Starting to Ponder

I remember how excited I was to see my first Impala with Cara. She never laughed but said I would get “used” to seeing them around! Oh how could that be? Such a beautiful animal with it’s horns majestically poised on his head, how could I ever get tired of seeing them? I never did Cara. I really can’t imagine a day when I would!

As I sit here at my desk, far from the wandering animals of South Africa, I do have a constant reminder above my desk. It is an enlargement of one of my photo from South Africa. It’s of two elephants in a meadow a large male and a smaller female. They are quite content as they grab bunches of grass in their trunks and sort of whip it up into their mouths. Even at the distance from which these photos were taken you can still see the eyes and how peaceful they are. They are not sad eyes but soulful eyes.

The brush is a light lemony green with darker thorn bushes thrown in. There is a shadow on the hill that pushes up the hill to the larger thorn trees in the full light of the sun. I remember the day this picture was taken. Cara, Stefan, Liese, Poppy and I were at Kruger Park. Those poor kids would stop at every elephant they saw for me. Keep in mind that they go to Kruger a couple of times a year and they have seen it all. There was a sparkle in their eyes when they found an animal for me to see.

As I never tired of seeing all of the animals, the kids always had a twinkle in their eyes when they found something other than a rhino-rock! For those who may not remember from the original blog, a rhino-rock is a rock formation that kind of sort of looks like a rhino! We found many of those on our wanderings.

Most of my memories of South Africa seem to go back to the animals I saw, out wandering in the open! But that’s part of the mystery of South Africa and for the continent of Africa as well for us I guess. Just as the animals have a different kind of a life, so do the people.

Middleburg is a small town that reminds me of the South during the ’60s and ‘70s. For me to sit here and say that race isn’t an issue there is foolish, just as it would be for me to say the same thing about our own country! Race is always an issue and unfortunately I can’t see that changing in my lifetime. The downtown area is hustling with people on their way to or from, stopping to see the vendors on the sidewalk to see what they have to offer.

Since blacks are 90% of the population they also occupy a large percentage of the service jobs in both Middleburg and in the country as a whole I would suspect. Most of the inhabitants speak more than 1 language and in so many cases more than 2! I’m trying to remember how many official languages they have in South Africa and the number escapes me now but there are quite a few. Most speak English as one of their languages though. I guess, at least in the areas that we were in, English was a common ground we shared.

Not all blacks are poor in South Africa just as not all whites are rich! I think this is a common misconception given the population of the country. What I found most interesting was the class struggle among the economic groups. I think it is safe to say that South Africa is still in the midst of a Reconstruction period in their history. Many things have changed since Apartheid ended some 10 or 12 years ago. They were faced with many cultural and political changes in a very short period of time. They are all still struggling with these changes. We know from our own history that change doesn’t always come easy to everyone. I think the “kids”, Cara and Liese’s generation, will come a far greater distance in a very short period of time.

I tend to equate South Africa to the years after our own Civil War ended but it’s not that simple. By the end of the Civil War, we had tamed the “Wild West” while there are still primitive cultural areas in South Africa. They haven’t tamed their “Wild West” and brought industrialization to all corners of the country. That’s one problem they face that we never did. And here is where I come very close to stepping on toes here without even wanting to, but, although things did change drastically in our own country after the Civil War ended, one thing was constant, we were still a country where the majority of the population was white. What, 150 years later we have finally elected our first black president? Oh no, we aren’t going to go there really, I use this as a contrast against South Africa where they went from white rule to black rule over night. I search back through all of the history I’ve learned trying to find a parallel to what they are going through there. I can’t find one in our own history. The world can only sit back and watch to see what will happen and how the culture will evolve.

The word Apartheid literally means “apart”. Is that any different from out own “separate but equal” period of history? As I said, they are struggling with these changes every day. The crime rate is high in South Africa. Farmers are leaving their lands and coming to the cities to make a better life for their families but there aren’t enough jobs for everyone. So I guess we all know what happens in those cases. With our current recession our jails are fuller as well!

I keep going back to the day Cara and I went to the Shangaan Village and since it was just the 2 of us, we had an opportunity to talk to the 70 some year old chief of the village. He said that many of the younger people had already left the village, his own older son had go to the city for work. They just couldn’t make it any longer in the village. The Shangaan were losing their cultural identity and it was sad. But how do you keep the “old” ways while fitting into a modern society? I guess we could ask our Amish or our Native Americans and see what they have to say! I’m thinking that it isn’t an easy task. It’s all about change and how well do we change.

In my own family history, 75% came from Europe, mostly England and France with a few Irish thrown into the mix for fun. Somewhere running around are some Cherokee but I can’t prove it. My Anglo lines pretty cut and dried and honestly boring to read about LOL It’s the Native American connection I’d like to make and let that become part of my personal history! I mention this because I have to wonder how many of those leaving the farms are going to miss those ways in a generation or two. You can’t have progress without giving up something though.

You may notice that I write these words with a series of checks and balances. I know that things are different there in South Africa but are they really a lot different from here? Every one is just trying to make it through to the next day. I'm still pondering my visit and my experiences in South Africa and now that you started to ask me more I guess I have to figure this out with you along!

If you have questions, please email me privately at: sewamused@aol.com and let's see if we can all figure the answers out.... I'm not totally sure of what you want to hear about.