I have one week left in South Africa.

Most of the people from our program are landing in the United States right now, and I am traveling with friends around Cape Town for the next week.

I walk the streets of this city with a heavy heart. The reality of home.. is just that, real.

Time to remember how to use that American money that has been sitting in my wallet for four months.

I find myself in a comfortable and familiar position, with pages to write and distractions pouring down like rain. 

I try not to eat the bait. But now, for a minute, I’m just going to write a bit and let my work rest. 

Last night I tossed and turned more than usual. My dreams were vivid and real. As I slept I watched my trip to South Africa like it was a movie. Day by day, event by event flashing before my shut eyes. I would wake up, only to fall instantly back asleep to my South Africa screen shots. 

You see, I have two and a half weeks left in this amazing, troubled, inspiring, wonderful country. It’s hard to reconcile this fact. 

Half of me cannot wait to get off the plane, buy a bagel and sit in American happiness and “bliss” if only for three months (Until that nasty senior year sneaks up on me..). 

The other half battles the content American. This country has opened its arms to me, and I have accepted the embrace. Even days that drag are amazing, the days when things all seem go to wrong and high school students talk about history being pointless (it happens, and makes “blood boiling” more than a simple phrase) are still filled with a simple joy of new things, and new discoveries. 

I am trapped between these two mentalities, I am reminded of the German art therapist and the clay. These two have to go together, they’re both in me, but so opposite. Can I be ready to leave and dragged to the plane all at once? 

I’ll let this battle continue inside me for awhile. I know I’ll board that plane with no regrets and tears in my eyes. But I also know, just like coming here, in going home, there’s no turning back. 

But for now, well, they’re all good days here in South Africa.. and I’m not planning to count them away any time soon. 

I realize the entries have slowed to a halt during the past few weeks.

Explanation is as follows:

I am in my Independent Study period of my study abroad, this means that I am guiding my own research for a month and then writing a big fat impressive paper at the end. Well, that’s the hope- we’ll see what happens. 

So my time is currently taken up with watching kids do art and talking shit with teachers at this school:

http://www.glenwoodhighschool.co.za/

look it up, it’s the nicest high school I have ever seen in my life. We have tea breaks! What!

But I have lots of things to say and as the week goes on and work becomes more real I am sure I will have more updates to share.

I am sitting with a German art therapist.

Clay in our hands talking about our duel personalities.

She goes first. Her clay balls fight one another. I laugh and look compassionate as she explains the part of herself she loves and doesn’t love.

This exercise seems a little foolish to me. She’s asking adults (and me) to play with clay, to have the clay fight with itself. She wants us to make a puppet show of sorts.

She ends her story and it’s my turn. I sigh and look at the two figures I have made in my hands.

The figures don’t get along, and I struggle trying to explain what I am thinking.

Before I know it the two balls have become one, and my eyes have betrayed me letting small tears fall down.

She laughs.

“looks like you needed this”.

I nod, looks like it.

But there’s something here, in this moment that is striking. The past two days I have had moments with near strangers. I have had people look and me and just see right through my bullshit.

It’s overwhelming to say the least.

Because when people can see through your lies there’s no where to hide.

Sometimes, I like to hide.

We laugh and add the clay back in to the bag.

It seems, there’s something to this whole art therapy thing. And here I was just thinking I was researching it. 

The lighting is this store is horrible. I have spent little time in stores like these since coming to South Africa. I am now reminded why.

Rows and rows of clothing with little to no organization. But the flicker or the neon light.

It’s getting to me.

I am with strangers. Once again. And we made a quick stop before continuing on our drive. I am standing with a woman I have known for less than five minutes and she asks me what I think of a shirt she’s holding.

I like the navy blue better.

I suggest. I’ve always liked darker clothing.

She shrugs,

I don’t want that one because they only have small. With small you can see my bones and people will know I have HIV.

She walks away.

The light flickers again.

Reality smacks me in the face. And we’re back on the road.  

Today I leave for a local prison. At this prison I will be attending a conference with art therapists and professionals in the field. 

Here I will learn about art programs in the prisons and learn first hand how these programs are led. 

I will return in a few weeks to see prisoners do the lessons we are learning about for the next two days. 

Oh did I mention I am doing this for free?

Or that I am considered one of the attendees, as though I am a professional. 

Someone hit me, hard, because none of this is real anymore.

I am in the Drakensberg Mountain Range,

at a music festival, 

which I am working at, 

and attending for free,

in South Africa. 

I have spent the past three nights working, listening to music, and drinking beer. Having conversations with the wealthy and racist, the hippies, the old fogies, and young teens. The reality of my situation is unreal. I am far away from the city I now call home. The city which holds my computer, and an empty word document waiting for me to fill it with words by the end of the week. School is a distant memory, and school in the United States.. does that even happen anymore?

I walk back from a show and it’s late. Maybe one thirty in the morning. I am alone, and enjoying it. I begin my walk quickly, it’s cold here and for the first time in two and a half months I need a jacket. 

But I slow down, and remind myself.

Stop Mary. You’re in South Africa. 

A thought that believe it or not does not go through my head very frequently. 

I need to remind myself every now and then that I am here, in this country, thousands of miles away from home and any form of comfort I have developed for 21 years. 

The stars are bright, perhaps the brightest I have ever seen.

(but maybe that’s the bias talking again..)

I take a seat on the bridge over the river, feeling immediately at home. Water being a constant in my life for as long as I can remember, 

Looking up I remember that I am here. 

It’s hard to believe most times. I need someone to pinch me on an hourly basis. Maybe even hit me, to remind me where I am. How did I get here? On that plane the last thing I imagined was a river, stars, and music in the distance. But what I imagined could never describe what has happened. 

 I’m a lucky kid and doing some crazy stuff. 

I’m not cold anymore, in fact, I feel quite warm.

Something that has gone completely unmentioned in this blog is the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa. 

Why? Is it because the world cup is not that big of a deal? Or my life has nothing to do with this event?

Well, no, faithful readers, it is not because of any of this. Let me enlighten you to the best of my ability. 

FIFA 2010 is omnipresent. So much so that my mentioning of it seems unnecessary- it’s everywhere here, so why wouldn’t everyone know that? Every aspect of South Africa has a FIFA twist, chips, soda, laundry soap, soccer balls, clothing. Everything is World Cup flavored. It is so present that no one actually says FIFA 2010 World Cup- it’s simply 2010. To say 2010 you’re simply talking about the world cup, no way someone will be mentioning something else occurring in 2010. It’s just the Cup, or Bafana Bafana (South Africa’s team).

Every city we’ve traveled to we’ve seen their stadium, each city claiming they’re ready, prepared, and excited for the event. But something is missing in all of these statements. 

For you see, to my knowledge, the majority of the money is going directly to FIFA. South Africa will only see funds from hotels and tourists in and around the cities, which will still be a plentiful amount of money- but not the kind of massive revenue we’re talking about from the ticket sales. 

On top of this FIFA has sent down direct orders that all local vendors must be a certain distance from the fields, only FIFA official sellers may be on the streets. Street children are being moved to local suburbs for the month that the foreign wealthy wander the roads. Local market areas are threatened by destruction in order to bring in big malls just for 2010. 

There is a consistent wonder of who is this going to help? Where is the real South Africa in all of this? And when the tourists leave what will South Africa be left with? Massive amounts of trash and huge stadiums to fill with local games, with a lingering hope that the 2020 Olympics will come here. I can see it now… local artists already working on sketches for tourists to come in ten years. 

Now, it’s anecdote time. 

This past Monday me and the other SIT students found our way to the Moses Mabhida stadium for the Cheifs v. Pirates soccer game. Two teams from the nationwide soccer league, both from Soweto. 

I chose to support the Pirates, an obvious choice in my mind seeing as the great respect and appreciation my family has for pirating. I bought myself a ten rand flag outside and was jumping around thrilled to enter the stadium. 

The stadium itself is beautiful. Perhaps my love for Durban has biased me but I find it by far the best of all the stadiums built for 2010. In the back of my mind I can hear a voice reminded me that millions were spent on this stadium, millions will visit, and not a cent will go to education, HIV awareness and prevention, health, government.. anything. I silence the voices and continue to skip in, if there’s anything a sea of American students love- it’s a live sports game. 

The sight, well, it’s simply incredible. Thousands and thousands of fans filling the stadium laughing and singing, waving their flags, face painted, hats, jerseys, the whole thing. I am comfortable here, and enjoying myself. 

The game starts and you can hardly hear any announcements made over the intercom. Fans for both teams surround us and we quickly catch on to chants and movements. Not a frown in sight, everyone here paid 40R to just sit back, and enjoy. 

The Chiefs win, but I have faith that the Pirates will come back— for that’s just what Pirates do.

We exit the game into utter pandemonium, twenty plus groups of people singing and dancing-so proud- as though they themselves have won the game. The energy is high and the excitement even higher. 

It’s not the World Cup, but it could be. Smiling faces of South Africans everywhere. I can’t help but let my mind wander to the first Bafana Bafana game, if they win (which I hope they do) the country will go crazy. 

Right now, in this moment of jumping, screaming, and yelling, none of the money matters. The happiness does.

This country has it’s problems, a bunch of them. But something that needs to be noted is the pride and pain of this country. It’s a pain that I do not know, but can see. Generations hurt by apartheid and suffering, a nation with faulty government, lost leaders, and a tumultuous future.

 But along with this, is the beauty in the pride of most South Africans I meet. Faces beaming when I explain I have taken Zulu class, and am studying their past. Smiles in describing this country they have grown up in, love, and hate, all at once. 

Bafana Bafana, well, they’re bad. The team has little chance to go far in the world cup- honestly, it’s looking dismal. But looking around the country you would never guess. It’s hard to go somewhere and not see a smiling face on top of a yellow and green jersey. Kids laugh playing soccer saying one day they’ll be on the team. They’re heroes among many, despite lack of skill and chance. 

I am torn when it comes to the World Cup. After everything I learn I can’t help but think “if they only had money, if funding was there- then..”. You get the idea. Millions of dollars, billions of rand, being dropped to make these stadiums. And for what? I suppose the what is up for people to decide. I do believe that sports have the ability to unite and excite thousands. I do not know if that will happen with this world cup. I know that businesses are in danger, and holding on. But if they can hold on, and Bafana Bafana can just win one game, there will be a smile on that business owners face. 

And that one smile, will be mimicked by thousands of smiles. 

And well, I just think South Africa deserves a chance to smile, if only for a little bit. 

I stand in a train boxcar surrounded by boxes and piles of textbooks.  My task: to organize all of the books in front of me in to subjects and grade levels. This task feels impossible as I look at the piles upon piles, but I have a competitive nature and challenge myself to get through all of these books.

This competitive nature often works against me, but I allow it to fill my body, I can feel it run through my veins.

Or could that just be the heat?

Regardless, I am ready for the challenge. I tackle pile after pile. Looking at all of these textbooks in awe.

Growing up I remember those donation bins for books that children were done with. There was always some sort of murmuring that we would donate our textbooks once they were no good for our classrooms anymore. I didn’t think much about such drives, never attaching a location or classrooms to the donations.

As I sit shoulder high in books it becomes abundantly clear that places like this boxcar end up with the books. The donations come here, and teachers can come buy textbooks for their classrooms.

All through my public education I do not remember ever having to buy a textbook. With all the stress of school supplies and new pencils my parents never had to open their pockets to pay the ninety dollars for my Glen McGraw textbook.

Parents have to here. On top of school fees (for public schools mind you) and uniforms, books need to be purchased as well. This is asking a lot of families and most students go without. So, their teachers come here. Spending money out of their own pockets to supply their classroom with American textbooks. Hoping that this will inspire kids to learn, pass matric, and avoid those nasty looming statistics.

Would my teachers have done the same for me? I am sure some would have, those great inspiring teachers who honestly care about the class and education. The teachers who see one student understanding the subject better and feel like they’ve really done it. They would have bought the books.

However, in many cases those teachers are few and far between, and I think I could have spent many a year bookless.

But I didn’t. I got my books and continued on in my education not thinking much about it.

The boxcar is hot, but a cool breeze blows in every now and then, reminding me how much of I have truly grown to adore fresh winds.

Looking down I see my high school pre calculus book staring right back up at me. The tennis player on the cover mocking me, as if this subject was like a fun game of tennis. The book looks worn and I have a growing sense that it is, in fact, my book. I open the front cover excited.

Looking down the list of names there is no Mary Hackett present among the many other American names. I laugh thinking about the trip this book took to get here, and how all the American students who held this book in their hands have no idea where it currently is.

Our book is here. It’s in my hands, in South Africa, at a Library in the outskirts of Durban, in a boxcar.

Odd days here in SA.

I am standing on top of a hill. It looks down on to Durban’s city lights, the beach, homes, roads, people, and their lives. This place is called the “end of the world” and one can’t help but feel powerful while standing up here. 

I want to yell to the nothingness. Scream. Alert the world, and the view, that I am here. 

I don’t.

As I look down my body feels warm, the beer, it seems, has begun to work. 

I turn around and look at the pickup truck that got me to this peak, the near strangers we now call family, and my friends chuckling along with me. This craziness, is my normal. It’s my day to day. 

I wake up in the morning with a rough schedule of what we’ll be doing. This schedule never includes how I will be feeling and how much we’ll be learning. It never includes the emotional strength and power we absorb through lectures, trips, or experiences. It never explains what you’ll feel as you stand at the end of the world, looking down at a city you now call home. It never explains that when you get home you’ll be put in to a truck with your friends and drive around having the air sweep around you. It never comments on the freedom, or the lack thereof. Never notes the sheer happiness, shock, and thrill. 

Normal is hard to define in general. I know that what I do every day does not fit in to any vague definition of normal that I had before I left. But here, with this view, things feel… normal. And this sort of normal, well it feels great.

while in Rural.. 

Our long drop resembled what I imagine a fallout shelter from a 1940’s war torn Europe would look like. Sheets of metal angled together to make a hut. Inside lay a toilet made entirely out of clay and cement.

Now I have used outhouses before, I can camp with the best of them. But this contraption was different. My first experience in the long drop went well, and though I feared what lie beneath I was able to get in and get out. I realized that this was simply what I would be using for a week. So not getting used to it was not an option.

I began to find charisma in our fall out shelter, for you see, it really had character. There were gaps in the roof so a cool night breeze could blow in and out. To your left there were two holes the perfect size for eyes; I could look out in the morning and watch the sun start to light up the sky.

The long drop became a friend, and I found my time in it quite nice. I even gave it a nickname, the LD, a term of personal endearment to this foreign bathroom hut.

But, when my older sister came back from Durban, the LD and my relationship began to change dramatically. Sisi, it seems, was quite the character. She was 21 years old, and loved to quiz us about what Zulu words we didn’t know, as well as yell at us to dance, follow her, finish our dinner, the list goes on and on. She was what some people may call crazy.

Our first night with her there my roommate and I quickly found out that we would be sharing a twin bed in order to make room for Sisi in our hut. While a discomfort, I decided that I was fine with this plan and would make do. At least we had a bed to sleep on.

This same night I realized I needed to go to the toilet; I got out my flashlight and started to walk to the LD. I noticed in a few paces that Sisi was following me. I assumed that she too had to go to the bathroom so I continued on my walk and approached the long drop. Sisi met me there as I began to close the metal door she too grabbed hold. I was taken aback but decided it best to not to comment or seem startled. I stood as she stood and realized she expected me to use the bathroom as she was standing there.

Uncomfortable, but when in Rome.. right? As I continued to go to the bathroom I saw Sisi squat down and tilt her head. She, it seems, was sneaking a peak. My body was still and I felt like everything for a brief minute stopped. She was staring at me, well, part of me, and I was supposed to continue. 

I awoke the next morning with a full bladder and headed down the trail to the LD. I figured that just because my experience last night was uncomfortable does not mean that this morning’s would be.

I was wrong. Sisi followed me once more and this time squatted outside the hut peaking in through the lovely peepholes. I once used these holes to watch the sun, it seems now these holes were used for watching me.

I did not quite know what to do with these interactions, write them off as cultural difference? Or a one time occurrence? Simply a funny story to tell people? 

I am still unsure, but think that something more is in this interaction then I am initially considering. The answer I suppose, will come with time. The story, however, is funny in the meantime.