One long strange trip...

One of my favorite movies is Big Fish. If you haven't seen it, then I highly recommend you do so. (editor's note: I actually downloaded the movie so I could bring it to Africa with me, but the version I received was in French. Le sigh) Anyways, there's a scene in the movie where Edward Bloom, the young, impetuous main character leaves town and travels along country roads of Alabama, finally ending up in a small town called Spectre that has been cut off from the world for years. Upon seeing Edward, the entire town opens up their arms to him, but are just a little too excited to see him in a way that makes Edward feel uncomfortable about their true intentions. For instance all the women, from 8 year olds to 80 year olds have clearly fallen for him. Feeling smothered by all the attention, he finally makes a run for the exit barely escaping with his shoes.

That was my life the past week. Spectre manifested itself as a small town called Beaufort West in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Beaufort West (pronounced in Afrikaans as "Bo-fert West") is a picturesque 5 hour drive from Cape Town and sits on the edge of Karoo National Park, which as far as I can tell is just a big dessert with some sheep on it. Picture a tree that sprouted up out of the desert and that's kind of like Beaufort West. It's a spot on the map. Arriving at the town with one main road and two stoplights, I felt like what a foreigner might feel if he landed in a small town 5 hours outside of Birmingham, i.e. the town of Spectre.

The picture for me was made even more awkward by the unique culutural milieu of the area. See, Western Cape is different from the rest of South Africa in that blacks are actually a minority. The largest racial group is what they call Coloreds, which is not a derogatory term. Coloreds fall somewhere in between whites and blacks and share features of both. I've heard that they trace their roots back to Malaysian and Indonesian slaves brought over by the whites to work the land, which then inter-married with both blacks and whites. But they've been here for centuries and feel very African if you ask them. South Africans have no problem identifying them, but it's very difficult for me to see the difference sometimes. For instance, I discovered this week that Trevor Manuel, the famous Finance Minister of South Africa is actually a colored. Compare that with this picture of more typical coloreds (and the picture above of our training class which includes coloreds, blacks, and one white - can you tell the difference?). Apparently during Apartheid when the white South Africans couldn't tell which race you were they would run a pencil through your hair and if it stuck then you were classified as black, but if it moved freely through then you were colored. But since colored were treated slightly better than blacks, you could actually petition to have yourself re-classified.

The other way that you can tell coloreds from blacks is that coloreds speak Afrikaans as a first language, while blacks use English first. This goes back to the 1970's when the blacks identified Afrikaans as the language of their slave masters and rioted over its application in school. Coloreds, however view the language as their own unique language. In their mind Afrikaans was invented in Africa and combined elements of Dutch and their own languages to create their own original language. So there were many people in Beaufort West (including one very confused waiter I frustratingly encountered) who only speak Afrikaans.

And the final element of the complicated stew that is Beaufort West is that it's in the middle of white-Afrikaaner farming land. So the white people are all farming people who live in a small town and never see new comers arrive...especially not white new comers with an advanced degree. Hence, they would not leave me alone. Every beefy white Afrikaaner woman hit on me, or had a daughter they would just love for me to meet. There was a real desperation in their voices, knowing that they needed to lock me up soon before one of their neighbors do or I realize what's going on and sprint out of town. I'm not saying it wasn't flattering on some level, but let's just say that the beauty of Beaufort West must all be internal. Hence my dismay.

I managed to fend off the hotel receptionist and the NGO supervisors, but finally lost the good fight when the only white person in the group we were training invited me over for a traditional Afrikaaner Braai (the South African version of a barbecue). The curious part is that my two black co-trainers were invited to a separate Braai for blacks and coloreds. I guess the end of Apartheid hasn't quite reached parts of Western Cape.

I don't think I'll be able to do proper justice to the weirdness that ensued upon my arrival at the white Afrikaaner house. It was one of those moments when I badly needed another sane person in the room to make eye contact with to make sure that they were seeing what I was. First off, Afrikaaners are very German in some ways - like they never did anything without rigidly asking me if they could in that thick Afrikaans-English: "Moi-kal, voold you mind if vee turn on ze moosic?"

It didn't take me long before I figured out that the woman who invited me, did so in order to introduce me to her two daughters - aged 22 and 23 and...um...well-built to withstand long winters. As a result, the whole family was VERY accomodating...a little too accomodating if you know what I mean. Like when I asked where the bathroom was and they practically jumped over each other to take me. The funniest part of the evening was when they pumped up some Afrikaaner hip hop from the 70's and started dancing as a family like white Afrikaaners dance. Let's just say that I wish there had not been a support beam in the middle of the room that resembled a pole. I saw things during that dance party that I just can't unsee.

But here's the weirdest part of the whole evening. Aside from the nuclear family of mom, dad, and two daughters, there was another guy named Maury who kind of just hung around the whole night. I never got a proper explanation of who he was or why he was there except when the mom said that he'd been "in the family for five years now". What did that mean? He wasn't adopted because Maury was in his late 40's. Maury didn't speak English that well, and apparently the only phrases he knew where dirty jokes, which he made plentiful use of all night. It wasn't until after 11:00 when the dinner party had moved to a local pub (the things I do to experience new cultures!!) that I got a clearer picture. After having the youngest of the two daughters hang on me all evening with me deflecting all advances (and who kept taking pictures of me on her digital camera), she finally took a seat next to Maurty. At which point they started making out in front of the whole family in a very public establishment. This was after the mom had already told me that it would be ok if I wanted to take her daughter out.

Before the evening could conclude, they wanted to send me off with a song from my home state of Texas, so they asked the waitress to find a country song on the jukebox. With beaming smiles on their faces they introduced me to the bar and kicked off the song they chose: "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me." Turns out it was the only English song on the jukebox. Oh well, it was the effort really.

On our way out of the bar as I was already trying to erase parts of the evening from my mind, the mother came up to me with one last question: "Moi-kal, voold you like to have a nitecap with moi dotter and Maury?" Before she could get the words out, I sprinted back to my hotel room before they could grab my shoes and prevent me from walking away from their town the next day.

That's the summation of my week in Beaufort West. Aside from the many humorous, awkward moments, the place did have a real charm that you can only find in small towns. The people are friendly and accomodating and for the most part are just happy to see some new faces in town. What they lack in social skills they more than make up with in smiles. Still, I'm not sure I'll be anxious to see the sun set in Beaufort West again.