We’re not gonna take it

Beware all who enter (or at least start reading).  The recent event I’m about to describe involved and still does involve, a lot of emotion, and for that reason, I found it quite cathartic to describe almost point-by-point what happened with my own commentary thrown in for good measure.  Consequently, I think it is easily my longest blog post yet.  You might want to cancel the afternoon appointments before beginning.

Well, unfortunately the saga of the house removal continues and has taken a decidedly drastic and inconvenient turn.  Yesterday at 7:00 in the morning as I had just recently finished bathing, I thought I heard a noise at my front door.  Given that I was in the midst of my morning preparations and it was so early, I gave it no notice until it repeated in the sound of definite knocking.  I had no idea who would be knocking at my house so early in the a.m., and opened the door in a state of confusion.  As soon as I had opened it, the woman from who the house is being rented, the same one who recently decided after a month that she now wants to move back in, immediately steps into the house past me and heads to the back room to begin rummaging through her stuff.  No “Good morning”, no “How are you”, and certainly no “Can I come in?” or maybe an explanation of why she was showing up unannounced at 7:00 in the morning.  As I mentioned in my last post, this lady (and I use that term lightly) has made a habit of just coming to my house to go through her clothes and things which she inexplicably decided to leave in the house.  I had simply dealt with it in the past, but this, I could not believe nor tolerate.  Showing up at my door early in the morning, no phone call, no notice, no nothing; stepping past me as soon as I opened the door without even a word of greeting or asking permission to come in; and interrupting me as I was getting myself ready for school without a word of apology.  I was absolutely flabbergasted, and knew that I could not simply sit by, smile, and say nothing.

To top things off, she accused me of having moved one of her bags, which I promptly told her I had not touched, which she then confirmed upon finding the bag several seconds later.  As she went through her things in the house, I stood silently not saying a word and waited for her to finish.  Once she began to make her way towards the front door, I calmly said, “J****, this is the last time that this happens.  It is inappropriate for you to come over unannounced, without calling.”  Her response was “I didn’t have airtime” (which happens to be a quite common excuse in South Africa).  I said “Regardless of that, it is not appropriate for you to show up without calling or scheduling a time to stop by.  I have been very reasonable up to this point, but if this happens again, I am not going to agree to let you in to get your things.”  To which she said, “You have a problem with me coming over to get my things?”.  I replied, “when it is unannounced, yes, yes, I do.  It is simply not appropriate”.  Her only comment was “I’m not going to talk to you.”

She then left, and I finally was able to continue getting ready though I ultimately ended up being late leaving as a result.  Like I said before, such behavior on this woman’s part was something I simply could not tolerate, so I went directly to the high school I work at to have a word with the principal there.  On my way in, I ran into the principal from the other school where I am involved.  I asked her if I could speak to her for a moment, and then related what had just happened.  She said she had just been with J****, and was there to speak with the other principal about it.  At that point, the principal of the high school came out of his office, and I briefly recounted to him what had occurred.  He said that they were going to meet about it, and that he would call me afterwards.  I, thus, proceeded to the primary school where I was supposed to be working that day.  I hadn’t been at the school more than 5 minutes, however, when I got a call from the high school principal telling me to tell the others I had to leave for the day and could I please come back to the high school to get this situation sorted.

Upon arriving back at the high school I went in to the principal’s office to find a group of several teachers who had also been informed of what was going on.  Come to find out, this lady who decided it was cool to just walk into my house at 7:00 in the morning, who also happens to be a teacher at the primary school I work at, had gone almost immediately from my house to the primary school principal and told her that I needed to move out of the house that day.

Now I am not a person who likes to be pushed around (though I suppose, who really does?), and I certainly am not one to take things lying down.  My first thought was that there was no way I was going to move out of that house.  The principals had made an agreement with J**** only the week before that I would be able to remain at the house until Peace Corps-approved alternative housing was secured.  She had already broken the agreement that I would be able to stay there for two years, and was now breaking the agreement made only several days prior. Not to mention I was pretty sure that South African law couldn’t be that different from American law regarding the amount of advance notice that has to be given in the event of an eviction.

I feel quite confident that the high school principal was and is on my side in this whole affair, however, I could see just how uncomfortable this was making him and what an awkward situation it was.  I also realized that I had no idea what position my other principal was taking given that she had immediately relayed J****’s demand instead of telling J**** that the agreement was for me to stay in the house until other lodging was found.  I realized that it was a distinct possibility that such an event could cause people to choose sides, so that even if I did win, it could damage my relationship with some of the other teachers not to mention one of my principals.  Such an outcome would unquestionably make it more difficult for me to do the work I came here to do, which is help and serve.   

So when my high school principal suggested that I move in with his ex-wife temporarily until a new arrangement could be sorted, in spite of the fighting side of me, I did not reject it and tell him that he needed to tell J**** to go to Hell because I wasn’t going anywhere.  I said that before making any decisions we needed to inform my Peace Corps director and see what he had to say.  We duly did, and he said that if I was okay with moving in with the principal’s former spouse, he was okay with it.   

As it ended up then, I swallowed my pride, went home, and packed up all my things.  Even though I wanted to trash the place and smear F*** Y** in ketchup on the walls, I decided that despite the actions of this woman, I could choose to take somewhat of a high ground without being a doormat.  So I re-arranged all the furniture and things to exactly as they had been when I moved in.  I then proceeded to clean, dust, sweep, and mop the entire place, so that it was as spic and span as could be.  This woman might not have deserved it, but I figured that it was a way of telling her that even though she was childish and irresponsible, I am not (though I must admit that doesn’t stop me from imagining what F*** Y** written in ketchup might have looked like all over the house).

In conclusion, I am now staying in a house that is much bigger and nicer than my house in America, has many modern conveniences I was previously lacking such as a shower, and is in a nice part of town.  I am doing my utmost best not to get used to it, since, if everything works out, I will be moving to another simpler house in the same general area as my original one within two weeks.  I figure, though, that given the whole stress of this situation, I deserve a few comforts at least for a few days.  I do know that when I move into my new (and hopefully final) place, it will only be after having a signed contract from the landlord specifying the rights and responsibilities of both parties in the rental relationship.  I am not going to have a repeat of this situation, and if someone tries to make such a thing happen, I am going to have an endorsed contract on which to stand my ground.

Afterword:

I do want to stay away from being petty, but I cannot help but share some information that I recently discovered.  The house I was staying in is what is called RDP housing.  It is free housing that was built by the government post-apartheid so as to give poor people their own house.  For that reason, it is supposed to only be available to people below a certain income.  The woman who was renting that house, as a teacher, does not fall in that low income range.  She apparently was renting it from its actual owner in violation of the housing standards, and then to compound the corruption, she then, presumably, subleased it to the Department of Education (for me) at a higher price and pocketed the difference.  Like I said, real classy gal.

South African English Word of the Day:

sjambok - a long, stiff whip, originally made of rhinocerous hide

Example: Man, you do not want to be around when the police start using sjamboks.

I’ll have my house back now, thanks

Well, I have reached yet another weekend and Africa continues to throw challenges my way - as if my mettle really needs to be tested yet again.  That being said, I’ll start with the positive news first.

The egg competition went quite well.  As it turned out, despite World Egg Day being on the 15^th, the event did indeed occur on the 13^th as stated on my invitation.  In true African fashion, everything started at about 12:25 when it had been scheduled to start at 12:00.  That being said, I had a chat with the librarian during the intervening half hour, who expressed her frustration that so many things in South Africa start 30 minutes or more late.  Such comments were refreshing because it means that it is not just us Americans that are annoyed by the severe lack of punctuality.

Once things did get started, though, everything went off beautifully.  I, along, with the other two judges who had been selected from the community, had to devise a scoring system for the event, since the method of administering marks had not been made entirely explicit.  Our scores were 50% based on the presentation of the food and 50% on the actual taste.  I recommended that we have someone go buy flavorless crackers so as to help cleanse our palates in between tastings, and the crackers were duly purchased (very sophisticated, I know).  There were seven entrants who each had been asked to prepare one sweet dish and one savory dish.  It was great to get back into my food critic mode, hearkening back to my days writing for the university newspaper as the restaurant columnist.  All the food was good but some was more excellent than others and it was to such quality food that first, second, and third prizes were awarded with accompanying cash prizes of 1500 Rand, 1000 Rand, and 500 Rand.  Not a bad little payday for the winners and quite a boost to my ego to know that I had been entrusted with such important decisions.

Now on to the story responsible for the title.  I am currently staying in a cozy little house in the township that is being rented from one of the teachers at my schools.  Whenever the principals were working to find me accommodation before my arrival, this woman offered her house and even agreed to leave all of her furniture here, meaning I moved in already having two chairs, a couch, a microwave, hot plate, etc.  It’s been a pretty good deal.

This lady, however, also did not move out her clothes, which I found a bit odd, nor did she take down any of her family pictures.  To make things even weirder, since I have been here, she has randomly called me multiple times, telling me she needed to come to the house to pick up some of her clothes.  Whenever she did come, the way that she looked around at everything made it seem like she was gathering valuable information to pass on to the CIA in addition to picking up some shoes and dresses.  Such calls were always made randomly without any forewarning or scheduling, and when I was not at the house, this lady always seemed somewhat upset as if I should just sit around the house on weekends in case she wanted to come get more clothes and inspect the premises.

Well, it all came to a head on Thursday, when she asked to speak to me privately at school, and informed me that her current lodging was not working out and that I was going to need to move out so she could move back in to her house.  The reason given was that she had moved in with her boyfriend when she vacated this house, but now things are not good between them and the space where they are living is “too small for two people.”  Naturally, I was taken aback by this change of events and asked if she had spoken to my Peace Corps director who had initially helped arrange the housing.  The lady told me that she had spoken to him last week, which I later confirmed was an outright lie.   

Come to find out the boyfriend was only part of the reason (even so, if she knew I was going to be here for two years, I wonder was she really banking on living with her boyfriend the entire time?).  As it turns out, she had been complaining to one of my principals and other people that she did not like how I was keeping the house in regards to the cleanliness and how I had rearranged some of her things.  All of this, of course, was behind my back, and this lady never brought any of her concerns to my attention meaning there was no way I could have done anything to address them.  She, despite renting out the house, apparently still thought that everything should be kept and done the exact same as when she was living there (Also, for the record, the house may not have been up to this woman’s standards, but I did and do do regular cleaning on the weekends so that the house is by no means a pig sty).   To their credit, everyone else involved in this ordeal from other teachers to principals to Peace Corps staff have expressed how childish the behavior of this woman is.  

Regardless of people’s support, though, now after a month of living here, having situated myself, unpacked all of my things and having gotten to know the neighbors, I apparently am going to have to move again.  My Peace Corps director made a trip to my town today as a result of all this, and I have been assured that nothing will be happening soon and certainly not until another adequate location has been found and inspected by Peace Corps for its safety and suitability.

Even so, I find the whole thing quite annoying, and I am not relishing having to re-pack all of my things, especially when I thought such a task would not be required until the end of my service.  Oh well, such is life - especially Peace Corps life.

Okay, my venting is done, at least for today.  Let’s talk South African English:

cold drink - a soda such as Coca-Cola, Fanta, or Sprite.  I have yet to hear the word soda or pop to describe this type of beverage.

Example: Would you like a cold drink with your meal?