Only Tourists Rush Things

So. Mandy is here.

Mandy, my sista from another mista, is here. In South Africa. Sitting across from me on my ugly brown couch that she probably thinks is the perfect shade of poop. It’s not quite real. I’m not quite sure what to show her.

I’ve been living here for two months now. I’ve made friends, gotten to know a bit of the slang, gotten used to the South African accent - the ways they roll their r’s and smile when they speak about naughty things. I’ve tried their foods and experimented with how their ketchup, bacon and orange juice are all vicious lies to the American palate. I’ve found all my streets and routes on my own, and explored the city silently, without anyone to share my thoughts. All of a sudden, here she is, and everything must be so new.

In true Lilly fashion, she’s taking it all in stride. Unphased. Like a seasoned traveler, like a veteran. Maybe she’s not as good at the accent yet, but you can see her learning with every conversation. I think she’ll do just fine here. In fact, I know she will.

I am lucky enough to have a South African already. So my South African arranged a driver for me and took me to the airport because he knew my best friend was coming here. We stood together and watched her plane land while he explained to me how he used to bring his nephew here to explore and see the planes when he was having a bad day. He explained that CPT made him happy. I’ve never met someone who shares my bizarre enjoyment of airports like he does, and he’s only flown once to Johannesburg once. That’s it.

He laughed at me while I bounced up and down waiting for Mandy to come from baggage claim. We had seen her deplane and had stalked her from the upper floors of the terminal, but like any airport in the states, we weren’t allowed to the baggage area. We laughed the whole time from the moment we hugged hello until we fell asleep that night. Same old, same old. Jokes about nothing, laughing about everything.

I have places I want her to see but I don’t want to rush and push her into this place. I won’t ruin the introduction. South Africa eases into your heart, but you have to take your time.

Africans don’t rush anything. Everything here is slow. It takes multiple days to do an errand that would only take you 5 minutes in the States. Just now is a couple hours. Now is at least an hour. Now now? Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe forty.

What you gain in those days are invaluable moments you would otherwise overlook. The conversations you stop to have, they make you friends you keep. People here don’t walk fast. No time spent with anyone is hurried. The in between is valuable – it’s not just filler from one important item to the next. It’s a hard lesson for me to learn, but an easy one to want to teach.

So maybe tomorrow we will do some of the things I have planned. But if we don’t, it won’t be a day wasted. It won’t be a shame. It won’t be a loss. Every single day I've spent here I've learned new things, found insight, met people who've taught me. Simple things like buying fruit or crossing the street are different here, and not being good at them at first will make you feel infantile in your capabilities. Those small hurdles, though, they humble you.

They build you up when you accomplish those small things.

I don’t want Mandy to rush it, because she will need to be built up for the challenges ahead. We aren't just vacationing here. We’re here to be part of something. To be part of South Africa. Both of us will be working with untold challenges. Situations and moments we cannot predict. We don’t yet know how to handle them. We might mess up the first few times. We might step on toes, hurt feelings, butcher some customs, we might misspeak, lord knows I will. We have to be confident in ourselves so that we can rebound. So we won’t be crushed, disheartened, defeated.

In a few months we will both have patients. South African patients. Patients who will look to us and need to see confidence in our familiarity with them. We will know how to greet them so they feel comfortable with our white foreignness. We will know how to mask our garish American accents with phrases and expressions that let them trust us to treat them, to help them. These months will be slow, they will be easy, but each day will scrub the outsider from us.

I’ve already been told I’m no longer a tourist here. I’ve been asked for directions and the Chinese place across the street knows my order. I’m a regular, but I’m not South African. Mandy will go through the same process. Eventually, she too will be seen as less and less of the other. The white American who comes to spend money and go on safari. The white American who gets ripped off by every taxi driver without even knowing it. The white American who doesn’t know about the ghettos of the cape flats or the southern suburbs, but knows the beaches and the waterfront, knows the bars and the clubs. The white American who sees South Africans but doesn’t stop to know them.

We’re not here to be that. So the days will be slow at first. 

- Rh