Atmosphere

The air is charged here with a smokey, vanilla bean musk that that simmers against the shoulders off all those who live and pass through here. It's prescence in thick and grasping as I stumble in my sandels into the most tense situations of my life. 15 years out of Apartheid, and the segregation is still stagering. The electricity wavers and lights go out, candels are lit and conspiracies are shared about what will take place the day the Nelson Mandela dies in the struggling new South Africa. The passion and frustration built up within each citizen is loosing patience, no matter the ethnicity or claimed heritage. I have come to this country with the intent of learning and listening to all perspecives grow in a nation that has been pigioned-holed by the rest of the world.
I stared classes this week and all seven of my history classes are with the same teacher: a closed-minded, biased-opinioned, older Afrikaner man. His family came down to here from Holland as one of the many first Dutch settlers who fought the British colonial rule in the late 19th century. He grew up under the National Party government who implimented the incredibly racist laws of Apartheid and the inlfuence is extrememly apparent. He stands at the front of each class and tells a history that is insulting to education as a whole, not to mention the local and international pupils that sit before him who have been taught to quietly nod in the venue. Everything that exits his mouth is tainted with a racist distaste for all those who aren't one of his "people". Having been raised in a situation where it is culturally encouraged to ask questions, I take pride in politely breaking his lectures with inquiries of these "truths" he speaks of. He sweats nervously and skirts the question, unaqqainted with the prospect that I wouldn't just eat what was put on the table in front of me. This is daily occurance, as frustrating as it may be, is leading me to discourse I have never experienced before. It has stired the youth here, from P.E. and all over the world, into conversing about the past and what tomorrow will bring for us to scuplt with. It is forcing us to unite over different backgrounds and opinions to get down to the structual issues that fester at the root.
To lighten the load of this incredibly intense situation, I come home to a house full of lovely German people, 2 guys and 2 girls. On any given night this group grows by 20 to 30 young adults, all enjoying the local wine and beer while all sorts of meat sizzles on the grill, making a classic South African bree scene and my home for the next year.