A 'moving' experience
Posted by Tanja Estella Bosch | 8 Apr, 2008
It was only after we moved into our new home last week, when I realised how firmly apartheid geography and all it’s oppressions of the mind are firmly entrenched upon South Africans' collective psyche. My family and I appear to have moved across one of this city’s many invisible barriers, with some interesting and often humorous consequences.
We didn’t really consider this when we made our offer to purchase, based largely on price, size, absence of need for renovations and proximity to work and school. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. Jokes aside, I’m not really a believer in the glorification of the ghetto (mentality). But that’s a subject for another post.
Okay, so apart from the eerie silence, which usually descends soon after sunset, we were beginning to feel right at home when the well-meaning elderly woman from down the road stopped by to welcome us to the neighbourhood, and to warn that “people around here keep to themselves, not to be racist or anything.” My husband nodded sagely, probably hoping that she would keep to herself, but oblivious to his expression (a mixture of amusement and disbelief) she quickly went on to add that “you may be used to coloured areas which are bustling (sic) and sociable, but here people keep to themselves even though they’re not unfriendly”. I wouldn’t quite refer to our old neighborhood as ‘bustling’ and the only time I ever witnessed anyone borrow any consumable from another household was in that ridiculous television ad for sunlight liquid in which a boy runs for miles with a tablespoon of the green stuff after having borrowed it from a distant neighbour. I rather think that what she meant to convey was that failure to conform to the social ‘culture’ of the neighbourhood might leave us with at least a visit from the local law enforcement, if not a burning cross on the front lawn. Fortunately we don’t have a front lawn. And she was placated easily enough with a nice cuppa Earl Grey. The previous tenant had also left a telephone number for us to call in the event of any loud music that she said sometimes came from the adjacent house. Quite honestly, even though I prefer my own loud music through my iPod ’phones, a little music once in a while might be nice, as an indication that real people live around me (as long as it’s not country and western or anything classical ala Krzysztof Penderecki).
Now it all makes sense. Out on a jog with my dog (on a leash) the other evening, I must have really frightened the elderly gentleman who promptly picked up his little Cuddles (or some such named poodle-esque dog) and glared at me with much disdain despite my cheery (if breathless) greeting. The assumption here is more than likely that people of a certain complexion (like myself), have similarly ill-mannered and raucous dogs. There are at least three mitigating factors precluding such behaviour from my ferocious-looking but mild-mannered staffie: her first name is Karin, she’s in the market for a pet futon (they actually make and sell such things), and she’s bathed with Head and Shoulders 2 in 1.
It’s been a long time since the abolition of the Group Areas Act, but still it seems that for the most part, the character of neighbourhoods doesn’t really change much. People are still miles apart, physically and probably conceptually as well. We’re still living with railway lines, freeways and other imagined boundaries between us, with very few people actually testing the so-called contact hypothesis. Those that fall into certain old apartheid categories, still feel a strong sense of ownership and protection over who occupies spaces they have come to see as their own, and what kind of behaviours are considered ‘acceptable’ in these areas. Our example is just one. The recent attempt by a local teacher to move into Khayelitsha is another.
Like Silwane kaNjila wrote, some of my best friends are white. But if any of the neighbours are reading, rest assured, even though our car has mags, at least it’s not a Ford Cortina…we’re not going to run a shebeen out of the garage, we won’t hang any washing in the front windows, we don’t drink box wine and our dog won’t bite you, not unless you block the view of the television from her futon...
We didn’t really consider this when we made our offer to purchase, based largely on price, size, absence of need for renovations and proximity to work and school. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. Jokes aside, I’m not really a believer in the glorification of the ghetto (mentality). But that’s a subject for another post.
Okay, so apart from the eerie silence, which usually descends soon after sunset, we were beginning to feel right at home when the well-meaning elderly woman from down the road stopped by to welcome us to the neighbourhood, and to warn that “people around here keep to themselves, not to be racist or anything.” My husband nodded sagely, probably hoping that she would keep to herself, but oblivious to his expression (a mixture of amusement and disbelief) she quickly went on to add that “you may be used to coloured areas which are bustling (sic) and sociable, but here people keep to themselves even though they’re not unfriendly”. I wouldn’t quite refer to our old neighborhood as ‘bustling’ and the only time I ever witnessed anyone borrow any consumable from another household was in that ridiculous television ad for sunlight liquid in which a boy runs for miles with a tablespoon of the green stuff after having borrowed it from a distant neighbour. I rather think that what she meant to convey was that failure to conform to the social ‘culture’ of the neighbourhood might leave us with at least a visit from the local law enforcement, if not a burning cross on the front lawn. Fortunately we don’t have a front lawn. And she was placated easily enough with a nice cuppa Earl Grey. The previous tenant had also left a telephone number for us to call in the event of any loud music that she said sometimes came from the adjacent house. Quite honestly, even though I prefer my own loud music through my iPod ’phones, a little music once in a while might be nice, as an indication that real people live around me (as long as it’s not country and western or anything classical ala Krzysztof Penderecki).
Now it all makes sense. Out on a jog with my dog (on a leash) the other evening, I must have really frightened the elderly gentleman who promptly picked up his little Cuddles (or some such named poodle-esque dog) and glared at me with much disdain despite my cheery (if breathless) greeting. The assumption here is more than likely that people of a certain complexion (like myself), have similarly ill-mannered and raucous dogs. There are at least three mitigating factors precluding such behaviour from my ferocious-looking but mild-mannered staffie: her first name is Karin, she’s in the market for a pet futon (they actually make and sell such things), and she’s bathed with Head and Shoulders 2 in 1.
It’s been a long time since the abolition of the Group Areas Act, but still it seems that for the most part, the character of neighbourhoods doesn’t really change much. People are still miles apart, physically and probably conceptually as well. We’re still living with railway lines, freeways and other imagined boundaries between us, with very few people actually testing the so-called contact hypothesis. Those that fall into certain old apartheid categories, still feel a strong sense of ownership and protection over who occupies spaces they have come to see as their own, and what kind of behaviours are considered ‘acceptable’ in these areas. Our example is just one. The recent attempt by a local teacher to move into Khayelitsha is another.
Like Silwane kaNjila wrote, some of my best friends are white. But if any of the neighbours are reading, rest assured, even though our car has mags, at least it’s not a Ford Cortina…we’re not going to run a shebeen out of the garage, we won’t hang any washing in the front windows, we don’t drink box wine and our dog won’t bite you, not unless you block the view of the television from her futon...
