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by Aliona L. Gibson
January 2006

Despite having an abundance of connections and ties to South Africa, it was the absolute last place I envisioned myself serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. My list of desired places to spend two years and three months included Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Tanzania or ideally, Senegal. South Africa never entered my mind. Something in the very depths of my being told me it would be a difficult and painful experience, a different kind of Peace Corps experience. I instinctively knew and still decided to dedicate two years of my life trying to make a difference, trying to contribute in some way.

When I told my mother of my invitation to serve in South Africa, she responded ?South Africa, I wouldn?t take that assignment, you should wait for another one?. She ended up coming to visit me for a month and had a ball but then, she would have come to see me in Turkmenistan. True to motherhood, she was mostly concerned for my safety, rightfully so. The crime rate in South Africa is just plain scary, but that would not be my biggest contender during my service. In fact, all of the things I worried about prior to going turned out to be a piece of cake compared to what I?d be faced with. I got used to bucket baths, pit latrines and pitch black nights. I was even forced to deal with my snake phobia when a year into my service I woke up to one in my room, my worst nightmare come true.

I had a more difficult time dealing with the remnants of apartheid. First off, being in a Black country where I felt like I couldn?t go a few miles in any direction without seeing a street name, town or city, bridge, park, monument, statue etc. named in honor of some great White South African, made me ill. It pained me to deal with Black people who believed (and often said) they were ugly. The even harder part was the fact that they felt the same way about me and had issues with me for being Black. Not everyone but enough that it made me want to quit and go home. It was one of the reasons I refused to speak the local language. I purposely rejected speaking my assigned language because I couldn?t stand the way people in my village had only negative and critical things to say to Michael (a young Morehouse man from Atlanta who was my closest volunteer) and me about our efforts to speak the language but praised the White volunteers for just saying a simple greeting. Michael became fluent but no one ever complimented him. I recognized this bias early on and fiercely resented it.

It felt oddly strange to cling so tightly to my identity as an American but I felt the need to distinguish myself. I hated the fact that they held America in such high regard and couldn?t believe someone who looked like me (Black and African) could possibly be from such a wonderful and glorious place. I also wanted it to be known that under no uncertain terms did White folks get any props from me, just for being White and that I was not honored just to be in their presence. I do not believe that Black people are ugly and White people are beautiful. In my mind, speaking English, thus distinguishing myself, sent the message that I do not hold such beliefs.

Living and working in South Africa for those twenty-eight months raised my awareness of how oppression affects people psychologically. It was a painful thing. A Black principal told a Peace Corps director (who also happened to be Black) that he was happy his school didn?t get ?one of those Black ones (volunteers)?. Hearing this declaration should have sent me packing. In my mind, it was proof that I?d be dealing with issues much larger and deeper than I was equipped to handle. But I didn?t leave. I just dug deep inside myself and tried not to be judgmental or take such statements to heart. It was hard. It didn?t make it any easier to be told ?Rivoningo, you are not beautiful like those Black Americans on T.V., you are like us? (while I appreciated the kinship, I did not see myself as ugly) or to be told that I was too stupid to really be from America. Call me na?ve but I didn?t expect that it?d be easier to hitchhike with another White volunteer than with a Black one, or that Whites would get treated better than me by other Black people. Even still, I treated every person who crossed my path with respect and dignity.

I was sustained by the power of prayer, a loving host family who made me feel like they wanted me as a member of their family for two years and a Gogo (grandmother) who only spoke Zulu but treated me as if I were one of her own. I also had lots of friends, neighbors and a few colleagues in Acornhoek and Joburg who reaffirmed my reason for being there. I developed a rapport with the local tsotsis (thugs, roughnecks) and notorious taxi drivers who became good friends and for whom ours was probably the first platonic relationship they ever had with a woman. I fell in love with a gorgeous eight month old baby named Floyd whose mother worked as a helper (maid) for the family behind my house who only spoke Tsonga but we were able to communicate. I acquired a surrogate son, Mayaza who was twelve and used me to master speaking English. . He considered me his ?best friend? and asked me to accompany him to the hospital to have the bandages changed after being circumcised. The thought of him asking me instead of one of his older brothers brought tears to my eyes. I cried a lot in while in South Africa. I am sure I traumatized the entire community who attended my farewell with all my tears and sobbing. These are among the many really sweet things that I will remember about South Africa and carry with me forever.

Four years after my service in South Africa a young Black man panhandling for money at a Berkeley BART station calls me ugly and bald-headed when I am too deep into my own head to hear his request. He is light-skinned with long, straight, curly hair. I am jolted out of my inner musings. The comment strikes a blow and incites the familiar steel-toe-boot-kick-in-the-stomach feeling I felt so often in South Africa. I think to myself ?how pathetic, he thinks I?m ugly because he has a little more of the masters blood in his veins than the rest of us, sad?. I resist my urge to tell him that I am not ugly (and despite what he has probably been told his entire life, light skin don?t make you ?all that?) and that I am bald by choice but I figure he?s not worth it and probably won?t get it anyway. I just say the same prayer for him that I said time and time again for my peeps in South Africa. The comment stung but served as a cure for the selective amnesia I suffered from while in South Africa. I had convinced myself that African-Americans, while we have our issues, don?t hold White people in the same high regard as Blacks in South Africa, that we know better. But the truth of the matter is that, in a lot of ways we do. Maybe our issues are not as exposed but they are the same none the less.