To Port Elizabeth and Back Again 2

March 22, 2004 - Where am I?
South Africa does not yet feel foreign, but then quickly becomes new in surprising ways. With only the airport and the lovely Conifer B&B experience so far, it’s like a vacation town – small airport, palm trees, wide avenues, beach, and crashing waves. It feels distant, but not unfamiliar. Signs, stores, and menus are in English. The languages (Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans) and accents are a music and barefoot children and adults in the airport, crossing a seemingly wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, throw in a twist, but I am not confronted entirely with a feeling of “otherness.”

I find myself wondering if I am indeed in Africa. I know that this is a distinction from the rest of Africa that South Africa itself struggles with. When Professor Ogude, Deputy Vice Chancellor of NMMU, visited Chicago in August, she expressed interest in replicating our Sharing Cultures Project with other countries, but even more importantly with other African countries. She suggested that connecting with other African countries would be a more difficult, more of a stretch, than connecting with other American or European universities, but that it was of utmost importance for South African identity and its future. Being here (granted, for half a day), I understand why. It seems to be much more European than what I imagined would be “African.” I’m conflicted when I say that because I’m aware that it encompasses the weight of colonialism. Just so you know, I am also not going to spend too much time or energy trying to reconcile the Africa of my imagination (books, Disney and other movies) with the world that is really here – I’ll leave my fictions as fictions. On the other hand, I do continually spin about the colonized and recolonized cycle. I have a hard time getting my head around how the spiral comes to a close or where it goes.