Six to Eight Black Men

(wrote this a few weeks ago...but only able to post it now...enjoy!)

“’Helpers’ I said, ‘does he have any elves?’

Maybe I’m just overly sensitive, but I couldn’t help but feel personally insulted when Oscar denounced the very idea as ‘grotesque’ and ‘unrealistic.’

‘Elves,’ he said ‘they’re just so silly.’

The words ‘silly’ and ‘unrealistic’ were redefined when I learned that Saint Nicholas travels with what was consistently described as ‘six to eight black men.’ I asked several Dutch people to narrow it down, but none of them could give me an exact number. It was always ‘six to eight’ which seemed strange considering they’ve had hundreds of years to get a decent head count. The six to eight black men were characterized as personal slaves until the mid-1950s when the political climate changed and it was decided that instead of being slaves, they were just good friends. I think history has proven that something usually comes between slavery and friendship. A period of time marked, not by cookies and quiet hours by the fire, but by bloodshed and mutual hostility.”

-from the skit “Six to Eight Black Men” by David Sedaris from “Live at Carnegie Hall”

Unlike St. Nick in Holland I don’t travel with six to eight black men. These days I’m traveling with just 1 black man. Maybe more if we are out and about with some other people, but 1 black man consistently. I leave for the United States in less than a week now and I think it’s a good time to talk more specifically about my living arrangements for the summer, as they will come to a close when I leave for the USA. After my visit to the USA, I will move straight into a university dormitory and hit the books. It’s relevant to speak about my living arrangement with my friend Cliff cos it has proven to be interesting, a microcosm of some of my relationships here in SA, a chance to become better friends, and ultimately a learning experience. As always, let’s start from some sort of beginning…

For the summer, as I would have been homeless otherwise, I have been living with one of my oldest and closest friends in SA. A Zimbabwean guy called Cliffton Musvari…or Cliff for short. His new wife is also around at times, but she has been doing an internship for the past year in a town about 4 hours away. Because of the distance, Cliff and Chido are not able to stay together right now, but she comes to visit just about every weekend. At the beginning of February her year will be up and she will once again join Cliff in Midrand, a town located between Joburg and Pretoria. Cliff has a spare bedroom and so I moved all my stuff in at the beginning of November. In between migrations, I have called Cliff and Chido’s home my own since November…a situation I’ve been very grateful for.

I guess now is the time to bring out the infamous donkey story. Although it’s a story best told over one or many beers, it is particularly relevant to this post because it tells of how Cliff and I first came together. And I think I’ve tortured you enough w/seductive illusions to this story. When people who don’t know the two of us as friends first see Cliff and I together they always want to know how the heck a white girl from the USA and a black man from Zimbabwe came together as friends. Because this is southern Africa they probably assume that we are romantically linked in some way, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth…and besides the real story is way more interesting than sex. But I’ll talk about this aspect of boys vs. girls in Southern Africa a bit later. The first time strangers see us interacting and goofing off together it is inevitable that their faces curl up in confusion and the question of how we met always follows. I tell them that it all began over the corpse of a Zimbabwean donkey. This creates more questions, which I usually don’t answer in the interest of mystery. I have to admit I just like to see how people react to this absurd, but true, statement. The donkey story is long, you will get a slightly abridged version, but it’s one of the most ridiculous stories of my life. As insane as the details may be, I can promise you that it all happened…every last detail. I just don’t think you can make stuff like this up. So here it goes…

When I went to school in Pietermaritzburg SA in 2002 I was friends with a lot of Zimbabwean guys. Probably more than six to eight of them. Because of my friendships with these guys (and some girls too) I decided to travel to Zimbabwe after school was over. Even at that time Zimbabwe was a bit of a wreck. Robert Mugabe, the one time freedom fighter but now ruthless dictator, had just ‘democratically’ re-elected himself (sound familiar any of you Americans out there??) and completed another round of his dubious ‘land redistribution scheme.’ This scheme consisted mainly of burning the land owned by white farmers, killing the farmers or driving them out of the country, and then giving back the land to the black man. Giving back former colonially snatched land to black people is a great idea…but there are better ways of going about it. And if you think that land was given back to the disenfranchised black man then you are living in a dream. That land went straight to supporters and friends of Mugabe. Zimbabwe was once considered the bread basket of Southern Africa with one of the strongest agricultural industries in the region. Today the country is in almost Somalian shambles with millions of people going hungry, farms laying fallow, Mugabe’s cronies getting richer and richer, and shortages of just about every kind (from gasoline to electricity to money in the bank to bread). The inflation there is the highest in the world…something like 4,000%. Yes, 4000%. All those zeroes are no mistake.

Despite this, I wanted to check out Zimbabwe. I was warned against it (as in ‘if you go to Zim you will die’…the exact words of more than a few people), but now I can definitively say that South Africans blow everything out of proportion. And I was arriving straight into the hands of friends, staying with friends, and never really planning on being on my own. So where’s the danger? I arrived, without problems, by bus in Harare, the capital city where I’d be staying, and was greeted by friends and a cold beer. For a week I stayed with a friend of mine named Jackie. Her family was really nice and I had a pretty good time, but after a week I was starting to get bored. See, Jackie has African parents, and while they aren’t as strict as Indian parents, they do tend to keep a tight watch on the girls in their flock. We spent most of the time in the house not doing much and that is like a death sentence to me, so I was itching to get out.

At university I had been kicking it with a guy called Kevin. He lived a few hours away from Harare and I wanted to go visit him. I needed to get out, wanted to see my cutie, and had plans to visit a monument in the south of Zim. I didn’t think I’d be able to rent a car because my license had expired a week or so earlier. Also, if I could get a car, I was nervous to drive a car alone because I had seen that in Zim they put up random police roadblocks and I didn’t want to have to travel with a faulty license through these blockades. At this time I was not aware of the power of being a single white female from the USA. I could have talked my way out of anything, but didn’t know it. See everyone tells us single, white, female, American is a liability, but I’ve almost always had the opposite experience. While I do believe there are bad people in this world and I’m not naïve to the dangerous, sometimes violent and deadly, things that happen to people, I’ve experienced way more good in this world than bad. For every ogre that’s waiting to stab, rob, or rape you out there, I can promise that there are at least 10 strangers waiting to help you out when you need it…or even when you don’t need it. Being a white chick from the USA alone in a foreign land tends to bring out more of the good and benevolent than the evil and sinister. At least as far as what I’ve seen in my travels. So what I’m getting at is that having to potentially deal with crooked cops in a language I don’t speak (Shona, one of the Zim languages) and having to deal with an expired license in those circumstances was something I was dreading.

I didn’t know if I could even get a car due to my license problem. But, as I learned, if you have a tiny bit of money and some friends then you can organize just about anything in Zimbabwe. After some negotiations I hit the road with a brand new (200km on the odometer) rental car. I arrived in Kwe Kwe, where Kevin lives, and stayed in a hotel for the night. The next day Kevin, his friend, and I were to travel to Great Zimbabwe for a bit of sightseeing. In Zim there are 2 main attractions for tourists: Victoria Falls in the north and Great Zimbabwe in the south. I think most people opt for Vic Falls cos of its reputation (it might be 1 of the wonders of the world). These days, people are even more scared to travel to Zim. Plus it’s difficult due to all the shortages and high prices for things like gasoline, so most also opt for Vic Falls cos you can see the falls from Zambia (the country to the NW) and never even need to set foot in Zim. Great Zimbabwe is a few hours from the border between SA and Zim and you can’t get to it unless you enter Zim. Also I think it’s easier for most people to appreciate the natural beauty of water submitting to gravity over a rocky outcrop as opposed to some historical place consisting mostly of rocks cleverly piled together. I remember reading about Great Zimbabwe in a history book when I was a child and thinking to myself that one day I will visit this place. How this 12-yr old’s memory had stuck with me…I’m really not sure. But I knew I had to see Great Zimbabwe.

Kevin, his childhood friend (who turned out to be Cliff), and I set off for Great Zimbabwe the next morning. At this point it’s important to convey how much Zimbabweans like to drink. A stereotype, yes, but from my experiences it’s been more true than untrue. I’ve never met any group of people that like to drink the way Zimbabwean men do. Seriously. I think every country claims to be the most hardcore drinkers or have ideas of what other cultural group they can pin this alcoholism on…but I promise you that Zimbabwean men put them ALL to shame. Head hanging shame. You may be thinking bad things about me now because I have chosen to associate with people that drink like fish…but I promise you that Zimbabwean men have other redeeming qualities about them. Usually they are absolute gentlemen. Zim is a really interesting place right now due to the political situation and it’s always interesting to have a conversation about Zim w/Zimbabweans instead of always reading the paper and talking to South Africans (or others that don’t know much about the place) about the situation on the ground. Plus Zimbabweans have a much more relaxed attitude about some stuff compared to South Africans, and that’s refreshing. All sorts of people like to drink and in a foreign country it’s easy to meet and align yourself with drinkers if you enjoy a cold draught from time to time, but there has to be some substance on top of that. And there is. You’ll just have to glean these other traits from past, present, and future narratives.

So what I’m getting at is that as soon as we set off that morning we had cold drinks in our hands all day. As soon as we’d finish a beer we’d stop at a bottle store and get fresh drinks. In hindsight this was incredibly idiotic. Drinking and driving is dangerous and stupid, but this story is littered with all kinds of stupid mistakes. Mistakes which, I can safely say, have taught me LOTS about what to do and what not to do in life. So bear with me and know that because of this time in Zimbabwe that I have grown and learned much.

We arrived safely at Great Zimbabwe. I checked out the ruins and history of this incredible landmark while Cliff and Kevin found more beers. Great Zimbabwe is the remains of a great Shona kingdom that existed in the early years of this timeframe we call AD. I think around 400 AD or 500 AD. Zimbabwe is a landlocked country, but this kingdom was trading with places as far away as China and the Arab regions of the Middle East and North Africa at the height of its greatness. Pretty impressive if you ask me. Also they have these conical stone structures that are seamless and perfect in their design, yet no mortar or any other sticky substance was ever used to hold them together. And they still stand to this day. Artifacts found at the site provide national symbols for Zimbabwe: the golden bird (pictured on the money and flag) and other objects fashioned out of stone. In short, it was a really cool place…a place that always pops to my mind when people call Africa the ‘dark continent.’ I think this great kingdom needs to be considered when at this same time in Europe (where we consider civilized people to live) folks were fighting and living in squalor. Africans were running their s*it while Europeans were living in darkness, yet Africa is considered perpetually backwards. We are never taught these things in school (“Why is that?”) and so most people are left with images of poor Africans living in poverty while wars and dictators whorl around their heads. I think Africans have been on top for a lot longer than those people we’d consider more civilized. Africans just got a raw deal when colonial domination robbed them of everything…but that’s an entirely different conversation.

After Great Zimbabwe we headed into the nearby town, Masvingo, so I could mail some letters and postcards. I’m a postal junkie. I write letters like a mad woman whether I’m traveling or not, so I wanted to send my cards from Zimbabwe to add that extra special something to my penned words. We parked, I went to the post office, spent hundreds of thousands of Zim dollars on some stamps, and we left. As we were pulling out of the parking spot (Kevin was driving because of the aforementioned random police road blockades), Kevin scraped the left side of the car on the steel bumper of a lorry. The window smashed and the brand new car was left w/a huge scrape on its passenger side. Thank goodness Cliff’s arm wasn’t out of the car because he would have lost it.

Oh my goodness…we just smashed my car. So what do we do now? I consult w/Cliff and Kevin and they say the best thing to do is just drive off. This seems like the wrong thing to do, but this isn’t my country and I expect that they know better than me what’s right and wrong. Of course this was the wrong thing to do in the end, but we had been drinking all day and decisions are made sloppily in that state. Like I said, many mistakes were made this day. So we drove off.

Of course, although we had not hit any police roadblocks all day, about 20 minutes after the smash ‘em up derby spectacular we hit our first blockade. I hide the beer under my dress. Kevin fumbles for his license. Cliff pretends all the glass on his lap is natural. Somehow we get thru without any harassment. Cops are dumb in every country I guess. We had previously made plans to stay with some of Kevin’s family in the rural areas of Masvingo for the night, but now thanks to our drunkenness and precarious predicament we decide that we need to drive the 6-ish hours to Harare and just go party. See, we really are geniuses. I guess you could consider this mistake #459 in this story. So we head north to Harare.

Kevin, although shaken, insists that he’s fine to drive so he continues to pilot the rental car. Everything’s going fine until a few hours later. It’s dark now and we are in the middle of nowhere. I’m in the passenger seat consoling Kevin when out of nowhere there’s a donkey just standing in the road. The donkey’s parallel to the center line and facing us. We are traveling fast and don’t have time to stop or the ability to swerve because the donkey is smack dab in the center of the road. The donkey hits the front of the car, does some donkey acrobatics, landing first on the roof, and then dismounts on the pavement behind the car. Look I don’t like hitting animals with cars. I’m that idiot that will swerve to miss a squirrel even if it means I end up wrapping my car around a tree. Okay, that’s never happened to me, but that’s how much I dislike animal/car collisions. I remember I hit a bird with my car one time and I don’t think the shriek and horror that came out of my mouth could ever be captured again. I just don’t like hitting animals. But, holy crap, we just hit a donkey. 2 accidents in like 2 hours…whoa.

I jumped out of the car and went to go see if the donkey was okay. I put my hand up to its mouth to see if it was breathing and poked its eye (no I’m not demented, the last reflex to go w/dead animals is that the eye will retract a bit when poked gently), but the donkey was way dead. Luckily we weren’t hurt and our car was still functional. Some people came out of the shadowy bushes, a distinctly African phenomenon (there’s always someone in the bushes no matter how close to the middle of nowhere you might be), and said we were lucky cos a lot of people are killed by donkey accidents. Donkeys are made out of iron or kryptonite or something, so I can see how this is possible.

Wow. So now what do we do? What can we do? We keep driving to Harare, but now to sleep. It was really funny to see pedestrians in the city rush past our car after seeing the crunched exterior of the car. No pedestrian wants to step out in front of a car that looks like it doesn’t mind a bit of collateral damage. The actual accidents are really only the tip of the gigantic dramatic iceberg that unfolded in the next few days, but this story is long enough already and I don’t have time to explain all the stressful minutiae. Let’s just say we survived, I made it back to South Africa (this was Thursday and I was supposed to be in SA on Tuesday to fly back to the USA forever), and none of Mugabe’s henchmen tried to kill me. In the end I had to shell out a lot of money, walked like a smooth operator thru downtown Harare carrying a bag STUFFED with Zim dollars after exchanging the equivalent of US$1,000 on the black market, was almost put on Interpol (the international police agency), provided false information on a police report, almost had to bribe the police, traveled alone in my first long distance taxi from Harare to Bulawayo on my last US$5, cemented in my head that liars never prosper, and safely made it back to SA in time to catch my plane (which I ended up missing in the end anyways). A list of firsts (and hopefully some lasts) to be sure.

The overnight buses from Zimbabwe arrive in Johannesburg SA pretty early in the morning so when I finally did arrive (I almost kissed the ground in SA) it was too early to do anything. I sat around Park Station (the main bus station in Joburg) for a few hours until I could be picked up. Park station isn’t exactly the safest place to be waiting around in the early hours of the morning. I don’t fear it the way I did the first time I came to SA, but do respect that it’s a place to watch my back. Bus stations anywhere are usually a bit shady, even in the USA. In the USA I can tell you that the cheapest hotel is always closest to the bus station, but that hotel also usually has the highest hooker to lodger ratio. Give and take I guess. So I’m sitting alone in the wee hours of the morning at Park Station, reeling in the emotions of the past few days and scribbling notes in my journal to use as fodder for the book I must one day write about this incident (who will play me in the made-for-TV version?). Just as I calmed down, I feel someone from behind me putting their hands over my eyes. I was so past my sanity threshold at this point that I couldn’t even react. I just respired. After a second that spanned a few eternities, I calmly turned around to see who the heck was giving me heart palpitations and do you know who it was??? Cliff!

We arrived at the same time in Joburg, but on different buses. He was returning with Chido and his friend to their university in the south of SA. I’m not a violent person, but I almost beat Cliff senseless for scaring the crap out of me…especially considering the fact that he knew exactly what had just happened to me in the last days. Cliff was going to stay with another Zimbabwean in Joburg so he invited me to tag along, with the promise that this guy would drive me to the airport on Tuesday when I was to leave. It was a good proposition, so I took him up on his offer and we spent the next few days together in Joburg.

And that’s how it all started. I’m no longer friends with Kevin (the original contact point), but I got the better deal in the end. Cliff and I maintained some email contact while I was back in the USA, but not much. It’s really hard to keep up with people in Africa (especially in those days) due to the different accessibility of the internet. Also people here are more cell phone-centered as opposed to email-based. That’s changed a lot, but at that time it was common and understood that I would basically lose touch with people when I went home. When I arrived in SA this past January, the first person I wanted to reunite with was Cliff. He was living in Joburg at the time and so I made a plan to come visit him and Chido. A few months later he moved to Midrand (closer to where I stay) and got himself a car. His new job took him to Pretoria a few times a week so we started to hang out a lot more. It was really comforting to have an old friend around when most of the people in Pretoria were still in the nascent friend stages. When I was going to have to move out of my dorm after the school year was over there was pretty much no question about where I was moving. Honestly I didn’t even need to ask Cliff if I could move in. It went more like this:

“Cliff I’m going to have to move out of my place in early November. Come pick up me and my stuff on November 10th. I’m going to stay with you for the summer.”

“Of course you are Lynsee.”

And so I moved to Midrand.

I’ve always had more guy friends than girl friends. Even the girls that I’ve bonded with are girls similar to me as opposed to super girly girls. When I was a small child I used to play American football with the boys during recess. I’ll never forget the winter day when I kicked the crap out of Bobby Lowry in a one-on-one game. Scott Christiansen as all-time quarterback, snowy conditions, and a lot of trash talking. I was kind of a tomboy in those days, maybe you can still identify the residues of this in my personality. Growing up, my best friend was a girl, but that was, at first, more of a geographical thing than a choice thing. When you live on a farm in the rurals you can’t be too choosy about who you hang out with. It’s the neighbors or nothing.

After my parents got divorced I didn’t really have too many friends except my brother. We moved around a lot and my bro was always there. When we settled in Waukegan, my best friend was my neighbor Jason Wells. In high school, again, not too many close friends…I don’t really know why. I just sort of kept to myself cos high school was not my place. I had bigger fish to fry and I knew the kitchen would be found at university. In university, most of my friends were guys. It started with Graeme Thompson, my best friend to date, and proceeded to grow from there. At university I started to befriend big packs of guys. First it was a group of guys in my dorm (the Bat Cave crew), then my eventual roommates (608 Elm, represent!, where I lived w/5 guys and 2 girls), the Dottie crew and other guys from UC HipHop, and various stragglers along the way. When I moved to Chicago I stayed with the Puffin House boys who then turned into the Commie House boys…and so on and so forth.

Is the stage set that I like to hang w/guys better than girls? I’m not entirely sure why this is…I mean how can you ever really define the chemistry that draws some together while repelling others? I just feel more comfortable with guys. I guess I like guys better because they are overall less annoying and more hilarious. They have less sustained drama. Guys are more likely to punch each other, shake hands, and be done with the conflict…as opposed to quietly hating, talking trash, and generally just holding a grudge to the grave. Girls tend to operate in the later capacity. Guys tend to talk less about things that don’t interest me like how fat they are getting, how best to apply eyeliner, and other tedious girl things that I have no time or patience for. Guys tend to talk more about amusing nonsensical things (like elaborate schemes to steal shopping carts and go on a tour of the USA in these grocery vehicles) or topics that are less superficial (like the dreamy biology to be found in molecular genetics). Guys usually think of themselves as more hardy, as opposed to laboring under the ‘frail girl syndrome’ that most of us ladies have been raised on our whole lives. Boys play harder…unless you are talking about rugby girls, cos nobody plays harder than rugby girls. There are probably more reasons why guys are more interesting to hang with than girls, but I’ll stop trying to pull them from my back door. Also, I’m a daddy’s girl…always have been and always will be. So that may have also informed my preferences.

Don’t get me wrong…I gotta have my girls too! Clara, where ya at?!?! A girl can’t live on boys alone because as much as you can hang with the guys, if you check under the hood…I’m a woman thru and thru. And there are annoying things about hanging out with guys that need to be counteracted with a healthy dose of girl time. I mean I can’t spend a night drinking wine and crushing on someone with my guy friends. But I can spend a million nights taking Carlo w/Clara and talking about the pursuit of guys. It’s a special guy that you can talk to like a girl, but who doesn’t lose his masculinity in the process. I think that’s what also makes me a special girl when it comes to guy/girl relations. I’ve had a lot of my guy friends say to me “Lynsee…you’re my guy! But you’re my girl!” I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but it makes perfect sense to me. It means that I can hang w/the guys but still bring a certain air of womanly sensibility to the table. It’s a pretty powerful weapon to have in one’s arsenal.

So just because I’ve translocated to South Africa and the boys vs. girls climate is a lot different it doesn’t mean I can give up my preference for guys as friends. It’s just who I am. In fact the state of gender affairs here drives me even closer to guys because the girls are even more girly, bland, and confusing to me. There have been exceptions of course, but, again, the girls I tend to align myself with are similar to me in that they aren’t the girly girls.

The gender playing field here is a lot different for many reasons. Guys and girls here (especially among black people) don’t tend to be friends. Guys and dolls mostly come together here for one thing…procreation. In black communities the distinction between masculine and feminine is much more obvious. Black guys don’t cook unless they live alone and have to, although I have met quite a few Zim guys that can cook the pants off some ladies. Women do the cooking and cleaning, men make the money. I had a Cameroonian guy tell me that his father had never stepped foot in the kitchen of his own house. He never needed to. It’s not his world. It’s the woman’s world. Women here are more girly and don’t tend to hang out with groups of guys. It’s just not seen as something you do. Women barely drink beer here cos it’s a man’s thing. Women drink ciders and cocktails. The guys have guy time and the girls have girl time. Guys don’t deal with feminine things and women don’t mess around with guy things. It’s a very patriarchial society. The man is the king. Sometimes the woman is allowed to be the queen. This has been very strange for me to maneuver around at times.

The hard part is that I don’t identify myself as a particularly girly girl, so the girls here are way too girly for me to understand or want to be a part of. In Pretoria there’s a term for these girly girls (but mostly applies to white girls)…’poppies.’ Also girls tend to use guys to extort things from them. Like the ‘chickenhead’ phenomenon at home. I don’t like that and I can’t be associated with that mentality. I would say women here aren’t liberated enough, but that’s a really bogus thing for me to say. I think women exert their power in their societies in their own way. I have a lot more to learn about women’s power here. It’s very true that behind every strong man is a stronger woman. Hell, we have the babies…and that’s the ultimate power. And who am I to say that the gender affairs of one place are better or worse than the gender affairs of another? I just happen to be an American woman living in that limbo state called the post-tomboy abyss. I like it there. It suits me. I couldn’t live my life being told “you’re just a woman, so cook my food and have my babies and don’t complain.” But maybe that works for some women and who am I to say that’s wrong? Although I don’t agree with that lifestyle for myself I can see how it would be much easier to be a part of a world where the roles are clearly defined. There are less questions about what’s right and wrong because the answers are known. I think it’s a bit stifling, personally, but to each his/her own. What I do know is that my views about gender relations and equality are at odds with the way some things are done here and sometimes it’s tough.

So the guys are more appealing to me here because they are more free. Free to go out. Free to do what they want. Girls are sort of supposed to be more reserved here and we all know that ain’t me. If I hang with all girls I usually feel even more stifled than at home. But hanging out with all guys also has its problems. So what are the consequences of my interactions because of this different gender climate? Wow…there are tons of them.

First of all, everyone assumes that if I have a guy friend (or a guy has me as a friend) that we are having sex. The possibility of a guy and a girl as only friends (especially w/black people) just doesn’t really exist. It’s not out of the realm of possibilities, but it’s not common. And especially when race enters into the situation it’s really really unbelievable to people that this white girl is not having sex with all the black boys she knows. Cliff and I will never be romantic. It’s just not in the cards no matter how drunk we get together or how close we become. Before Cliff got a bed in his spare bedroom we would even sleep in the same bed if Chido wasn’t around because otherwise I had to sleep on the floor. Cliff is like my brother and that’s where it ends. But people just can’t see that here.

I think when there are guys I’ve been interested in pursuing, the fact that I have pretty close non-romantic guy friends plants a seed of jealousy or doubt in the eyes of the boy I do want to kiss. I just don’t think he believes that Cliff, or any other black guy I’m friends with, is only a friend. Like I said, it’s just not really in the realm of the usual here. People don’t even consider it as an option. This is going to be a big problem with any guy I want to be romantic with here…I can see it. It’s already happened with two guys I’ve been after or had in my clutches. It doesn’t help that men and women here don’t seem to talk to each other openly…there are all kinds of games I don’t understand. And most of it seems to revolve around lies, sneaky latent language, pride, and more little dances I just don’t understand yet. There is no acceptable way for a guy and a girl to be friends here unless they were (or are) having sex. It just doesn’t really happen. If you insist that nothing is going on then people may nod in agreement, but they have that ‘yeah right, he he he’ gleam in their eyes. It’s really annoying.

Another aspect of this comes into play with the race thing. The race thing actually strengthens this “they must be having sex” misconception. I’ve mostly stopped seeing peoples’ eyes on me when I walk with black people or go out to mostly black places. It’s just not worth my time to train my eyes on all the eyes trained on me cos it happens every single day to me. And if people are staring at me, what am I supposed to do? There’s no point in getting your feathers ruffled about it. It’s actually very confrontational to stare back at people. This guy Charlie that I was kicking it with a couple of months ago was disturbed by the attention, I think. One night when we went out to dance at a place where I was the only white person he said to me later that “going out with a white girl is troublesome.” ‘Troublesome?’ Whoa. He kept hinting and saying stuff to that effect, but what can I tell him? What are we supposed to do? Bow to public opinion or cruise and have fun with each other? Screw everyone else. Let’s do our thing! But there are times when I really love some of the funny looks. The other day Cliff and I were driving out of his complex and I looked up just in time to see two white guys driving towards us. They were staring in disbelief at us with jaws resting on their floormats. It was SO hilarious that I had to point it out to Cliff. Those times when I catch a really ridiculous glance are the best. They will never stop being funny to me. Ever.

Although I’m seen as “one of the guys” here in many ways I will never be “one of the guys” like I could be at home. This isn’t really too much of a concern in and of itself. I don’t want to be a man because I’m not. I just want to be able to be myself in my gray area of the gender spectrum (the post-tomboy abyss). Not being one of the guys has other effects that are super frustrating though. See here as much as I can hang with the guys here…I still have breasts and other less tangible qualities that makes me a woman. It silently separates me in a way that just doesn’t happen as strongly with my guy friends at home. And as much as I can be accepted by the guys here as different from the other girls and as a girl that’s able to be taken out as a friend…people still treat me like a woman. Which means “lesser” a lot of times.

This has good and bad effects. The good effects are simple chivalry sort of things like guys will pay for my beers or food here, let me sit in the front seat, don’t make me carry heavy things or a million bags by myself, and other small stupid things that don’t really exist in the USA anymore. My guy friends at home probably wouldn’t abandon me in the middle of Chicago alone and drunk at night like they might do with one of their guy friends, but they sure as hell won’t make a point to open a door for me or carry my heavy bags. And that’s fine. I can open doors and use my arm muscles on my own, but if I said I didn’t like being treated like a girl in this way then I’d be lying.

The bad effects really piss me off. Since I’ve stayed at Cliff’s house it’s sort of assumed that if Chido’s not here then I’m supposed to cook. It just goes without saying. I don’t really mind because Cliff is a terrible cook, cooking passes the time, and I like to cook. But the part I don’t like is that it’s just assumed that because I’m the woman then I cook and clean. A man can’t open the refrigerator and make a plan if he’s hungry. Cliff says “Lynsee can’t you cook something?” and I must get cracking. The way it works here is that the woman cooks and “dishes up” the plates. She arranges all the plates, equally divides the food among the hungry, and then serves the men. When I was housesitting in Pretoria, Cliff, Chido, and 2 other Zim guys came to visit me. I cooked dinner with Chido and just before it was done the guys went out to run an errand. They could have run the errand a long time ago (like during the hour we were cooking) but they were goofing off and watching TV. So I told those guys that Chido and I were going to eat when we got done cooking (usually you wait for everyone) and they could eat when they came back. I was hungry and didn’t want the food to get cold while they were out for who knows how long. Cliff has a tendency to mysteriously disappear for hours at a time. So Chido and I ate. The guys came back about 2 hours later. I said to them that I laid out plates and silverware for them and they could help themselves. They didn’t move. I was sort of testing them because I know that I was “supposed” to dish up for them as the woman and as the hostess, but I just wanted to see what happened. Sometimes I can’t help but exert my cultural tendencies on situations. I have to deal with everyone else’s ways so I don’t understand why sometimes I can’t act the way I was raised and make others deal with it. Also I just like to see what happens. The guys still didn’t move. Finally Chido was like “oh these children of mine can’t do anything on their own” and she went to the kitchen to dish for them. If it was just me there I wouldn’t have moved and would have waited to see how long it took them to help themselves. But in the end they got their way and they were catered to in the way they should be catered to as men. That is something that annoys me.

I don’t mind serving others. If you’ve ever been to my house in the USA you will know that I will get you fresh drinks and offer you food at my house. I will take care of you cos that’s what a good hostess does. But it’s my choice. Here it’s not a choice. I’m a, or the, woman and it’s my DUTY to serve. That’s the part I don’t like. That it’s a duty I can’t escape from. I can’t choose to be hospitable cos I think it’s right, I must because society says it’s right. A few days ago I was at a friend’s house (all guys) and it was really nice because I wasn’t expected to cook or serve…they did it. I was relieved. This aspect of being a woman here is something that I sometimes butt my head up against and causes me some discomfort. I think I must sort of forge my own path in the matter that allows me to keep my dignity and my culture while accommodating the culture of those around me. It’s something I’m still working on.

Now here’s the most annoying part of being a woman among the “boys.” And it was something that Cliff and I misunderstood at first, which has caused some tensions in our relationship, but in the last few days we’ve identified it clearly and it REALLY pisses me off. Because I’m a woman, apparently I am not allowed to make decisions about myself. Among a group of guys I am still considered an inferior in some way, so I don’t get to make decisions about my own destiny. Like Cliff and “the boys” will make decisions amongst themselves that concern me directly and independently of the group, but don’t involve me in these decisions.

This is a really tricky situation and I’m still going to need some time, and Cliff will need some time, to forge a way of action that will accommodate everyone. I don’t even know if it’s possible, but it must be attempted. I thought at first that I was the only one being inconvenienced by this decision-making occurring without my consent…but now I can see that it also inconveniences Cliff in some way too. He has to step outside of the status quo to deal with me sometimes. And as much as I think actions should be tailored to the situation, as opposed to always being done according to a concrete structure, I can see how it must be hard for him to go against the grain. I’m obviously having trouble with it at times as I navigate a new country. In this place peer pressure and saving face, especially with black people, is very very important. You must show off to everyone else to save face. You must be the big man. You must have the nicest things and flashiest clothes. Etc Etc. Now this is something I don’t understand because that’s not how I live my life. If people must look down on me over such petty things then they can piss off. No matter, cos those people probably aren’t worth having around anyways. But in the end…I will not have men, or anyone really, making decisions that concern me without me involved. Let me lay down the scenario for you and maybe you will be able to understand a bit better what I’m getting at.

The other day I was at the house of a guy I was kicking it with but no longer want to be romantically involved with. Cliff dropped me there to use the internet and then was going to come back for me. I’m super broke right now. I have about R5 in coins (less than US$1) to my name because I lost my bank card for my USA bank account on New Year’s Eve. Don’t ask. I also lost my phone and camera. So I’m pretty much dead in the water right now. Going to this guy’s house was one of the few ways I knew I could use the internet for free. I don’t have money to use the internet at a café and Cliff doesn’t have internet at his house. The radio station, where I usually use the net, is far away. I need to use the internet to coordinate my financial future with my mother in the USA. So it was pretty crucial that I get to the internet by hook or by crook. After Cliff left, I discovered that the guy I was going to use the internet with was having problems connecting, so in the end I didn’t even accomplish my mission.

So I was just hanging out with this guy I was kicking it with, but have decided to just “be friends” with. Cliff, like I said, mysteriously disappears for hours at a time so I didn’t know when he’d be back. This guy cooked dinner and we hung out with the other people in the apartment. While we were cooking dinner (I was asked to make the pap…although I’m terrible at it. But I did appreciate these guys making me sink or swim in the cooking of this African staple), Cliff returned. He chilled for awhile, but left soon after he arrived. Cliff told me that he was leaving, but coming back. That ‘coming back’ part was crucial because a few weeks ago Cliff left me at this very same apartment for 3 days (!) without coming to fetch me. I thought when Cliff left me there for those days that he had abandoned me…a very sore spot for me. I can’t afford to be abandoned right now, emotionally or just for practical reasons. This previous saga is a long detailed story I will mostly not go into…I just wanted you to know that I get scared when I go to that house that Cliff will abandon me, again. So when Cliff says he’s ‘coming back’…I believe that. Especially because I really tore Cliff a new one over this 3 day abandonment thing.

We finished cooking dinner, eat, and time passes. Now I am getting tired and I want to go home. It’s like midnight now and I had arrived initially around 7pm. The guy I had been kicking it with says that he “wants to talk to me” and I ask if we can do it outside so I can smoke a cigarette. It’s at this point that he tells me Cliff has left for the night and isn’t coming back. WTF!!!!!! It’s at this point that I break down and start crying. It’s been a stressful few weeks and this is the last straw. God I miss home. I don’t have a phone to call Cliff and I can’t afford to be left for days at this guy’s house. I have stuff to do as I’m leaving for the USA soon. And I’m not a piece of luggage to be stowed at someone’s house until it can conveniently be retrieved. This guy lets me send Cliff a message on his phone, but I’m basically resigned to the fact that I’ve been abandoned…again. I swear if this wasn’t South Africa I would have walked home in the dark, but you just don’t do that here. Also I hurt my leg on New Year’s and walking a lot hurts. I have no money for a taxi. The kombis don’t run at midnight, but I don’t have money for that either. I’m not hitchhiking. But I cannot stay at this house tonight. I think this guy felt sorry for me and as we left to make a plan for me to get home for free, thankfully, Cliff walked in.

I was so angry because I thought Cliff had abandoned me. But later I found out what was really happening. See a lot of times I don’t know what’s happening around me because these guys speak in Shona a lot. I don’t understand that language at all, so I don’t know what they are saying specifically. Sometimes I can understand the gist of a conversation, but the fine points escape me. It doesn’t bother me cos it’s not like I need to always know what people are talking about. When people all around me are speaking a different language I usually just shut off my brain until it needs to be used again…this has made me a bit of an airhead, which I don’t like. But!...there was something else that was going on that I never could have dreamed was happening…these guys were plotting about my destiny without speaking to me. This guy was telling Cliff something about my “wishes” that Cliff just accepted because it came from a man’s face. Also apparently Cliff can’t go against what his “boy” is telling him, even if he knows that I might want something different, because he needs to save face w/his friend. Cliff needs to not interrupt the macking process of this guy for fear of being seen as an interfering party…aka a hater. What???????

This is apparently what was also happening when I had to stay at this guy’s house for 3 days a few weeks ago. This more recent incident and the initial abandoning happened because this guy I was interested told Cliff that he should just go home because I was having too much fun and was going to stay over. But this guy never asked me if that was what I wanted and didn’t have the common decency to even consult me on the fact at all…even after I had complained every day about how miserable I was and how I wanted to go home. But, what could I know…after all, I’m just a woman. In the meantime, I think Cliff is being callous and Cliff is thinking that things are cool and I want to stay (although he doesn’t talk to me about it), so he leaves me. Apparently this recent incident I was just describing occurred because this guy I had been interested in told Cliff (again) that I wanted to stay over. Or that I was going to stay over. And Cliff, again without consulting me, just believed the guy. I am mad about that, but I know that it’s sort of part of the “guy brotherhood” here. So Cliff was just doing what he is used to. Apparently Cliff tried to “signal” me that he was leaving for the night, but I’m dense. I need people to openly communicate with me. I don’t know sign language and I don’t read minds. I gave that up a long time ago.

Luckily I really yelled at Cliff about the initial 3 day abandoning. It made me really mad as well as exposing a number of other emotions…none of them positive. So Cliff knew how I felt about being left. But because of his participation in this “guy brotherhood” he was (still!) content to consult another guy about me instead of consulting the one it really concerned…me! When I sent Cliff a message on his phone he knew he made a mistake (and that the other guy was telling him stories) and came to get me.

Here’s the rub in this situation. Cliff was acting according to his status quo (listen to the brothers) and I was acting according to what I expected from my status quo (friends consult each other, don’t just listen to others). Cliff, I think more than me, runs into problems with others because of his friendship with me. If he treats me like an equal in every way and not like “a chick” then he runs the risk of seeming too protective of me. Like he’s not allowed to be “too protective” of me with other guys because they think that Cliff wants me for himself. These guys at this apartment have been giving him crap over me cos they see Cliff as meddling in the game of this guy who wants me. But I want Cliff to be “protective” of me because he’s my friend. He’s supposed to look out for me cos that’s what friends do. Mostly he looks out for me better than most people, but at times he drops the ball and it’s this uncertainty that is tough to deal with. Speaking to me about what I wanted in this situation instead of listening to this other guy isn’t being too protective…it’s having the common decency to consult your friends before you make decisions about them. But somehow it doesn’t play out this way here. It’s super frustrating. The truth is that we are friends and not more so I don’t really care what other people think…but I’ve seen how saving face is very important here.

I think that the relationship between Cliff and I is new for both of us. I don’t think Cliff has ever had such a close friend that is white, let alone a crazy ass girl from the USA. And it does make a difference sometimes. I’ve never had a Shona guy for such a close friend before, let alone a crazy ass one like Cliff. And it does make a difference sometimes. Cliff is a perfect example of a modern African man. He’s steeped in the traditions and culture of his country, but he is also a modern man living in the 21^st century…so he gets this whole “western” thing, if you want to call it that. But as much as we have that western understanding in common, every day (and especially now because we are living in the same apartment) our own little cultural idiosyncrasies come into play. This creates misunderstanding. Sometimes it’s something stupid like the other day I was drying my underpants in my bedroom window (at the front of the house) and he was like “take those down and hang them up on the towel rack in the bathroom” cos that’s the place where underpants hang up to dry. Sometimes it spirals out of control and I get left at some dude’s house for 3 days because of the glitch.

It’s been an interesting time staying with Cliff. I think it can only make our friendship stronger because we are learning a lot about each other. We do talk about a lot of stuff, so that is pretty good. Communication is really important with any relationship. Like I said, I’m not a mind reader…and I don’t think too many others have that skill on lockdown either. But I can see that this is still going to be a difficult relationship as we assume (from our own cultural values) the way things should be between friends. Cliff is teaching me a lot about the way some things work here, like dealing romantically with African guys…cos that’s a minefield in its own right and I need some insider information. I provide advice and understanding about problems he can’t talk openly to other people about. And one day (soon I hope) “Auntie Lynsee” will be bouncing Cliff n Chido babies on her knee…yeah that’s going to be sweet.

Besides having some tough circumstantial times recently, I think I’ve really been dealing with a lot of culture shock. It’s something that I thought I was immune to but I think this place is getting under my skin a bit. A girl I met recently called me a “chameleon” and I think that is mostly true about my abilities to be down with just about anyone and in any situation. But I can see that there are a lot of things about this place that have really been pissing me off and I don’t know that I’ve been handling it that well. Like maybe I’ve been butting my head up against it too much. It doesn’t work well to react in this way. Pondering and then formulating a new method of attack or understanding or acceptance is usually the way to go…but I think because of other stresses this has been tough. It’s been really tough to be here sort of hustling my way from place to place, especially of late. I feel like I’m getting burned a lot…and not cos it’s summertime. I like the hustle most of the time, but now I’m just tired. I want things to work out for me instead of having to force and orchestrate them every minute of every day. I just want to relax a bit…maybe you’re never allowed to do that in this life. I guess I’ll find out. I’m really looking forward to coming home. I think it will be a nice breather, and don’t tell anyone, but I am homesick. Especially now that the USA with all its wonderful familiar faces, tacos, and inherent safety is less than a week away for me. Shit I’m excited. I made a calendar to put on the refrigerator so I can cross off each day left before I go home in a big black marker before I head off to bed each night. My bags have been packed for days already.

See some of you soon…very soon.

Oh yeah and MERRY New Year! 2008 has been pretty crappy for me so far, but I hope the opposite for all you wonderful people out there ;)

Keep the faith and spread it gently in ’08!

Much Love

Lynsee