CAPE TOWN, WEEK 4
Welcome to the blog of What We See, the documentary project that is taking me to South Africa and Nepal from January to May of 2014. Many of you reading this have heard about my project incessantly over the past six months, though most of you may still only have a vague idea of why I’m here and what exactly I’m doing. This, of course, is entirely to be expected: the project has constantly been evolving, growing limbs and taking on new forms, from the moment it started over a year and a half ago in Kathmandu. What began as a trip to Nepal with a friend has matured into what I hope is the first of many such projects in my career.
Today marks the beginning of my fourth week in Cape Town. I spent the first two introducing my boyfriend to a country that I hold so dearly to my heart, but I officially started working on the project last week and it has already seemed to take on a life of its own.
In December, I put an ad on Gumtree (the Craigslist of the British empire) for an assistant while in South Africa; to date I have received well over one hundred responses. They range from the impressive to the desperate and even the comical, all simultaneously hinting at South Africa’s high rate of unemployment and the wealth of talent to be found here. Here’s a highlight from one that made me laugh the loudest: “i am very LGBTQ friendly (ok, i really do not know what that is but will google). ok got it and i'm all in. if you do need two more extra hands please do contact me.” Whether or not the humor was intentional, the desire to help felt very genuine and was surprisingly common to many of the responses.
In the first week, I found Mayra Hartmann. She had studied engineering at UCT, and worked at a consultant job before quitting to train with NGOs. She was writing me from Lebanon, where she was currently managing water, sanitation and hygiene programs helping Syrian refugees. Her background immediately caught my eye and one skype session later, my team had suddenly doubled in size.
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I spent this last week interviewing potential candidates for a second assistant position, which I have decided I may need in case of very busy days or if Mayra isn’t available. After meeting four or five young women throughout the week at my new favorite coffee shop in Sea Point, I found Naima Sebe. I may be charged with a bit of college nepotism here for it turns out that Naima was one of six African students to be awarded a full scholarship to study at Barnard College in New York City, the very same place I graduated from just last year (we were both on campus the same semester!). Just one more bit of evidence for how very small the world can be.
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Naima came along with me on Friday to meet with Sindiswa Thafeni, a senior fieldworker at the Triangle Project, the organization I have been in talks with for the past 6 months about my project. The three of us will go together on Wednesday evening to another group, Zonwabele, that organizes a weekly support meeting for gay women. Naima and I will explain my project to the group leaders and, if all goes well, we could meet with this group every week while I’m here.
Over the past week, I have decided to widen the scope of my project in South Africa. I would like to look into lesbian identity in Cape Town as a whole, examining how society reacts positively and negatively to it. I realized it would be an injustice to this great city to ignore how vibrant and accepting it can be, especially considering that I have read some people refer to it as the “Gay Capital of Africa.” If the meeting goes well, I may be able to have weekly access to women in the Zonwabele group while spending the rest of my time interviewing other lesbians from all walks of life. This is an important shift in my project as I come to understand that it will be just as helpful, and maybe even more so, to recognize South Africa’s achievements as well as where it needs improvement.