March to Barcs: Goodbye, Cape Town

We’re sitting in the airport and the plane is already boarding for Dubai, but Natalia thinks I can write the blogpost before anything happens. She is wrong, because we just flew from Cape Town to Dubai, then hiked through a mile of airport and security and security again, and now we’re on our final flight. We’ll be seeing you all in 14 short hours.

We’ve been saying our goodbyes for the last two days and the students have found every opportunity to hug and cry. We had a final picnic in the Company Gardens last night, the mama’s braai the night before that, and then all of HFB showed up at the airport to wish us goodbye, and cry cry cry. Mimi would say, I’ll get a bucket for your tears and then we can compare them.

Today we went to the Kirstenbosch Gardens for an exquisite wander at the base of Table Mountain, every path and hill cut and shaped and planted for botanical representation and beauty, and there, in our final moments amidst the careful growth, students gathered concluding thoughts.

Perhaps the widest insight from the other side of the world and township experience is an appreciation for historical understanding and learning. Very deeply, our Roosevelt students stated in various ways the importance of history and the political power of honest witness. Steep yourself in the literature and vestiges of Apartheid and then go to a place where its effects are starkly written into a segregation of geography, language and culture, and then ferry back and forth between all-black, all-improvised township and all-white/colored, all-cultivated suburb, and talk across different generations and hear Afrikaners say, over and over in different ways, the past is the past while teenage Xhosa-speakers aren’t sure what you mean by Apartheid; and it becomes very evident that a lack of historical perspective contributes to the legacies of Apartheid, physically and spiritually remaining deeply, invisibly entrenched. But in culture and in circumstance, its easy to see and react to only symptoms, for which the sufferer is likely to receive most blame.

Roosevelt students in their final reflections observed over and over the disconnect between the history of Apartheid and current tensions and patterns. “It’s so boring!” Dani paraphrased from some conversation with Bellville students. “Why do we have to keep talking about things that happened in the past? It’s time to live in the present.” Zanzi captured a similar attitude: “The only reason segregation is still an issue is because blacks don’t have money. Racism just isn’t an issue anymore.” Alea added that Apartheid is so recent that it’s barely history, so it’s shocking that anyone in South Africa think it such a removed, far in the past issue. But it’s so important not to forget, Zanzi said. It’s easier for me not think about what happened to my ancestors; but I’m going to work on being more comfortable talking about it.

Our students had many thoughts and observations along the same lines. Dani heard so much “they” talk, especially in Bellville; and it is her goal to get away from us and them talk in her own conversation. Ray talked about how important it is to educate youth because that’s where transformation is grown. He said that speaking with Bellville parents and getting a sense of that generational perspective allowed him to gain a lot of respect for the HFB program and a far deeper understanding of what we’re doing here. Mel discussed the redlining and segregation of Seattle, and how important it is to understand what happened and how it relates to what exists now. Stella reminded students that Bellville students stop taking history classes in eighth grade, which shocked several of our own students as she said it.

Elias heard a lot of blame in Bellville, and not a lot of blame, alternatively, in Langa, to which Sarah responded strongly, saying that she wants to go home and help, and make a change, but somehow do it without pointing fingers: she wants to acknowledge history without being accusatory, and while trying to work together. Zanzi said that doing so with careful vocabulary will help, and she called back what Dani said about avoiding us and them framing. Acknowledge that we all went through this history together, Zanzi said.

There is a deep desire on the part of students to understand and acknowledge the infrastructure of race that shapes our history, an aspiration to be changemakers operating from a place of ubuntu, or humanity, unity, compassion: I am because we are; we do because we share history, and we do, in love and in hope, together.

Our students have been thoughtful and hearts-out, tender, solicitous and open. I didn’t know most of their names two weeks ago. But it’s deep affection I feel now, and I’m moved by them, knowing they have been moved, their goodness conjoining the knowledge of injustice and poverty and shared joy into a wisdom and spirit of activism and giving.

Maybe they’ll give me a hug in the halls.