A grain of rice in the mouth is worth two on the floor

I realized the other day while I was sitting on someone's floor eating spaghetti with my hand out of a bowl shared with five other men that Mom would have a heart attack if she saw me. If I had started this blog in 2010 I suppose I could have written about this as a novel situation, but at the time it just struck me as comical that it has become an everyday occurrence. At first it was a challenge to roll the spaghetti into a ball with one hand (you don't touch food with your left - ask a Muslim about it) but now people here laugh at me because I've become Somali at it. Eating rice with your hands is a little messier, but still surprisingly doable. My friend Blacky claims to have never used a fork or spoon in his life. Okay, I'll admit it... when I eat rice I do leave a few grains on the floor. But that's why I eat over a towel or a mat.

I would really like the object of this blog to be other peoples' stories, but I am sifting through which stories are appropriate and which might put those involved in danger. As a disclaimer, most of my research has been among Somalis, and most of my close friends are Somalis, so the initial stories will probably focus on them. I'm working on making other friends and building connections between the different communities here. I'll tell you one thing: I have never met so many people who have been shot or stabbed. I met a Somali man the other day who was shot six times during a robbery. They dug his grave while he was in a coma in the hospital three years ago. Two of his neighbors at the shop on the next block weren't so lucky... 11 bullets each put them two meters underground, just because they are Somalis. Sometimes I'm amazed that people keep saying, "it's the same everywhere: some people are good, some are bad, it's like that."

Mayfair is full of people who have been shot or stabbed and now are too scared to go back and work in the locations. I saw a guy the other day who I had met two years ago, at which point he had told me the story of how some thieves poured gasoline on him and burned him alive. I'll tell you right now that I don't know how to even begin to tackle these issues, so if you have any ideas, maybe you can help me. It's not just the Somalis either... many people here are suffering. Apartheid and the lack of even economic development that leaves about 40% of Gauteng Province unemployed have created incredible social tensions. Many of the youths here have taken up drugs and gang involvement as an escape from the harsh realities of street life.

Global Venture Community Development Association is kicking off with our first computer skills training class this Saturday, at an internet cafe in Mayfair. We will be teaching typing and basic Microsoft Office. We hope to build the classes over the next year to the point where we can branch into database management, programming, and GIS applications, since we have expertise in those types of skills and since they can help people get jobs. GVCDA is planning to run classes every Saturday, and to branch from Mayfair to Yeoville or somewhere else in the city in the next couple months. As for me, I'm heading back to Miami next week, right on time to be three weeks late for class (my parents have encouraged this type of pattern since middle school; I'm not the one to blame). While I'm gone, we're hoping to also begin a small business development project in which we'll be purchasing equipment for small-scale street vendors that helps them do their job more effectively. If you would like to contribute or know somebody who would (funds, volunteer time, equipment, whatever), please let me know. Don't sweat it if you can't or if you just don't want to... I won't think any less of you.

Pictures and sound clips of our work here will hopefully follow soon, whenever I am able to access the internet from my own computer. As for now, I am off to read and sleep.

Blessings to all,

DT

Preface

When I tell people I am finishing my MA in geography, I usually get a response that goes something like: "oh, that's great! I bet you know all your state capitals!" Or maybe: "So what can you do with that? Teach?" (for other geographers, please read Ken Jennings' Maphead if you feel that you're the only one).

Yes, teaching is a possibility. But there is a lot more to the discipline and a lot more to the world of possibilities than staying in the US and following what people expect. Firstly, I would like to encourage all readers who are still in school - university or otherwise - to consider creatively what you can do with your degree, and perhaps more importantly, whether your degree is the most important part of your education. For me, the answer to the second consideration is definitely negative. I now know quite a bit about geography, but more than that, I've had the opportunity to read a lot of literature that has made me think, and reconsider how I think and how I approach the world. I've also had the opportunity to travel for significant periods of time and conduct research with people far away from home sweet America (thank you particularly to University of Miami, Adrienne Arsht, and National Geographic for sending me to where I am now).

So I find myself in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the start of something new. The only time I ever blogged in my life was during my five-month stay in Australia in 2008, and then I only submitted to the exercise of posting my innermost thoughts (you wish!) to the world wide web because it was a requirement for a travel scholarship I received. Now I am involved in something a bit bigger. 

If any of you live in or have visited Johannesburg you may have noticed the social separations here. It's a remnant of historical facts that South Africa remains divided - now economically more than racially, although race certainly still plays a large role. Last year I met some guys about my age who were planning to start an organization, and I sat with them as we developed ideas about how to go about bridging the gaps that exist between Johannesburg's communities. Part of the equation was finding ways for immigrants to give back to the South African community. Xenophobia remains pervasive here although no large-scale events have occurred since the massive riots of May 2008. The other part is to build something bigger - an organization conducting community development through collaborative activities that are initiated by and involve people from all different sectors and walks of life, and to do this in a smart way - using research and pulling experience from academia to inform skills training, job provision, and community programming activities.

Since Johannesburg is home to people from every part of Africa (and much of the rest of the world), it is an ideal place to start something that will hopefully spread across international borders. We are looking to invest in socially responsible businesses that bring people from various ethnicities, social backgrounds, and walks of life together in ways that have not been tried before - to use the opportunities of a free market and good business environment to reward creativity and entrepreneurship that fulfils needs and generates benefits to the whole community in which activities take place, first in South Africa and then elsewhere.

So here we go. This blog is henceforth both an agent from which to disseminate news about our organization - tentatively called Global Venture Community Development Association (GVCDA, pending official registration as an NGO) - and a forum for me to field my stories and thoughts about geography and the possibilities it brings to conduct interesting research, to advise socially responsible businesses on market openings, and generally to help people fulfil their desires and needs in creative ways. I won't make any promises here, but it is likely that I will post in the future about my past work in South Sudan, events in the Horn of Africa, and mostly about life in Johannesburg and the stories of refugees here. I can say that if you live in the US it is unlikely that you have heard as many crazy stories as I have - stories that make you wonder about humanity and about the will to survive. 

I hope to inspire you to join me and support those who need your help in any way you can. If you find yourself with some free time, please read up on South Africa if you haven't already. Look up the May 2008 xenophobic riots, current news on the South African economy and South African politics, and also political news for the rest of Africa. If you're interested, I recommend Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom, Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country, and The Power of One (someone remind me who the author is) as easy-to-read stories about the rainbow nation (get off facebook and put your nose in a real book - it's better for you). For readers from the US or elsewhere, feel free to ask about travel advice in South Africa and I can connect you with good people and good places to stay, in Joburg, Capetown, PE, Durban, or elsewhere. It is an absolutely spectacular country, a pleasant place to visit, and perhaps the most fascinating social environment (or multiplicity of environments) I have ever encountered - highly recommended. Also, if you want to be involved in service projects, mission trips, or anything of that sort, I can tell you that there is great need here and I would like you to consider coming to take part in what the people of Joburg are doing.

All of my best to all of my readers (very few at this point - thank you for reading, and I do promise more interesting posts in the future; consider this an introduction/author's note). At least a few future posts will also delve a bit more into geographic research, if that is the reason you're visiting.

DT