One of the big differences between life back in the States and life here in South Africa, is cheap labor. As an example: before I left Atlanta, my refrigerator died. I had to have a repairman come out to look at it, give me an estimate, etc. Which of course involved wasting most of a day held hostage waiting for the repairman who said he could be there between 8am and noon and showed up at 11:55am. That is the way we do it in America. So my refrigerator here in my room died this week. (I know. I am beginning to get a complex. Its me. Refrigerators dont normally die, but something in my body chemistry/aura/karma must be destructing them for some reason) So we called the repair-place, and within an hour, 2 (black) men came and took the refrigerator away to be fixed (yes, they lugged the thing down the stairs from my room). That is the way its done here. When its fixed, or I get a new one, 2 men will take it back up those steps. I suppose it is much more cost effective to keep technicians at the office to look at the broken refrigerators than it is to have them go out to places, since they can easily just have the dead fridges brought to them. Cheap labor in general shapes life here. Im not complaining, but since Ive been in South Africa, I havent made a bed, done laundry, cleaned my room, cleaned a bathroom, cleaned after myself in general, picked up a spill, or washed a dish (please, no comments from those who would say I dont do those things at home either). There are ladies who do all of that. When I lose a button, I just give my shirt to a lady and ask her to sew a new button on it, or mend a tear, or whatever. The floor in the space where I work is swept and mopped twice a day. I have had to teach the ladies that clean my room that I dont like my running shoes laundered after every run. Now Stonehaven may be a little bit of an exception, because it is a business that employs plenty of cleaning ladies (gardeners, etc.) to keep it running. But most people here have full time cleaning ladies, and sometimes gardeners and others too. I know the names of most of the ladies who work here, and I talk to them, but sometimes communication is difficult because they dont speak English well (and my Xhosa sucks!).
As I said, Im not complaining, but I do feel angst over this. I do feel guilty that all of these things are done for me. Im certainly not accustomed to it. Sure, growing up, we had a maid, but as an adult Ive always had to do all of this for myself.
But there is huge unemployment in this country, so I reason (and I am told) that at least these ladies (and men who lug refrigerators, work in the garden, maintenance, etc.) have jobs, and they will get pensions, and they get health care insurance through work. If I insisted on doing my laundry, making my bed and washing my dishes, one less cleaning lady might have a job. So Im doing a good thing, right? Help me out here!
In my recent speech to the Rotary Club, I did talk about this phenomenon of cheap labor. I also talked about how our situation in the South at home was/is similar to what theyre going through now. After our Civil War (War of Northern Aggression), we had 4 million slaves who were uneducated who had to be integrated into our society. It was 100 years later before we passed the Civil Rights Act that made discrimination a crime and started programs like Affirmative Action. Before that, blacks had to ride at the back of the bus, and have separate water fountains, right? We didnt call it Apartheid, but it was a somewhat similar social structure. After the Civil Rights Act was passed in the U.S., maybe slowly, our labor became not so cheap. I think back in the 1960s, it was pretty common for most families to have a maid full time, wasnt it? Its certainly not that way today.
10 years ago in South Africa, Apartheid was banished. A new government came in and they have started programs to integrate a massive black population who is very very poor and mostly uneducated, into better housing, better jobs, better lives. They have the added problem here that we didnt have, in that there are 13 official languages here! (English, Afrikaans and 11 tribal languages like Zulu, Sotho and Xhosa) Their constitution already bans discrimination based on race (and other things too, such as sexual orientation --- they are way ahead of us there!), so no Civil Rights Act is needed, but it is still a huge chore to bring the blacks of this country who grew up under Apartheid, into mainstream society. It may happen generation by generation. (They want it to happen much faster than that.) And possibly, cheap labor will go away here too.
And though I am looking forward to coming home again, I am not looking forward in the least to doing my own laundry again.
By the way, if you would like to see my PowerPoint presentation for my Rotary speech, click the link:
http://www.leebryan.us/sapics/nov04/Rotary2.pps
Its a pretty huge file so if youre on dialup, I wouldnt bother. On high-speed connection, it might take a few minutes. Its just the PowerPoint outline of things I talked about to the group, with pictures, etc. I also added in some music here and there (like the Auburn marching band!), which I took out for the online versionÂ
made the file way too big. So use your imagination. I think they enjoyed the speech.
