Solid-Dairy-Ity

            In my last post I pointed to a stark contrast between our living conditions in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, and those who live in the surrounding townships.  This contrast has been rather easy for most of us on this gap year journey to notice.  Those students and program leaders who have noticed it, have to some degree had feelings about this contrast.

            Feelings have ranged between pity, sympathy, compassion, and guilt. 

Questions inevitably arise: 

            Why do I get to live in such comfort and health while they live apparent misery?   

            Why do I get to do such fun activities in this area when most of the people I work with won’t ever be able to afford those things?

            Why did TBB set up the trip this way?  What I am supposed to learn from this experience?

            How do I set the balance sheet right?

            What can I do so that I don’t feel so guilty about all of this?

            How do I show solidarity to these people? 

These questions have gotten me reflecting on my own journey, and the various examples I have been shown in my life by those living and non-living who have devoted their lives to closing this gap in inequality.

There are those that have chosen to give up some of their resources to be closer to, to be able to understand better, the plight of the poor.  Of these people I think of Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone (better known as St. Francis), who in the 12th century turned away from the possibilities of a wealthy life as a silk merchant, giving it all up, even his clothes, to ‘rebuild the church.’  I think of Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker movement, a socialist of middle-class descent living in New York who dedicated her life to helping the poorest of the poor during the Great Depression of the 1930s by opening up houses of hospitality where people could find shelter, a warm meal, and a bit of comfort.  It was her creed to ‘live simply,’ and I suppose that by doing this, she felt she was standing in solidarity with the poor and homeless whom she helped. 

There are those on the other end of the spectrum as well – those who don’t believe that giving up what you were born into or blessed with shows true solidarity.  I remember reading a book about ethnography of the homeless population during grad school.  It was a critique of those who choose to ‘go homeless’ for some period of time in order to chronicle the lives of homeless people and gain a better understanding of what it means to be homeless.  The author suggested that these undercover ethnographers will never truly know what it's like to be homeless when the first step taken is choosing to be homeless. 

            Similarly, I heard once from a homeless man’s mouth that he felt it was a “slap in the face” when people chose to give up what they had to live more humbly and be closer to the poor.  He felt that consciously choosing to give up your resource was a far cry from being a victim of structural injustice.  “They will never know what it is like, not to be able to choose a life of wealth and comfort.”  In this sense, ignoring one’s privilege, or one’s power, does not equalize the playing field.  The power imbalance is still there, despite whatever outwards appearances you have chosen to upkeep.

So then how do we show true solidarity? 

Is it choosing to stay back from a hike or a swimming-with-the-seals expedition, knowing that the sick in the townships can’t go? 

Is it inviting them along and paying their way?  The other day after a run along the beach about 15km east of Plett, I was confronted by a woman who had just finished her housecleaning duties for the day.  She was headed back home to one of the townships and was wondering if I’d seen the taxi headed back to Plett.  I told her no, but that I was headed that way, and was happy to give her a lift.  Meg, my running partner for the afternoon, and I had planned on stopping somewhere on the way back for some hot chocolate.  We asked our new carpool friend if she didn’t mind the stop.  She obliged, and we invited her in to join us for a drink.  As we drove home, each slurping our drinks through straws, I wondered what she thought of these two white foreigners who had the luxuries of a free day to run on the beach, the car to take them there and back, and the money to buy gas and groceries.  Were we helping this woman’s cause any?  Were we pitying her?  Were we just rubbing our wealth in her face? 

At this point, I’m not quite sure how to show true solidarity.  Personally, I lean toward a place where recognizing the power imbalance is the first step.  Recognizing my own privilege and power, and not ignoring it, not letting it slip away so that I remain in my bubble of ignorance and joy, is the second step.  Yes, the suffering is hard to think of, and my privilege might foster feelings of guilt, which, whether founded or unfounded might be harder to endure, but what’s that in comparison?  It seems then once I’m at this point that it becomes a bit of duty or responsibility, to not ignore or shun my privilege, but to use my resources to the best of my abilities to equalize the playing field and restore a bit of equality in the world.  And I have a feeling this has less to do with charity and money than it does to do with liberation (Freire's idea of humanitarianism vs. humanism applies here...).

p.s.

Is it even worth trying to define what true solidarity is?  Maybe solidarity means something different for everyone: maybe solidarity for each individual comes when their positive action to reduce inequality matches or outweighs the guilt they might have for being on the upper end of the unequal playing field.  For some people that might be giving some of their income tax return to charity.  For others, solidarity might mean refusing to buy certain products or standing in picket lines, and for others, it is giving up all that you own to be able to better relate to the poor.  I suppose that this means different things, for different people, at different times...

From My Pedestal (1 of 2)

            So here I stand, on my grand pedestal, quite literally.  I am on a newly built wooden deck, 10 feet above the grass lawn below, which slopes down toward the hedges, which slopes northward down the hill to the street below.  The street runs east/west from Plettenberg Bay to the N2, the highway that runs along the coast of S. Africa.  The walk from the main part of town, with all the nice restaurants, cafes, boutique and surf shops and the like, west toward the highway probably takes about 20-30 minutes, uphill.  Across and down the highway lay the townships.  The collection of temporary and semi-permanent settlements is where the ‘coloreds’ (those Africans who have lived in this area and mixed with the white colonists – similar to the ‘mestizos’ of Latin America) and newly settled of other African descent live. 

            So here I stand on my pedestal.  I gaze at the scene below me.  The tiled roofs of beautiful, modern homes pop out amidst the tips of trees, rolling downhill towards the bay below.  The river, coming from the ridge-toothed mountains at the very distant horizon, turning into softer rolling green hills, empties into the bay.  Rolling clouds about the hills reflect reds, oranges and yellows from the setting sun.  The waves create a never-ending break of white foam upon the shore.  

            Cars drive up and down the street that leads from town to the townships.  Groups of blacks, I don’t know if they’re coloreds or Africans, walk back up toward the highway, probably going home, probably coming from one of the many service jobs in town, or even possibly coming from an afternoon of playing in the ocean. 

            The physical positioning of myself, relaxing on a deck enjoying a drink and the view of the mountains and sea as the sun goes down, in contrast to those walking on the street below back home after a long day of work, quite literally reveals the contrast in our lives. 

            Monday through Thursday our group scatters into the various townships surrounding Plett, walking around with caretakers from the nonprofit Hospice Plett, which provides palliative care to patients with incurable diseases.  Each day we’ll visit anywhere from three to fifteen patients in their homes, often the size of one of our bedrooms.  We sit on the deteriorated second-hand couches and chairs, often covered by a blanket or sheet to hide the tears in the finishing, and watch and listen as our caretakers talk to the patients in !Khosa, gathering information since their last visit: Any new pains?  Did you take your medications today?  Blood pressure is recorded, along with blood-sugar levels.  Data jotted down.  Notes taken.  Gossip exchanged.  Next house. Next patient.

            These patients suffer from any number of the following diseases and conditions: hypertension, diabetes, TB, AIDS, cancer, paralysis due to stroke, mental illness, arthritis, elephantitis of some limb or organ, amputees, gun-shot victims, skin disease, ring worm – the list goes on and on.  Many of the patients are old; many are young.  There is one main clinic in one of the larger townships that serves three to four townships around.  Patients that go for one ailment or another when they don’t have a scheduled appointment will often be turned away.  There aren’t enough doctors.  There are 40,000 open nursing positions in S. Africa’s government run hospitals.  There aren’t enough rooms to carry the load. 

            The townships seem nice compared to the slums of India that we worked in.  The houses seem bigger; each house has its own lawn.  There are plants and trees around.  It is not crowded.  Mostly dirt roads and paths connect block after block of houses, from phase 1 (super temporary, built of mismatched wooden planks and plywood) through phase 4 (permanent, built of cement block and concrete).  The natural environment seems more incorporated into this living situation.  The sun shines.  The wind blows.  The openness of the layout seems healthier than the dark, dank squalor of some of the dwellings of families we visited in India. 

            Everyday there is a new story heard from one of the patients.  Four houses caught fire this morning.  There was a violent confrontation between two women at the clinic, one of whom was suspected of cheating with the other’s husband.  A boy across the street broke into the paralyzed woman’s house and stole her dvd player; he was on drugs and planned to sell it to get money for more drugs.  An older woman was raped by three men last week in the middle of the night.  The men were arrested and went to jail.  Bail was set at 100 rand each (about ten dollars); they were released the next day.  The police arrest some from drug use, and sell drugs to others.

            I don’t tell these stories or describe this scene to be sensational, or to paint a picture of a violent, poverty-stricken, substance-abusing people; these things happen in all cities in every country by and to every race and creed to some extent.  I tell these stories to show the contrast between these townships and the more affluent community of Plett just a stone’s throw away. 

            We spend our mornings during the week interacting with the sick in their small homes, hearing stories of violence, pain, and suffering throughout the community. 

            We spend our afternoons and weekends studying in a clubhouse overlooking the ocean, playing on the beach with the healthy and capable, taking hikes on breathtaking peninsulas, swimming with seals, visiting monkey sanctuaries, browsing the internet sipping tea at cafes, and finally retreating to our large, clean homes for a home-cooked meal and a comfortable bed to sleep on. 

            The contrast, I suppose, is easy to point out.  Most of us feel it to some degree or another.  The reasons for the contrast seem just as visible.  A brief overview of Africa’s past 500 years is pretty convincing:  a slave trade, colonization, natural resource exploitation, apartheid; all to some degree or another rooted in racism - a feeling that this world was/is for the taking by the superior races – which is itself to some degree or another rooted in the idea that our personal health and success, and that of our family and our country, must and can come before the well-being of another. 

            This contrast, which could I suppose be described as stark inequality, does not solely reside in Plettenberg Bay, or in Africa.  It resides in most communities, in most countries, where there is a mix of people of different races, some of which have power, some of which don’t.  The contrast is just as stark between San Francisco and Oakland in the Bay Area, between Russian Hill and the Tenderloin within San Francisco, between Fairfax and the Canal or Marin City in Marin County. 

            It seems that in our normal, everyday lives, we make a choice to cross the lines of that inequality or stay within the bounds of our own privilege.  Staying within the bounds of our privilege, we may remain virtually unaware of the suffering of others.  Buffered by the comforts of our nice cars and paved highways, we move from home to work, in between stopping at cafes, restaurants and shops, all there to serve us and those like us.  Never needing to face the realities that exist in the in-between spaces, underneath bridges and in the busy streets, we remain unscathed, able to continue on in our existence without the slightest acknowledgement that something is not right in this world. 

            For those however that cross those lines, you are inevitably faced with a question:  what do I do now, knowing that I have, and they have not? 

(to be continued…)