken this abuse in order to serve us. When you live in a liberal circle of friends in multicultural Britain, you just cannot understand how someone’s character changes instantly, purely on the basis of skin colour. And I am sure she didn’t know she was doing it.
Now well-stocked with gifts we were ready to visit Dieketseng and her family. I’ll tell you all about our wonderful reunion in our next blog.
In the mean time if you’ve got any questions for us about South Africa or our trip please feel free to post them below and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Any views or opinions contained in this blog are those of the individual author and do not necessarily represent those of World Vision.
dear james, thank you for taking time out to let us know about your visit. very interesting reading. and i look forward very much to your next installment. i sponsor a young girl in SA as well and often wonder what i can send her so any suffestions are grayefully recieved !!
The shop owner punched one of her staff?? But that’s ridiculous behaviour! Talk about how not to do things!! I was also flabbergasted when a woman I used to know, who had been born and grown up as a white girl in SA, looked sniffily at my very useful enamel kitchen plates and said, referring to black South African people, “The servants use that sort of thing”… And a black-heritage South African lady once told me that white employers would command their black domestic workers to pick up any item which the employer dropped, rather than bending down to pick it up themselves. I could hardly believe things could be so weird in modern times. But, on the bright side, I’m delighted to be sponsoring a boy in Kodumela – he’s a black boy who has albinism, so his colouring is white. He’s absolutely gorgeous, and a living example of how colour truly shouldn’t matter at all! I hope you can meet him too. Have a wonderful trip and thanks so much for sharing it with us.
Pingback: Cool Teenagers and Fun Photos in South Africa « World Vision UK Blog
Dear James & Bev
How fantastic to hear about your trip already, I guess Lucy is her pet name, waiting to hear about the disabled center and anything else you have visited.
How is Carol’s cultivator doing, is it still working and does it get borrowed from the APD to do other gardens?
All the best Liz Butcher
I happened upon this article and it broke my heart. it really is only a snapshot of south africa and particularly of an awful brand of PERSON not soley white south african. living abroad now i have come to see that this kind of ignorant behaviour is not particular to white south africans…there are others of caucasian descent who behave in an equally appalling (perhaps more well hidden for political correctness) way…not to mention other groupings who lack a basic intercultural comprehension…and that their are white south africans who are proud of their heritage and are working very hard to change society (globally and locally). i hope that you managed to meet some of those south africans whose stories make me home-sick for that amazing country almost every single day