Notes from Cape Town: Letter 1

I am struck by the political nature of this country's people. Their history of dissatisfaction creates a relationship of comraderie among many of the people, in both their histories and shared futures. Marita's friend Adelaide, a 50-something woman who spent her life in a township, referred to our cab driver, a forty-nine year old Muslim man (who looks thirty-nine) with a PhD, as a Comrade. Marita expressed the honor at being called a Sista by one of her friends here, the word for women who are a part of the movement.

I am inspired by where this political energy meets art. The music, poetry, and visual arts seem to work together under a common goal of expression and political and social liberation. This sense of community and support in the arts, particularly involving writers, is what the US lacks, highlighting my frustrations with wanting (and not wanting) to be a writer at home. In the US, writers are so concerned with their own success in a dull market that they do little to support other writers, let alone a movement beyond individuality. My peers, writings-in-training, are overly concerned with being tied to the literary adventurers of before and are not concerned enough with paving a new future in writing, art, and community development.

Is it because conditions are worse here and people care more about fixing them? I cannot say. I only know that from a late night conversation with two fellow feminist Americans and their flatmate from Zimbabwe that we Americans were very much dissatisfied with the US, but cited it as the reason for wanting to leave. Do we leave instead of engaging in what frightens us about our own country? The class of American students here seemed to Otherize South Africans, noting that our problems with racism are "not as bad" as here. Marita responded that Connecticut is one of the most segregated states in the country with one of the highest disparities of wealth. They do not seem to understand. Why do some of us feel so disappointed in our country and others revere it? If the US does well by world standardize (which I could argue otherwise) it is still not enough.

I am decided at this point, as I write this, to pursue writing with the ferocity that I would like to: not a process of writing everyday the menial things that accompany my life, but to live, LISTEN, learn, act, and write when the moment seems right. In making this decision I am also making the choice to live differently than my contemporaries, so concerned with the literary world. I will not be a writer as much as I am an activist who writes, leaving room for my fascinations with maternal health or birth processes at home and abroad or my ever-present desire to sink my hands into a cool earthy chunk of clay. There is no point in a career if this is my choice. I trust that work, money, personal success, and satisfaction will come.