She can dance?

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  Barberton, South Africa
Monday, March 19, 2007

I had a busy weekend. I went to a wedding party on Friday night. I was a little nervous about going because it was the first time that I have ever caught a taxi and gone into the location on my own. I still I am trying to get a hang of the protocol for it. The taxis are shared and run a informal route from town and a loop in the location. So you just sort of hop into a car at the taxi rink and tell them when you want to get out. It was a little complicated because I only know how to get to Binki's from one direction and the location is really confusing because there are roads going all over the place. I told him that I wanted to go to Spearville near the telephone containers like Binki told me. We drove past it, and he couldn't understand where I wanted to go so he called Binki and straightened it out for me. It was really crazy taking a drive through the whole location. There is an amazing range of economic status within a tiny area. There are areas where the houses are nothing more than shacks and there is communal water that comes from a pump

Binki's grandmother

. And there are two story houses with garages, they are rare, but its all there in one place.

So I met up with Binki and walked to the wedding party and it was really hot on Friday, maybe 95 or so (I love using Fahrenheit again, since no one else in the world knows what I am talking about when I say its 95 out). It's amazing how many faces repeat in this town. Everyone is related to one another. The man that got married was actually Binki's grandmother's nephew... so that would make him Binki's great cousin? I don't think we have a word for it, and out here they don't feel the need to get a word for it. Binki will just say "you know we are related somehow" and had to ask several times to straighten it out. Of course there was a boy from here creche there who was also somehow related. I sat in the back yard and talked with the family sitting out there. Inevitably the conversation will turn to the fact that I am the only white person in the area. People talk to me often about the apartheid era, and how "I was 42 when I first got to vote, it is terrible" and "15 years ago if you we were talking like this right now, you would and I could be arrested." There have been a lot of situations where I am hit right in the face with the complications of identity, race, class, and culture. I often don't know what to think by the end of the day, I guess I am still just digesting it all.

This wedding once again confirmed what I have always thought about weddings, which is it's not so much about how much is spent that makes it good, but the fact that family and friends get together to celebrate

dancing

. Both people that were getting married have been married before, so they simply signed the papers at the court house and had a party after wards. After the sun went down that's when the dancing started to happen. The way some of these kids dance is amazing. I took some video of it from my camera, but it can't really capture it. They shame all the pop stars at home no problem. It's a really fun atmosphere how everyone sits around and chants and yells with the music as one person dances. Then they move off and someone else comes on. And everyone gets up and dances.

Of course I got pulled off my chair to join. I love to dance but I was nervous because I think I knew I was most likely making Barberton history by being the first white person to dance at a black person's party. It was a huge adrenaline rush, because by the end of the song the entire neighborhood showed up to watch and there had to be 30 or so people yelling and singing as the song went on. People were either slack jawed and staring or chanting as the song went on. I don't think I have ever seen Binki so proud. She was thankfully dancing with me, shouting as we went through. It was spectacular, although I felt like a bit like I was a side-show.

The next day I went to the church Briaa. It was nice, although a bit awkward. The pastor put me in charge of leading the group with the daily activities which didn't make any sense to me since someone always had to translate for me and I barely know a soul in the church. But it was nice because I got to sit and talk with a lot of new people. I left there in a car that was way over capacity. I think we had 4 more people than could actually fit in the car in it. I was jammed between the driver, the pastor, my bag, his laptop, and a gigantic pot of porridge

dancing again

. I would try and move my leg in time for the driver so we wouldn't stall as he  tried to shift as we were going up a hill. The music was blasting and everyone was singing and shouting to the music. A thunder storm was rolling through and the sky would occasionally light up with lightening and you could see gigantic clouds on the horizon. This was another moment on my trip where I just looked around and saw everything in slow motion and thought- where am I right now? It is a cool feeling.

The baby shower was more like a baby bash. By the time I showed up the food was being served and the soon to be mother was covered in dough or something. I didn't get the full story on what the tradition was... but she was getting into the bath when I showed up. Music was blasting outside and I sat in the kitchen for a long time talking to whoever was walking in and out of it. I was trying to explain where I was from, which is tricky because when I say Washington everyone thinks DC. And I was trying to explain how far away the US is from Europe. People say things like "America is the same as England right, English people?" So I took out some scratch paper and on the kitchen table I tried to draw a map of the world. Which was hilarious because the wine people kept filling into my glass was not helping my spacial reasoning as I tried to draw Europe.

Again I got pulled up to dance by one of Binki's friends, and again at least 40 people filled into the room to watching and chant as I danced

dinner

. "Yeeebo. Yeeebo. " or "ahhbo, ahhhbo". After wards people were coming up to Binki and asking me if she taught me how to jive. I won over a whole bunch of fans, and lots of women were coming up to after wards and saying how they were so impressed with my dancing. Let's keep in mind that I would also get comments along the lines of  "I didn't know white people could dance like that". I am not a great dancer it was just a shocking moment for people to see a white person get up and dance with them. So I think everyone should be happy to hear that I have cleared white American women of all being completely incompetent at moving their hips.

It can be fun to make history I suppose.

I am running out of time, so I will just try and get some pictures up now before I run out of time.

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