I grew up in bars. I did, though. The favourite photograph of me as a three-year old is on Chibembe bar, wearing motorcycle goggles round my neck, red leather shoes, and clutching a red notebook.
For me there is nothing more comforting than the smooth solid wood of a bar counter. Sad isn't it? And I guess it may've caused a few problems in my life, but nothing I'm ashamed of. you're probably thinking that the quest for home and security shouldn't be sought in a drinking quarter. But firstly, it's not like that. And secondly, why the hell not?
Seriously though, for a child of safari camps, there was nothing like that ritual of coming home to the polished winterthorn counter and recounting tales of game sitings and who got stuck in which riverbed and who spotted a bird so rare they must be lying, or worse, misidentifying. (shudder). The clink of the grown-ups mosis, the smell of mosquito coils underfoot. At Chibembe it was more of a daytime thing. The 11 am ritual of trying to convince Bonkar that we were allowed a fizzy drink. No! 'minerals' are for paying guests. We could have lime juice. Occasionally, lime and soda. Did you know that adding salt to a lime and soda makes a thirst quencher like you never tasted before? Try it.
Of course a safari camp bar is only as good as its tender. And there have been two bar tenders in my life who can really claim to have had some formative influence. Daniel, and Chitumbi.
Daniel, of Chibembe and later Moondogs fame. The photo of me and the notebook has Daniel in the background, benign and amused. That man was a rock. And a great listener, which is of course an essential quality for the bar tender. Generosity and restraint are words that come to mind. Of course there were many teachers who raised me in that camp, from waiters who taught me how to do fancy napkin folding, to wild boymen who played islands in the dust with us. But Daniel nurtured in me an early ambition to make the perfect gin and tonic and make it right.
When I was a teenager and in my early 20s there was Chitumbi. Chitumbi the long suffering, oh-no-here-they-go-again headshaking host of a bar that saw many quiet watering rights battles.
Please guys, don't hang around the bar when the clients get back from their drives. Says the boss. Who will later be spread out on the bar like a candle left in the sun too long.
We the local riffraffs who eat all the peanuts before you can say "so, did you see a leopard?"
We shuffle off to the fire while they have their dinner and recolonise when they go to bed. And then the elegant joustings to try and get the keys off unbudging Chitums. He of the ever-pert bow-tie. He who has slowly mellowed and laxed his stern looks over the years. Well, whats a man to do?
When all your bosses over years have submitted to the wobbly candle act and stumbled home without a torch, stopping for a piss by chalet 8. And you've witnessed the problem solving, backstabbing and petty gossip of whose sleeping with who and who didn't switch off their spotlight on the nightdrive and whos corrupt in Zawa and whos eaten the bloody peanuts. Chitums who cycles to work past elephants and staunchly holds on to the bar keys past midnight. Chitums who can always organise another bowl of peanuts if you ask right. And if, like me, you were schooled by the best, you might even know the secret of how to get hold of those keys after midnight.
Showing posts with label hospitality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospitality. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Language of Displacement
The Language of Displacement
They're not refugees, they're displaced people, apparently. They don't fit the international protocol – most people are here for economic reasons, which makes them economic refugees. The fact that they are now running for their lives and have nothing left to call their own doesn't factor into the definition, apparently.
I don't want to call them “foreigners”. They're not, they're neighbours.
What shall we call them then? Previously housed people? Temporarily unaccomodated people?
“Victims of Xenophobic attacks”. Urgh. That's so dehumanising. But come on, we have to have a label. We can't do without labels in this society.
Make no mistake, language is playing a huge role in this issue, as government spokespeople gingerly pick their way over the debris caused by displacement, violence and hate crimes.
“Our President Thabo Mbeki,” in his nation address kept referring to the “few South Africans” who caused this. But if you trawled the streets for a vox pops there would be more than a few supporters of the sentiment, if not the actual deed of throwing out these unwelcome guests. But according to the Prez, its just a few “criminal elements” that have destabilised our nation. Funny no-one wants to go back, though eh?
Why is it so personal, for me? Perhaps because I have been so unquestioningly and enthusiastically welcomed in all the homes and villages I have set foot in, in Malawi and other parts of sub-saharan Africa. I have always felt an enormous sense of pride and privilege to live in a place where people are so hospitable when they have so little. I'm not saying there isn't fierce competition for resources in squatter camps in this country. And its sad that it has to come to this for people to mobilise food and resources. Images of poverty become banal and numbing and people turn away. Until it quite literally ignites. Well, fire does speak loudly and eloquently.
Perhaps its also because I've always only been half a South African, and half a Zambian, and feelings of belonging are precious when they arise, often just spontaneously and because of the warmth and feeling of a few friends. Travelling in Zambia over the 16 months it took to document traditional ceremonies in rural parts of the country, I was awed by how seriously the code of hospitality is upheld. Who could forget being welcomed in Mwinilunga by the minstrel Lunda chief who gave us pineapples, baskets, feasted us and shared stories of his people's heritage? Or the hundred of people who took time to feed us and talk to us, making sure we had all the facts we needed to write about their ceremonies. And no, I'm not comparing rural Zambia to Alex or Reiger park. Obviously its easier to be welcoming when you have a bit of land and can grow your own food.
What I'm talking about is something else, its an arrogance born of ignorance that so called foreigners find actually confusing. Its another sad legacy from the PR (previous regime) and the BES (Bantu Education System). Along with lack of self love, I guess. When two Zambian friends of mine recently paid a visit to Joburg (it was the first time for one of them) they were bewildered by the hostility of ordinary strangers who heard their foreign accents and treated them with disdain.
“No one speak English here!” said M, describing how hard it was to get help when she was lost.
But they do! They were probably pretending.
And that article that described how foreigners are stopped and asked the Zulu word for elbow or various other body parts, and if you don't know an archaic term no longer in usage then you prove your foreignness. As B, in his inimitable quippish way said, “You better know your Zulu arse from your Zulu elbow”.
Yesterday I foolishly thought I might be able to cheer someone up at the refugee squat by feebly speaking a few Chewa truisms. But people aren't really chatty when they've lost everything and are wondering how the hell to get through this night with those rainclouds coming.
Oh dear. More on this later, I'm going to move to other topics for a while. Thanks for bearing with me. You've been so kind to read the opinionated ramblings of a white child “born in south africa raised in zambia schooled in malawi living in south africa part german part irish part british whose mother was born in malawi and grandfather born in chinde mocambique who might have some jewish blood in back there somewhere.” which is how I try to defend my own heritage when people ask me “where are you actually from, actually, originally?”
They're not refugees, they're displaced people, apparently. They don't fit the international protocol – most people are here for economic reasons, which makes them economic refugees. The fact that they are now running for their lives and have nothing left to call their own doesn't factor into the definition, apparently.
I don't want to call them “foreigners”. They're not, they're neighbours.
What shall we call them then? Previously housed people? Temporarily unaccomodated people?
“Victims of Xenophobic attacks”. Urgh. That's so dehumanising. But come on, we have to have a label. We can't do without labels in this society.
Make no mistake, language is playing a huge role in this issue, as government spokespeople gingerly pick their way over the debris caused by displacement, violence and hate crimes.
“Our President Thabo Mbeki,” in his nation address kept referring to the “few South Africans” who caused this. But if you trawled the streets for a vox pops there would be more than a few supporters of the sentiment, if not the actual deed of throwing out these unwelcome guests. But according to the Prez, its just a few “criminal elements” that have destabilised our nation. Funny no-one wants to go back, though eh?
Why is it so personal, for me? Perhaps because I have been so unquestioningly and enthusiastically welcomed in all the homes and villages I have set foot in, in Malawi and other parts of sub-saharan Africa. I have always felt an enormous sense of pride and privilege to live in a place where people are so hospitable when they have so little. I'm not saying there isn't fierce competition for resources in squatter camps in this country. And its sad that it has to come to this for people to mobilise food and resources. Images of poverty become banal and numbing and people turn away. Until it quite literally ignites. Well, fire does speak loudly and eloquently.
Perhaps its also because I've always only been half a South African, and half a Zambian, and feelings of belonging are precious when they arise, often just spontaneously and because of the warmth and feeling of a few friends. Travelling in Zambia over the 16 months it took to document traditional ceremonies in rural parts of the country, I was awed by how seriously the code of hospitality is upheld. Who could forget being welcomed in Mwinilunga by the minstrel Lunda chief who gave us pineapples, baskets, feasted us and shared stories of his people's heritage? Or the hundred of people who took time to feed us and talk to us, making sure we had all the facts we needed to write about their ceremonies. And no, I'm not comparing rural Zambia to Alex or Reiger park. Obviously its easier to be welcoming when you have a bit of land and can grow your own food.
What I'm talking about is something else, its an arrogance born of ignorance that so called foreigners find actually confusing. Its another sad legacy from the PR (previous regime) and the BES (Bantu Education System). Along with lack of self love, I guess. When two Zambian friends of mine recently paid a visit to Joburg (it was the first time for one of them) they were bewildered by the hostility of ordinary strangers who heard their foreign accents and treated them with disdain.
“No one speak English here!” said M, describing how hard it was to get help when she was lost.
But they do! They were probably pretending.
And that article that described how foreigners are stopped and asked the Zulu word for elbow or various other body parts, and if you don't know an archaic term no longer in usage then you prove your foreignness. As B, in his inimitable quippish way said, “You better know your Zulu arse from your Zulu elbow”.
Yesterday I foolishly thought I might be able to cheer someone up at the refugee squat by feebly speaking a few Chewa truisms. But people aren't really chatty when they've lost everything and are wondering how the hell to get through this night with those rainclouds coming.
Oh dear. More on this later, I'm going to move to other topics for a while. Thanks for bearing with me. You've been so kind to read the opinionated ramblings of a white child “born in south africa raised in zambia schooled in malawi living in south africa part german part irish part british whose mother was born in malawi and grandfather born in chinde mocambique who might have some jewish blood in back there somewhere.” which is how I try to defend my own heritage when people ask me “where are you actually from, actually, originally?”
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