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. 

'Afrikaans Kos' and more

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"What is this? This is for you, daddy told her. Because it is your birthday. It has four thick feeth. Two ears that look like towels which have been eaten. On his back and head there is a a bump full of thin red small hairs. Hanging from his thick behind, there is a tail hanging, longer than Ping's plait. But craziest of all, this crazy dog has a nose that is hanging till the ground. This is not a nose, this is a trunk, said daddy. And this is not a dog, Marthe , this is an elephant. " Antjie Krog was reading out of a 'miraculous' Flemish children's book "Sam, a true story of a daughter and her elephant" written by Ingrid Vander Veken and translated in Afrikaans by Antjie Krog. Lapa uitgewers organized its annual meeting where African writers could present their book. As the annual tradition wants it, there was also a Flemish writer invited. This time Antjie, renowned South African writer, had chosen the book. She stayed at the 'writers' apartment in Antwerp, and found on the book shelves this nice booklet Ingrid wrote. It is a story about a girl who received an elephant for her birthday. It is a story based on true facts. It was organized at the premises of the literary club of Dutch - Afrikaner literature. There has always been a close bond between South Africa and Flanders of which the meeting was a prove of. Is it the language or is there more? Afrikaners are natural descendants of Dutch and Germans but there is still a certain complicity with Flemish people. The language is closer to the Flemish than the Dutch. Ingrid told me that she thinks there are many similarities between West - ,East Flemish and Afrikaans. The sk-sound (instead of sch) for sure and also the double negation and words such gezei (said), seun (son) but it is not only the language, there's more. When I entered the building, I was thinking of a conversation with a South African friend, who has been visiting Belgium recently and was asked to make a work of art that is typical for Flanders but also to bring the different cultures together. The artwork still needs to be revealed, but food and drinks are involved. He told me that he was struck to see that people seem to find each other in restaurants, tea rooms, cafes and that these are the places where Flemish, Belgians and other cultures do not care about differences. We all eat Chinese, Flemish, Belgian, Turkish, Spanish. And just this is what strikes me about South Africa as well. Afrikaners also love food and drinks. You have to admit that receiving a glass of white wine at a literature event at 9:30 am, might only happen in Belgium as well. Although in Belgium you'd rather get a glass of beer instead. Not only wine was served to tickle our taste buds but also delicious dishes were being served. They all are the result of a history of several cultures as their names suggest. Huge platters with bobotie sosaties, samoosas, vetkoek and of course the melktert, sweets, koeksisters, malvapudding, tambo  colored the tables. And as it happened I just read the book of Antjie Krog "Change of Tongue". She describes the importance of the kombuis (kitchen) for Afrikaners. Her Ouma once made a feast for the English Governor General, the enemy of the Afrikaners. The love for eating radiates from the letter that her Ouma wrote about the the event: "Klasie presented this enormous pudding to him in a Newley painted wheelbarrow. With the coffee we served milk tart, koeksiskters and Aunt Stoffie's feather-light jam puffs and paper -thin slices of guava marinated in port. " Much has been written about Afrikaners and they very definitely have a complex history but now when I will return I will associate the Afrikaners, just like my South African friend says for him the Flemisch identity is associated with the food culture, with the delicious dishes and a glass of wine. And perhaps here lies our complicity, in the ability to experience the culture of the other in our own culture through the food culture.

Frustration

South Africa, a changing country, but also a country full of frustrations. The images of the past few days about the shootings are shocking and a lot of the analysis as well. Politicians fight over who is to blame. It is the fault of the ANC, it is the fault of the police, it is the fault of the unions, it is the fault of everyone ... but perhaps most of all of poverty. The riots last week in Cape Town as well. During my stay in the past few weeks I have been constantly trying to wonder how I could survive in these circumstances. People try to be creative, some try to make something out of it, others try to make their dreams come true ... but we can try to romanticize, the harsh reality remains that many have no running water, many no electricity, no plumbing and alcoholism, drugs, abuse of women is rampant. Take the miners, they live in similar settings, working in very unhealthy conditions and earn a mere 400 Euros per month. In all honesty, I have to say that in all my despair, frustration and anger I would protest as well and probably would do stupid things. Because, what have  have you got to lose? If you no longer have human dignity, what remains? Twenty years after apartheid, the weak still have to battle. All their hope was aimed at having a better life but still a lot of people are waiting for it to happen. Twenty years after apartheid, apartheid still remains. Not necessarily the white against the black, but the rich against the poor. And yet change must come. That's what this is all about, 'change'. Hopefully the political leaders will realize that change must come for everyone. Talking to people, the main tone of the conversation is frustration. There are probably political theories, economical, and certainly also anthropological, but sometimes when one witnesses images as the mining killings, one must be one's reason aside and let the heart speak. Once again, the poor Africans are the victims. Let me end with one of the figureheads of the negritudebeweging.

Aime Césaire

those who have invented neither powder nor compass

those who could harness neither steam nor electricity

those who explored neither the seas nor the sky

but those without whom the earth would not be the earth

gibbosity all the more beneficent as the bare earth even more earth

my negritude is not a stone, its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day

my negritude is not a leukoma of dead liquid over the earth’s dead eye

my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral

it takes root in the red flesh

of the soil it takes root in the ardent flesh

of the sky it breaks through the opaque prostration with its upright patience

Eia for the royal Cailcedra!

Eia for those who have never invented anything

for those who never explored anything

for those who never conquered anything