I don't really have much to say, except that today I turned 28 and it's been a really nice day so far. Lots and lots of people posted birthday greetings on my Facebook page, I had birthday pizza with some museum coworkers, and I even got a surprise phone call from an old friend. All in all I feel very loved!
Thanks to everyone who thought of me today. I have lots of warm fuzzies.
Now I'm gonna finish my birthday coffee (I had my birthday wine last night) and do some birthday schoolwork (because I've got a not-birthday funding deadline at the end of the month!)
Love to all of you!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Sex and the minor urban area (I hesitate to call Mthatha a city)
Even as I continue to become more accustomed to daily life in southern Africa, I keep encountering things I am at a loss to explain.
As an anthropologist and a secular humanist, I very much like the theory that most people are fundamentally the same - excepting pedophiles, rapists and other severely mentally ill individuals, I believe that everyone everywhere has the same underlying needs and the same general motivations which inform their behavior: we all need air, food, and sleep, but we also need social contact, understanding, affirmation of our value as humans, and some sort of goal to work towards.
This emphasis on sameness, on what people have in common, is what I rely on to inform my behavior in a foreign country. I generally think that if I can find common ground, I can communicate with just about anyone; I also think that we all have common ground to find.
This has worked for me reasonably well in terms of establishing cordial working relationships, but it's also, perhaps, made me a lazy anthropologist. I haven't spent too much effort lately on getting to know the particular customs and preferences of communication and behavior here in southern Africa because, hey - we can all get along, right?
Usually - but in the few instances of direct conflict I've had with people here, I think that at least part of the cause was my inability to see that my behavior at these times was a source of discomfort or outright insult to those around me. I pretty much assumed I was acting in a more or less universally accepted way, when in fact I was pushing buttons. Goodwill doesn't always go the distance. I wouldn't have realized this unless people hadn't spoken up.
I am not going to flog myself for causing minor social conflicts; it happens, I probably couldn't have known, and now I know better. The point I am rambling to make is that sometimes, acting like everything is perfectly normal - and believing that it is - can bite a person in the ass. Inattentiveness, intentional or not, to the more subtle patterns of behavior of people around us can lead to some real surprises.
Surprise! Not all humans think alike! That is something I know so well as an anthropologist, but don't always understand.
The particular event which inspired me to write this post was an interaction I had this morning with two fellow museum staff. I walked up to the staff kitchen to refill the creamers of the tea service in order to fuel further my coffee addiction, and in the kitchen I encountered these two staff member, both of them male. After the requisite "Molo, unjani?" exchanges, one of them asked how Mthatha had been treating me. I was so pleased to be asked, since in the last few days I'd actually been feeling more and more out of sorts - little work was to be found around the museum, little inclusive attention was to be had from museum colleagues, and as a result I felt rather out of place. So I told him that Mthatha was generally good but that my only complaint was a lack of work to do.
It turned out that he'd really been asking a different question - I am not even sure he registered my answer - because he followed up with "You haven't found someone?"
Coming out of nowhere, this took me rather aback. I responded in the negative and tried to explain that I wasn't looking - I feel no need to start something in a place I'll be leaving in less than a month. I also tried to explain that I am actually happy being single. They pressed with more questions, asking whether I didn't want someone to "keep me company".
I tried to make a joke out of it, asking whether there was a bet on to see who I'd hook up with, adding that I wanted in if there was a lot of money at stake. I am not sure if my humor translated - it fails to do so even more often here than it does back home - but honestly, I didn't mind returning a little of the discomfort I'd just been served.
I've been asked similar things several times both here and two years ago in Botswana. People often seem concerned that I don't have anyone to "make me happy", and more than once people have tried to set me up with a boyfriend or even a fiancee. People, male and female alike, genuinely seem to think that being single is a truly undesirable condition and that no one would choose it. Most people I know here are in some sort of relationship.
The museum staff guys this morning likewise didn't really seem to understand what I was saying, but they appeared to accept it. As it happened, the kitchen was out of cream, so one of the guys walked downstairs with me to requisition more (we go through a lot of tea, coffee, sugar and cream here). I thought our conversation was at an end, as we walked almost a full minute in silence, until he turned to me and said out of the blue, "You have a very beautiful body."
This put me at a loss, so I said, "Thank you....", paused, and then replied, "So what you're saying is that I am wasting it?", meaning my body, and he simply replied, "Yes."
We reached the office I'd been heading to before I could formulate an articulate breakdown of just why his opinion was, in my opinion, a very chauvinist one, and that I actually am as happy as I've ever been, relationship or no, thankyouverymuch. I don't think it would have benefited anyone had I exploded on him then and there, but I was tempted. I think, though, that later I will corner him and the other male staffer involved - separately - and politely explain how uncomfortable they made me and that their behavior, in the US at least, could constitute sexual harassment.
Every anthropologist has to find their bottom line when it comes to involvement with "the other" - the people they're living with, studying, collaborating with, however you want to frame it. Every anthropologist, whether we admit it or not, has to live with some degree of relativism but also has to find their bottom line for that as well. I just found mine. It's interesting and, objectively, just fine that people here appear comfortable with discussing quite openly about sex, sexuality, and personal relationships. I don't want my body involved in that, though. I don't give a shit what men or women in my workplace think about my body, my relationships, or anything else so personal to me: I have the right to not give my privacy away, and I will speak up when that line dividing personal and public is broached.
Postscript: I wrote this in my notebook during lunch. In the afternoon, I returned to the office I'd been working in to find the same male staffer who'd made the comment about my body along with a couple of other staffers, and a toddler. It isn't unusual to see random children hanging around the offices since people often bring their kids or their relatives around for a visit. So I entertained the little girl, giving her a piece of paper to draw on and letting her sit on my lap. Once she'd visibly become comfortable and affectionate with me, one of the women made the comment that the girl had a new mulungu (white) mommy - and it turned out that the male staffer who'd made the comment was her father. I like kids - other people's kids - a lot, but the whole implication of trying to draw me into an arranged family relationship induced a whole lot of GAH in me after the morning's events. Let me repeat that: GAH. I even said straight out to the poor kid, in botched Xhosa, that I am not her mother, knowing as I said it that "mother" is an honoriffic title that women are called all the time here as a sign of respect. I doubt she understood why I said that, but I hope her dad did.
*Edit*: It's been brought to my attention that I need to clarify something in this post. When I talk about "the other" and being a "lazy anthropologist", what I mean is that I think it's valuable to always try to understand the way people around you think, especially when you're in a foreign country. What I *didn't* mean is that I see people here in South Africa as merely research subjects on which to focus a microscope. I don't. I see them as regular people - that's what I was trying to say in the beginning.
But I do think that using an anthropologist's toolkit can be a good way to understand any and all people, including myself.
There will probably always be some degree of difference in the way an American thinks and the way a South African thinks, because we grow up in different circumstances. The events I write about above are what reminded me of this.
As an anthropologist and a secular humanist, I very much like the theory that most people are fundamentally the same - excepting pedophiles, rapists and other severely mentally ill individuals, I believe that everyone everywhere has the same underlying needs and the same general motivations which inform their behavior: we all need air, food, and sleep, but we also need social contact, understanding, affirmation of our value as humans, and some sort of goal to work towards.
This emphasis on sameness, on what people have in common, is what I rely on to inform my behavior in a foreign country. I generally think that if I can find common ground, I can communicate with just about anyone; I also think that we all have common ground to find.
This has worked for me reasonably well in terms of establishing cordial working relationships, but it's also, perhaps, made me a lazy anthropologist. I haven't spent too much effort lately on getting to know the particular customs and preferences of communication and behavior here in southern Africa because, hey - we can all get along, right?
Usually - but in the few instances of direct conflict I've had with people here, I think that at least part of the cause was my inability to see that my behavior at these times was a source of discomfort or outright insult to those around me. I pretty much assumed I was acting in a more or less universally accepted way, when in fact I was pushing buttons. Goodwill doesn't always go the distance. I wouldn't have realized this unless people hadn't spoken up.
I am not going to flog myself for causing minor social conflicts; it happens, I probably couldn't have known, and now I know better. The point I am rambling to make is that sometimes, acting like everything is perfectly normal - and believing that it is - can bite a person in the ass. Inattentiveness, intentional or not, to the more subtle patterns of behavior of people around us can lead to some real surprises.
Surprise! Not all humans think alike! That is something I know so well as an anthropologist, but don't always understand.
The particular event which inspired me to write this post was an interaction I had this morning with two fellow museum staff. I walked up to the staff kitchen to refill the creamers of the tea service in order to fuel further my coffee addiction, and in the kitchen I encountered these two staff member, both of them male. After the requisite "Molo, unjani?" exchanges, one of them asked how Mthatha had been treating me. I was so pleased to be asked, since in the last few days I'd actually been feeling more and more out of sorts - little work was to be found around the museum, little inclusive attention was to be had from museum colleagues, and as a result I felt rather out of place. So I told him that Mthatha was generally good but that my only complaint was a lack of work to do.
It turned out that he'd really been asking a different question - I am not even sure he registered my answer - because he followed up with "You haven't found someone?"
Coming out of nowhere, this took me rather aback. I responded in the negative and tried to explain that I wasn't looking - I feel no need to start something in a place I'll be leaving in less than a month. I also tried to explain that I am actually happy being single. They pressed with more questions, asking whether I didn't want someone to "keep me company".
I tried to make a joke out of it, asking whether there was a bet on to see who I'd hook up with, adding that I wanted in if there was a lot of money at stake. I am not sure if my humor translated - it fails to do so even more often here than it does back home - but honestly, I didn't mind returning a little of the discomfort I'd just been served.
I've been asked similar things several times both here and two years ago in Botswana. People often seem concerned that I don't have anyone to "make me happy", and more than once people have tried to set me up with a boyfriend or even a fiancee. People, male and female alike, genuinely seem to think that being single is a truly undesirable condition and that no one would choose it. Most people I know here are in some sort of relationship.
The museum staff guys this morning likewise didn't really seem to understand what I was saying, but they appeared to accept it. As it happened, the kitchen was out of cream, so one of the guys walked downstairs with me to requisition more (we go through a lot of tea, coffee, sugar and cream here). I thought our conversation was at an end, as we walked almost a full minute in silence, until he turned to me and said out of the blue, "You have a very beautiful body."
This put me at a loss, so I said, "Thank you....", paused, and then replied, "So what you're saying is that I am wasting it?", meaning my body, and he simply replied, "Yes."
We reached the office I'd been heading to before I could formulate an articulate breakdown of just why his opinion was, in my opinion, a very chauvinist one, and that I actually am as happy as I've ever been, relationship or no, thankyouverymuch. I don't think it would have benefited anyone had I exploded on him then and there, but I was tempted. I think, though, that later I will corner him and the other male staffer involved - separately - and politely explain how uncomfortable they made me and that their behavior, in the US at least, could constitute sexual harassment.
Every anthropologist has to find their bottom line when it comes to involvement with "the other" - the people they're living with, studying, collaborating with, however you want to frame it. Every anthropologist, whether we admit it or not, has to live with some degree of relativism but also has to find their bottom line for that as well. I just found mine. It's interesting and, objectively, just fine that people here appear comfortable with discussing quite openly about sex, sexuality, and personal relationships. I don't want my body involved in that, though. I don't give a shit what men or women in my workplace think about my body, my relationships, or anything else so personal to me: I have the right to not give my privacy away, and I will speak up when that line dividing personal and public is broached.
Postscript: I wrote this in my notebook during lunch. In the afternoon, I returned to the office I'd been working in to find the same male staffer who'd made the comment about my body along with a couple of other staffers, and a toddler. It isn't unusual to see random children hanging around the offices since people often bring their kids or their relatives around for a visit. So I entertained the little girl, giving her a piece of paper to draw on and letting her sit on my lap. Once she'd visibly become comfortable and affectionate with me, one of the women made the comment that the girl had a new mulungu (white) mommy - and it turned out that the male staffer who'd made the comment was her father. I like kids - other people's kids - a lot, but the whole implication of trying to draw me into an arranged family relationship induced a whole lot of GAH in me after the morning's events. Let me repeat that: GAH. I even said straight out to the poor kid, in botched Xhosa, that I am not her mother, knowing as I said it that "mother" is an honoriffic title that women are called all the time here as a sign of respect. I doubt she understood why I said that, but I hope her dad did.
*Edit*: It's been brought to my attention that I need to clarify something in this post. When I talk about "the other" and being a "lazy anthropologist", what I mean is that I think it's valuable to always try to understand the way people around you think, especially when you're in a foreign country. What I *didn't* mean is that I see people here in South Africa as merely research subjects on which to focus a microscope. I don't. I see them as regular people - that's what I was trying to say in the beginning.
But I do think that using an anthropologist's toolkit can be a good way to understand any and all people, including myself.
There will probably always be some degree of difference in the way an American thinks and the way a South African thinks, because we grow up in different circumstances. The events I write about above are what reminded me of this.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Misadventures in Durban
This period has been a time of new experiences for me, and this trip to Durban has not been an exception. I arrived here yesterday evening with five other women of the Mandela Museum staff for the South African Museums Association conference, yet here now I am sitting in a curtained bed in Durban's fine Entabeni Private Hospital: my first non-ER hospital experience. I've never actually been admitted before. Got an IV drip and everything - or I did, until they removed it as it was causing my vein to swell uncomfortably. I went in this morning as I'd been planning for a few days to get checked for what I assumed were gallbladder problems. I'd hoped to have some sort of wham-bam-thank-you-Doc laproscopic surgery to get the damned thing out, leaving me a day or two to recover and still actually attend the SAMA conference.
The test results, though, showed nothing wrong with the ol' bladder of bile, which is weird. So instead they admitted me to let a gut specialist doctor take a look at me, possibly with a camera in my stomach, tomorrow. Still optimistic that I can hit at least some of the conference tomorrow or Wednesday.
Apart from some thrilling adventures in sitting, laying, and waiting, it's been routinely boring here. That's no surprise, but I do have to say the docs and nurses of the ER (where, as a walk-in-patient), I had to be admitted, were surprisingly quick to treat me. Made me feel all special. I pretended that it was because I was a special emissary from the United States, or possibly the United Nations. That's right, I got Barack watching my back. Well, hey, it gets boring laying on a hospital bed. I had to think of something to keep my mind off the needle protruding from the back of my hand.
Medical woes aside, this trip to Durban has provided another not-so-new experience as well: that of getting quickly irritated wih my fellow travelers. I was ashamed by how soon it was happenning. I like to think that I am a most tolerant person, but by this morning I wanted to wrap my hands around the necks of at least two of my colleagues. I'd like to blame the raging abdominal pain for that, but I wasn't in that much pain and actually haven't been for a couple of days now. with some time, rest, and a little morphine, I can see now that I jumped the gun on triggering the anger (see what I did there? gun - trigger? I dare you to mix a better metaphor). I can see now that snapping at them while they were trying to find their way to the hospital to drop me off could be seen as selfish and impatient and stuff. But really, when you're the navigator and the driver proceeds to not drive where you indicated, take a different route and then get lost, all the while
speaking with the other passengers in a language you don't understand (when all of you DO have a language in common), it does get a little easy to overlook the fact that they're speaking - if in another language - about trying to get you where you're going.
I wouldn't have minded so much if the whole speak-the-language-that-one-of-you-doesn't-know thing hadn't also happened in the four hour car ride and the multi-hour combination of hotel-finding, check-in, and dinner the day before. It gets easy to feel overlooked and, well, marginalized. It gets so much more frustrating when you're in a moving vehicle while overlooked and therefore are pretty much helpless to control the situation short of causing bodily injury or a car wreck.
I guess this kind of situation is a short-cut to setting off my fuse because of the lack of control-feeling and the being ignored-feeling. I don't like either of those and the combination of the two would on a long-term scale, I think, amount to psychological torture for me. (Now those of you reading this, try and forget that last tidbit if you ever find yourselves in a situation where you've taken me hostage.)
I said this wasn't a new experience because it happened the last time I was in Africa two years ago, in Botswana, on a field trip to the Makgadigadi Pans with two Tswana-speakers. Guess which language got spoken predominantly? Guess how often they switched to English to consult me in decision-making? Guess who couldn't wait to jump out of the car and away from the others by the end of the trip? Back then, I'd imagined that what was happening was a gendered thing - both of my two companions
were male, and Botswana tends to be patriarchal. This time though, we are all women, and Xhosa women are "known for their independent spirit" anyhow (according to a guide book, but I can generally concur based on what I've seen). So it got me thinking that really, the perceived marginalization is likely very unintended. Not that the gendered bias of the Botswana trip is impossible - my fellow archaeologist back then actually refused to let me sit in the front seat on the ride home, when I'd been crammed in back for hours - which just seems plain rude, no matter if we've had some differences.
But all in all, I do think this has been a lesson in maybe just taking a chill pill when situations like this arise. Or at least a lesson in saying - loudly - that I don't understand and would like some clarification. I hate feeling helpless, but even more I hate feeling like my opinion/ thoughts/ etc are too unimportant to be bothered with. I do think I try hard to listen to others so I get pretty damn irritated when people don't do the same.
It can be easy to forget, though, that one person in a group doesn't speak the lingo. It can be easy to overlook their need to feel informed and included in your effort to, well, help them out. That's a lesson I will try to remember when I am an awesome PhD Professor Museum Curator Type and I am busy hosting awesome cultural international heritage artifact conferences with guests from all over the world. Listen, world: speak up!
So now my thoughts are duly expiated electronically and I can turn to anticipating a nice drowsy morphine-ariffic night. Tomorrow I can hope to see the beaches of the Indian Ocean closeup and daydream, bored, sitting in a museum conference rather than on a hospital bed. All in all, I pretty much love my life. Most of the time.
PS, I took a photo of my hand with the IV needle sticking it out and will try to remember to post it for those who like to live vicariously in such gruesome experiences.
The test results, though, showed nothing wrong with the ol' bladder of bile, which is weird. So instead they admitted me to let a gut specialist doctor take a look at me, possibly with a camera in my stomach, tomorrow. Still optimistic that I can hit at least some of the conference tomorrow or Wednesday.
Apart from some thrilling adventures in sitting, laying, and waiting, it's been routinely boring here. That's no surprise, but I do have to say the docs and nurses of the ER (where, as a walk-in-patient), I had to be admitted, were surprisingly quick to treat me. Made me feel all special. I pretended that it was because I was a special emissary from the United States, or possibly the United Nations. That's right, I got Barack watching my back. Well, hey, it gets boring laying on a hospital bed. I had to think of something to keep my mind off the needle protruding from the back of my hand.
Medical woes aside, this trip to Durban has provided another not-so-new experience as well: that of getting quickly irritated wih my fellow travelers. I was ashamed by how soon it was happenning. I like to think that I am a most tolerant person, but by this morning I wanted to wrap my hands around the necks of at least two of my colleagues. I'd like to blame the raging abdominal pain for that, but I wasn't in that much pain and actually haven't been for a couple of days now. with some time, rest, and a little morphine, I can see now that I jumped the gun on triggering the anger (see what I did there? gun - trigger? I dare you to mix a better metaphor). I can see now that snapping at them while they were trying to find their way to the hospital to drop me off could be seen as selfish and impatient and stuff. But really, when you're the navigator and the driver proceeds to not drive where you indicated, take a different route and then get lost, all the while
speaking with the other passengers in a language you don't understand (when all of you DO have a language in common), it does get a little easy to overlook the fact that they're speaking - if in another language - about trying to get you where you're going.
I wouldn't have minded so much if the whole speak-the-language-that-one-of-you-doesn't-know thing hadn't also happened in the four hour car ride and the multi-hour combination of hotel-finding, check-in, and dinner the day before. It gets easy to feel overlooked and, well, marginalized. It gets so much more frustrating when you're in a moving vehicle while overlooked and therefore are pretty much helpless to control the situation short of causing bodily injury or a car wreck.
I guess this kind of situation is a short-cut to setting off my fuse because of the lack of control-feeling and the being ignored-feeling. I don't like either of those and the combination of the two would on a long-term scale, I think, amount to psychological torture for me. (Now those of you reading this, try and forget that last tidbit if you ever find yourselves in a situation where you've taken me hostage.)
I said this wasn't a new experience because it happened the last time I was in Africa two years ago, in Botswana, on a field trip to the Makgadigadi Pans with two Tswana-speakers. Guess which language got spoken predominantly? Guess how often they switched to English to consult me in decision-making? Guess who couldn't wait to jump out of the car and away from the others by the end of the trip? Back then, I'd imagined that what was happening was a gendered thing - both of my two companions
were male, and Botswana tends to be patriarchal. This time though, we are all women, and Xhosa women are "known for their independent spirit" anyhow (according to a guide book, but I can generally concur based on what I've seen). So it got me thinking that really, the perceived marginalization is likely very unintended. Not that the gendered bias of the Botswana trip is impossible - my fellow archaeologist back then actually refused to let me sit in the front seat on the ride home, when I'd been crammed in back for hours - which just seems plain rude, no matter if we've had some differences.
But all in all, I do think this has been a lesson in maybe just taking a chill pill when situations like this arise. Or at least a lesson in saying - loudly - that I don't understand and would like some clarification. I hate feeling helpless, but even more I hate feeling like my opinion/ thoughts/ etc are too unimportant to be bothered with. I do think I try hard to listen to others so I get pretty damn irritated when people don't do the same.
It can be easy to forget, though, that one person in a group doesn't speak the lingo. It can be easy to overlook their need to feel informed and included in your effort to, well, help them out. That's a lesson I will try to remember when I am an awesome PhD Professor Museum Curator Type and I am busy hosting awesome cultural international heritage artifact conferences with guests from all over the world. Listen, world: speak up!
So now my thoughts are duly expiated electronically and I can turn to anticipating a nice drowsy morphine-ariffic night. Tomorrow I can hope to see the beaches of the Indian Ocean closeup and daydream, bored, sitting in a museum conference rather than on a hospital bed. All in all, I pretty much love my life. Most of the time.
PS, I took a photo of my hand with the IV needle sticking it out and will try to remember to post it for those who like to live vicariously in such gruesome experiences.
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