“You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys, and you can play a tune of sorts on the black keys, but for harmony you must use both the black and white keys”. James E. K. Aggrey.
This quote by Ghanaian James E. K. Aggrey sums up something which has been on my mind for a few weeks now, but specifically this past week. Aggrey wanted to empower black people and ensure that, children in particular, knew how important they were and the important place they had in the world, regardless of their colour or what other people told them.
Livingstone is a town with many different cultures within it and there are people from many of the various Zambian tribes, as well as the white community, living in close proximity. Over the past number of weeks we have spent time socialising with the local muzungus (white people) and every time we do this I am forced to look at the relationship between the black locals and the white locals. It seems that it is very unlikely that the whites and blacks would socialise together and the relationship between the two races is usually a working one; most, if not all, of the white locals have at least one maid, a gardener, and sometimes a security guard, working for them. My experience of the interactions between the two has shown that there doesn’t seem to be much respect for the black people by the whites, although the blacks are very respectful towards the whites, but this appears to be more like respect for someone of a higher status rather than mutual respect of a peer. The worlds in which each live can be very different and in some cases I think wealth is the issue; where there are many black people living together in the communities around the outskirts of town, in very basic accommodation and with very little resources to live on, I think it would be highly unlikely to find a white person living like this. The white locals all seem to have their own houses and although they may live out of town, this is usually because they own land and have built their own property. However, I don’t think wealth is always the issue, as there are many black locals who are quite well-off but there is still a very clear barrier between the two skin colours.
It is not fair for me to make judgements on this matter since I don’t know much about life here, only what I have seen in eight weeks, but I do know that I am being encouraged to think about my own views on the matter.
I was brought up to think of everyone as an equal and my faith has also encouraged me to adopt this attitude, and I hope that I have practiced this view throughout my life, but I must say that previously to coming here I had given little thought to racial issues. As well as being right in the middle of a culture with whites and blacks living side by side, I think reading the book The Help whilst being here has also heightened my interest in this area. I do fear that being in the centre of this, and being made more aware of the differences between white and black, could influence my views in a negative way. However, I am trying to ensure that rather than just sticking to spending time with the white people I have met, that I am also immersing myself in the black community, speaking to locals from the town that approach us and also seeing what life is like in the villages.
I am very grateful that this experience is challenging me to think about my own views and also develop an interest in this area, as it is one which I haven’t previously explored in much detail. I hope that I will always hold and practice the attitude expressed by Aggrey in the quote at the beginning of this blog; that for this world to work, it requires every single person in it, regardless of their colour!
Aside from thinking about my views on race, I have also done some work this week! We have now finished our first week of dissertation writing and our spirits have been somewhat dampened by the thought of having to read literature, gather ideas, form arguments, collect data, make conclusions, and ultimately write a whole dissertation!
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| Our positivity and socialising before dissertation began... |
It has been a difficult week trying to get into a working mode which doesn’t involve lesson plans and teaching for five hours each day; I think we would both like to go back six weeks and just be teaching again! An added pressure was that we were still going to school every morning this week, although only for an hour, we still found ourselves coming home needing to do preparation for school while also having the thought of having to do the dissertation in the back of our minds. Fortunately, we are now finished, a week after we were really meant to stop going to school. Some of the residents at Jollyboys have been telling us that we just made extra work for ourselves this week, which is true, but I think both of us were feeling quite attached to the literacy programme that we had been implementing and we didn’t want to feel like we’d only half done the job, so the extra week has now settled us.
Taking some time out of writing to visit the orphanage.
We have been quite anti-social this week and aside from a braai last weekend we haven’t done much involving other people. In relation to braais, although it seemed like we were here such a long time until we eventually got one, I think I have now reached my limit of how many I will enjoy. The problem is that braais aren’t quite like BBQs at home, well not like the ones I have anyway. When I imagine a BBQ I think of hot dogs, burgers, maybe some chicken or a kebab, but here it’s all about steak and since I don’t like steak this means that braais aren’t really a hit for me. I am all for trying new things whilst being here and I have eaten steak (out of politeness and sometimes I was just too hungry to care what I was eating!) but I think it is safe to say that once I leave Africa I will not have any desire to eat steak again!
We have found that we appreciate the simple things out here, usually coming in the form of food! Hopefully that will keep us going through dissertation writing. This is me having one of our "celebratory three weetabix" which is kept for special occasions!
Our plans for the week ahead involve dissertation writing, dissertation writing and some more dissertation writing. We are both hoping for a spurt of motivation which will just send us in the right direction; somewhere nearer to the end of writing. If only dissertation writing was as easy as writing emails or even blogs!
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