A while ago, I started my blog with the words, "I'm staying at an old English house in what once were the quarters of the maid. The view is fantastic. I look out at Table Mountain with Cape Town at its feet. This is the city where I will encounter people and listen to their experiences with and in the city." Meanwhile, we are two months later and I have a room with a different view.

The view is beautiful. The green countryside of Boutersem should inspire me immensely  but direct contact with the South African reality is no longer there, the motivating talks are no longer there, the domestic duties are calling again, dog and cat are crying for my  attention, preoccupations of friends and family require my attention , classes have begun and my view gets a bit hazy. It is all a bit blurry ... and I am giving into the many distractions that are surrounding me and often I try to find excuses for my lack of motivation. But I'm only human.

Until yesterday ... Nikita, a fellow student, and I decided to work in the library. She writes about her experiences in India, where she lived in a commune of leprosy. I decided to refocus  on my stories from South Africa. I have to submit a thesis this year in which I write about my experiences in an anthropological way. I decide to look into some literature that gives me some tips on how to to proceed, I rewrite some of my text, yet another time ... I am unable to write anything that gives me any satisfaction. I do not  really know what to say and even less how I should write it to comply with the rules of the art of anthropology and yet I am still desperately looking for that art.

Then came the break ... breaks are a welcome distraction for students. The break turned out to be the moment the vicious circle might be broken and the complaining and nagging might stop. Coincidentally, my supervisor also needed a welcome distraction, and perhaps even more his cigarette. Frankly, I don't dare to face the man. My openness, despair and frustration I  shared  too many times with him, but even more my lack of writings, make me decide that I'd rather look the other side than start talking to him.

But one has to do what one has to do ... I start a conversation ... a bit clumsy, and I tell him that I'm working for him. He's my supervisor and he must read the thesis. As usual, he was not really impressed but he tries to give me some promotoral advice: "Do not work for me,  you have to do this for yourself."  He even repeated it. Honestly, I usually am quick to answer but I lacked the energy to answer him. A lot of thoughts passed my mind and one of them was that maybe "I often put myself in a too vulnerable position and to be honest this is none of his concern. There are so many students, there are so many theses and this thesis is my main concern, for him it is just routine. Leave the man in peace. "

With almost no courage and a bit of despair and an advice of my promotor that really did not inspire me, I started reading again. "Even better, now I am writing a thesis for myself, I thought ... that helps ... If this was not real motivational advice ... "

But maybe the guy knows me better than I think, or maybe not, but it seems like he hit  a nerve. His words were crossing my mind throughout the day, I was a bit 'pissed' and I was thinking ... "hmmm ... for myself ... I choose to study: for myself? I came to Cape Town to satisfy my own curiosity? Did I study to enrich myself, literally and figuratively?" 

Meanwhile I was reading a lecture given by René Devisch, retired professor of our department. He gave the lecture for the occasion of his Honorary Doctorate of Kinshasa. The man talks about what motivated him to do anthropology and what he thinks an anthropologist is. It inspires me, for the first time in a long time, I am a bit motivated. I also want to bring stories of ordinary people. My decision to study anthropology was to learn how to look differently at people but even more so to write differently about people. How can I write about the reality of Capetonians without losing the authenticity of their experiences but also with a certain objectivity. In telling subjective stories of people, I would like to discover how  societies continually evolve and even more how people are dealing with it. So in a way, I am writing this thesis for myself. But mostly I am writing these stories for them.  These people trusted me to tell me their stories and experiences and they deserve to be heard. Their reality is not as black/white as history makes us belief, and based on their subjective experience, I hope I can offer a more nuanced picture. I owe this to them. And ... I am also doing it a bit for you, promoter, first and foremost because I want you to teach me how to write about people but somehow I am still hoping that I can touch you even for a moment with my stories of a group of Afrikaners in their city, Cape Town.