Life without Fear

In South Africa, or at least in Stellenbosch, when you walk down the street people don't meet your eye. When I first got here, I was unnerved by this, but kept trying, our of habit, to smile and meet people's eyes as I passed them. A week or two ago, I realized that I have adapted to this culture without even realizing it. After reading a collection of short stories of women travelling, I was re-energized to make the most of this adventure. I also actually exercised a few days in the same week, which also made my state of mind a little more positive.
I've started looking into the eyes of people again. Or at least trying. They hardly ever look up, and when they do they look through you to find someone else. About 1 in 20 people actually meet my eyes and offer some sort of acknowledgement.
But its okay, because it feels so much better to walk with your head held high than bowed, eyes to the ground ahead of you. Its an unconscious acknowledgment of fear, or a desire to be invisible.
I went for a walk by myself just before dusk. Not very far, just a big loop around the backside of my residential complex. I found a park that I had never seen before. I saw couples walking with their dogs. I saw teenagers trying to get a ball or something out of a tree by throwing more sticks into the tree. I saw a dad walking along the road with two kids. In short, I saw normal people doing normal things.
There's this culture of fear that exists among the white people here. The International Office makes such a big deal out of safety the first week of orientation. Don't ever walk anywhere by yourself, especially at night, especially if you're a girl. If/When someone threatens you with a weapon for your money/cell, don't fight just give it to them. Horror Story after Horror Story. And of course other stories circulate around the international community as well. This one girl heard from her South African friend that her classmate was robbed in the Botanical Garden. Don't ever go there by yourself!
The houses here are ridiculous as well. Tall walls around half of the houses, covered in sharp metal pointy things. Of course the other half of the houses don't really have much of anything for security, just a normal lawn and then a porch and a front door.
The international office also told us to not to ride the train, and if we did, to be sure that we did it in big groups, first class, without being too obviously touristy.
And to only walk on the Green Route at night. not cut through campus, walk all the way around, on a well-lit path, where security guards patrol.
...
and I understand the need to make wise decisions. and I understand that the IO is responsible for us while we are in a foreign country. I just wonder if there was a better way to encourage smart decisions and awareness than outright FearMongering. You know? Kinda like when you're younger, and you're not supposed to talk to strangers, or accept candy from strangers, or talk to things bigger than your plate. Once you're older, you learn to discern which strangers are nice, which aren't. You learn that its okay to make small talk in a grocery line, or when someone is asking for directions. You even learn how to be the stranger that approaches someone else when you need help. You don't have to be afraid of people walking down your street. You can say, hi, good afternoon. It doesn't mean that they are going to kidnap you or feed you poisoned candy. You learn how to ascertain what situations are safe, and how to maneuver around situations that are less safe.
Its like that here, or I think it should be. People who are from small towns or safe cities should learn how to be smart and stay safe, but without needing to be worried all the time. At some point in time, we have to realize that people, no matter their socio-economic position or skin color, are indeed still people.
The scariest part of here is how racialized the socio-economic positions are. It makes it so that international students become automatically scared when they see someone darker skinned. Its freaking apartheid perpetuated. There's no room for subtler judgments based on clothing, or time of day, or location, or who the other person is with. There's no room for the Other to be human, doing normal human everyday activities. Everyone who is black or coloured or darker than white, if we can't differentiate between the apartheid-era labels that are still in use today. We don't go to the grocery store when the Other is shopping. Its just too crowded and dirty, and i hate it when people stare at me. We don't sit by the other on the train. We make sure to find other stellenbosch students, or tourists, or well-dressed people to sit next to, so that we can be sure not to have contact with the Other.
Its hard too, because I realize that having an American accent makes me a target. I feel like whiteness makes me a target. The clothes that I wear, the jacket that I bought ridiculously cheap when a department store was closing down. But just because I feel like a target doesn't mean that anyone is hunting. The majority of people here, just as anywhere else, aren't bad people, don't steal things from random strangers walking down the street.
I don't walk around with a lot of money. I have the cheapest cell phone I could buy, and I still don't walk around at night, except when I'm coming back from the library on my bike. And I'm not denying that crime does happen. Theft does happen. I just wonder how much other Good stuff I missed out on, how many people I didn't meet, because I was walking with my head bowed, or staying inside my fortress of a dorm.
(The other part of it, is that of the strangers I have met, I haven't met any that didn't turn out to be really nice people. Not everyone is my new best friend, but when I'm friendly and outgoing, the people I meet are so so friendly and conversational. no matter their skin color. no matter their class. no matter what their jobs are, or where I meet them)
So for these last few weeks, I'm trying really hard to live without those fears. Because I rode third-class to Cape Town by myself this weekend. And you know who I met? A master's student from Zimbabwe who is studying math. A freaking Math major with a British accent. Really nice guy. black. around 23. let's be realistic here people. We're on the African continent. We came to have new experiences and meet new people. We didn't come to hang out and party with other Europeans and Americans. International Office, there's gotta be another way. Its somehow gotta be okay for races to mix. You've gotta get past 1994 eventually. There've gotta be everyday normal ways for international students to experience everyday normal people in a non-structured, non-savior, non-touring-through-township sorts of ways.