Yellow Lights

Yellow Lights

It was dark out by the time we headed in to Soweto. We were supposed to leave around six, but in South African time—that could really end up being anywhere in a five hour range. Eric is driving on my right. A short black man, his background stems from one of the darkest tribes in South Africa. His silhouette and dark skin seem to glow with the passing street lamps. He has a jovial look to his wrinkleless face and I watch the way his smile lifts his cheeks. I’m shocked to hear he’s fifty.

I find myself shooting questions at him, some he answers directly, some he side-steps vaguely. I can’t tell if it’s because of a miscommunication, or his refusal to take the questions head on. But he answers most of them with a forthright honesty I didn’t expect.

He tells me he was part of the student uprisings and the development of the ANC before apartheid. He tells me about being caught without a pass pre-1994 when he was crossing the street. He left it in his car. The policeman didn’t care. He hit him over the head with the butt of his gun. It was nine days in prison, and torture for his association with “communist” (aka anti-government) organizations. He survived.

I ask him about forgiveness and look at my white reflection in the window. He says it’s resilience and that he holds no hostility. I scrutinize his face when he says this, looking for a disconnect or lack of focus that might insinuate a disingenuous statement. But his eyes are bright and his face is relaxed with unassuming contentment.

We’re going down the freeway and it’s dark, save a few factory lights. Then, in the distance I see a sprawl of lights that go as far as my eye can see.

“Do you see how the lights are yellow?” Eric asks.
I nod.
“That’s Soweto. They made the street lamps where the blacks live yellow, and the ones in the white neighborhoods white. That way if a white man got lost, he would know not to stop where the lights are yellow.”

I look out the window at the flow of yellow lights that go for miles, the largest township in Johannesburg. Gradually the white freeway lights fade away, a detail I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.

Soweto

I got used to the stares after a while. It’s funny that even as I caught the glances through my car window, I didn’t sense hostility. But it wasn’t curiousity either, just a stare, as I watched them, wondering what the old man’s life was like. Wondering how long that child had been standing there, holding on to the fence with a far-away look in her eye. Wondering how the women could effortlessly carry such obscurely shaped objects balanced on their heads.

There are no white people who live here. How many people live in Soweto? Millions. In tiny two or three room houses stacked next to each other where extended families of six or seven crowd in. In the morning I notice the colorful rooftops that give the houses a slight appeal.

“It’s so the tourists would come and remark pre-apartheid ‘See how well these South Africans treat their blacks!’” From the road, you can only see the rooftops.

The woman walks barefoot down the side of the street where the concrete is unfinished and her feet pick up dirt. Men and women drag themselves from work back to the townships from the taxi stations.

“Here the sidewalks are not finished, but see how many people walk! In Melville your sidewalks are finished, no cracks... but no white people walk.”

I watch through the window at the market on one of the side streets. Shocked but not shocked because it was what I expected. This is Kliptown, one of the most poverty stricken areas of Soweto. I get so caught up looking out the window that when we pull to a stop, I hesitate to enter this world I’ve been a spectator of.

When I step out on the street I look at the rows of fly-covered fruit stands and blankets laid down covered with old clothes: hand-me downs for sale. I feel the eyes on me. I feel the clothes that I am wearing. I cover my white hands with my sleeves, as if shielding most of my skin will mask my race, my wealth, my nationality.

I feel a surprising sense of peace. This is what I came for.

Let God in this Place

“Are you a Christian?” My host mother asks after I tell her I’m a vegetarian.
“My Dad’s Jewish.” I tell her the history of my eating habits.
“Oh. We were hoping you would come to Church with us on Sunday.”
I feel a smile spread across my face then she quickly writes off my worries of what to wear. In retrospect, this was a ridiculous concern.

She knocks on my door at seven a.m. and says she’s drawn me a bath. I realize I don’t really know how to bathe without a post-bath shower. I also realize she has no shampoo, just soap. Even if she did have shampoo, it wouldn’t suit me. (As my old roommate Amber would say.. I “got that white girl hair.”)

So I get out with greasy hair and my host mom is running around because we are late and her nine-year old daughter isn’t wearing her sweater.

“Kabo doesn’t think you’re going to stand when they ask who is new to the church.” She has a wide smile that shows all of her teeth and crinkles her eyes. I feel like a giant next to her short stature.
I laugh and tell her daughter I’ll stand up.

We drive to the church and she laughs at me saying I’m so safe because I put my seatbelt on. I look out the window and can’t believe how many people are out. Runners, children, people waiting for taxis to take them to church, people coming from church, people at fruit stands along the side of the street.

When we pull up to the building, there is a man directing people where to park. Already there are easily several hundred cars parked in the dirt lot. I look at the church and realize it is a coliseum. This isn’t an exaggeration or an adjective: the building really is a coliseum.

We walk in and I keep my head cast down. I don’t make eye contact or look up because I’m afraid of what the glances will say. We take Kabo to her youth class then walk back to the main building. My host mom shows me all of the overflow rooms with projecor screens where they show the service because everyone cannot fit in the main building.

There are now blacks everywhere, hundreds and hundreds pouring in to the building--easily over two-thousand people. I can not see any other white face.

We line up at the door for the first service to end, I’m shaking slightly thinking that I will have to stand in front of all of these people.

When we go in it is a mad dash for seats, I momentarily lose her then find her again.

The chorus starts to sing and I look around as thousands of blacks rise to their feet singing and swaying and dancing. Raising their hands up. I feel so aware of my white-girl shuffle. But I also feel so carried by the tone in their voices that I lose myself in the emotion and energy of it all.

“Let God in this place...”

The singing and unity is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. These are some of the most poverty-stricken people in the world. Here in this room, their voices carry their desperation, their hope and completely unrestrained passion. The sound in the room seems to go on forever and my chest fills up with the emotion and pain as the room flows together carrying itself to higher place that I have never before experienced.

I stand when they ask who is new, a man waves to me and the woman in front of me turns to shake my hand. Welcome.