Two cultures, one country

I actually thought that time would help me organize my thoughts, but the more time I spend in Africa, the more mixed my feelings and thoughts are. So let me start from the beginning. Maybe narrating it chronologically will help me structuring my perception of the facts.

I got here on a Friday night, exactly two weeks ago, jump straight to a taxi that took me to this nice and cozy little lodge. Since I had the whole week fully booked with meetings and interviews, I had to spend the whole weekend working and organizing the logistic of the project. And since those meetings were mainly in Sandton and Pretoria (the capital of South Africa), the impression I got from the country in the first week could not be more positive: impecable infrastructure, nice and big houses, beautiful architecture… you feel like you could be anywhere in Europe.  I was actually blown away by the development of South Africa.

I also did not feel any kind of racial segregation at first. Although it´s very rare to see white and black people hanging out together in the same group in their spare time, they seemed to get along socially and respect each other. Although I never felt any spark of integration between black and whites and it is very clear from the beginning that two distinct cultures have to coexist in the same environment, I didn´t get the sense of any kind of racism or discrimination by both. It was not until later that I realized I was actually living inside a bubble.

On Saturday, I had the day off. It had been a week I was in South Africa and I hadn´t been in Johannesburg yet. I read in the Lonely Planet that, downtown, there was an artistic ghetto named Newtown. It used to be dangerous place, but apparently the government was making an effort to recover the area. Since I am also an artist, I decided to go there and check it out. Before I left the lodge, the very blond blue eyed owner advised me with her British accent: “a girl like you should not go to Johannesburg. It is not a nice area”. Well, I´ve heard people saying the same things about Rio de Janeiro and it is far away from reality. How could I be in South Africa and not visit the city center of Johannesburg? It sounded like absurd to me! I dressed nicely, put my high hills on and took my camera to register my experience in images. There I went to see what a Saturday afternoon was like downtown.

I arrived there and was really excited. There were markets in the streets everywhere, people were selling all types of foods and clothes. It was a very intense cultural experience, just like I like it. I immediately got my camera out and started making some shots of the scenes, trying to get all the different angles I possibly could, just like I usually do anywhere I go.

Suddenly this very strong black guy comes towards me with an angry face and starts shouting at me: “You can´t take pictures here! Why are you making pictures of us?” I tried to explain I was a journalist and I was very interested in cultural studies, but he just walked away visibly bothered by the situation.

I felt quite intimidated and put my camera inside my bag. But I started wondering why he was so upset. It´s pretty clear I am a tourist here and that´s what tourists do: they take pictures of the places they visit. I started looking around, trying to understand why. Suddenly it hit me: I was the only tourist there. This was not a touristic area and they were not used to this kind of approach. Besides that, I was ridiculously overdressed with my stupid Louis Vuiton scarf and my high hills. Could I be

any more inappropriately dressed? How could I dress like Carry Bradshaw with New York´s 5^th Avenue style when I am Africa? I took the scarf out and bought some flip flops to replace the high hills. I thought the problem was solved: no more pictures and dressing appropriate. However, I still felt like people were looking at me telling me with their eyes I was not supposed to be there.

I swear for God, it took me half an hour to notice that I was the only “white” person there. Call me dumb, but I never understood the concept of races, I understand the concept of cultures. And, since I really believe that cultural exchange experiences enrich us as human beings, I never discriminated anyone just because they have a different cultural background than me. In the opposite, I actually value that, because I know whenever you have the chance to get in touch with a different culture, you also have the chance to enlarge your Cosmo vision.

Anyways, that “problem” I could not solve. There was nothing I could do to feel welcome in that place, just because they thought I was different from them. It was cold, so I decided to get a coffee somewhere. I could not find any coffee shop, so I went into a bar. The moment I stepped into the bar, I felt like giraffe in the middle of New York City. Everyone looked at me, some with curiosity and some with anger. To tell you the truth, it was more like men looked at me with curiosity, women with anger. But I kept going, looking desperately for coffee. I really needed caffeine at the point.

In the back of the bar, there was a table with five guys and they were smiling at me. Finally, some friendly people! I walked towards them and sat down. We started talking and having fun together. In ten minutes, like a shift, when I mixed with this group of black guys, I didn´t feel like an outcast anymore. At last, I could solve the unsolvable problem and I felt like a human being again!

It reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my best friends, who is black. I frankly thought it was an absurd when she told me that, whenever she was within a group of black people, she had a different treatment from society compared to the times she was hanging out with white people. Now I could feel that on my own skin.

Last Friday night, I went out with the journalist who is working with me here. We went to a place called Melville to have dinner. After that, we noticed that the night life in that area was quite active and we decided to check it out. We went to three bars. We couldn’t help noticing some facts: in the first one, which was quite small, there were two tables occupied plus us: one table was composed by a group of white people and the other one by a group of black people.

Then we went to another bar and there were only black people. Not even one single white person. We sat down and started talking to the waitress about several subjects and we mentioned we were only going to have one drink and then go home. She brought us what we ordered and five minutes later she came and asked: “Can I bring you the bill?” We looked at one another quite surprised with that attitude, without knowing what to answer.  I can´t quite affirm if we were being kicked out of the bar, but we cannot discard that possibility. We will really never know.

And guess what we found in the third bar just two houses away? Only white people. In a country where 95% of the population is black, in that bar not even one black soul. And then I started wondering: Am I starting to be racist, noticing the color of people´s skin after 28 years? Of course I was not! The problem is that I am in a racist country. You don´t see that many people mixed here, like you would see in Brazil, for example. I am myself a mixture of German, oriental, Portuguese, Indian and black. Mixtures are quite common in Brazil, but not here: there is black, there is white and there is nothing in between. There is no such thing as gray. The Apartheid might have been abolished 18 years ago, but the invisible line that segregates both groups is still pretty visible, at least to me.  

Before labeling people by their gender, color, nationality, religion or sexuality, I like to think we are all human beings, in the first place. I always thought that there is no need to see the differences before seeing the similarities. So you can only imagine the cultural shock I´ve been through in the past two weeks. I believe things will start to settle down now, so I can finally get a clear picture of what is really going on. 

In my next post I will talk a little about my experience with the huge social-economic differences. I hope to see you around!