Adventures in Automobiles and Acceptance
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
No one rides kombis if they can help it. Especially not tourists. The beat-up commuter vans – which sometimes have wooden planks for seats and often require running starts – are strictly for locals with no other option.
I learned this from the local news. Almost every night there was a new report of a fatal kombi accident.
In fact, my Zulu professor, Bab’Ntashangase, left class the first day to take a phone call. He returned several minutes later and told us that his 11 year-old son had been in such an accident. Luckily, he escaped with only a broken leg and hip, but three other passengers weren’t so lucky. My mouth hung open in shock, but he merely shrugged. “These things happen,” he said, as he picked up a piece of chalk and resumed teaching.
My summer in Zululand wasn’t turning out to be quite the African adventure I had envisioned. I had known I wouldn’t find elephants and lions roaming the streets, but I also hadn’t expected South Africa to be quite so developed. There were two giant supermarkets right across the street from my house, and several fast food restaurants and a shopping mall just down the street, and what was more, I hadn’t seen a single monkey!
So sure, kombis were dangerous, but they were also something I didn’t have back home, and at this point, that was exactly what I was looking for. I was game.
At first, though, I had standards. I wouldn’t sit in the last of the four rows: that was where most people died. I didn’t dare sit in the first row either, and take the chance that I’d be the passenger above whose lap the money collector would squat. I wouldn’t sit in any of the “seats” on the left side: besides being wooden planks slapped down to cover the aisle, I didn’t want to have to move when others got out, and I didn’t want to be responsible for collecting my row’s money.
I also wouldn’t sit on the right side, because someone would inevitably ask me to do something to the window, and I would inevitably mistranslate their request, and they would inevitably yell at me, and I didn’t like to be yelled at.
I wouldn’t sit by the old, fat lady with the bad body odor, for obvious reasons.
So, this left me with about four acceptable potential seats, and if none of them were available, I would wait for the next kombi.
Almost every afternoon, after my Zulu classes ended, I would walk down the street to the unofficial kombi stop. There was usually a partially filled kombi waiting. Each kombi held 20 people. It would not move with less. Sometimes it filled quickly; sometimes it took hours.
After several days of strictly adhering to my seating standards, my lack of patience evetually got the best of me, and I starting hopping in wherever there was room.
A few weeks into my stay, I made friends with some Zulu schoolgirls. Ayanda and Slindile were 13, cousins, and thrilled to have an American friend. I was thrilled to have direct access to Zulu culture, and to have non-intimidating people with whom to practice my Zulu.
Unfortunately for me, they wanted to hear me talk about Michael Jackson and Beyonce much more than they wanted to talk to me about their lives. One day, though, after much pleading, they agreed to show me some traditional Zulu dancing. They rounded up neighborhood girls, put on some colourful Zulu beads, and then clapped their hands and kicked their legs to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.”
I didn’t know what to say.
That weekend, I went to observe the annual Unomkhubulwane ceremony. It was supposed to be a traditional event where Zulu girls praised the Zulu rain goddess, but there was a stage and loudspeakers, and people arrived in Mercedes. The girls covered their traditional beaded skirts and bare breasts with trendy jean jackets. I traded cell phone numbers with the Zulu princess, who spoke with a snotty-sounding British accent.
I didn’t know what to think.
Back in the city a few days later, I asked Ayo and Sli to take me to their favorite Zulu restaurant, which led to several minutes of me arguing that Kentucky Fried Chicken did indeed originate in the United States. (They weren’t convinced.)
Right there in Kentucky Fried Chicken, I gave up. Zulu culture had gone to hell, I decided. Mine was a lost cause: I would stop trying to find Zulu culture, because it just didn’t exist. It was a history killed by colonialism and capitalism, and there was nothing I could do about it. I would resign my moral objection to eating at ‘Maritzburg’s McDonald’s. It and its influence existed, even if I looked the other way when my kombi drove past. I decided that I wouldn’t let myself be disappointed the next time I saw a lady selling traditional beaded headdresses while wearing a Nike visor. Zulu culture was history. Those headdresses were probably mass-produced in Taiwan.
I kept going to my Zulu classes, but I lost my desire to learn the language. I kept hanging out with Ayo and Sli, but I stopped trying to extract the Zuluness out of them. They were just kids. We started speaking only English. We talked about Harry Potter, went shopping for clothes we couldn’t afford, and jumped around in our pajamas as we sang into hairbrushes. We made tea for their family, and we ran to the tuck shop to buy the day’s beans, bread, and cornmeal. We educated one another: I was shocked to learn that netball doesn’t actually involve a net, and they were shocked to learn that America isn’t actually a land of cowboys and Indians.
One day, Ayo, Sli and I hopped into a kombi together headed towards town. I pulled out the correct change and passed it to my left. I didn’t even notice the other passengers staring at me in amazement until Ayo nudged me.
“What?” I asked her.
“You know what you’re doing on here,” she told me, “and they’re impressed.”
Oh.
I had forgotten that my skin color made me an attraction. The kombi had just become part of my routine.
One Zulu man in the back loudly proclaimed that I was a white Zulu, that I was the model to which all white people should aspire. I swam around in his praise.
I looked around me. I smiled at Ayo and Sli. I realized that I wasn’t just a visitor anymore. I had become a part of it all, part of something that was very different from what I had expected, yet still very real.
Of course, my ego deflated a little when the smell of the man’s drunken breath floated up to my row, and again when he declared me his “ice princess” and him my “chocolate daddy.” But that’s beside the point. The point is that I had found Zulu culture after all, even though it took me a while to recognize it, and even though it was very different from what my history books had prepared me for. I had found it though, or at least some small part of it. Someone had noticed my effort, and it was nice. Drunk or not.
I enjoyed the rest of my summer. I worked hard to improve my Zulu, and I kept hanging out with Ayo and Sli. I kept noticing people staring with amazement each time I hopped into the right kombi and pulled out the correct amount of change. Once, a teenage boy in the back row pulled out his cell phone to tell his friend that an umlungu (white person) was on board. When I told him – in Zulu – that I understood what he was saying, the crowd cheered.
Even up to the day I left, though, some Zulus remained skeptical by my presence in next kombi seat over, or at least confused. Not that I blamed them. In their place, I too would have questioned the motivations of a white, American girl, especially so soon after apartheid’s dismantlement. I didn’t understand them at first, so it was only natural that they didn’t understand me. Maybe they never will. Or maybe – most likely – they just needed to get used to the fact that I wasn’t wearing a cowboy hat.
